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New Valls government: A government of anti-working class struggle

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[threecolumns]By Balazs Nagy, April 2014

The recent local government elections and the formation of a new government are a good opportunity, indeed a direct incentive, to say more about the mean, twisted and nasty way the Hollande team running the country think. Their politico-social reasoning is very simple, not to say simplistic. It is what you might call classical social-democratic thinking of a kind well-known over the last hundred years or more.

Resolute defenders of decadent capitalism

The main thing that really marks these people out, among all those who claim to be on the side of working people, is that they present capitalism as an eternal system whose existence you just have to accept. So according to this disgrace to the name of socialist, everything we do is necessarily limited and determined by the framework of capitalism and its general rules. But as a consolation to working people, according to this conception, the capitalist system can be put right, amended and improved, and our job is to contribute to that. This cheapskate philosophy which has long been selling the mission of liberating the working class for a mess of pottage still had some limited validity when, in return for this sell-out, the bourgeoisie was still able to concede various actual reforms. But imperialism is the period of capitalisms decline – something which social democrats obstinately deny – in which, because it is exhausted, this system is organically unable to concede the slightest reform. Continue reading

Appeal of the Kryvyi Rih Basin Miners to the Workers of Europe

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Reprinted from http://rs21.org.uk/2014/05/16/appeal-of-the-kryvyi-rih-basin-miners-to-theworkers-of-europe/

The attention of the world community is currently focussed on the confrontation between pro-government and anti-government forces in Ukraine. This confrontation is becoming all the more tenacious and bloody. All the more it is being turned into an interethnic confrontation that is fuelling a hysterical mutual hatred between workers of different nationalities.
What remains beyond peoples attention at this moment is the sharpening social and economic situation, and not only in the regions where the fighting is taking place. The rapid devaluation of the hryvnia (Ukrainian currency), the steep rise in prices of consumer goods, transport, utilities, as well as the cutbacks in production in many enterprises all this has led to a sharp fall in workers real wages. By our estimates there has been a 30-50% fall in real wages. Continue reading

Euro-election results reveal signs of Political turmoil in Europe

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[threecolumns]By Bob Archer
Politicians and the media talked a great deal about earthquakes as the results of last months elections to the European parliament were published. This was especially true in France and the UK, where the established parties were beaten at the polls by the Front National (FN) and the UK Independence Party respectively.
Failing to assuage voters anger could mean the erosion, if not the destruction of the union in a matter of years, said veteran Austrian journalist Erhard Stackl, writing in The New York Times International Weekly. In some countries, the vote against an integrated Europe was profound.
He consoled himself with the observation that nevertheless two-thirds of the votes were cast for pro-European parties. And in Germany, the economic powerhouse of the 28-nation bloc, Chancellor Merkel and her allies still command a comfortable majority.
Smarting under a series of lost seats in the European parliament, many established bourgeois parties needed all the consolation on offer. Continue reading

INDIA: WHAT DOES MODI’S VICTORY MEAN?

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By Roger Silverman, June 2014

(Cde. Silverman is one of the founders of Workers International Network. This article, which was specially commissioned for Workers International Journal, has also been posted on https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/socialistdiscussion. WIN also has a Facebook Group: https:// www.facebook.com/ WorkersIntlNetwork)

 

The sweeping electoral victory of the BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi has been greeted worldwide with a mixture of euphoria and alarm.

For big business, the justification for the euphoria lies in Modi’s record as chief minister of the state of Gujarat between 2002 and 2010, when he presided over an average growth rate of 16.6% a year. However, Gujarat’s rapid growth actually pre-dates Modi by a whole decade: it had already been the fastest-growing of India’s fourteen major states between 1991 and 1998. Moreover, even during Modi’s tenure of office, Gujarat was not in fact India’s fastest-growing state: its record was exceeded by Uttarkhand and Sikkim. Continue reading

Down with the bourgeois politics of the Front National! Against reactionary, nationalist fascism!

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[threecolumns]By Balazs Nagy,  May 2014

The forthcoming European elections will no doubt produce unprecedented advances by the French Front National (FN). It gained considerable strength by its spectacular advances in the recent municipal elections, which have clearly given it a head-start in the European elections. So a critical examination of its programme, in particular in relation to Europe, is not only vital in itself but allows us to clarify what the essential problems for Europe are. It also allows to look at all the other parties European policies.

Now, to decode what the FN’s orientation towards Europe is and what it means, we must first of all describe its national policy. We must do this not on the basis of that party’s own deceptive slogans or what other people say about it, but on the firm basis of the only objective criterion for political evaluation, i.e. its class character.
What is the Front National’s real class character?
Actually, we need to establish clearly what the FN’s social basis is and indicate unequivocally which class’s interests are expressed in its programme and activities. This is the fundamental question which politicians and commentators either evade or completely muddle up, but it is the most important one. Continue reading

Out Now! June 2014 issue of the Journal

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Inside this issue:
Euro-election results reveal signs of Political turmoil in Europe by Bob Archer
Down with the Bourgeois Politics of the Front National by Balazs Nagy
Lessons of French Municipal Elections by Balazs Nagy
Valls, a Government of Anti-Working-Class Struggle by Balazs Nagy
India: What does Modi’s Victory Mean? By Roger Silverman
From independent trade unionists in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine
Support Our Struggle Against the Oligarchs!

Available Here

Numsa and the question of a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist political organ of the working class in South Africa today

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original here

“It is obvious that the black capitalist class favours capitalism and that it will do its best to influence the post-apartheid society in this direction.  

It is obvious that the black middle and upper classes who take part in a broad liberation alliance will jostle for hegemony and attempt to represent their interests as the interests of all Africans.  

It is obvious that (like their counterparts in every part of the world) the black middle and upper strata, who find themselves on the side of the people’s struggle, are often inconsistent and vacillating. They are usually the enemy’s softest targets for achieving a reformist, rather than a revolutionary, outcome.”  (Joe Slovo, 1988)

[threecolumns]It has become necessary, and quite urgent, to emphatically re-state and explain the December 2013 historic Numsa Special National Congress Resolutions, especially the ones that talk to the formation of the United Front, the Movement for Socialism, the ANC and its alliance, and the formation of an independent revolutionary socialist vanguard party of the working class and the role of Numsa in all this.

The Resolutions adopted in our Special National Congress were a culmination of more than 26 years of working inside the South African Liberation Movement (LM) in general, and inside and building the ANC and its alliance in particular.

Over more than two decades of struggle inside the LM and the ANC and its alliance, by December last year, Numsa came to the inescapable observation and conclusion that there is no chance of winning back the ANC led alliance to what it was originally formed for, which was to drive a revolutionary programme for fundamental transformation of the country, with the Freedom Charter as the minimum platform to transform the South African economy and society.

Continue reading

Global Solidarity day for Fast food workers

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ITF unions back fast food workers
15 May 2014
ITF activists backed fast food workers in America today, supporting their right to join a union and to earn a decent wage.

The Low Pay is Not OK campaign has highlighted poor working conditions for American fast food workers. Wages are often too low for workers to support themselves, and the right to join a union is restricted. This has a huge impact on communities across the country, with almost seventy percent of fast food workers being the main breadwinner in their family.

ITF unions around the world have answered the call for global solidarity. ITF US affiliates the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have held demonstrations to support fast food workers, while members of Ireland’s Services Industrial and Professional Union (SIPTU) participated in rallies outside fast food restaurants.

In India, activists from the National Union of Seafarers India (NUSI) demonstrated outside MacDonalds outlets in Mumbai. All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AFIR) members rallied in Delhi, Colombo, Chennai, Cochin, and Kathmandu.

ITF acting general secretary Steve Cotton said: “As this campaign highlights, low wages hurt workers. This kind of employment drives down wages and conditions for all workers, across all sectors, in a race to the bottom to get a bigger profit at the expense of workers’ rights. Unions have a huge role to play in protecting the livelihoods of each and every worker, and I’m proud that ITF activists were out there supporting this cause today.”

from: ITF,  see more at: fastfoodglobal

Numsa President Opening Speech during Central Committee at The Lakes Hotel and Conference Centre on 12 – 16 May 2014

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[threecolumns]20 Years After 27th April 1994: what is the state the South African Revolution?

“Nothing demonstrates better the increasing rigor of the colonial system: you begin by occupying the country, then you take the land and exploit the former owners at starvation rates. Then with mechanization, this cheap labour is still too expensive. You finish up taking from the native their very right to work. All that is left for the Natives to do in their own land at a time of great prosperity, is to die of starvation.” (Jean Paul Sarter, 2001)

Numsa National Office Bearers,
Delegates to this Numsa CC,
All Numsa Staff,
Invited guests,
Media present.

On behalf of the National Office Bearers of Numsa, I welcome all of you to this first Central Committee meeting of Numsa after our historic December 2013 Numsa National Congress.

As we seat here, we are meeting after the first South African National Elections in which Numsa as an organisation did not support any political party.

This Central Committee must help all of us to fully understand the moment we are in, from a clear Marxist-Leninist class perspective. There should be no confusion over what Numsa resolved to do, in the Numsa National Special Congress.
All of us must be very clear what these just ended elections mean to the working class of South Africa. All of us must be clear what our revolutionary and trade union responsibilities are, post the Numsa historic Special National Congress. Continue reading

new issue of the Journal

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Inside this issue:
Long live the South African working class!
by Balazs Nagy……………………………………….p.2
Eastern Europe:
Where is Ukraine Going? And where is Europe Going?
by Balazs Nagy………………………………………p.11
Why did Putin invade the Crimea?
by Radoslav Pavlovic………………………………..p. 15
From the Archives:
A Programme of Action for the South African Revolution ……p7