Presidential elections in Venezuela: Both Chavez and the opposition parties are against the working class
We are publishing below the translation of an article written by Internacialismo, our section in Venezuela, which was written before the election result was announced.
The presidential elections of 7 October in Venezuela represent a moment of heightened tension between bourgeois factions: the ‘Chavistas’ and the opposition parties. The latter, grouped together in the Platform of Democratic Unity have chosen Henrique Capriles as their candidate, while the official power is counting on its perpetual candidate, Hugo Chavez, who disposes of his party apparatus and hundreds of millions of bolivars1, to win votes, mainly among the working masses, who have been ground down since the arrival of the Chavista regime and before that by thirty years of political confrontations.
The rise of Chavez was the product of the decomposition of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, in particular the political forces which governed the country prior to his coming to power in 1999. Because of his strong popularity, various sectors of capital supported him, with the aim of struggling against very high levels of corruption, of re-establishing the credibility of official institutions and above all of the government. In other words, of improving the system of oppression and exploitation in the interests of the nation and thus of the bourgeoisie. The opposition forces, though weakened, quickly entered into a trial of strength with the regime, most notably at the time of the coup d’Etat in 20022 and the blockade of oil production at the end of the same year. This proved fruitless in the end and merely reinforced the power of Chavez, who was re-elected in 2006.
After more than a decade of Chavismo, the crisis has pushed the different factions of the bourgeoisie into dispute over the central state power. The opposition forces are benefiting from the regime’s loss of popularity, which can be traced to two main causes;
the growing decomposition of the Chavista regime, which we characterised in a previous article in Internacialismo: “New civil and military elites have been formed and divided up the posts at the top of the state bureaucracy. They have failed in their aim of overcoming the problems accumulated by previous governments since they are much more concerned with their personal interests and with dividing up the booty from the oil industry, resulting in an exponential growth in corruption and a progressive abandonment of serious state management. This situation, intensified by the megalomania of the Chavez regime which has the ambition of extending the “Bolivarian revolution” to the whole of Latin America, has little by little emptied the state coffers. It has also exacerbated the political and social antagonisms which have raised the inability to govern to a level even worse than it was in the 90s”.
the intensification of the crisis of capitalism in 2007 acted against the aspirations of the Chavez regime to develop its project of “21st century socialism”. Although Chavez, like other governments, declared that the Venezuelan economy was “armour-plated”, in reality the world crisis of capitalism has shown up the historic fragility of the national economy: it is utterly dependent on the price of oil. To this can be added the fact that the regime’s populist schemes have been made possible by attacks on wages and the reduction or suppression of ‘gains’ like the collective agreements which Chavismo has got rid of, referring to them as ‘tips’ for the workers.
The strategy of the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, based on daily ‘house to house’ tours trough the towns and villages of the country, is to exploit the failures of Chavismo and widespread feelings of social abandonment. According to the opinion polls there has been a sharp rise in his popularity. His tactic is to propose social, populist programmes similar to those of Chavismo, while avoiding direct confrontation, and it has brought results. Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has put a lot of emphasis on the (pseudo-)success of his projects towards the poor and on his quality as the “guardian or order” against the anarchy threatening Venezuelan capital as a whole.
Despite all its weaknesses (losing control of provincial governments, conflicts of interests in its own ranks, the illness of Chavez, etc) Chavismo does not intend to abandon power and in the last few month has not neglected any details in areas where the opposition might draw an advantage: it has introduced obligatory membership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (the Chavista party) for public sector employees; placed obstacles against votes from abroad, especially from Miami and Spain; neutralised the parties which support the opposition (PODEMOS, PPT, COPEI) through convictions pronounced by the supreme court, etc. To which can be added the control exercised over the media and the means of communication which gives Chavez a decisive advantage at the level of election propaganda.
Chavez has also elaborated other strategies aimed at helping him win. He as already announced that the opposition has a plan for denouncing electoral fraud. To carry through this strategy, he is relying as always on the state power and especially the army, which has abandoned its status as “professional force at the service of the nation, non-decision making and apolitical” in favour of being “a patriotic, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and Chavista force”. We can understand from this what lies behind the frequent threats made by Chavez and his entourage against opponents.
The party in power also accuses the opposition of refusing to recognise the results that are due to be announced by the National Electoral Council (NEC): this is why the government is issuing an alert to prevent opponents from agitating the population when the NEC announces the triumph of Chavez. For its part, the opposition has explained that it can’t give a blank cheque to the NEC, which is both judge and participant, and which has issued sanctions against the opposition without criticising the government’s manipulation of the rules. To sum up: this is simply a confrontation between bourgeois parties in which each clan is using the tricks typical of that class to boost its bid for power.
The Venezuelan proletariat has to stay on its guard and not become the victim of this ‘final battle’ between the forces of national capital, who are trying to mobilise it behind their power struggles.
Chavismo has some very powerful ideological weapons for mobilising the “poor” and the “excluded” who still hope that Chavez will keep to his promises, especially those about the “Missions”, which are in theory directed “against the predatory bourgeoisie, who want to go back to the past”. But Chavez is also preparing for an armed confrontation if that proves necessary. He knows he can count on the Bolivarian militia and on the shock troops constituted in various “collectives”, both in Caracas and in the interior of the country, and which are armed by the state.
The opposition forces, for their part, although they don’t have a public strategy in case there is a show of strength, won’t stand with folded arms. They include traditional parties like the social democratic Democratic Action, which has decades of experience in the organisation of armed “collectives”. In the ranks of the opposition, there are also organisations of the left who supported Chavismo in the beginning and are well acquainted with its methods of confrontation.
The workers must be aware that it is impossible to fight against precarious work and exploitation by changing the government. The crisis of capitalism will remain and deepen whoever wins, Chavez or Capriles. Both will bring in austerity programmes.
We must not fall into the ideological trap being dug by those who claim that this election is about ‘communism vs democracy’ or ‘the people against the bourgeoisie’. Chavez and Capriles both defend state capitalist programmes that can only be based on the exploitation of the Venezuelan proletariat.
The electoral dispute is just a moment in the confrontation between different factions of national capital. The proletariat must refuse to let itself be pulled into the conflicts between bourgeois gangs. It has to break with democratic ideology, draw the lessons from its own struggles, continue its efforts to rediscover its class identity, its unity and solidarity.
Revolucion Mundial, October 2012.
1 The local currency
2 Between 11 and 13 April 2002 the coup, led by Pedro Carmona, vainly tried to dislodge Chavez from power
As Election Day approaches in the United States, it is important to evaluate the foreign policy of the current president, and place this administration within the contemporary imperialist framework. It will then become clear that the debate between representative political parties only centers around the interests of the ruling class specific to the current stage of capitalist decay. After pledging to change the course of American foreign policy, and to get away from George W. Bush’s doctrine, Barack Obama has hardly done either. In fact, the president has not moved away from, but expanded on Bush’s unilateral programs in the so-called “War on Terror”. More importantly, Obama’s administration has not changed the course of American foreign policy as they promised; they have merely given it a new outward appearance. This does not come as a surprise to those who understand the role of the state in supporting the imperialist project that is structurally embedded within the logic of capitalism. Nevertheless, there will be those during the course of the electoral spectacle who convince themselves that voting for the “lesser evil” is the most important thing to do. Rest assured no vote in the present electoral system will ever be able to catalyze a “democratic” revolution from below to end all wars. There is no “changing the course” of foreign policy.
The Historical Precedent for the Current Framework
Control of the Gulf has been the cornerstone of the global imperialist project for decades. The key ingredient of this project is the quest to control the world’s oil supply, the major contemporary source of global financial wealth. Iraq has been in constant turmoil since the first oil reserves were discovered during its time as a British protectorate. It is a highly coveted strategic location in the Middle East, and also has large reserves of water and natural gas. In 2000, before 9/11 and before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the Project for a New American Century (the neo-conservative think-tank which pulled the strings of Bush’s top advisors) issued a report, titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” which outlined their strategy for the future. The infamous report resolved that the United States must increase its military presence around the globe for, “the preservation of a favorable balance of power in Europe, the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region, and East Asia.” [5] Brushing aside the cloaked rhetoric, this entailed pursuing complete control of the Gulf in order to weaken America’s chief rivals by securing the vast oil reserves in the Middle East and Africa. “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” [5] This unquestionable need for a strong American (or otherwise) presence in the Gulf is not rooted in a moral duty to liberate humanity from conservative religious zealots. Rather, it is an economic and strategic imperative in the imperialist epoch of capitalism which forces national bourgeoisies to compete over the division of the world’s resources, to constantly search for new investment opportunities, and to maintain the rate of profit by any other means necessary.
Put quite simply, US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War can be seen as an attempt to assert its imperial presence in the face of the prolonged capitalist crisis of profits, an increasingly unified Europe, and an increasingly powerful China. The most recent major developments in the crisis, the bursting of the latest debt bubble during the second half of the last decade, have only exacerbated this need for operations abroad, and President Obama has taken the helm in one of the most militarized presidencies in American history. It is important to understand that war is not merely a matter of policy and tactics, but is a crucial and necessary weapon for the survival of the capitalist class.
Obama’s Ramped-Up Initiatives
Barack Obama has more than quadrupled the number of armed drone strikes authorized since the Bush administration. Using new technologies, Bush’s pretense of executive privilege, proxy forces, elite special ops teams (essentially global death squads), and clever language designed to exploit legal loopholes, Obama is now directly involved in a number of highly secretive shadow wars being waged in at least 4 different countries, in which the president himself presides over a weekly “kill list”, and personally hand-picks who will be the next victim of extrajudicial murder, by remote control or otherwise.[3,4,6] While the “official” narrative is that only known terrorists are targeted and no non-combatants have been killed by drones, the reality is not so black and white. The Pentagon and the CIA define a combatant as “any military-aged male in the vicinity of an attack”.[2] White House officials consistently flip-flop over what is and is not known about civilian casualties, while conveniently clouding the differentiation between operations which target “specific individuals” and “signature strikes” (strikes aimed at groups, or entire facilities).[2]
With such vague and subtle diversions, it is hard to trust any official figures on civilian casualties by drone attacks. Between the various media outlets and research organizations, estimates of civilian deaths by drones, many of them women and children seen as collateral damage, hover around 20% of the approximately 4,000 killed since the program began in 2002.[1,2,3,4,7] According to the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, in Pakistan alone, between 2004 and 2011 at least 44% of the low estimate 385 noncombatant casualties in drone attacks were children.[8]
However, our argument is not a moralistic one, and we must not dwell on the figures regarding civilian casualties of war. The purpose of this exercise is to expose the blatant hypocrisy of the ruling class which uses moralistic provocations to justify their aggressive military campaigns abroad. We internationalists, on the other hand, are not on the side of some abstract moral imperative such as peace or universal love; we are on the side of the survival of the human race and its collective liberation from the constraints of an irrational state of affairs, which sacrifices our species on the altar of the accumulation of our own dead labor.
Strategic Maneuvering
During his 2008 campaign, Obama relied heavily on support from the anti-war liberals who made up his voting base. However, Obama’s critique of the wars in the Middle East was never based on an analysis of imperialism and class. This allowed him to rally behind the idealistic pacifist rhetoric of the mainstream left, and simultaneously remain a committed puppet of American imperialism. Obama’s presidency has virtually neutralized anti-war dissent and channeled its energy toward supporting his version of a more “diplomatic” war on terror, or a “kinder, gentler machine gun hand” (Neil Young). The Obama campaign phenomenon has created an army of rabidly jingoistic and apologetic followers who are blind to global realities. The psyche of empire in this country has rarely been so deeply entrenched, and the active collaboration of left reformist bourgeois elements has been instrumental in its establishment. In the coming election, the dialogue will not be of an anti-war president versus a pro-war president, but will be two pro-war capitalists trying to convince voters that their strategy is the best to further American interests abroad. The candidates argue before the declassed voting public where and against whom to go to war against next.
The Bottom Line
It is time for American workers to realize that no bourgeois election is ever going to end the permanent capitalist war. By voting, we are merely legitimatizing the system that needs war and exploitation in order to survive. While the world’s major imperialist powers are sharpening their knives over the resources of the developing world, while the crisis and the costs of said imperial wars continue to compel the capitalist class to push austerity on the masses, and while the current profit-driven system shows no intention of changing its ways even in the face of imminent ecological catastrophe [9], the American media continues to propel the false dichotomy of the political left and right. This year, as always, the voting booth will alienate workers from each other and rob them of their voice. Rather than participate in the elections of the ruling class, we must organize to put the struggle back on our own terrain, in the workplace and in our communities, to build a militant struggle and implement true working class power.
-R
Sources
국제 꼬뮤니스트 전망에서는 『꼬뮤니스트 정치조직 제안서』와 지난 8차례의 정치토론 자료를 모은
『정치토론 자료집』을 발행하여, 꼬뮤니스트 정치에 관심있는 동지들에게 발송해 드리고 있습니다.
필요하신 동지들께서는 아래사항을 체크하여, 이메일로 보내주시면 발송해 드리겠습니다.
☞ 이메일 주소 : communistleft@gmail.com
1. 꼬뮤니스트 정치조직 제안서 (소책자) : 받으실 주소와 이름
2. 정치토론 자료집 (파일) : 받으실 이메일 주소
“It is not that the solution of the housing question simultaneously solves the social
question, but that only by the solution of the social question, that is, by the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, is the solution of the housing question made possible.”
Frederick Engels
The housing problem never goes away, it’s nature just changes with the crisis. Since the collapse of the housing bubble (which of course heralded the present economic crisis) mortgages have become ever more difficult to get and house prices have continued to increase, putting the dreams of home ownership (so beloved of all governments since Thatcher) out of the reach of many workers. According to a study by the National Housing Federation, the price of the average home in England has risen 94% between 2001 and 2011 and is now on average rising three times faster than wages. With most mortgage companies typically asking for deposits of between 20-25%, the home owning dream will remain for many people just that, a vague dream. (1) According to David Orr, the National Housing Federation's chief executive 'Ten years ago the average amount that you would have needed for a deposit was about nine months worth of salary. Now you need three years' worth."
Figures earlier this year showed that owner occupation has fallen to 66% of all households in England, which takes it back to the level of 1989. House building is obviously no longer as profitable as it was in the boom and the number of new houses being built between April and June this year slumped to a three year low. According to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) only 21,540 new homes were started by builders in the three months to June this year, some 24% down on the same period a year ago and a 10% drop from the first three months of the year.
It's hardly surprising then that record numbers of people are being forced to rent, which of course means rents are going up, to record levels in fact in England and Wales. A report issued by LSL property services, which owns estate agency chains such as Your Move and Reeds Rains, reported in July that tenants are paying on average £725 a month, 2.9% more than in July 2011. According to LSL rents are rising fastest in London and the South East, with the average rent in the capital climbing by 4.8% to £1,057 a month. It's the perfect storm for workers facing stagnant wages and layoffs. With mortgage funds for first time buyers rationed by the banks, and with those who will lend demanding large deposits, the only option for many trying to get onto the housing ladder is to rent first, but with wages dropping and rents rising, the chances of tenants being able to save for a deposit gets ever slimmer, which in turn pushes up demand for rented properties which in turn pushes up rents. According to the housing charity Shelter, rents were now 'out of control' and many families now had to make choices between paying their rent or cutting back on food and other essentials. According to Campbell Robb, Shelter's chief executive 'Many will be wondering how much longer they'll be able to stay in their home.'
Which begs the question, if they can't afford to stay, where else can they go? Over the past few decades council housing stock has dwindled through a combination of the right to buy and severe restrictions on the ability of councils to build new homes. Social policy has been deliberately formulated to steer us away from being a nation of renters to a nation of home owners, but now the bubble has burst there's no safety net. In 1979 about two fifths of the British population lived in local authority housing. Legislation to increase the right to buy and force councils to transfer their stock to other landlords led to a near halving of the proportion of homes owned by local authorities. Only the most vulnerable will be picked up if they lose their homes. At the moment some two million families are waiting for social housing, often in cramped and unsuitable conditions.
The latest proposal to head off the brewing storm is the idea of selling off the most valuable housing stock and use the money to build homes outside the capital. According to the Policy Exchange, a think tank advising the government, some 22% of council housing is above the median value for their area, and in London it's 31%, with the total value of such stock at £159 billions. They estimate selling such property would free up £4.5 billions each year for new house building (ignoring of course that councils had been prohibited from using the money from council house sales to build new stock for decades). It also ignores the fact that prices in London especially have been artificially inflated (some 60% of all recent central London sales have been to rich foreigners, a figure which jumped after the influx of Greek investors looking for somewhere safe to invest their money). Not only will this lead to ever more social segregation, making parts of London an option only for the rich and super rich, but it will push many of London's poorer paid workers out of London altogether forcing them to commute even longer distances than many do at present. And with rail fares rocketing (and Tory MPs like Mark Reckless wringing his hands over the fact that some of his constituents are having to get up at five in the morning to get the bus in to work in the capital because the train fares are so high), the future does indeed look bleak for many workers and their families. Some tens of thousands already pay more than £5,000 according to research by the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, with rail fares being amongst the most expensive in Europe. (2)
Despite Cameron’s declared enthusiasm, it's unlikely that the government will take up such a policy (not least since it will force out many of the capital's low paid workers who rely on subsidised council housing; the last thing the government wants is any impetus to push wages up), but it's also clear that the government, just like the capitalist class as a whole, have no answer to the housing problem. As we write the government has just announced plans to relax the planning laws in the hope that this will encourage builders to build more homes. This has been accompanied by an announcement that £10 billions worth of government guarantees will be set aside to boost the private rented sector in the hope of seeing 100,000 new homes constructed and made available at market rents. This marks a shift away from the previous emphasis on affordable homes (new starts of which were down 60% over the last year) and by moving the focus (i.e. the subsidies) from the construction of affordable housing to that of housing at market rents, the government hopes to encourage the building sector to follow the almost guaranteed profits and thereby boost the economy. The economy of course will be boosted, but only for a lucky few who stand to make a fortune. The losers will be the new tenants faced with high market rents. And next year’s planned cut of 10% in central government funding for council tax benefit will undoubtedly be passed on to those who are low paid or unemployed and who will have to somehow find the money to make up the shortfall themselves (3).
According to the Empty Homes Agency some 930,000 homes in the UK are currently empty, 350,000 of which are considered long-term empty i.e. for six months or more, and most of them are privately owned. If these homes were brought back into the housing stock it would almost halve the numbers on council waiting lists. The government has anticipated this logic and its response has been to push through legislation ending squatters’ rights, making squatting a criminal rather than a civil offence, with penalties of up to six months in prison and/or a fine of £5000.
The basic provisions of any society are food, clothing and shelter. Capitalism cannot meet housing need. Waiting lists are set to grow against a backdrop of spiralling rental costs, cuts in benefits, cuts in social housing, increasing homelessness and mortgage defaults. Despite the propaganda about us ‘all being in it together’, the future looks tough for those who find themselves falling victim of capitalism’s inadequacy.
RT
Notes
(1) According to the Guardian 18 August 2012 because of the house price increases, a typical family in, for example Copeland in the Lake District would now have to find a deposit of more that £32,000 compared with the £5,000 they could have put down in 2001.
(2) According to the Campaign for Better Transport, UK rail fares can be up to ten times those for equivalent journeys in other EU countries.
(3) Given the fact that pensioners will be exempt from the proposed council tax benefit cut (the famous salami tactic), the 10% cut will be shared out between less than 100% of those receiving the benefit which means they could end up paying more than 10% of their council tax.
유럽 극우주의 망령 되살아난다
경제위기가 불러낸 ‘인종전쟁 공포’… 이민자 겨누다
제2차 세계대전 이후 극우주의의 망령을 떨치고 공동체를 꿈꿔온 유럽에 '인종전쟁' 공포가 되살아나고 있다.지난 20여년간 유럽 극우세력의 인종 증오 범죄는 이슬람 무장단체의 테러 못지않을 정도로 확산돼 왔다. 국제반테러리즘센터(ICCT) 조사에 따르면 1990년 이후 유럽에서 극우 범죄로 희생된 사람은 249명으로, 같은 기간 유럽에서 이슬람 극단주의자들의 공격으로 숨진 희생자 규모(263명)를 넘어설 기세다. 네오나치 단체 등이 '인종전쟁'까지 준비하고 있다는 우려도 제기되고 있다. 영국의 싱크탱크 인종관계연구소(IRR)가 최근 펴낸 보고서에 따르면 독일, 덴마크, 체코, 헝가리 등 일부 유럽국가에서 극우주의자들이 자체적으로 민병대를 조직하고 무기와 폭발물 등을 비축하고 있는 증거가 포착됐다.
헝가리의 시민경호대(CG)나 체코의 노동당수호군(WPPC) 등이 대표적인 네오나치 계열의 민병대이다. 시민경호대는 지난해 3월 집시 거주지를 2개월간 점령하는 과정에서 도끼 등으로 무장한 채 밤낮으로 마을을 행진하며 주민들을 '더러운 집시'라고 모욕하고, 학교에 난입해 어린이들을 괴롭히는 등 온갖 무법행위를 저지르기도 했다.
경제위기의 직격탄을 맞은 남유럽에서는 이민·망명자, 서유럽에서는 급증하는 무슬림, 동유럽에서는 집시를 상대로 한 극우세력의 폭력과 살인이 일상이 됐다. 여기에 극우 정치인들의 묵시적인 선동과 물밑 지원까지 더해져 극우 범죄는 더 조직적으로 세력화하고 있다.
유럽 극우정당들은 경제살리기 정책 대신 분열과 증오를 낳는 반(反)이민 정책을 내세워 대중들의 분노심을 자극하고 있다. 고실업, 빈부격차 확대, 복지 축소 등의 정부 실책을 모두 이민자 탓으로 돌리고 있는 것이다.
최근 그리스에는 '경제위기로 붕괴된 유럽의 미래를 보여 주는 축소판'이라는 평가가 나올 정도로 이민자를 겨냥한 도를 넘은 광기가 넘실대고 있다. 니코스 덴디아스 아테네 공공질서장관은 "이민자가 그리스를 침공했다."며 이민자를 암적인 존재로 규정하고, 대대적인 검거작전에 앞장섰다. 그만큼 그리스 사회는 인권 탄압에 무감각해졌다.
그리스 전역에서 지난 7~8월 두달 동안에만 200건의 이민자 폭행 사건이 발생했다. 올 상반기 전체로는 500건에 이른다. 지난달 그리스·터키 국경지대 배치 경찰은 전달보다 5배 많은 2500명으로 대폭 늘었다.
특히 지난 6월 네오나치 계열의 황금새벽당이 6.9% 지지율로 의회에 입성하면서 이민자 탄압은 더 극렬해졌다. 황금새벽당이 이민자 협박과 폭행, 살인을 일삼는 지하 범죄세력과 결탁하고 경찰을 매수해 이를 방조하도록 했다는 증언과 의혹이 쇄도하자 유럽평의회의 인권 담당 위원인 닐스 무이즈니엑스는 "황금새벽당은 유럽의 나치당"이라면서 그리스 정부에 정당의 합법성에 대한 조사를 요청했다.
나치당의 집권으로 유럽에 전쟁의 상흔을 안긴 독일에서도 과거의 기억은 희미해지고 있다. 한 주가 멀다 하고 유대인 묘에 나치 문양이 그려졌다거나 터키인들이 운영하는 케밥 식당에 벽돌이 날아들었다는 뉴스가 터져 나온다. 외국인이라는 이유만으로 버스 정거장에서 얻어맞거나 "꺼지라."는 욕설을 듣는 건 다반사다.
독일에서는 1990년 통일 이후 인종 증오와 관련된 살인사건이 180건이나 자행됐다. 올 상반기에만 하루 평균 34건의 인종 차별 범죄가 발생했다. 네오나치 단체는 오히려 더 번성하고 있다. 2009년 5000개였던 네오나치 단체는 2010년 5600개, 지난해 6000개로 매년 수백개씩 늘고 있다. 폭력에 가담한 극우주의자 규모도 2010년 9500명에서 지난해 9800명으로 일년 새 300명이나 늘었다. 극우 시위 역시 같은 기간 240건에서 260건으로 증가 추세다.
독일에서도 네오나치 단체와 극우 정당 간의 커넥션이 확인됐다. 지난달 23일 서부 노르트라인베스트팔렌주의 극우단체 3곳의 근거지로 추정되는 건물 146곳을 압수수색하는 과정에서 극우 정당인 민족민주당(NPD)의 선거 포스터 1000여장과 무기가 쏟아져 나왔다. 독일도 극우 범죄와의 전쟁에서 패배하고 있다는 평가를 받는다.
독일 일간 슈피겔은 극우주의를 눈감아주는 사회적인 풍토와 이들의 위협을 심각하게 받아들이지 않는 당국의 안이한 태도를 독일이 네오나치를 뿌리뽑지 못하는 원인으로 꼽았다. 2000~2007년 외국인 이민자 9명과 경찰 1명을 살해한 극우단체 NSU의 범죄가 지난해 11월 밝혀졌을 때도 경찰이 그간 극우 세력의 범행 가능성을 무시해 왔다는 비판이 제기된 바 있다.
인종 증오 범죄가 범람하자 유럽 각국 정부의 책임론도 대두된다.
특히 그리스는 구제금융을 받은 만큼 유럽 전체에 빚을 갚아나가야 하는데 이로 인해 그리스 정부뿐 아니라 유럽 각국이 그리스가 긴축 조치를 이행하는 한 이민자 탄압을 '사회적 비용'으로 여기며 기꺼이 감내할 것이라고 영국 일간 가디언은 꼬집었다. 이 같은 파시즘의 대가는 정부부채보다 더 가혹할 것이라고 전문가들은 우려하고 있다.
물론 평범한 사람들의 일상까지 송두리째 파괴한다는 점에서 유럽에서도 극우 범죄에 무관용 정책이 필요하다는 자성의 목소리가 쏟아져 나오고 있다. 반(反)인종차별유럽네트워크 소장 마이클 피봇은 "유럽 대륙 전역에 퍼져 있는 인종차별 정서는 사람들이 살고 있는 경제적, 사회적 상황과 긴밀히 연관돼 있다."면서 "각국 정부가 국민들의 삶의 질을 더 높여야 한다."고 말했다.
정서린기자 rin@seoul.co.kr
1934년의 프랑스 전환(French Turn)
-꼬뮤니스트 노동자 조직(CWO)
1934년에 국제 공산주의 연맹으로 알려진 트로츠키주의자들의 운동은, 트로츠키가 전 역사에서 가장 심각한 전환점이라고 묘사했던 것을 수행했다. 그의 프랑스 셕션을 시작으로, 트로츠키는 제2인터내셔널의 당과 유사한 조직들에 가입하도록 그의 추종자들에게 재촉했다. 스탈린주의의 실패에 대한 트로츠키의 해결책은 사회민주주의로의 복귀였다. 이것은 노동자계급이 1914년~1926년 시기에 싸워왔던 모든 것과의 단절이었다. 그것은 제국주의 세력을 지원하라는 뜻이었고, 제국주의 전쟁을 지원한 구 노동조합으로 돌아가란 뜻이었으며, 1917년 이후 혁명기에 공산주의자들과 노동자들을 대량 학살로 이끌었던 이들에게 돌아가라는 뜻이었다. 그럼에도 불구하고, 그 전술은 다른 섹션에 곧 퍼졌고, 미국, 영국, 스페인에서 눈에 띄게 그러했다. 몇 세대에 걸쳐 트로츠키주의자들이 사회민주주의의 정치적 조직들을 강화시킨 트로츠키주의자들의 입당주의란 생각은 명백히 프랑스 전환에서 탄생했다.
프랑스의 트로츠키 조직은 1934년 여름, 프랑스에 사는 트로츠키로부터 강한 압력을 받아 결정적 전환을 하기로 결정했다. 1년 전, 이탈리아 공산당 좌익 분파의 동지들은 트로츠키주의자들에 의해 논쟁에서 관료적으로 축출되었다. 그들은 트로츠키와 그의 추종자들의 궤적을 예상했으며, 그에 반대하여 논쟁을 벌였다. 잡지 [빌랑]에서 우리 동지들은 트로츠키 전략은 본질적으로 프롤레타리아 혁명 파도의 쇠퇴를 분석해 보려는 우리의 노력을 대체하려는 반동적 대용물이라고 논쟁했다. 1933년 9월의 글에서 그들은, 사회민주주의자들의 좌익에 대한 트로츠키의 접근 방식은 2와 3/4 인터내셔널을 향한 움직임으로 가는 것으로 평가했다. 그들은 트로츠키가 좌익 사회민주주의자들과 함께 새로운 공산당을 건설한다는 목적으로 공동 사업을 주창함으로써 엄청난 오류를 저지를 것이라고 주장했다.
트로츠키주의자들과 대조적으로 좌익분파의 접근은 명확히 물질적 기반이 없을 때, 대중정당을 만드는 조직적 전략을 세우기보다, 그 시기의 본질에 대한 이해와 분석의 필요성의 문제를 제기하려 한 것이다.
프롤레타리아트는 반혁명적 중도주의의 성공을 거스르지 못하고 패배한 댓가로 1927년 고통 받았다. (역사적 과정은 공산당 내의 한 개인에 의해 지도될 수 없다는 것을 강조하기 위해 많은 추가 조항이 필요하지만 스탈린주의는 오늘날 더 정상적인 속기물일 수 있다.)
오늘날 인터내셔널의 처음 4차례 당 대회에 기초하여 새로운 당을 만들길 바란다고 얘기하는 것은 역사를 10년 전으로 되돌리는 것이다. 이것은 그런 당 대회 이후에 일어났던 일들을 이해하지 않으려는 것이며, 결국 새로운 당들은 그들의 고유한 역사적 환경속에 위치시키지 않기를 바라는 것이다. 우리가 미래에 새로운 정당들을 위치시켜야 하는 환경은 프롤레타리아 권력의 행사로부터 얻은 경험에 의해, 그리고 세계 공산주의 운동의 경험에 의해 이미 정의되어 있었다. 처음 4번의 당 대회는, 이 일에 관해서만은 매우 심도 깊은 조사와 비판의 대상이 되어야 할 것이다. 우리가 앞의 이야기를 종교적 교의로 받아들인다면 우리는 다음과 같은 결론에 다다르게 될 것이다. 즉, 레닌의 죽음, 혹은 트로츠키의 제거는 수많은 나라에서의 자본주의 승리의 원인이었고, 소련과 인터내셔널에서의 중도주의 승리의 원인이었다고 말이다.
그라나 빌랑의 저자들은 사회민주주의를 바라는 트로츠키주의자의 시도는 결국 불명예스럽게 끝날 것임을 알았다. 트로츠키주의자들이 1938년에나 스스로 알았던 그점을 그들은 미리 내다보았던 것이다. 상황의 미성숙함 [다른말로, 역사적 시대의 이해부족]은 이제 겨우 성장하는 2와 3/4 인터내셔널이 Trotskyists International Left Opposition이라는 딱지를 붙이는 정도일 것이라는 강력한 가능성을 암시해 준다.
트로츠키와 그의 추종자들에게 프랑스 전환과 제2인터내셔널주의자와 자본의 분파인 다른 정당들에 대한 방향전환은 통일전선 즉 혁명적 파고의 쇠락기(1920~1922)동안 코민테른의 정책으로 발전된 정책의 좀 더 실제적인 적용이었다. 1930년대 동안, 스탈린주의자와 트로츠키주의자 모두 비슷하게 그 위치에서 반혁명적 결론에 이르렀다.
이 점에서 트로츠키와 트로츠키주의는 이탈리아 좌파의 프롤레타리아적 흐름이 되는 것을 그만뒀다. 빌랑은 다음과 같이 발표했다.
“루비콘 강을 건너 사회민주주의와 결합한 그와 그 당파에 맞서 철저하고 용서 없는 투쟁을 펼칠 필요가 있다.”
1년 전 스탈린은 공식적으로 소련을 도적들의 무리(레닌), 즉 국제연맹에 가입시켜 경쟁하는 제국주의 무대 위로 되돌려 보냈다. 그의 목적은 간단했다. “동쪽으로” 라는 히틀러의 목적도 명확했다. 스탈린은 소련에 대한 공격이 피할 수 없다는 것을 깨달았고, 프랑스, 영국과의 동맹을 이뤄내려 시도했다. 이에 대한 코민테른의 역할은 1935년 7차 당 대회를 열어, 1928년 이래 사회민주주의에 반대하는 임시변통적 급진주의를 역사책에 위임하는 것이었다. 이는 사회주의자를 (부르주아)민주주의의 친구로 명명할 뿐만 아니라 모든 자유주의자, 발본주의자, 혹은 서유럽의 반파시스트 정당까지도 친구라는 이름을 붙여줬다. 통일전선은 이제 인민전선에서 그 극에 달했다. 여기서 이탈리아 좌익분파의 대응은 코민테른과의 어떤 연결도 끊은 것이었다. 그리고 7차 당 대회는 존재하는 모든 공산당들의 묘비를 세우는 것이었다고 말한다. 그 동안, 트로츠키는 인민전선을 통일전선의 오용이라고 규탄했으나 그가 인민전선의 근본적 기반, 즉 파시스트의 위험으로부터 소련의 방어라는 원칙을 받아들였기 때문에 그의 주장은 설득력이 없었다. 그리고 그 1차 세계대전 이후의 혁명적 격변기 동안, 파시즘에 기반을 깔아준 세력이 바로 트로츠키가 그의 추종자들로 하여금 입당하도록 했던 –사회민주당- 명확히 바로 그런 조직이었던 것이다.
히틀러의 출현 이후 반파시즘은 – 다른말로 자본주의 제국주의의 특정부분에 대한 반대는 부르주아 민주주의와는 또 다른 측면들을 지원하는 것을 의미했다. 이것은 스페인, 중국, 그리고 궁극적으로 2차대전 중에 전 세계적으로 그 모습을 드러냈다. 이것은 자본가 권력의 전통적인 욕구를 숨기는 이데올로기였으며, 그들로 하여금 수백만의 프롤레타리아를 그들의 군대로 내모는 것을 가능하게 한 이데올로기였다. 우리가 보았던 것처럼, 트로츠키는 소련의 방어라는 견지에서 이 십자군의 지원을 주장했다. 그의 살해 후 1년, 소련은 마침내 그들이 추구했던 것, 즉 서구 제국주의 권력과의 동맹(미국의 민주주의의 수호를 포함 한)을 이루어냈다.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
오늘날에 트로츠키주의자들의 분파들이 그렇게 많은 것은, 트로츠키주의의 중요한 구성요소를 구성하는 데 모순이 많음을 보여주는 증거이다. 그리고 객관적으로 이들의 무리지음은 부르주아 정치기구의 좌익을 의미한다. 그들은 프롤레타리아트의 해방을 대표하지 않고 새로운 지배자가 될 국가자본주의자들의 질서를 대표한다. 객관적으로 그들은 사회민주주의나 스탈린주의당의 좌익으로 기능하며, 이 당들이 혁명적인 정치적 입장의 공격을 받지 않도록 보호하며, 무엇보다 중요하게 이 당들이 노동자계급의 눈에 진실성이 있는 것처럼 보이게 한다.
트로츠키주의자들의 정치적 실천의 특징 중 하나는 그 경향인, 많은 분파의 경향으로 분열된 운동의 도움을 받아, 다양하고 서로 다른 반혁명적 이해관계와 유행, 조류에 그들의 정치를 적응시키는 것이다. 즉 혁명적 원칙의 유연한 적용이 아니라, 반혁명 정치로의 변화무쌍한 적응만이 있을 뿐이며, 프롤레타리아 대중에게 가장 큰 혼란을 심어주는 역할을 할 뿐이다.
프롤레타리아트는 오직 지도력이 부족할 뿐(지도력의 위기)이라는 선언을 맹종함으로써. 그들은 혁명정당의 부활을 위한 실제 조건을 깨닫는 데 실패한다. 이 조건은 프롤레타리아트 대중의 투쟁과, 당 강령의 명확화에 대한 객관적 필요속에 있다. 이러한 기초적인 조건들을 인지할 수 없었기에, 트로츠키주의자들은 프롤레타리아트가 과거에 이미 취한 혁명적 교훈의 길을 다시 거슬러 올라가 추적하지 않고서는 그들의 역사적 궁지에서 탈출할 수 없다. 만약에 그렇게 한다면 그들은 자신들의 근본적인 혼란들을 포기해야 할 뿐만 아니라. 트로츠키주의 그 자체의 반혁명적 본질을 깨달아야 하기 때문에 그들은 트로츠키주의자임을 포기해야 할 것이다.
Homage to Il Jae Lee
We have recently been saddened by the news of the death in hospital of comrade Il Jae Lee, a militant of the Left Communist Group in Korea: he was 89 years old.
Il Jae was born in 1923 in the town of Daegu, in what is now South Korea but which was known at the time by its historical name of Chosun. At the time, the whole of Korea was a Japanese colony valued for its raw materials and agricultural wealth, destined to support the war effort of Japanese imperialism. Official Japanese policy was to reduce Korean culture to the status of a folk curiosity; at school, children were required to learn Japanese, and Il Jae spoke Japanese fluently.
In the midst of the war, not yet 20 years old, he was already taking part in workers' struggles. With the departure of the Japanese occupying forces in August 1945, the country was reduced to chaos and in many places the workers took control of production themselves in what Il Jae described as workers' councils (the Changpyong, or Choson National Workers' Council) – though in the conditions of the time it was impossible for such councils to do much more than produce the bare essentials of life in a war-shattered country.
Il Jae joined the Communist Party in September 1946, and was a leading member of the general strike that broke out in Daegu during the same year. With the suppression of the workers' struggles by the US occupation authorities, Il Jae joined the partisans fighting in the south of the country, being wounded in the leg in 1953.
In 1968, under the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee, he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for his continued political activity. His health was permanently damaged by his time in prison, and his face still bore the marks of the torture he suffered there. In 1988 he was released on probation, which did not stop him from involving himself immediately in political activity in Daegu. He became a leading member of the Korean Trades Unions in 1997.
For a young worker to enter the Communist Party in 1946 was perfectly natural. But no matter how sincere and courageous many of its members undoubtedly were, the Party in Korean was in effect no more than the tool of Russian and Chinese imperialism, then at the end of the Korean War, of a particularly grotesque and barbaric caricature of Stalinism: the hereditary dictatorship of the Kim family.
Had this been all there was to his life then we would not be writing this homage: history is full of heroism in the service of bad causes. But Il Jae was truly remarkable in being able, as he neared his 80th year, to call into question the struggle of a lifetime. In 2002 he became active in the Socialist Political Alliance, a new group which was beginning to introduce the ideas of the Communist Left into Korea. When a delegation of the ICC travelled to Korea in October 2006 to take part in the International Marxist Conference organised by the SPA, we met comrade Il Jae. In the debates during the conference, while we disagreed with him on many questions – notably the possibility of reviving the trades union as an organisational form for workers struggle – it was clear to us that we were in the presence of a real internationalist: above all on the key question of North Korea, he rejected any support for that odious regime.
In our discussions with him during his last years, comrade Il Jae was concerned above all with two questions: the international unity of the working class, and in Korea, breaking down the barriers between workers on permanent contracts, casual workers, and the immigrant workers from Bangla Desh and the Philippines who are beginning to appear in Korea. The latter question made him break with the recognised unions, although he still had not given up the hope of using the union form of organisation. He attended the ICC's 17th Congress in 2007, and had hoped to accompany an ICC delegation to Japan in 2008: sadly his declining health made it impossible for him to do so.
Comrade Il Jae Lee was an indomitable fighter for the proletarian cause whose spirit remained unbroken by hardship and prison. He remained an internationalist to the end of his life. Above all, he had the moral courage to continue searching for the truth, even if this meant calling into question the ideas for which he had fought and suffered in the past. The working class is poorer for his loss: it is richer for his example.
by ICC <http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201207/5046/homage-il-jae-lee>
Sexual freedom is impossible under capitalism
We are publishing here an article written by one of our very close contacts in collaboration with ICC militants. We want to salute the comrade’s willingness to contribute to the ongoing discussions and clarification of one of the burning social issues of the time—gay “rights”-- from a working class perspective. We also want to express our appreciation for the focus the comrade chose to give in writing this article. We think it is refreshing to approach the issue from the angle of human emotions. We also agree with the comrade’s political understanding and argumentation. We invite all our close contacts to work in collaboration with ICC militants to write about issues of concern for the clarification and emancipation of working class thought.
The “debate” over whether gay and lesbian people should enjoy the “right” to legally marry and draw from such legal recognition all the financial benefits granted to heterosexual married couples –survivor’s benefits among the most hotly contested— has long been one of those hot button issues the ruling class periodically pulls out of its hat, most notably around election time. In this article we would like to highlight the hypocrisy of the ruling class left, center, and right in taking up the issue from either a “humanistic” point of view—the left’s and center’s—or a moralistic/religious standpoint on the right. The Obama administration likes to show itself as “liberal” and “progressive,” hence its call to reverse the anti-gay marriage laws passed at the state level (most recently by referendum in North Carolina), without, however, attempting to make gay marriage a constitutional “right.” The right needs to satisfy the fears and quell the insecurities of its particularly conservative electoral base, hence the Republican Party to-be-nominee Mitt Romney’s anti-gay marriage stance. The whole “debate” is really a ploy by the Obama administration to appeal to the youth and “independent-minded,” besides the gay electorate itself, and push Romney to discredit himself with the Evangelists if he does not clearly and forcefully come against gay marriage. Romney’s further move to the right risks further alienating the undecided and independent sector of the electorate. It is clear that this legalistic posturing is completely hypocritical. It aims at utilizing a situation which is certainly experienced as dramatic and humiliating by gay and lesbian people by fueling divisions, animosity, and further misunderstandings for the purpose of political gains. Further, the at times vehement opposition to gay marriage expressed by the rights should not confuse us as to the fact that the legalization of an aspect of personal life would do nothing to challenge the established system of capitalist exploitation.
Today, if you turned on the television set and surfed over to any mainstream bourgeois news channel, chances are headlines about the “debate over gay rights” might assault the screen. It is interesting how the bourgeois media is insistent on highlighting our personal human differences, in showing us where we disagree the most as people. But the bourgeoisie and their mouthpieces in the press are highly hypocritical. Especially when “partisanship” is so frowned upon in the current political climate. Now, certain factions of the ruling class claim to support gay marriage. Even further, they claim to do so out of a sense of deeper humanism, often referring to the gay rights struggle as a struggle for “equality” or “civil rights.”
It is at this point we have to ask: “equality” in the name of what? And for which people in society? Is “marriage equality” even an appropriate working class demand? Is sexual freedom even possible under capitalism? As workers, we have to say the answer to both of those questions is negative. Building a world free of homophobia and heterosexism, where each individual is viewed and treated as a human being, rather than a category, is impossible under capitalism.
For some time now, elements of the bourgeois political class have advocated the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Often times their arguments are coded in language that appeals to workers. They say that legalizing same-sex marriage would improve the quality of life for gay and queer workers, as they would gain access to insurance benefits, divorce and property rights, etc. But under capitalism, human relations are reduced to a matter of exchange. Emotions are nothing but mere commodities and finances to the bourgeoisie. So we can see the economic need of legalizing same-sex marriage, but what about the concept of marriage itself within capitalism?
Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto that, “The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.” They later continued, “The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations...On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.”
So according to Marx and Engels' definition of marriage under capitalism, we can begin to understand that “equal marriage rights” is a term which only applies to those who can afford the benefits of marriage. Rights which only apply to the propertied classes, the people who can even afford to legally marry in the first place. Marriage is fundamentally about property rights and inheritance. It has historically defined which people the ruling class deemed acceptable to own property, and even which people could be owned themselves! Originally of course, marriage meant the possession of the wife and her property by the husband. In the eyes of the bourgeoisie marriage is not at all about mutual respect and love—it's about possession, ownership, and property rights.
But why do we need a ruling class to tell us what marriage is and who we can and cannot marry? As we previously said in Internationalism #130 and in other places in the ICC press, a communist society would instead “be a society beyond the family in which human relationships will be regulated by mutual love and respect and not the state sanction of law.”
The bourgeois democratic state and its agents never pose the questions surrounding gay rights in terms of human need. What are the needs of gay and lesbian folks? Or even the basic needs of human beings in general? There is no question that the repression of the gay and queer community is real. We see homophobia, heterosexism, and patriarchy manifested everywhere in capitalism; anyone saying otherwise is simply in denial. The bullying of gay and queer youth for example has recently been referred to as an “epidemic” in the bourgeois media. Many of these traumatizing events where gay and queer people are bullied lead to depression, and in some cases even suicide.
But does the bourgeoisie focus on solving these issues? What about parliamentary legislation? Do any of the bills and amendments touch on any of these social issues? No! The debate is almost always framed in the context of religion, or moralism. Especially in the mainstream media, especially in the rhetoric of the ruling class. For all the vaunted talks—all the legalistic gibberish—about “human rights,” receiving the capitalist state’s approval and recognition under the guise of the law can do nothing to extirpate centuries long religious and moralistic bigotry. Religious people are “blamed” for their backward attitude, which further contributes to the polarizing, witch hunt-like atmosphere. In situations like these, legalizing same-sex marriage only helps portray the capitalist state as a “just” and “beneficent” entity.
If there is even a grain of sincerity in the ruling class' support of same-sex marriage, it comes from their need to distract workers and immerse them in the circus of electoral politics and legalism. Of course it is true that growing support of sexual freedom is part of humanity developing a deeper scientific understanding, and a greater sense of general human solidarity. But the ruling class cares nothing about these things, and why should they? If you have money your rights are never at risk, or up for debate. “Marriage equality” does not equal a good relationship or economic equality; it equals further class domination from the bourgeoisie.
Social struggles which only partially address the fundamental problems of capitalism, while expressing real social problems that exist in our society, distract the working class from revolutionary tasks and discussions. We have discussed already how the bourgeoisie can become fixated on the debate over gay rights, almost to the point of obsession. But this fixation happens among so-called “revolutionaries” as well.
Many people use language exclusively directed at workers in order to “organize” them around what is in essence a cross-class, broad social issue. The argument that gay rights will bring us “closer to full equality” is completely irrelevant, when it is a basic tenet of communists that full equality is impossible under capitalism. Why as revolutionaries should we be fighting to get “closer” to an egalitarian society? We need to stand against all of capitalisms injustices at once! Many of these same “revolutionaries” would call the legal and electoral decisions in favor of gay marriage rights “victories” for the workers. But these victories do nothing but bolster the appeal of bourgeois civil society.
The politics of legalism and democratism have nothing to offer the working class. True human emancipation can only come from working class revolution. Workers should always support gay and queer people themselves, especially in a society where they are alienated and ridiculed in such terrible ways. But we have to remain careful of the bourgeois campaigns which surround these debates. Often times they distract and mislead us from our ultimate goal—ending all forms of repression and exploitation for everyone on earth.
Jam 06/11/12
<출처 : ICC >
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201206/5004/sexual-freedom-impossible-under-capitalism
Two Texts on Communisation
Below are two texts on the subject of communisation. The first is by Mac Intosh of Internationalist Perspective. The second an open letter to IP by Maxime of the CDP. An expanded version of Mac Intosh's article will appear in Internationalist Perspective 57.
Communization Theory and the Abolition of the Value-Form
A theory of the value-form as the basis for an understanding of the logic of capital, its historical trajectory, and its contradictions, is integrally linked to a theory of communization. Communization is inseparable from the abolition of the value-form and of capital as valorizing value, and its Akkumulationszwang, its compulsion to accumulate. Communization entails the abolition of the proletariat, the class of waged-workers, whose abstract labor is the source of value. Socialism or communism is not the self-affirmation of the proletariat or worker’s power, and the creation of a republic of labor. The development of value-form theory, based largely on the publication of all the manuscripts that Marx had assembled for his critique of political economy, an undertaking that has only been completed over the past several decades, has also transformed the understanding of socialism or communism that existed within the Second and Third Internationals, as well as in the historical communist left (both the German-Dutch and the Italian left, the council communist and the Bordigist traditions).
The path towards a theory of communization in which value and the proletariat are abolished began with Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) in which the theoretical bases for the formation of a unified Social-Democratic Party in Germany, based on a vision of a “free state,” were subjected to a withering criticism, and in which Marx first outlined his conception of a lower and higher stage of communism. For Marx, in the lower stage of communism, “just as it emerges from capitalist society,” still stamped by its structures and social forms, “the individual producer gets back from society … exactly what he has given to it.” (1) In short, the worker, after deductions for the social funds and expansion of the productive forces, receives the full value of his/her labor: “Clearly, the same principle is at work here as that which regulates the exchange of commodities as far as this is an exchange of equal values. … a given amount of labour in one form is exchanged for the same amount in another. (2) For Marx, then, the value-form will preside over both production and distribution in the lower stage of communism, and only in its higher stage “can society wholly cross the narrow horizon of bourgeois right and inscribe on its banner: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!” (3) Communization, then, as the abolition of the value-form in all its modes, would be preceded by a post-capitalist stage in which the law of value still regulated production and consumption. However radical, in the eyes of most socialists, Marx’s prescription was in 1875, today, in a capitalist world where the reproduction of the proletariat is threatened by the capitalist social relation, and the very existence of the value-form, such a vision is completely inadequate.
While Marx did not specify the precise form in which labor-time would determine production and distribution in the lower stage of capitalism, the revolutionary wave that unfolded in 1917 led to the insistence of the Bolsheviks that the dictatorship of the proletariat, whatever its specific political forms, would also be based on the continuation of waged-labor; that the distribution of products to the working class would be via a wage and money. It is here, that a debate arose within the historical communist left, different from the debates over the question of party or workers councils as the organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a debate in which Amadeo Bordiga insisted – against Lenin and Trotsky – that the continued existence of wages and money was a mortal threat to the proletariat, and would reproduce capitalist social relations. Two important documents of the historical communist left over the period between 1930-1970, grappled with the question of the value-form and communist production and distribution: The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution, a collective text of the GIK (the German-Dutch left) published in 1930, with an important “Introduction” by Paul Mattick to its republication in 1970, and Jacques Camatte’s Capital and Community, written in the aftermath of ’68, within the political orbit of the Italian left (Bordigism). (4)
The Fundamental Principles advanced the idea that communist production and distribution would be based on labor-time accounting (the average socially necessary labor time), with the distribution of products to the workers – whose proletarian condition would be universalized – taking place through a system of “labor vouchers” (Empfangsscheinen or bons de travail), strictly based on the number of hours worked. In contrast, then, to the normal working of the capitalist system, where the market allocates labor and determines value through exchange post festum, in communist production and distribution this determination could rationally be determined by labor time as a measure of value without the intermediary of exchange. This, then, was a system, as Mattick acknowledged in his Introduction, in “which the principle of the exchange of equivalents still prevails,” in which, we maintain, the value-form still shapes social being, in which, as Marx, acknowledged in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, “equal right still constantly suffers a bourgeois limitation,” (5) and labor itself (travail, Arbeit) remains proletarian labor. Mattick, however, also found the GIK’s text to be outdated in some respects, superceded by the very trajectory of capital itself, by the prodigious development of the productive forces between 1930 and 1970, through which goods and services could be produced in such abundance that “any calculation of their individual shares of average socially necessary labor time would be superfluous,” and humankind might proceed directly to what Marx had called the higher stage of communism. (6)
Camatte follows Marx in distinguishing a lower, socialist, and a higher stage of communism, and insists “communism cannot be achieved from one day to the next,” (7) a position based on Bordiga’s claim that there are three post-capitalist stages: the dictatorship of the proletariat, the stage of socialism, and communism. For Camatte, the valorization of value must immediately cease, which he claims is the task of the dictatorship of the proletariat, yet he acknowledges that everyone has to work (“he who does not work, does not eat”), that the proletarian condition must be universalized, that human existence, which in capitalism was mediated by capital, “now is mediated by work.” (8) Moreover, Camatte acknowledges that an “economy of time” will continue to regulate what has now become communal production; that all labor will now be reduced to abstract labor, (9) and that such labor will retain the form of waged labor under the dictatorship of the proletariat, though “…the basis of the phenomenon is not the same. In capitalist society, wage labour is a means to avoid restoring the whole of the product to the individual who produced it. In the transitional phase, wage labour is the result of the fact that it is not possible to destroy the market economy from one day to the next.” (11) But the removal of the traditional capitalist veil does not eliminate the value-form, or the subjection of humankind to its laws of motion. Indeed, the very reduction of all labor to abstract labor, the very universalization of the proletarian condition and its modes of labor, risks the perpetuation of capital and its social relations. Moreover, that prospect is not removed by Camatte’s insistence that the labor vouchers that the worker will exchange for goods and services cannot be accumulated, are “valid for a limited period and is lost at the end of this period if it is not consumed,” (12) thereby preventing a restoration of capitalism. The question is not that of a restoration of capitalism, but rather its continued existence through that of value determined by labor time, and abstract labor, on the bases of which capitalism had never been abolished. For Camatte, it is only at Marx’s higher stage of communism that: “All forms of value are therefore buried; thus labour no longer has a determined form, there is no alienation.” (13)
The question raised by communization theory as it has developed over the past several decades is whether the social imaginary of a period of transition, of lower and higher stages of communism, has not become – at this historical stage of capitalism – one more obstacle to the communist revolution, to communization. (14)
Communization theory, as it has been articulated by pro-revolutionaries over the past several decades can perhaps be summarized in the following terms, in an essay by Bruno Astarian: Communization as a Way out of the Crisis
Communization does not mean that communism will be established by waving a magic wand. It will be established through a process of struggle, with advances and retreats by the revolution. What it means is that the actions undertaken by the revolutionaries will aim at the abolition of work and of value … here and now. When the revolution attacks capitalist property, it does not do so in order to vest the proletariat with the ownership of the property that it did not previously own, but in order to put an end to all forms of property immediately.
In short, the value-form, and the labor [travail, Arbeit] linked to it, must be abolished by the revolution, not as the culmination of a period of transition, as the historical communist left had maintained. Moreover, while communization is the immediate goal of the revolution, Astarian points out that: “We must not confuse immediacy with instantaneity. When we say immediacy of communism, we are saying that the goal of the proletarian revolution no longer consists in creating a transitional society, but in directly establishing communism.” For Internationalist Perspective, what is crucial here is not the specific content of the work or activity that must be immediately transformed, e.g. food or clothing, medicine or houses, will need to be produced. What must be immediately abolished is the reduction of that activity to the abstract labor, and its measurement by socially necessary labor time, that is the historically specific mode in which work has existed in capitalist society. And that, of course, also entails the abolition of a mode of distribution of goods and services by way of labor time, through a form of wage [le salariat] or even labor vouchers. It is in the very course of a revolutionary upheaval, then, and not at the end of a period of transition, that communization occurs. As RS in SIC 1, insists: “The revolution is communisation; it does not have communism as a project and result, but as its very content.”
Indeed, in the revolution itself, the abolition, not just of capital and labor, but also of the proletariat must occur. This is how BL puts it in SIC1: “In this struggle, the seizure of the material means of production cannot be separated from the transformation of proletarians into immediately social individuals: it is one and the same activity, and this identity is brought about by the present form of the contradiction between the proletariat and capital.” It is not, then, some variant of utopian thinking that has led IP to see communization as integral to the revolutionary upheaval itself, but rather the very logic of capital, its specific historical trajectory, and the nature of the capitalist crisis at the present historical conjuncture: the impossibility of the reproduction of the proletarian condition by capital apart from the massive expulsion of proletarian labor from the economy, the creation of a vast planet of slums, and impending ecological catastrophes, all attendant on the perpetuation of the value-form. It is those very real historical and material conditions, which have made communization the immediate task of revolution today.
But what of the abolition of work, which is integral to most theories of communization? Work, as proletarian labor, work as abstract labor, work as it has historically developed and been instantiated by capitalism, must be abolished. Work in its historical form, and the capitalist social relations in which production and distribution is based on average socially necessary labor time, in all its forms, must be immediately abolished. But anti-travail [anti-labor] must be accompanied by a vision of human activity, praxis, which encompasses the realm of production, freed of its historical (including its capitalist) integument. This text is not the place to even begin an elaboration of that theoretical task, but its broad outlines do need to be at least indicated. Communization is not the cessation of production. Quite the contrary! It is the beginning of the self-production of human beings, the auto-production of communist social relations. Human action has not been limited to labor, travail, Arbeit, under the constraint of exploitative and class relations. There is a distinction, then, between techné, poiésis, work, and labor, between the labor of the slave, the serf, the proletarian, and the work [oeuvre, Werke] of the social individual. It is precisely that set of distinctions, between labor and work, and the possibilities to be created by communization which pro-revolutionaries need to begin to explore: production, work, beyond labor. Mac Intosh
Open Letter from Maxime to Internationalist Perspective, echoing the contribution of Mac Intosh on communisation
As I said in a small email prior to IP's "conference" at Arezzo, Mac Intosh appears to engage IP - or emphasize its engagement - in a direction that I approve because it is also mine. Unlike most groups and individuals that we have agreed to call the ultra-left current, this text (it quotes Bruno Astarian, Roland Simon and Bernard Leon [BL] ) attests to a consideration of the positions of those it is also conventional to call the "communisateurs". My belief is that everything that comes from this perspective is not necessarily to be accepted in full or as is, but this vision without a doubt, for me, provides some of the most stimulating reflections on revolutionary theory . The communisateur milieu, I can only state, is much more fertile, far more dynamic than the heirs of the communist left, which sees the newly emerging developments in the evolution of capitalism through the old schemas and categories of political analysis more or less slightly retouched. I think we ( pro-revolutionaries, to use your words) have an interest in fostering the discussion -- even if it entails polemical elements -- with the communisateurs. I noticed that you have already taken the initiative (most recently through your exchange with the Greek group Blaumachen, for example) and that's to the good. The refoundation of communist theory, that I dare claim, for me, as for you, today represents the most urgent task of the “friends of the classless society,” as our Berlin comrades say, cannot be limited to a confrontation with the current designated as the communisateurs (“Théorie communiste” (TC) and those close to it: Blaumachen, Riff-Raff, Léon de Mattis [Denis], BL, etc., all contributing to the new publication SIC., as well as Bruno Astarian and the Dauvé-Nesic group, “Trop Loin.” That refoundation requires what other circles of reflexion contribute too, such as “Exit” and “Krisis,” and the editors of “Temps critiques,” (our dear friend of the Reseau, JW). With the communisateurs, they share the view that the crisis of the late 1960s and the beginning of the next decade heralded a new age of capitalism and its economic production of value, in which the communist revolution, or communisation, can no longer be seen, as before, in the figure of the revolutionary subject emerging in direct continuity with the antecedent vision (whether Marxist or even, for that matter, anarcho-communist).They draw the conclusion that in general the revolution can not be just a matter of proletarian class struggle. This stuates these last elements clearly outside the circle of communisateurs. JW, in particular, considers as absurd the dialectical position that supports TC's conception of the proletarian struggle as that of a fragmented class acting against its own class nature, which ties it to capitalism (I grant that “Master” Jacque's claims about R. Simon are quite thin). Even if perhaps through habits of political atavism, for my part I remain committed to the vision of revolution as the task of the class struggle, I do not think that the debate with these currents can be closed and I leave open in my own mind the problematic that they articulate.
In closing this letter, I want to add that on the theory of communisation, it is mainly the version of TC to which I refer here. This is just the beginning, and we will now continue the struggle.
Is communisation [just] a luke warm [or inconsequential] invention? At first glance, one might ask what is the originality of the communisateurs, because neither their general definition of communism nor the identification in the figure of the proletariat (and its class struggle), as the acting-subject of the revolution differ from those of classical Marxists - including those of the Left Communists. The very term communisation that these neo-Marxist little ugly ducklings use basically designates nothing else than good old communist revolution, that is to say the process of revolutionary transformation of the capitalist world in the direction of a classless society without hierarchy, without a state, an economy, and therefore without value and abstract labor, etc. Like traditional Marxists, the communisateurs in addition say that communism will not be accomplished with a magic wand (citing Bruno Astarian), in an instantaneous realization from one day to the next. I would also add that for them, the beginning of communisation, which has not yet begun, will depend on an acute crisis of capitalism, ideas that, here again, will not shock the common understanding of revolutionaries. Does the change in terminology, then, represent some kind of sectarian coquetry? Would this invention correspond to a rediscovery of luke warm water? We must clearly answer these questions not because the conception that the communisateurs have of the process of revolutionary transformation - of communisation - is actually far from that of the great vehicle of Marxism.
It must be remembered that, for the classics, the communist revolution (or communisation) takes place in necessary stages in which the accomplishment of one stage would be the condition necessary for the following one. The first step amounts to wresting the means of production from the hands of the capitalists, the second is to establish a transitional society termed "socialist", where the production and distribution of goods are socialized; at its end, begins the establishment of communism, which itself can take some time. Communism thus appears as the implementation of a program whose unfolding, in its whole duration, has been designated by Marxists as the “period of transition.”
The specific vision of communisation that the communisateurs promote clearly diverges from such a point of view. It rejects all programmatism and specifically spurns the goal of an intermdiary stage socialism (or the " lower stage of communism" to cite Marx' words). If communism is not fully realized at a single blow, the beginning of its construction, the communisateurs insist, will open from the very beginning of the revolutionary process. In fact, the goal and the path merge for them because, they say, it is directly the production of communism that destroys capitalism. And as the communist process is essentially the abolition of classes, the abolition of the capitalist social relation reciprocally linking proletarians to a class of capitalists must also immediatly occur. According to the vision of the communisateurs, the revolution is, indeed, the opposite of an affirmation of the proletariat ; it is opposed to the vision of an abolition of classes resulting in their absorption into the proletariat.
So here we perceive very clearly the gap between the communisation of the communisateurs and the Marxist advocates of the "period of transition," which undoubtedly rests on the program of the maximal affirmation of the proletariat as a prelude to its own demise. Mac Intosh relates quite faithfully the theoretical position of the communisateurs when he writes: "Communisation entails the abolition of the proletariat, the class of wage-workers, whose abstract labor is the source of value. Socialism or Communism is not the self-affirmation of the proletariat or workers' power, and the creation of a republic labor. "
Is the theory of communisation of the communisateurs legitimate? Why, after all, would it be better than the old conception of revolution? We can not even advance by claiming that the facts have demonstrated the falsity of the latter conception, because we have hitherto known only embryonic examples of a revolutionary process. On the other hand, the new theory remains to be tested.
The pioneer communisateurs in the years 1968-1975, roughly began from the conviction that the classical theory, based on the vector of the affirmation of the proletariat, was at best inadequate, at worst, wrong. For the young communisateurs, the failure of all previous revolutionary attempts, from 1871 to 1968, ocurred in the final analysis because of the non-recognition of the limits of proletarian affirmation and even because that very affirmation worked against the révolution. The communist left, and first of all certain theorists of the council communists tradition, had certainly seen that the instruments in which the Marxists usually saw the rise to power of the labor movement (unions, class parties , reformist parliamentary representation …), that is to say, the growth of proletarian affirmation, had produced just the opposite of the desired effect, but these communists stopped there by simply replacing the failed instruments with the affirmation of workers 'councils, of the self-organization of struggles, workers' autonomy, etc., retaining, therefore, what according to the communisateurs, was the source of the failure. These communisateurs, largely politically born around 1968 - as indeed many others of my generation - understood the global wave of struggles of that time as the point of rupture with "affirmationism" and the swan song of the old workers movement too.
But all that was not enough to give the new theory of communisation the true legitimacy that the mere recognition of the failure of the old vision could not bring. If a theory is false, this does not mean, in effect, that any theory that replaces it is accurate. The anti-affirmationism of the communisateurs in the immediate aftermath of "1968", expressed by the idea that the proletariat must begin to abolish itself in undertaking the revolutionary process at its outset (and in 1975 the "communist tendency" of Berard, arising from a break with the ICC also said this), contained an ambiguity at its very heart: was this a theory finally revealed in full by revolution and which could have been formulated in any revolutionary upheaval, or was this a theory could only arise on the basis of the modern development of capitalism? Admittedly, the communisateurs discovered this problem in the second half of the 1970s. They found the answer thanks to the profound restructuring of its system that capitalism initiated following the famous "oil shocks," the critical peak of the crisis of the “Fordist” mode of regulation -- on the bases of which capitalism had functioned since the 1920s - 1930's - which began around 1967. This restructuring, developed until the late 1980s, and uprooted all the bases of proletarian affirmation, explained the communisateurs. One of its main characteristics was to liquidate the "labor movement", reducing the proletarians virtually to individuals in confrontation with the powers of capitalism. Therefore, communisation according to the communisateurs appeared not so much as a better theory of revolution, but as the only possible theory that is adequate to the new era of capitalist accumulation. They presented it - and still do so today - as the revolutionary communist theory of our time, the time of a proletariat irreversibly fragmented.
The perception of fragmentation by the communisateurs differs from that of IP in that, unlike IP, the former (at least until now), do not have not a sense of the "recomposition of the workers movement," of the" labor movement "in other words.
Maxime
Paris, May 31, 2012
Notes
1. Marx, 'Critique of the Gotha Programme" in Karl Marx, The First International and After (Penguin Books), p. 346.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 347.
4. While Camatte’s text is largely devoted to the trajectory of the value-form based on a reading of Marx’s unpublished manuscripts (The Grundrisse, and “The Results of the Immediate Process of Production”), its chapter on “Communism and the intermediary phases between capitalism and communism,” like the Fundamental Principles of the GIK, grapples with the issue of communization. Camatte’s treatment of this issue has its own basis in texts by Mitchell (Jehan) in Bilan in the 1930’s, and especially in texts by Bordiga starting from the late 1940’s through the ‘60’s.
5. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, p.346.
6. Mattick’s picture of that abundance seems far too optimistic today, especially in light of decades of “development” based largely on the growth of fictitious capital and financial bubbles, while the reproduction of the proletariat has been violently threatened, and ever-greater masses of workers are being permanently expelled from the production process. While such questions are, indeed, important, they do not preclude a vision of revolution in which communization, understood as the abolition of the value-form and the proletarian labor to which it is yoked, cannot be put off until a higher stage or the completion of a period of transition.
7. Jacques Camatte, Capital and Community (Prism Key Press, 2011), p. 261.
8. Ibid., p. 265.
9. Ibid., p. 272.
10. Ibid., p. 266.
11. Ibid., p. 279.
12. Ibid., p.288.
13. Ibid., pp. 297-298.
14. One question that seems to be a diversion, though much ink and paper has been expended in discussing it in the pro-revolutionary milieu, is when communization, as opposed to a period of transition, became an historical possibility for the proletariat. Was communization possible in 1789, in 1848, in 1871, in 1917, in 1936, etc.? Communization did not occur then, and while we can discuss why it did not, the task today is to confront the historical necessity for communization in the present epoch, and the dangers that confront the collective worker in a capitalist world that survives its present crisis.
댓글 목록
관리 메뉴
본문
트로츠키주의나 다함께 비판도 좋지만, 노사과연 스탈린주의자들로부터 좌공과 오세철 교수 글이 치욕적으로 비판받고 있는 것부터 제대로 좀 방어합시다. 노사과연 비판이 사실인지 여부는 둘째 치고 좌공과 오교수 글이 그렇게 능멸 당하고 있는데도 거기에 대해선 한 마디 반비판도 안 하는 건지 못하는 건지, 참으로 부끄럽습니다. 분발을 바랍니다