Why I no longer believe in elections

I once stood in a local election. I lay that on the table as my confession. I stood for TUSC. The Trades Union and Socialist Coalition and got a modest 59 votes in a big Tory area. I gained nothing out of this no one approached me since and I wonder why I did it now. I think it was more the pressure from one of the main constituent parties that being the Socialist Party who I was a member of at the time who pushed elections in a big way. I cannot understand why looking back now. I am still a big socialist and still believe in a common society run for the many not just the few. But elections and Bourgeois elections are not the way to go in the path to gaining this. I have fallen out with electoral politics. I pay it attention as many workers still look to it for change but for me I know the reality now there can be no change as the famous saying goes if elections changed anything they’d have banned it. Too right! I personally cannot see any benefit to standing in elections you line yourself up and alongside some very shady characters who are hungry for power. I once stood as I said and got very little out of it and wonder what the point of standing is. Many Marxists tell me it gives you a platform well where as that platform got you so far?? A small way towards anything I’d suggest. You’re fighting on the terms of the bourgeoisie and they set the rules you have to play for to get anywhere. I think that is a recipe for disaster the moment you start to conform to the bourgeois rules and boundaries you set yourself up for defeat in the long run. I think our energies can be better used elsewhere in community campaigns and building resistance on the ground. If the likes of TUSc and the Socialist party put as much effort in to building a genuine rank-and-file union movement as they do as pushing their own self serving candidates in TUSC and beyond we may just maybe be in a healthier position. I have been there I have seen it all TUSC and the SP think they can gain out of the upcoming elections not by votes but by recruits yes building the party not the class and the movement. That folks is what it is all about for parties like the Socialist party. So good luck if you’re standing it’s not for me and many others do not look surprised when you register poor results and left wondering why. Allow us to continue the fight for a better world free of hunger and greed.

A split ruling class

From how I see it the ruling class nationally and internationally is split. More or less down the middle anyway on how to react to the crisis of their own capitalist system. Do they go for growth or austerity? It is something which features heavily within the European Union as also with intervention from the IMF The IMF echo’s America’s calls for growth but on what basis it doesn’t make clear. Clearly we live in a time of global economic melt down with no sign of a way out of the present crisis that anyone can see. Even China has seen its growth rates cut by the World Bank today too. There have been concerns whether China can sustain its high growth rate amid a global slowdown The World Bank has cut its growth forecast for China amid warnings of slower but more stable global growth over the coming months. The bank now expects the China to grow 7.7% in 2013, down from its earlier projection of 8.4%. It also cut the forecast for global economic growth to 2.2% from 2.4%. The bank said growth in China, the world's second-largest economy, had slowed as policymakers look to rebalance its growth model. Over the past few decades China has relied heavily on exports and government-led investment to boost its economy. However, a slowdown in key markets such as the US and Europe has seen a decline in demand for Chinese exports, prompting concerns whether China can sustain its high growth rate. This is not just a case of world governments being split and undecided to what to do but whole sections of the bourgeoisie who are finding themselves torn further and further apart on solutions for the crisis. Also take the example of Europe with some parts of the bourgeoisie wanting to make a hasty exit from the EU in order to boost our own competitiveness in terms of pushing down wage labour even further than possible at present whilst others warn against leaving and attack the others for even daring to suggest a exit. The euro zone does not work. No measures have been introduced in order to make it work. In any economic union of the kind that was being envisaged, it is obvious that there will be some areas that are richer and some that are poorer. There will be some areas that import more from the richer areas and vice versa. You will consequently find an economic balance that will reflect itself in a series of economic data. Unless the richer areas are prepared to accept that, as in the US, the centre must in some way or other assist parts of its union - with the richer areas in effect subsidising the poorer areas - then it simply cannot work. This is all rather obvious and many people have been making this point for some time. The overall result of these differing viewpoints amongst the bourgeoisie is a muddle. Whereas it is actually possible to get out of the present downturn, that will not happen, because ultimately this would be tantamount to suicide on the part of the capitalist class. Its difficult to know which way the bourgeoisie will turn next there’re signs of a heightened turn towards protectionism in protecting your own markets with the recent flare-up of solar panels with the EU and China. I am thinking we may see more incidents like this when nations and economies start to get desperate to restart growth further and further desperate measures may be attempted. In Japan right now they are trying a plan which is noted by many economists as radical and risky so waiting to see how that one turns out will be interesting too. What is clear though is that we are in a log jam across the world. No country, government or organisation has the magic formula for getting out of this crisis and many expect things to get a lot worse before they get better. Something will have to give eventually as jams in the system cannot last forever. Watch this space for heightened tensions between global super powers in order to deflect the blame for a lack of growth in their own country on others. A split ruling class as Lenin once said is just one part of a successful revolution. The other parts were a middle class also awake and not sure which way to turn in support of the capitalist or the working class. Lastly a mass revolutionary party which we are far from in any country in the world. Things are just hotting up. Our time may come soon. We must prepare for all eventualities.

The detachment of the political class in Britain

The political class our current crop of politicians who are a professional class in their own right now you’d say now have been slowly and slowly detaching themselves from society and understanding social process’s. In this day and age of political think tanks and political advisors is directly linked to the way the political parties have lost their supporter s base the 3 major political parties currently do not have much more than a quarter of a million members and not even a million between them . This in my view has lead to a bigger disconnect with understanding the moves and changes in society. In the past the political class could command a fair bit of respect and in a strange way they still do but now a days after the Mp expenses crisis and then the phone hacking where politicians has lead to a breaking down of trust and confidence in our so called politicians. Of course the move of the political class further and further to the right has played its part where now the so called centre ground is now further to the right than we have ever seen. The political class used to be drawn from small business owners and landlords but now much of our MP’s are former lawyers, solicitors bankers even who have a disconnect clearly with everyday life. This may seem an obvious point but it’s important to understand when we are looking for political representation. We still have a vote and a big emphasis is placed on it when elections come around in the UK. Oh you must use your vote you don’t know how lucky you are kind of thing yet all we are voting for more often than not is who will be our government who screw us over next. Is this much of a choice? Of course not so wherever we can it is important for Marxists to stand in bourgeois elections to provide an alternative and to at least try and reach people who have been taken in by the political class who see them still as our masters. People are becoming more and more disgusted with politicians in the pub every weekend I’m told how much our MP’s are thief’s corrupt and in it just for themselves and in many ways they are. But no politician today goes out their way to confront this image they have themselves created. They almost seem to revel in this thought and image and play off the fact they re dis trusted and have become further detached from the person on the street. The fact that MP’s are so distrusted now is an interesting situation when people have little faith in the establishment as they do right now with low levels of confidence in our police and media establishments too this can be fertile ground for new movements and new thinking. As we have seen the springing up of occupy and the tents movement in a so called new form of democracy where something new and different was tried was a direct out pouring of dis trust of politicians to deal with the crisis we find ourselves in today that’s capitalism in decay as a economic system that can benefit the many. Occupy wanted little if anything to do with politicians and tried to be far more democratic focusing on the banks and the financial institutions in London and around the globe if we’re honest to focus their anger. This was a marked change as many times down the years when there is anger or a protest movement it normally involves lobbying or protesting against the government of the day. The fact that people went and set up camps and tent villages outside major financial districts showed for me a marked change in people’s consciousness and ability to identify where this crisis has come from and where we must focus our energy in highlighting. The recent growth of UKIP is a interesting development again too as they try to pose themselves as anti establishment and down with the common man on the street clearly a image they are going with for now to court a popularize right wing vote fairly successfully taking 25% of a popular vote n the recent county council elections clearly shows they are having a impact and a big one at that. Not wishing to over play the UKIP threat at this stage as there are still opportunities for the left to get its act together it is something we should keep in mind too. But lastly a political class with seemingly no direction or any real ideological base any longer is not only a danger to us but to its own existence I think with no clear out and out leader of a political class the idea of a technocratic government a so called national government used in the past during crisis’s cannot be ruled out either to stabilise the ruling class during times of social unrest.

Italy - The economic crisis becomes a political and institutional crisis

www.socialistworld.net, 11/05/2013 website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI The latest events that have happened in Italian politics mark a new phase of development in the crisis in the third European industrial power. With extracts from Marco Veruggio, ControCorrente (CWI Italy) The economic storm that has wreaked havoc on the economy first transformed itself into a social crisis and now into a veritable institutional crisis. Youth unemployment has gone over 30%; more than 450,000 workers risk finding themselves from one day to the next without any income due to the funds running out for the lay-off pay paid by the regional governments; in 2012 more than a thousand firms a day closed. The phenomenon of suicides is growing; on 14 April, in one day alone, a small fruit seller and two unemployed people took their lives. Against this tragic background, the extreme fragmentation of the Italian capitalist class and the absence of a political representation of the workers is producing an analogous fragmentation and loss of control of the so-called ’political class’. Workers and vast sectors of the middle class accuse the politicians of continuing to demand sacrifices from them and at the same time remaining in possession of their own privileges. While the Italian bourgeoisie on the one hand calls on the parties to carry on with their anti-people measures without listening to what is going on in the streets, on the other they criticise them for not having enough of a consensus to guarantee governability and demand ’class unity’ to carry out the reforms ’Necessary for the country’, that is for them, against the workers and the middle class. The escalation of suicides, just as the extreme gesture of one unemployed man from the South who, during the swearing in of the ministers, opened fire on three policemen of the parliamentary guard, declaring afterwards that his real target was the politicians, indicate the climate of exasperation. But at the same time they show how exasperation, without a political and social outlet, is destined to tranlsate into such gestures - desperate at the same time as merely symbolic. Berlusconi resuscitated by the Democratic Party The Democratic Party, at the end of 2011, with Berlusconi reduced to historic lows of credibility, was afraid of saying no to being the agent in Italy on behalf of the European Central Bank and of going to elections and succeeded from then until today in doing everything that was within their power to restore Berlusconi’s lost credibility and risk their own. They voted together with him for the raising of the pension age, the cancellation of Article 18 (of the labour statutes), the IMU - an odious tax on first homes and, after having governed a year and a half with the Centre-right, carried out an election campaign on the slogan ’No agreement with Berlusconi’. And while the leader of the PD, Bersani, was giving interviews explaining in a confused way what his party would do once it had won the elections, Berlusconi was taking over the talk shows promising the abolition of IMU. Beppe Grillo was filling the squares demanding the abolition of politicians’ privileges, but also the establishment of a citizen’s wage, the nationalisation of the banks and big companies like Monte dei Paschi and Telecom and the cutting of military spending, cancelling Italy’s commitments in Afghanistan and Mali. The result of the election followed the laws of marketing technique: in a market full of products substantially the same and ’costly’, a quarter of the consumers chose not to buy anything; one quarter chose a new brand, original and low cost (the Five Star Movement of Grillo); the rest of the demand was divided equally between the other products, preferring the traditional ones (PD and Berlusconi’s PDL) to ones that were just as costly but with no history (Monti). After the election, Bersani, secretary of the PD, the second force after the M5Star in number of votes, but first by number of parliamentary representatives, employed all his own tactical skills to commit suicide. He asked for the job of forming a government without having the numbers and got it. He continued to repeat that never and once more never would the PD make an agreement with Berlusconi (while he had declared himself ready for a pact with Bersani ’for the good of the country’). He wrote an eight point programme, the fruits of a compromise between the half of the PD that wanted to go with Berlusconi and the half that was against and trusted Grillo to support a PD government to get some points implemented. The first of those points was, ’to reconcile the discipline of the budget with productive public investments and to obtain maximum flexibility in the medium term targets for the public finances’. This was a proposal so ridiculous that even a comic would not have been able to accept it, and Grillo rejected it. It provoked the indignation of the centre-left and the press - ’irresponsible: he’s playing Berlusconi’s game’ - and even the criticism of the leader of the ailing Rifondazione Comunista - Ferrero - who, in his position, would have accepted the eight points without even reading them. Meanwhile, the other delicate institutional game was approaching and that was the election of the new President of the republic. Berlusconi declared that he was ready to vote for a candidate of the PD, provided such a candidate was ’not hostile’ (meaning disposed to guaranteeing the impunity and survival of himself and his businesses). Grillo at this point puts forward an intellectual, with no past and with no high ambition*, from within the PD - Stefano Rodotà, as a candidate, well regarded even in the ranks of the radical chic left as well as the PD electorate. But Bersani meets Berlusconi and together they agree a common candidate - Marini, former Christian Democrat general secretary of the trade union federation CISL and amongst the founders of the PD. A choice that everyone justifiably interprets as the prelude to a ’broad agreement’ government. If Bersani had accepted Rodotà, he would have become president of the Republic with the votes of Grillo and the centre-left, would have given the task of forming a government to certain representatives of the centre-left unacceptable to Berlusconi and at this point it would have become very difficult for Grillo not to support such a government. However, everyone understood, including the PD voters, that the earlier agreement, the choice of Bersani, is due to an objective reality: the PD has more interests in common with the PDL than with M5S and on the other hand for 20 years every time the PD had the possibility of wiping out Berlusconi, it pulled back. The revolt broke out. The PD had to meet and withdraw the candidature of Marini and put forward Prodi, not welcome for Berlusconi, wailed about betrayal. The candidature of Prodi was agreed unanimously, on the same day that 100 PD parliamentarians voted in secret urns for other candidates. The last resort before complete institutional chaos, is the reappointment of Napolitano, also ex PD and extremely acceptable to Berlusconi who was the first to propose his reconfirmation. Bersani accepts and announces, finally, in the end, his own resignation as secretary. Members of the PD occupied several party offices. Dozens burnt their membership cards in the squares. Napolitano and ’national responsibility’ Paraphrasing the title of a film by the Cohen brothers, some students, after the re-election of the President of the Republic, went onto the streets with placards saying: ’ This is no country for young people’. Napolitano, old post-soviet archeological remains, who defined the Soviet Union’s intervention in Hungary as the only to ’prevent it from falling into chaos and counter-revolution’ and ’to safeguard world peace’, then leader of the right wing of the Communist Party of Italy (financed by Berlusconi), friend of the corrupt Craxi and his Socialist Party and friend of America and the first Italian ’communist’ invited to the United States, became the real dominant figure in Italian political life in the last few years. He has been the truest representative in Rome of the interests of Brussels and Frankfurt and the most fervent backer of Mario Monti. Napolitano was acclaimed in Berlusconi’s era as a shining defender of morality. In fact, in 2004, when he was a Europarliamentarian, he was surprised by a German journalist trying to claim EUR800 for a flight from Brussels to Rome that cost EUR88 and reacted by having the journalist identified and taken in by the police. Recently he tried to interfere in the court case of the Palermo magistrates over the state-mafia dealings in the ’90s and managed to get tapes destroyed that had recordings of his phone calls with Nicola Mancino, interior minister at the time and between the main people on trial. After the recent Monte dei Paschi banking scandal broke, Napolitano asked the press ’not to make too much noise’. A few hours after the news of his being re-nominated, thousands of people including many youth, besieged the parliament shouting ’Rodota! Rodota!’ and ’Napolitano, we don’t want you!’. After the vote, the PD and PDL MPs had to be escorted out of the parliament by police. Coins were thrown at the leader of the ’left PD’. The ex-deputy secretary, Franceschini, was besieged by hundreds of people in a Rome restaurant. An episode which is related only to the superstructure, like the election of the head of state, has become for thousands of people, worn down by the economic crisis and disgusted with politics, symbolic of a political class that preaches change but practices conservation, the spark that sets off the fire. Some old woman, interviewed in front of the parliament, said: ‘One month ago I was in Saint Peter’s Square to celebrate the new pope Francis I. The Catholic Church gives us an impression of trying to implement some change. The Italian state is not able to do the same’. Grillo described the re-election of Napolitano as a ’mini coup’ and the same evening invited Italians to besiege parliament, announcing that he would arrive in the late evening. ’We must be in our millions’, he said. But a few hours after, he cancelled the demonstration, suggesting ’the violent ones should be isolated’ and gave the time for meeting in a square on the following afternoon. But the day after he appeared for just a few minutes. The Grillini MPs, the only ones who can walk the streets of Rome without an escort, responded to people calling for a march on the President’s residence - the Quirinale - by saying ’it’s not worth it’. ’In parliament we are many, and we can do ’cool’ things!’. A left with a minimum of credibility would have been able to move into this vacuum and played a political role. Instead, the self-styled leaders of the far left limited themselves to criticising Grillo for not having done what they should have done. National responsibility Napolitano, who is 88 and once again ready to do battle to avoid the country ’falling into chaos’, has given the responsibility of government to Enrico Letta, ’young’ ex-Christian Democrat leader of the PD, liberal, nephew of Gianni Letta - trusted right hand man of Berlusconi and skilful operator in the most difficult negotiations between ’The Cavalier’ (Berlusconi), the centre-left and Italian and international capitalism (sitting on the advisory board of Goldman Sachs from 2007). Letta Jnr has put together a techno-politico government, confirming various ministers of Monti’s (but not Monti), among them the one for European relations - a reassuring signal for Brussels. On the political slopes, while various big names from the PDL are entering the government, in key rolestaking care even of the personal interests of Berlusconi, most of the leaders of the PD - with D’Alema and Bersani at their head, remain outside. There are only Letta and Franceschini, from a Christian Democratic background, some minor ex-PCI leaders and many unknown personalities, women and young people (among them a black woman doctor of Congolese origin and a one-time woman canoe champion from Germany), who owe eternal gratitude to Letta for having got through the casting for the reality show ’New faces at Chigi Palace (home of the government)’. But the ministries that count remain firmly in the hands of seasoned politicians and experienced functionaries of the state, amongst them, at the economy, the ex director-general of the Bank of Italy. Anyway, this is not about a Summer-time government but meant to last long enough for a restructuring of the political system to avoid coming out of elections once more without a governing majority. The social version of the government of ’national responsibility’ is the Pact between producers proposed in Turin by the bosses’ organisation, Confindustria to the union federations - CGIL, CISL and UIL - ’to save the factories and the country’ because ’we’re all in the same boat’ and promptly accepted by the unions. Some weeks later, the unions in Bologna invited Confindustria representatives to speak on the platform at the May Day demonstration in front of no more than 300, many of them trade union bureaucrats and pensioners. Landini, the general secretary of the metalmechanics’ union (FIOM), responded to Confindustria that ’like on the Titanic we are all in the same boat, but those who were in the engine room were the first to drown’, provoking criticism from the CGIL general secretary, Camusso. FIOM has made a call for a national demonstration on 18 May of engineers, of students and the social movements for the right to work, the right to education, to health, and social justice and democracy. It could be the first opportunity to test how much the latest political developments have changed the mood on the streets. But FIOM, without a political focus, risks being crushed in a pincer: Landini has been playing a ‘half political role’, due to the vacuum on the left, creating high expectations, more political than trade union, more amongst activists than metal-mechanics. On the other had, he has to manage a retreat on the trade union front due to sudden defeats, to political and social isolation and even a certain disorientation of the leading group in FIOM, without a clear trade union strategy and politically suspended between certain illusions in relation to the centre-left and the absence of a credible alternative on the left. The left without a plan The PD comes out of these events with its bones broken. Starting out with a centre-right in a coma and victory in its pocket they have succeeded in an enterprise which is something incredible, bringing Berlusconi back to power once more, making a deal with him in front of his electorate, without restraint. It’s like a firefighter who sets fire to his own car in full daylight on the pavement in front of his house, to get money from the insurance. Now a congress is being prepared in which Fabrizio Barca, ex minister of Monti, should be representing the ’internal left’. In the meantime critical voices are being raised in the ruling group and realignments taking place, voting their confidence in Letta. But the real incurable fracture, which indicates the end of the PD, is that with its own social base and its own electorate. A fracturing which will be heavily reflected inside a CGIL which is marching towards the congress in a devastating political, trade union and financial crisis. If the PD has broken bones, Rifondazione and the left parties are by now in a phase of decomposition. Nichi Vendola, of the SEL (Left Ecology Liberty), after an embarrassing electoral result, has been forced to break with the PD and to support Rodotà as President of the Republic. He has announced that he will create a ’constructive and responsible’ opposition to Letta and planned to launch on 8 May a new ’workshop’ of the left, seeking to gather the right of the RC and certain renegades from the PD. To the left of the RC, Cremaschi, former number two of FIOM now retired has launched a new appeal for an ’anti-capitalist and libertarian movement’, with half the forces that belonged to ’No debito’. (ControCorrente did not belong to it, only maintaining discussions with them.) ALBA (’Alliance of work, public assets and the environment’) continues to propose a ’new political force’, but is run by a handful of intellectuals, deprived of any social base, of an organised force and of a clear political programme. The secretary of Rifondazione, Ferrero, resigning after the disastrous election, but in charge until the next congress (fixed with great calm for the end of the year), leads an already virtual party by means of his own Facebook page, commentating on the on the initiatives of others and often giving advice to Grillo on the tactics to use against the PD, which Grillo wisely does not follow. Inside the RC, without his own independent political project, Ferrero follows ALBA with interest, one part of his people have joined Cremaschi’s appeal, while the right tries to have a dialogue with Vendola. The Communist Party of Workers, the only list with the Hammer and Sickle - a symbol which always has a certain appeal for us - at the elections reached an historic low. Critical Left - the Italian section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, is living through the nth split in the name of the movements. Falce Martello - the section of the International Marxist Tendency, is enthusiastically preparing for a congress in which Ferrero’s centre and the right will be fighting over the mortal remains of the RC. For the Italian left a real ’trek across the desert’ is starting. The absence of a generalised social response to the offensive of big capital renders the current proposals ’to rebuild the left’ pathetic attempts to put together bits of the political and trade union bureaucracy without a clear political idea and incapable of exercising an attraction for workers and young people, all to the advantage of Grillo. These leaders, always ready to quote Gramsci (usually incorrectly), instead of putting themselves on the terrain of a ’struggle for hegemony’ over ordinary sectors of their electorate, run after him, one day exalting them and the next accusing them of being fascist. On the other side, in a country that has had the biggest Communist Party in western Europe and a lively extra-parliamentary left, against the background of a stagnation of the class struggle and of the crisis of the trade unions, a generation of activists over 40 are living with the feeling of being orphans of the past and don’t manage to be a point of reference for the youngest. With the result that the best part of the activists tend to distribute themselves in a casual way amongst the various discussion tables on the left or limiting themselves to waiting for something to happen. Only an unfreezing, at least partial, of class conflict can unblock the situation, bring into politics new forces and restore enthusiasm to the old militants. The shock represented in the nth compromise between the centre -right and the centre-left by the definitive loss of credibility of the PD and in bourgeois democracy itself, the new wave of anti-people policies that await us could make millions of people understand that nothing remains but to struggle, relying only on our own forces. It would be necessary to try and rebuild with our own hands what the leaders of the left have destroyed: a party capable of giving a voice, programme and organisation to workers and ordinary people in society. * ‘senza infamia e senza lode’ means’: he’s not responsible for big mistakes nor for big victories in the past. He’ s not worth of big criticism nor of big praises.

Remembering the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederich Engel’s

Today is the anniversary of one of the most famous text’s ever written. On Febuary21st 1848 Karl Marx and Frederich Engels published what would go on to be known as one of the greatest works for the working class ever wrote. Here I’ll look at its relevance today and how we can learn from the text back then to apply to today’s struggles. A product of the genius of the young Marx and Engel’s (Engel’s was 27, Marx 29); the Manifesto stands out as one of the greatest examples of world literature. With its brilliant summing up of history, the class struggle, the role of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, it marked the entry of the ideas of scientific socialism onto the stage of world history. But the Manifesto is not just of historic interest. Its most important parts are fresh even today. In simple words, it depicts the realities of late 20th century capitalism far more accurately than the millions of words daily churned out by its defenders. Above all, it is in the method of Marx and Engel’s, so clearly elaborated in this document, that are to be found the tools to combat capitalism and build a new socialist world. Obviously, in a document written 150 years ago there is much now outdated. However, it is with astonishment that we discover how much in the Manifesto describes the situation today. To have made such a claim at the beginning of this decade would have invited scorn from the representatives of capitalism. Against the backdrop of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Marxism, that is scientific socialism, was 'dead and buried'. The collapse of the Stalinist regimes, and with them the planned economy, resulted in unbridled capitalist triumphalism. The Wall Street Journal, organ of the ignorant American financial barons, proclaimed, 'We've won', while Thatcher and Reagan, the twin stars in the capitalist firmament at that time, boasted that 'the lesson of the 1980s is that socialism has failed'. It is not just 'antiquated' Marxists who look to the authors of the Manifesto for an explanation of today's world. Individual commentators, confronted by the desolation and chaos of modern capitalist society, are turning back to Marx. Neil Ascherson, in the Independent on Sunday, despite his scepticism about Marx, recently confessed that, "in spite of everything, I feel a spirit moving again under the floor boards... this was the man who saw that every social order carries the seeds of its own destruction, above all when that order seems universal and invincible. Now is the moment to remember that lesson". Commenting on the 90th anniversary of the Manifesto, Leon Trotsky, referring to Marx's materialist conception of history, wrote that it had "completely withstood the test of events and the blows of hostile criticism. It constitutes today one of the most precious instruments of human thought. All other interpretations of the historical process have lost all scientific meaning. We can state with certainty that it is impossible in our time to be not only a revolutionary militant, but even a literate observer of politics, without assimilating the materialist interpretation of history". MARX AND ENGELS showed that the development of capitalism went together with the creation of the world market which bound together the world into one interdependent whole. In the process, the capitalists developed their own 'gravediggers' in the form of the working class. This class was not restricted to one country, but developed on a world scale. From these ideas of Marx and Engel’s developed the idea of socialist and working class internationalism. The Dockers in Liverpool, the French truck drivers, the Danish and Bangalore bus workers, in seeking to spread their struggles on a continental and world basis, all stand on the shoulders of the authors of the Manifesto. The tendencies which Marx traced out in the Manifesto have been taken to a level which could not have been anticipated. Marx referred to the growing concentration of capital, but only in his monumental work, Capital, did he show how free competition tended towards monopoly. Since Marx's day, and particularly in the era of globalisation, the growth and power of monopolies is transparently obvious. An estimated 150 giant firms - monopolies - dominate 80-85% of the British economy. Undoubtedly, Marx and Engel have made a mistake in their prognosis on the imminence of revolution when they wrote the Manifesto. They also overestimated the preparedness of the working class to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism at that stage. Marx maintained that no social system departed from the arena of history before exhausting all its possibilities. In the Manifesto he attacks capitalism for retarding the development of the productive forces. But at that stage, this retardation was only relative in nature. Undoubtedly, if the working class had taken power in the second part of the 19th century, industry and society would have developed at a much greater tempo than it did. Nevertheless, capitalism did develop the productive forces on a world scale. In other words, at that stage, capitalism was relatively reactionary. It became absolutely reactionary only with the onset of the First World War, when it became clear that the productive forces had completely outgrown the narrow limits of private ownership, on the one side, and the nation state, on the other. Only then did capitalism become an absolute barrier to the full utilisation of the potential of the productive forces. This was reflected in the aftermath of the First World War. The booms were weaker and more anaemic than before 1914, and there were deeper slumps and protracted economic stagnation. It is true that capitalism experienced a spectacular structural growth in production between 1950-73. This unique and special period in the development of capitalism arose from the destruction of the second world war, the slaughter of value, both of constant capital and the literal slaughter of variable capital - that is the working class - combined with other factors: the utilisation of technology, which had lain fallow before then, and the economic strength and power of US capitalism. The end of this long boom signified that world capitalism had entered a depressionary phase. The 1980s boom seemed to superficially contradict this, but it was lopsided; the relative position of the working class declined, as did the living standards of the peoples of Africa, Latin America and large parts of Asia. The growth rates of the 1980s were far inferior, as was the rate of investment back into industry, to the 1950-73 upswing. But the trend towards globalisation, particularly in the 1990s, has enormously 'internationalised', speeded up and synchronised economic processes throughout the world economy. The international bourgeoisie, particularly in the USA and Europe, tried to pretend at the beginning that the Asian economic crisis was a 'little local difficulty'. Trotsky's phrase, 'Tobogganing towards disaster with their eyes closed,' comes to mind. ONE OF THE ideas of Marx, elaborated in the Manifesto, which has been the subject of vicious distortion and constant attacks by bourgeois and social democratic politicians alike, is the so-called 'theory of increasing misery'. Marx did not advance such an idea. He was well aware that there were periods when the working class was able to extract concessions, and important concessions, from the capitalists. But even in these periods, superficial appearances disguised the fact that often the share of the working class of national income actually declined. In other words, there was a relative decline of the masses' standards of living. Even during the spectacular structural upswing of 1950-73, when the absolute standards of living of the working class grew substantially in the advanced industrial world, the same was not true in the colonial and former colonial world, where two-thirds of humankind is concentrated. THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO was conceived by its authors not just as a sweeping condemnation of capitalism and an abstract advocacy of socialism and communism. Above all, it was a call for action in the imminent revolution which Marx and Engel’s were expecting. It was directed particularly at the adherents of the Communist League. It is this, the call for revolutionary action, which even the most sympathetic bourgeois commentators on the Manifesto oppose or keep quiet about. Undoubtedly, Marx and Engel’s overestimated the possibility of a socialist revolution in 1848, and the preparedness of the working class to take power then. It took events, particularly the Paris Commune, to show that only by the creation of a mass socialist revolutionary party at the head of the working class could such a social overturn be completed. This was borne out, moreover, by the Russian revolution, which would have been impossible without the existence of a mass revolutionary party in the form of the Bolshevik party, and the far-sighted leadership of Lenin and Trotsky. The task of creating such a party is even more urgent today than at any other time since the Manifesto was written. At the time of the 100th anniversary of the Manifesto, in 1948, the British Labour Party reproduced the Manifesto, with an introduction by Harold Laski, identifying the party with the aims of its authors: "Few documents in the history of mankind have stood up so remarkably to the test of verification by the future as the Communist Manifesto. Essentially, after its publication, no one has been able to seriously contravert any of its major positions. All over the world, the crises of capitalism have grown both more frequent and more profound". How far New Labour has travelled to the right since then! Blair and Brown view the Communist Manifesto as the devil views holy water. They have converted the Labour Party from a vehicle for working people into another capitalist party. This has put the need to create a new mass party of the working class on the agenda. The new generation of workers, youth and radicalised intellectuals, who will raise on their shoulders such a party, will inevitably turn back to the marvellous and brilliant generalisations, the crystal-clear ideas of Marx and Engel’s. In place of the duplicitous and cloudy phrases of reformists, of 'liberal' deceptions, which are now the stock-in-trade of the official leadership of New Labour, they will find clarity. They can read Marx's broad generalisation which has stood the test of time: With extracts taken from http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/manifesto/m2frame.htm?150.htm

Chavez victory reelection must mean a break with capitalism

With Hugo Chavez winning a historical 4th election in Venezuela’s recent election workers of the world are rightly upbeat about the prospect ahead. But as we have always warned in the CWI that if you do not look to take on capitalism and put an end to it it will find a way back. Despite Chavez’s radical rhetoric little has changed in terms of the economy since he first gained power. Of course there have been big concessions to the working class and the poor but this cannot be described as one left wing labour MP stated on twitter a socialist revolution. Capitalism still exists in Venezuela and will do for as long as Chavez fails to break with capitalism for good opening the way to spreading the revolution across Latin America. This piece below by Tony Saunois, who is one the International Secretariat of the CWI reports from Caracas Thousands flocked to Miraflores, the Presidential Palace in Caracas, Sunday night (October 7) to celebrate the victory of Hugo Chavez in Sunday’s presidential election. In scenes reminiscent of the defeat of the right-wing coup in 2002, soldiers from the presidential guard waved flags from the roof top of the palace while other soldiers joined workers, youth, the unemployed and others who came to the city centre to celebrate the defeat of the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles. The victory of Chavez, his fifth electoral victory since 1998, has inflicted yet another defeat on Venezuela’s right wing and is welcomed by the CWI and its Venezuelan section, Socialismo Revolucionario, together with workers and socialists internationally. A victory of the right wing would have resulted in an attack on the Venezuelan working class, a rolling back of the reform programme and a political offensive by the ruling class nationally and internationally, celebrating another defeat for ‘socialism’. A massive turnout of over 80% – up from 75% in 2006 – the highest in decades, reflected the political and class polarisation which continues to grip Venezuelan society. With over 98% of the votes counted, Chavez had won 8,133,952, 55.25%, compared to 6,498,527, 44.14%, for wealthy businessman Capriles. Chávez won in 20 of Venezuela’s 24 federal states. If he completes this mandate for another six years, Chávez will have been in power for two decades in total. He will become the longest serving Venezuelan President since Juan Vincente Gomez who ruled from 1908 until 1935! The difference is that Chávez has been elected with mass support, as opposed to the dictatorship of Gomez. Capitalist politicians and leaders of the former workers’ parties in Europe and other continents must look with envy at Chávez’s continued electoral victories and ability to mobilise millions of supporters. Certainly, no other political leader in recent elections has had the ability to repeatedly attract millions to election rallies or be greeted by such crowds celebrating his victory. Right-wing campaign’s populist character This election campaign has been presented in Venezuela as ‘historic’, one that will determine the future of the country and as a choice between ‘two distinct models’. However, such a choice was not reflected in Chávez arguing during the campaign for a clear socialist programme to break with capitalism. Neither did he advocate such an alternative in his address to the crowd which greeted him outside Miraflores. The election campaign reflected important aspects and new features of the struggle that have unfolded in Venezuela during the last fourteen years following Chávez’s first victory. One of the most significant features of the election was the character of the right-wing campaign. The effect of the policies and struggles of the last fourteen years has left powerful support for radical social policies and, to an extent, the general idea of ‘socialism’, which is now deep in the popular political consciousness. Reflecting the radicalised left political consciousness that is now dominant in Venezuelan society, Capriles was compelled to present his programme in a populist manner that masked his real right-wing neo-liberal agenda. This represents a significant change in the strategy of the right wing. Capriles’s propaganda and speeches attempted to address the plight of the poor and promised to defend a welfare state. He argued he would not dismantle all the ‘missions’, the reform programme introduced by Chávez in health and education. He called for the defence of ‘independent’ trade unions and tried to win the support of public sector workers by promising to end the obligatory attendance at Chávez rallies and protests, which is a major source of discontent. Capriles energetically crisscrossed the country – attempting to portray himself as a ‘radical’ new youthful figure as opposed to the older ‘tired’ figure of Chávez in order to win the youth vote. He had some success in this. The real programme of the right was to be found buried in its material where it argued for reduced state intervention and an increased role for private investment in the economy. In the failed 2002 coup, Capriles was implicated in the right-wing assault on the Cuban embassy. Had the right wing secured a victory in this election, a Capriles government would have attempted to roll back the reform programmes of the Chávez governments and introduce more neo-liberal measures. This change in the right wing’s propaganda is a reflection of the real balance of political forces at this stage. Capriles was compelled to rein in the extreme right. To have unleashed the forces of the far right or to have argued explicitly for more right-wing neo-liberal policies would only have resulted in a bigger defeat for Capriles. A serious warning Despite the welcome victory of Chávez the voting in this election is also a warning, from which important lessons need to be drawn in order to prevent a possible future right-wing victory. While Chávez’s percentage of the total vote fell by 7.6 percentage points compared to the last election in 2006, Capriles increased the right’s share by 7.2 percentage points. On an increased turnout Chávez increased his actual vote by 824,872, but Capriles increased the vote of the right by 2,206,061. This represents a serious warning. Apart from the referendum on constitutional reform in 2007, this was the lowest percentage vote for Chávez in any election. The right has been increasing its vote at each election, reflecting a creeping, slow-motion counter-revolution. But support for radical left policies remains dominant at this stage and the masses, including some sections who this time voted for the right, are opposed to any attempt to revert back to the old order that existed prior to Chávez coming to power. However, the failure to break with capitalism and introduce a genuine socialist programme with democratic control and management by the working class and all those exploited by capitalism, is allowing the right to exploit the growing discontent and frustration due to the worsening social conditions, corruption and inefficiency that accompanies the growing Chávista bureaucracy and the government’s top-down bureaucratic approach, which the CWI has consistently warned about and opposed. The largest percentage of the vote ever won so far by Chávez was in the 2006 election when he took 62% of the vote. Significantly, this was also Chávez’s most radical campaign when the question of ‘socialism’ was dominant and to the fore in the campaign. At that time, there was a revolutionary development following the defeated right-wing coup attempt and 2002-03 bosses’ lockout. However, since that victory, rather than advancing through the introduction of a programme to break with capitalism and introduce a real system of democratic workers’ control and management, the revolutionary process has stalled and been in retreat. The government has increasingly collaborated with the ruling class and sought to reach agreement with it; hence its policy of ‘national reconciliation’ and agreements struck with the employers’ federation. This, together with the emergence of those who have grown rich on the backs of the Chávez movement – the ‘boli-bourgeoisie’ – inevitably resulted in growing discontent and protests against the government. Reforms & despair in the poorest barrios Moreover, the response of the government to the global economic capitalist crisis which began in 2007 has not been to drive forward with a programme to break with capitalism but to move in the opposite direction and seek to appease it by moving to the right. Increased tax concessions since then have been given to multinational companies. The national oil company PDVSA, which has financed the ‘missions’ reform programme has cut its budget to them by nearly 30%. There has also been increased repression against workers and others who have taken strike action in recent years. Workers in the public sector are subject to the Law of Security Defence of the Nation. This allows for the banning of strikes and even protests in the public sector. The state police in the city of Barcelona killed two workers’ leaders at the Mitsubishi car factory; the governor of this state is a Chávista. Workers at Toyota suffered the same fate. Despite the popular reform policies of the ‘missions’, which have aided millions in their health, education and other programmes, catastrophic social conditions remain in the poorest ‘barrios’ and show little sign of improving. These have been the breeding ground for a dramatic rise in crime, brutal violence and kidnappings to extract money from the families of victims. Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world: the government’s official figure was 19,000 deaths in 2011. This is almost certainly an under-estimate of the scale of this slaughter. Venezuela is currently one of the most violent countries in the world. In one predominantly wealthy district near Caracas, El Hatillo, 70 kidnappings have occurred so far this year! The experience of CWI members is typical. One CWI member living in a barrio arrived at a meeting the day before the election to tell of the shooting of his brother-in-law the night before. Another told of the shooting of their landlord. Others speak of work colleagues being kidnapped. Another spoke of withdrawing money from a bank for work, only to be robbed five minutes later by armed youth on a motorcycle who had been texted of the cash withdrawal by bank clerks, who then take a cut of the money. Such attacks make the lives of the poor and the middle class a state of almost permanent anxiety and even fear. The housing situation remains desperate especially in the poorest barrios. The government, in the run-up to the election, launched a rushed housing programme, claiming to have built over 200,000 new dwellings. Many people question these figures. Many who saw their shacks washed away by heavy rain in 2010 remain in refuges. Here, conditions can be so bad that even massacres of the occupants have taken place by other occupants or the drug cartels which operate in the barrios. Yet what is being constructed are in reality new ghettos: tiny apartments in blocks with no facilities, built on any piece of empty land or land that has been expropriated. One new development is isolated with one road in and one road out at least an hour’s drive away from the nearest metro. Corruption, lack of democratic planning and control and inadequate building techniques have often meant cracks have appeared in the blocks even before they are occupied! These conditions are the potential breeding ground for armed gangs of young people driven into violent robberies and kidnappings in order to survive. They are also the breeding ground of discontent, which the right wing can build upon or could lead to demoralisation and apathy towards the government. This is already developing and was evident in the campaign. Minimal reference to socialism The Chávez campaign during this election was to the right of the campaign fought in 2006. It was shortly after this that Chávez proposed the launch of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) as a ‘revolutionary party’. Chávez made references to Trotsky, the permanent revolution and the transitional programme. He spoke of building a ‘fifth international’ of ‘left parties’. But in this election, none of that was evident. Reference to socialism was minimal until the last week of the campaign. Instead, the main slogan of Chávez was “Chávez the heart of the fatherland”. It assumed a very nationalistic character with promises to develop the ‘fatherland’. The election was highly personalised in both camps. While the main avenues of Caracas were full at the closing rally, it was noticeable that the placards simply featured Chávez and the ‘Fatherland’ with no political content. Absent were the banners of the PSUV or the trade unions. Many workers wore shirts from the companies they worked for and often said they were there because they were ‘obliged’ to by their employers. While many enthusiastically rallied to Chávez as their only hope and fearing the right, some were simply mobilised around chanting for ‘Chávez and fatherland’, with no content. These features reflect the lack of an independent organised political force of the workers and the poor, which the CWI has commented on in previous articles. This, and the bureaucratic top-down approach of the government, has seriously weakened the movement right from its earliest period, something of which the CWI has consistently warned. This top-down approach was again reflected during the election campaign. On two occasions when Chávez spoke in mass meetings in states, some chanted “Chávez yes, but not ...” referring to the imposed Chávista candidates for the forthcoming state elections in December. Chávez responded by saying if the imposed candidates were rejected then they also must reject Chávez! The lack of a democratic independent workers’ movement is one of the biggest weaknesses and greatest dangers. It has already allowed the right wing to make gains and advances. If the working class, youth and poor do build a democratic independent organised force, the threat of the right and advance of the counter-revolution will grow. It cannot be ruled out that the right wing will make gains in December’s regional elections given the rottenness of some of the Chávista candidates. Unfortunately, following his victory, Chávez, when speaking to his supporters, gave no indication of taking steps to overthrow capitalism. He offered dialogue and debate to the opposition. “We are all brothers of the fatherland,” he thundered after praising the opposition for accepting the result. He spoke of building one united Venezuela. Both sides towards the end of the campaign emphasised this same point. As the polls closed, there was a barrage of television propaganda from both sides appealing for peace, unity and reconciliation. Both Chávez and Capriles urged ‘calm’ and ‘tranquillity’, evidently fearing that polarisation could result in clashes and some kind of social explosion. ‘Mixed economy’ or break with capitalism? As Chávez greeted the crowd after his victory, he made two passing references to socialism. However, these were drowned in pronouncements of “Viva Bolivar! Viva La Patria! Viva Venezuela!” During the campaign he argued that the ‘socialism’ of the Soviet Union had failed and a new type is needed in the 21st century. But this was not a rejection of the former totalitarian Stalinist regime that masqueraded as socialism, in favour of advocating a programme of workers’ democracy. Chávez’s policies illustrate that what he means by this ‘new type’ is a ‘mixed economy’ combining capitalism with state intervention and reforms. The reforms which the CWI supported are now being rolled back and cut. They could only be maintained and strengthened on the basis of breaking with capitalism and introducing a democratic socialist plan of the economy. Capriles is clearly biding his time and now intends to consolidate his base following the election campaign. Chávez is set to continue with his policies of conciliation and working with those sections of the ruling class which are prepared to collaborate with him. Such a policy will increasingly bring his government into collision with workers and the poor. Social discontent will increase. It is urgent that an independent democratic socialist workers’ movement is built with a programme to break with capitalism. If this is not done, then alongside growing social disintegration and alienation will develop the threat from the right. The deepening global capitalist economic crisis will have a heavy impact on Venezuela. A significant fall in the price of oil, Venezuela’s main export worth $60 billion last year, would threaten to undermine Chávez’s policies. It cannot be excluded that Chávez could be driven back towards the left and introduce more radical measures that encroach on capitalism. However, this is far from certain and would not, on their own, represent a socialist transformation. To break with capitalism and build a real democratic socialist alternative still needs the urgent construction of an independent, democratic and politically conscious workers’ socialist movement. With extracts taken from http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5985?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Why I’ve taken to reading the capitalist press

Yep you’ve read that correct I have started looking at the bourgeois press the more quality stuff that is. You may be surprised to hear that but there is a method in my madness. I haven’t suddenly chucked my Marxist principles out the window but in fact I’m taking a greater interest in the global economy for several reasons. As a Marxist reading our own material can be great propaganda and agitation material to win over workers but to find out what is really going on out there in capitalism reading such publications as the Economist and the Financial times and the Wall Street Journal to name just a few. These are in the main well put together papers and magazines. They are often pro market of course and do not tell it how it is from the workers perspective. But that is where I need to apply Marxist analysis to understand what is really going on underneath the surface of society and in the economy at large. There is an old phrase that revolutions start at the top and in many ways this is true the tops of the trees begin to shake at first and this sends shock waves to the very foundations of society. Understanding what is happening at the very top of capitalism and the process’s involved just as Karl Marx did in his excellent analysis of capitalist production in the 1800’s can give us a excellent insight into predicting what will happen next in terms of the class struggle. Understanding if we’re in a period of growth or decline and how the economy is going to develop or contract in the next period. Understanding b bourgeois ideaology can be interesting but can also provide us a glimpse of their thinking. The old phrase keep your friends close but your enemies closer applies here. Understanding the twists and turns of the class struggle is key to applying the correct slogans and understanding of what period we are in and how we can best put forward a programme to change society towards a socialist transformation of society. While I don’t read the capitalist press religiously it does pay all workers if they can to take an interest in the wider economy out there to see where we are going and to independently educate ourselves. Watching our own news and our own material will only tell you so much it’s good to get a rounded out perspective on the world and the way society is heading. Its key for all revolutionaries who have a aim in changing society to understand capitalism and how it works this does not mean agreeing with it but to over throw capitalism we must understand it where its weakness’s lie and when it is most venerable. These tend to be the points just before an incline or just after a crash Trotsky’s curve of capitalist development is an excellent piece to get to grip with this idea of when workers can go on the offensive and will be most confident of wins. But we are now in a huge downturn in capitalism and there will be opportunities for workers to come to power many opportunities. We must learn the lessons to be prepared to take those chances when they arise. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history as they say.

13 trillion in tax evaded each year by super rich, time for socialist change ?

Below i re publish a excellent article bpunblished on the CWI website www.socialistworld.net £13 trillion hidden from tax by super-richwww.socialistworld.net, 04/08/2012 website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI Take the wealth off the 1%! Naomi Byron, Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales), first published in the Socialist A sum of money the size of the US and Japanese Gross Domestic Product (GDP) together is being held in offshore tax havens. This enormous hoard could immediately pay off most of the deficits and debt that are being used to justify austerity, and create millions of jobs. Instead it sits in places like the Cayman Islands, making the tax dodgers that put it there even richer. The report by James Henry for the Tax Justice Network, shows that between £13 trillion and £20 trillion has been looted from national economies so that the super-rich can avoid paying tax. It’s no exaggeration to say that we are ruled by the very people that are dodging tax. In Britain ’Lord’ Ashcroft, who was treasurer of the Tory party for years and has donated more than £10 million to its coffers, has most of his wealth offshore so he won’t pay UK tax. The fortune David Cameron inherited comes partly from his father’s use of tax havens. One rule for us... Trust me, I’m a banker - Youth Fight for Jobs Austerity Games, July 2012, photo Paul Mattsson Far from too much money being spent on public services, it is the banksters, speculators, profiteers and tax dodgers who are the cause of the massive debt burden being used to enforce austerity on the 99%. But when Barclays and Bob Diamond are caught fiddling millions, or HSBC seems to be using their massive finances to help gun-running, money laundering and terrorism, they hardly receive a rap over the knuckles. Henry points out that with the sums looted from sub-Saharan Africa, many of the countries there could have paid off their debts entirely. However in this respect the report misses the point - most "highly indebted poor countries" have already paid off their "debts" many times over. But because of the economic power of imperialism and the legalised robbery of the finance industry, the interest alone has now ballooned to sums that would make a loan shark proud. Not a penny more should go to pay for these fake debts. We have always been told that capitalism may be unfair, but it is the best system available because it creates jobs and wealth. This report exposes the big lie that private profits will be ploughed into creating more wealth. The money sitting in tax havens dwarfs even figures like the £750 billion currently sitting un-invested in the banks of big business in the UK. Capitalism is not only creating misery for billions, it is a bankrupt system, incapable of maintaining current living standards let alone taking society forwards. As long as the banking and finance industries remain under the control of the looters, we have no chance of even enforcing the existing puny laws on the super-rich. Public ownership The banks must be taken into public ownership, and run under democratic workers’ control, in the interests of the 99%. Free personal banking, with cheap loans for small businesses and cheap mortgages. The banking system, like health and education, should be run in the benefits of society as a whole, not a minority of super-rich speculators.

Learning from trotsky’s transitional programme

Many people will be unfamiliar with Leon Trotsky’s Transitional programme which he set out in the 30’s which Trotskyist parties across the world worth their salt have looked to base their programme on. The Socialist party formally Militant Labour and part of the CWI the Committee for Workers International which I’m a member of would claim to look towards and formulate a transitional programme which can fit to the current consciousness of the working class at a given period.

Trotsky described the situation as thus
The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.

Which still till this day is absolutely bang on the money, the leadership of the working class is at best asleep at worst in the pockets of the boss’s and the capitalist class. Trotsky made many points in his original transitional programme and by no means meant it to be a blueprint which to follow but any Marxist worth his or her salt in today’s society will recognise the need to bridge the gap between current consciousness and where we need to be heading. Trotsky in his day recognised this too with the gap between the minimum programmes
It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demand and the socialist program of the revolution. This bridge should include a system of transitional demands, stemming from today’s conditions and from today’s consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat.


Classical Social Democracy, functioning in an epoch of progressive capitalism, divided its program into two parts independent of each other: the minimum program which limited itself to reforms within the framework of bourgeois society, and the maximum program which promised substitution of socialism for capitalism in the indefinite future. Between the minimum and the maximum program no bridge existed. And indeed Social Democracy has no need of such a bridge, since the word socialism is used only for holiday specifying. The Comintern has set out to follow the path of Social Democracy in an epoch of decaying capitalism: when, in general, there can be no discussion of systematic social reforms and the raising of he masses’ living standards; when every serious demand of the proletariat and even every serious demand of the petty bourgeoisie inevitably reaches beyond the limits of capitalist property relations and of the bourgeois state.
The strategic task of the CWI lies not in reforming capitalism but in its overthrow. Its political aim is the conquest of power by the proletariat for the purpose of expropriating the bourgeoisie. However, the achievement of this strategic task is unthinkable without the most considered attention to all, even small and partial, questions of tactics. All sections of the proletariat, all its layers, occupations and groups should be drawn into the revolutionary movement. The present epoch is distinguished not for the fact that it frees the revolutionary party from day-to-day work but because it permits this work to be carried on indissolubly with the actual tasks of the revolution.


As Trotsky says we fight for every reform and defend all the gains of the working class but look to go a lot lot further than just defending reforms won in the past.

The CWI does not discard the program of the old “minimal” demands to the degree to which these have preserved at least part of their vital forcefulness. Indefatigably, it defends the democratic rights and social conquests of the workers. But it carries on this day-to-day work within the framework of the correct actual, that is, revolutionary perspective. Insofar as the old, partial, “minimal” demands of the masses clash with the destructive and degrading tendencies of decadent capitalism – and this occurs at each step – the CWI advances a system of transitional demands, the essence of which is contained in the fact that ever more openly and decisively they will be directed against the very bases of the bourgeois regime. The old “minimal program” is superseded by the transitional program, the task of which lies in systematic mobilization of the masses for the proletarian revolution.

As the socialist party we not only use Trotsky’s transitional programme we actively look to learn and develop it to discover by living and interacting with day to day struggles of the working class able to use our Marxist theory to develop a understanding as to which demands are reasonable at this time to put forward which raise consciousness but also look to move the working c lass forward in its pursuit of power and the eventual over throw of the current exploitative system of capitalism.

The bourgeoisie and their weakness's

As socialists we fight day to day in the class struggle which i have detailed about previously on this very blog. But the eternal class enemy the rich also known as the Bourgeoisie as Karl Marx taught us are not as strong or united as you are lead to believe.. We as the organised working class also known as the Prolitariat as Marx described have huge power if only we'd realise it. The Bourgeoisie are as i have previously explained only interested in increasing and making more profit. They are as we might call today the 1 % of the population we the workers on the other hand make up the rest which is the 99 %.

But we are lead to believe the rich are a very stable class and are very strong and united. That is very wrong as we see today the coalition government working for the interest of the capitalists with the tories and the lib dems this is not a united strong government at all. Quite the opposite. It is probably one of the weakest governments we have ever had. Certainly the tory governments of the past have been stronger. This one if the working class united could have this government on the run or defeated already if it wasnt for a slow and cautious labour movement cautious not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

It is clear to me that capitalists love their profits and their wealth and wish to hang on to it as best they can. As a result every capitalist is pitched against each other. So even among the 1 % there is competition and increased competition to hord more and more wealth for themselves. They dont really work together as a class like the workers can but they are united in the common thought that the working class must pay for any of their mistakes. Including the current deep economic crisis in 2011.

But my main point i want to get across to you the reader is that the bourgeois class is not as strong or as united as they'd like you to think they are weak and can be brought down and over thrown givven a fight. I am not saying they will give up easily at all but i'm saying they can be got at for certain and we must focus on their divisions and cracks in their armour to exploit and expose their system based on greed and more greed.