By John Pickard
We are celebrating International Workers’ Day this week with this article from the archives, written for the Militant in 1985. It is dated in some respects and clearly the perspectives for Eastern Europe turned out wrong, as indeed were the economic perspectives for the main capitalist countries. But the article is nevertheless worth publishing for its commentary on international solidarity and the real meaning of Mayday, especially in the aftermath of the British miners’ strike. Likewise, the general arguments in favour of internationalism as the central component of socialist policy are as valid today as they were then.
Wherever workers organised themselves in trade unions in the past, it was automatic that the widest possible degree of solidarity was always in their best interests. Even in the earliest days of the labour movement, therefore, workers began to reach out to their brothers and sisters in other countries.
The earliest expression of the striving for international solidarity was the formation of the International Working Men’s Association, later known as the First International. Under the leadership of Marx and Engels, this organisation laid the basis of many struggles and movements that crossed the boundaries of the capitalist states
May Day itself came into being as International Workers’ Day from the struggle for the eight-hour day, beginning with the simultaneous strikes and demonstrations in a dozen countries on May 1, 1890. It has been marked ever since as a day of international unity and workers’ solidarity. The importance of international solidarity and an international perspective has never been greater than they are today, nearly a century after the first May Day, as the world workers’ movement enters a new era of struggle.
The most striking feature of the economic crisis affecting British workers is the fact that it is part of a generalised world crisis. There is not a single country or area of the world that is not now faced by social crisis and by a corresponding increase in the movement and activity of the working class. No one country’s economic or political development can take place in isolation from the rest.
Decay and social crisis
In the advanced countries of capitalism, the long post-war boom, lasting from about 1950 to 1975, is decisively at and end. Capitalism faces a long and protracted period of decay and social crisis, with short weak booms, alternating with deeper recessions. The present world boom from, 1980 from 1982, has made virtually no impact on mass unemployment, has generated little new investment and by the beginning of next year will begin to slide again towards recession. Each recession threatens to be deeper than the last and each new recovery more anaemic. Slumps in the past were always characterised by massive overproduction leading to the closure of all industries. Today’s capitalist crisis shows different features but with the same results.
A small number of giant companies dominate the world market. About 90% of world trade is accounted for by only 500 monopolies. Unlike in the past these giant monopolies can accurately anticipate world market conditions so that instead of overproduction the crisis manifest itself as overcapacity.
In periods of recession the main capitalist economies use only about 70% of their productive capacity and even under so-called boom conditions only 80% is utilised the end product however is the same as before closures. In all the advanced capitalist countries reduction in capacity is taking place at the present time
Destruction of productive resources
There is no historical parallel that can be drawn with the massive systematic and deliberate destruction of productive resources globally. The refineries coalmines shipyards steelworks textile mills and engineering plants could all find a use for their products work capacity were planned for social use. But the capitalist market cannot sustain levels of production so resources are wantonly destroyed.
Miners in Britain have just come through a titanic battle to save their jobs and communities. It is a struggle as yet unresolved. Workers in other industries will have been inspired by the miners to fight for their jobs in like manner.
But it is no coincidence that similar struggles are taking place all around the capitalist world. Shipyard workers in Spain, steelworkers in America, miners in France and many others have been forced into bitter conflicts to defend their livelihoods and army of unemployed has been assembled in the advanced capitalist countries as a result of the industrial massacre the last few years. In the OECD countries alone there is an average of 8% unemployed. But even this vast array of unemployed capitalism’s reserve army of labour to use Marxist expression has not prevented the most intense and bitter struggles by those in work to protect their jobs the conditions and their futures.
The socialist reorganisation of production on an international scale could mean a rational unplanned utilisation of the planets resources. Production for social use instead of production for a blind and chaotic market would lead to the elimination of also full ills facing humanity poverty disease ignorance and conflict. But that presupposes the overthrow of the present system. Capitalism the nation state and private ownership of the means of production represent the greatest and most fundamental barrier to social progress.
At the same time the long post-war boom led to a huge increase in trade especially between the advanced capitalist countries themselves resulting in an intensification of the division of labour and therefore to a greater interpenetration between the different economies this has increased created a situation where the world market dominates individual economies more than ever before the giant trading monopolies and big banks can freely move money from one country to another in an astronomical scale affecting currency values interest rates and government policies. 1 million million euro-dollars money, without real backing in productive worth of gold what Marxists term a fictitious capital for floating freely around the European and North American capital markets. This means that in the modern era no capitalist government not even the most powerful can operate economic policies against the trends and pressures of the world market.
Mitterand forced to shift to the right
Thus in a very short space of time the Mitterrand government in France was forced to shift its post-election deflationary policy to a strategy of monetarism. Had this government not change tack the pressure of world finance would have quickly led to a collapse of the Frank massive flight of capital and the complete sabotage of the French economy.
This pressure could only have been resisted by the mobilisation of the French working class, assisted by the international movement, to transform France in the socialist lines but without the socialist programme in perspective Mitterrand responded to the pressure of the market by a sudden lurch from reflation to deflation and the reforms for which French workers campaigned and voted in 1981 were quick quickly changed into counter reforms.
But greater interpenetration of economies means also a greater interpenetration crisis social upheavals and revolution a development for a world phenomenon at the present time. Strikes political crises and upheavals in one country have an immediate effect elsewhere. It is impossible for the labour movement in any one country to seek permanent reforms or social change except in a national context, as part of an international workers movement
In all the countries of capitalism begins in living standards of the post-war years or under consistent attack they have been attempts to cut state expenditure on welfare, health social and educational services used by workers. Expenditure on all moments has gone up for expenditure on the basic infrastructure the state has fallen.
During the period of the post-war boom the pressure of the labour movement produced concessions in social and welfare services all the capitalist countries of Western Europe, North America Japan and Australia. Knowing these reforms are threatened by the developing world crisis of capitalism.
What appeared to be the smiling face of capitalism in the 1950s and 1960s has now been replaced by the real visage, and mean and malicious go countries like Sweden and Denmark and Austria used to be held up by the Labour Party right wing as models of harmonious social development, supported proof that capitalism can provide permanent reforms if properly managed. But even in these states all the gains of the working class in terms of direct wages and the welfare state are now under serious attack.
It was the explosion of world inflation in the early 1970s, when the average world inflation led to 14% that led to a general shift from the policies of budget deficits to monetarism. The capitalist class internationally lost all confidence in Keynesian policies and looked instead for a new panacea in good old-fashioned expenditure cuts and sound budgets. A return to generalised reflation is not possible, because there would be another immediate explosion of inflation on a world scale, but the capitalist class of note the fears the consequences of monetarism in the form of chronic recession, mass unemployment and subsequent mass conflict.
Capitalism creates conditions of class struggle
It is not Marxism but the capitalist system itself which is creating the conditions of class struggle and social appeal. In the firm and created would be the struggles of the organised working class that would be the decisive factor.
Even the poorest and least developed countries of the world, and the numerically small but economically powerful industrial working class will play the key role in future struggles. One of Africa’s most impoverished countries, the strikes and demonstrations of the working class with the main force behind the overthrow of the hated new Mary dictatorship.
In the Stalinist states in Eastern Europe the economy is increasingly restricted by the dead hand of the totalitarian bureaucracies. Social decay will create or people in these countries also, as workers strive towards genuine workers democracy through political revolution.
The struggles of Polish workers through the Solidarity trade union were in the end unsuccessful largely due to the failure of the Solidarity leadership to raise the banner of political revolution. But other movements were developed in Eastern Europe in the future on the same scale and with the same powerful energy as was displayed by solidarity.
In all these international struggles instinctive reaction of the workers towards international solidarity. Every big strike in any one country is watched and supported by workers in other countries.
The intensity and bitterness of British miners’ strike has set the tone for the kind of struggles that will open up in the future on a world scale. The mine assured an unprecedented degree of courage self-sacrifice and resilience in their long year-long strike.
You will not only ranged against the NCB the CEG B and the government. He also had to fight against the massive bias of the press the police and the courts.
The experience of the strike for miners and their families was a political education that could never have been obtained in 20 years of meetings and discussions. That political education also extended to a concrete understanding of international solidarity. Workers Arundel Hall of the world held their breath for 12 months and watched a historic struggle taking place in Britain. Through visit organised by supporters of militant, many rank-and-file miners went on international tours to explain the implications and developments of the strike and gather solidarity support particularly in the form of finance from ordinary workers.
These experiences will not be easily forgotten by the miners it is one thing for example for the head of an international union born or pounds to send $20,000 or $50,000 by telex to the head of the British trade union. It is a different thing entirely for a rank-and-file minor to report back to his Lodge meetings or his fellow workers the direct experience of XP but discussing with Spanish shipyard workers Danish dockers or French miners.
Rank-and-file British miners visited almost every country in Western Europe as well as the United States Canada and even South Africa. The striking miner who visited South Africa, Roy Jones, was given a marvellous reception by the South African National Union of Mineworkers. Despite their own appalling conditions and wages who were nevertheless prepared to extend the generosity in terms of financial support to the British miners.
Roy Jones was also accorded the privilege of being the only white worker in the world to be made an honorary member of the South African NUM. There is no price that can be put in such international experiences for the British -4 workers overseas who received and discussed with them. Long after the minor stroke has ended the memory of the international solidarity will remain stop
Pitched battles in Danish ports
The miners’ strike had international repercussions in other respects there is no doubt that the recent magnificent general strike of the Danish workers was directly influenced by the British miners. During the course of the miners’ strike, there were pitched battles in Danish ports between the police and dockers, who were trying to prevent the movement of Skype call into Britain. These examples of work as internationalism are not written in textbooks or in scholastic works but in the language opponent notes picket lines and police truncheons.
Wherever it is possible the improvised and transient forms of international support must be regularised. He instinctive strivings for international solidarity was becoming permanent and concrete organisational expression.
It was for example an important step forward when workers representatives from all the European Ford plants meeting last month in Liverpool established a permanent body to coordinate action against the Ford company. Such international combine committees can be of enormous benefit to the separate workforces preventing the bosses from playing off one country against another.
But while the industrial arm of the Labour movement seeks to defend the gains of the past and advance the conditions of workers, there also remains the political task of establishing a perspective and a programme for the struggle for socialism internationally.
In the modern Epoch even more than in: 60 the struggle for socialism has to be an international one. The transformation of society in Britain or in any other single country would be furiously resisted by the capitalist class international, and its success would only be guaranteed by the support of the Labour movement in other countries by an international movement for socialism. All too often labour and trade union leaders make fine speeches about internationalism on May Day, but then retreat were narrow international outlook on the other 364 days of the year. There concrete day-to-day policies, including import controls exporting unemployment backing Britain and so on take no account of their May Day speeches or of the real situation, that socialism cannot be built in any one company in isolation from the rest.
International internationalism must become an integral part of the movement of workers of all countries.
The Labour Party is nominally part of the Socialist International. Every Labour Party conference report lists the series of NEC delegations to this or that international meeting or the names of foreign delegates received in Britain. But within the international there is no attempt to work towards a genuine International Labour organisation within a common perspective or programme.
Genuine internationalist ideas
Like the respective capitalist governments, the separate parties of the international of cordial relations with one another but are careful not to criticise or interfere each other’s internal domestic affairs. When you go home from their conferences, the narrow nationalism of their own This class once again holds sway.
The struggle for genuine socialist ideas within the Labour Party therefore must also mean a struggle for those genuine internationalist ideas that would bind the separate organisations of the working class it will militant fighting international movement. The world working class movement has enormous potential economic and social strength. It stands on the threshold of the most disturbed period of human history is capitalism and Stalinism sure the incapacity to provide the necessary means of life stop
At the same time science and technology have created the possibilities undreamed of plenty. Micro technology in particular is open the way to the automation of tens of thousands of productive processes. The potential of the world’s resources is immeasurable. Even now as if mocking the mass starvation in large areas of Africa and Asia, the planet is producing more food per head of population than at any time in human history. Simultaneously $800 billion is wasted on arms around the world every year. One quarter of all research and development is orientated towards weapons of mass destruction.
The only obstacle to the liberation and development of mankind is private ownership of the means of production and the nation state. May Day must be used by the Labour movement to reaffirm the pledge to do away with this rotten system international, to link with workers in all other countries in a fraternal movement of solidarity and strive for the socialist transformation of society not only in Britain but in Europe and the entire world.
April 29, 2019
