The
end of the illusions about capitalism and bourgeois democracy
The attacks on the working masses that have come onto the agenda in almost every country are not just temporary economic measures but a compulsory result of a new turning point that the imperialist system has entered on an international scale. This turning point has become more noticeable with the attack on Iraq and the collapse of revisionism, and it was characterised by the sharpening of the main contradictions of the imperialist system. Sooner or later every country has begun to implement the attacks as a "requirement of its own economy", and new steps have been taken in terms of the competition between the imperialist countries and their attacks on underdeveloped countries.
The economic crises that broke out in Japan, Far East and Russia has given a new dimension to the inter-imperialist competition. Added to the conflicts of the Caucasus and the Middle East were two recent events: the bombing of Yugoslavia and the attacks on Afghanistan with the excuse of the terrorist attacks in the USA. These events have consolidated the grounds for the awakening of and a fundamental leap in the consciousness of the working masses of the advanced capitalist countries as well as the oppressed peoples with regard to the course of the imperialist system. Both countries which were once close allies of imperialism in the fight against the USSR have been declared to be the main terrorist targets when they rejected submission to new imperialist impositions. They have become the targets of fierce attacks which posed threat to all underdeveloped countries and the oppressed peoples. In major advanced capitalist countries, while warmongering has constantly been on the agenda, reactionary economic and political measures have been brought forward one after another with the excuse of terror.
Despite this, in every country where the proletarian movement has been developing, particularly in the advanced capitalist countries, the struggles in the form of strikes, acts of resistance and street demonstrations since the 1990s have deepened the cracks both within the top trade union bureaucracy and between the top administration of unions and lower level of trade unionists. On the other hand, the fact that the attacks were being carried out by "socialist", social democratic governments or by coalitions supported by revisionist-"communist" parties, like in Italy and France, has accelerated the trend among the advanced sections of workers to break away from revisionist and bourgeois reformist parties. This had its unavoidable repercussions within the trade union movement as well. Recent statistics from the US and Britain show that the downward trend of trade union membership has smoothed or stopped completely-despite huge number of redundancies; that there is an income difference between members and non-members in favour of the members, and that the trade union membership is on the rise. This shows that parallel to the break away of the advanced sections of workers from bourgeois parties is the tendency among new generation of workers to get organised in trade unions again.
In the eyes of broad sections of working masses, these developments as a whole indicate the nearing end of the illusions about capitalism and bourgeois democracy.
There are developments which are reflected in the trade union movement almost in every country, taking a particular form each time, and showing that the working class have entered a new period of struggle and organisation. These developments have made it necessary for the revolutionary class parties to renew their work among the working class in general, and their tactics for organisation and struggle in the trade union movement in particular. For this reason, this issue has for some time been on the agenda of our conferences and there have been concrete debates and exchange of experiences, which we believe serve the consolidation of the unity among our parties. In this framework we will try to discuss some aspects of the question of renewal of the trade union movement and deal with some emerging phenomena.
Trade
unions regaining importance as centres of working class unity, resistance and
struggle against the bourgeoisie
One of the most significant characteristics of this period is that as a form of struggle; strikes, acts of resistance, and demonstrations have become widespread, and in many countries these actions took place despite trade union leaderships and sometimes even forcing them to follow suit. Examples of this are the widening strike actions and acts of resistance in Turkey since the 1990s; the 1995-97 actions in France; the 1997 actions in Germany; the strikes in the USA, etc.
Secondly, having gone through a specific process in each country these struggles have developed forms of organisation in line with the needs of that country. It has reactivated the ability of the working class to organise as a class. In Turkey, we have witnessed the development of strike and resistance committees evolving into local trade union platforms, then gradually into national bodies. In France, the unions which had been competing for a long time have set up common platforms of struggle locally or nationally. In Germany, local platforms under the name "Initiative of Left Trade Unions" are gradually becoming a centralised opposition. In the USA, some trade union platforms have been going through a process of unification under a mass Labor Party. In Ecuador, we witness the decline of the influence of revisionist and opportunist union administrations, and see a tendency of unity in the rank and file and an increasing influence of the revolutionary working class party within trade unions. These are some examples of developments in this area.
The two interlinked phenomenon we have mentioned above allow us to draw some general conclusions. First of all, with their demands and forms of struggle and organisation that they have employed to achieve these demands, the working class have drawn a line of demarcation on the basis of defence of its common interests, including its historical gains, against the attacks of the bourgeoisie. This line of struggle has enabled everyone to define themselves not according to their claims but according to their positions with regard to the concrete interests of the working class. It has also caused divisions among the bourgeois revisionist-reformist trade union administrations that dominated the workers' movement for the last 50 years. It is obvious that these developments and the tendency of struggle that nourish them demonstrate the desire of the working class to unite around their own common interests and aspirations against the artificial divisions created by the bourgeois trade union currents.
This also implies to a concrete and objective tendency that emerge in the workers' movement, independently of the political attribute of the participating forces and their self-evaluation. When considered with international developments, it is this tendency of struggle and organisation building up in the working class movement that will constitute the ground for the improvement of revolutionary class consciousness, for the organisation of the proletariat as an independent working class party once again, or for the revolutionary class parties to base themselves on. It is these objective developments that enable trade unions, which have been turned into an instrument of bourgeois domination and class collaboration for the last 50 years, to regain importance as centres of unity, resistance and struggle against the bourgeoisie.
It is obvious that ideologically and politically this tendency has a spontaneous character and it represents the spontaneous consciousness that is awakening within the working class. However, this spontaneous consciousness belongs to a class which, if taken since the announcement of the Communist Manifesto, declared its historical responsibilities against capitalism 150 years ago before the eyes of the humanity as a whole, which achieved revolts and revolutions in many countries, including the Great October Revolution and the establishment of socialism, which challenged successfully fascism and imperialism in the Second World War, and which has inherited a great historical accumulation of experiences. It is the spontaneous consciousness of a class which fuelled the aspirations of humanity in recent history. Therefore, it represents a spontaneous consciousness and awakening which is loaded with new mobilisations ideologically and organisationally.
For this reason, the renovation of the trade union movement and the task of restructuring our parties and consolidating their class base are tightly linked together, with specific characters in each country.
What kind
of renewal?
The history of Bolshevism shows that at important turning points where the development of class struggle has particular features, revolutionary class parties need to renew their organisational instruments and methods as well as their tactics. They need to equip their cadres with specific qualities that will allow them to fulfil the new tasks of the struggle in new forms, and position them accordingly. They also need to strengthen their ranks with new cadres that come out of the new conditions of the struggle.
This is because every new period with its specific conditions creates its own ideas and habits of struggle, and shapes cadres accordingly. When the conditions of the movement change, these habits and styles of work prevent the revolutionary class party from taking more advanced positions in these new conditions, halt its ideological and organisational development, limit its utilisation of possibilities created by that new period, and weakens its revolutionary advancement and creativity. This is the problem that the revolutionary working class parties have been facing for some time.
We can see a concrete example of the meaning of renewal in recent developments in the metal sector, similarly in many other sectors, of the 1990s. The metal workers in Turkey, as in many other countries, have a long tradition of struggle. In order to divide the workers a second trade union was organised in the 1970s by fascist militants. Following the military coup of 1980 this union advanced even further, with the helping hand of the revisionists and reformists who reduced the trade union struggle down to a rivalry between different administrative cliques. In the 1990s, the workers in this union began to organise acts of resistance and demonstrations especially at times of collective bargaining, and in spite of their union leadership. Thus, they created significant faults in the union bureaucracy, especially in big workplaces. Despite the calming effects of redundancies made by the employer, hand in hand with the union, on the opposition, the 1997 collective bargaining period witnessed the reaction against the union leadership turning into a mass resignation from the union, with tens of thousands strong demonstrations in big cities. However, the existing reformist unions in this sector were afraid of recognising those resigning workers joining their unions. Finally, this act of resistance was pacified without any success because of the failure to find an emergency solution to the problem.
The revolutionary class party gave particular importance to this struggle from the beginning. It played an effective role in the acts of resistance. It was also in the forefront of the latest struggle that targeted the leadership of the union. Bearing the previous developments in mind, it predicted the outbreak of a new wave of anger against the reactionary union leadership, and tried to carry out a militant activity accordingly. However, the mentality that had been created by previous periods restricted the correct evaluation of the possible dimensions of the event, while the failure to use new forms of activity caused an inadequate preparation and perspective for the possibility of advanced workers organising an independent union.
Although it did not entirely depend on the will of the revolutionary class party, the weakness to understand the conditions of the new period and organise the practical work accordingly meant that the rich possibilities of the movement were not used fully if at all. In other words, despite the general gains of the struggle, what we saw was a lost chance to obtain a position that would have constitute a significant step forward both in organising a section of advanced workers as a party and in renewing the trade union movement as a whole.
The question of renewal today has nothing to do with a general theoretical or programmatic convincing, or emerging with a new ideological-theoretical base or a new programme. On the contrary, the ML movement is the only current that should not have any hesitation about its platform and its historical base. Its ideological and theoretical foundation was formed in the struggle against modern revisionism; thus its programme shaped by this foundation gives a great advantage to revolutionary class parties. However, if one is content with repeating the thinking habits and organisational forms of activity of the previous period, if one does not draw correct conclusions from new developments, then this advantage will not exist forever. Our ideological-theoretical basis and understanding demand us to fulfil their practical requirements. With the awareness of this fact and the confidence, responsibility and courage that it gives, what is needed is firstly to have a concrete tactical line which will lead the struggle of broader sections of masses, and secondly and most importantly, to put into practice the kind of organisational work and positioning to achieve this. Turning the theory into a material force and giving life to the political programme depend on this. What makes this possible and essential is the different levels of opportunities and possibilities created by the new period of the movement in almost every country.
At present the revolutionary class parties do not have the luxury to put their tasks in a mechanical order such as forming their organisations first, and then taking a greater part in the trade union movement; or to have a weaker participation in daily struggles in favour of getting ready for long term tasks. On the contrary, in such conditions, a conscious participation in daily struggle and trade union movement is the precondition for preparing the largest sections of the working class for the long-term tasks of the struggle, and for the re-structuring of the party on sound class bases. The question is not being adequate in a quantitative or formal way, but the reorganisation and positioning of professional work, or of "ten intelligent people", which is the distinguishing feature of bolshevism in a way that will meet the requirements of the struggle.
International trade union platforms come into being as a result of the need for renewal in trade unions, a need that results from the divisions created by the tendency of struggle and organisation developing at different levels in every country. For this reason, to the extent that revolutionary class parties take part in such platforms, they will prevent the revisionist and reformist currents, which are already disintegrating and losing influence, from regaining strength among the working class and from spreading new illusions. They will help the advanced sections of the class who are in search of something to cling to, and get the possibility of forming links with new circles of workers who are breaking away from the reformist and revisionist parties. They will also get the chance to penetrate into the problems of the workers' movement in different countries and thus enrich their own agenda. In the same way, giving a new form and content to the conferences organised by the ML parties, at present with a participation mainly from their own circles, will help revolutionary class parties to participate in international platforms in a more organised way, and to influence broader sections. This is because the 150 year-old historical process shows that to the extent that the working class inclines to renewing its own class unity through its practical movement, to that extent will they draw more advanced conclusions from their own experiences and unite around their own class ideology.