Volume 6, No. 5, May 2005

This day has been immortalized in the history of the working class as the day, not only in remembrance of the heroic Chicago martyrs, but as the day symbolising the assertion of the workers as a class. Such true assertion is impossible without the consciousness of the workers for the total destruction of all forms of wage slavery and bondage to capital. Historically, trade unionism was one step forward in this assertion of working class rights; but in itself it does no bring freedom from bondage. For this proletarian ideology is a pre-requisite, as without communist thinking and action it is impossible to break the chains that bind the working class and all other oppressed sections to this cruel and exploitative system. Mere struggles for petty economic gains for oneself, though necessary, does not build the consciousness for total emancipation. This comes from an understanding of the need to struggle not merely for oneself, but also for one’s fellow brethren, and against all forms of injustice afflicting this system. Besides, the working class can liberate itself only through liberating the entire oppressed humanity.

It is the revisionist of all hues who have kept the workers chained hand-and-foot to big capital. May Day has ceased to have the importance it once had, and if at all celebrated it is more a routine affair divorced from struggle and the political significance of working class emancipation. No matter what the intellectual hacks of the bourgeoisie may say about the "end of history", it was Marx who opened the doors to a scientific understanding of history and its inevitable development forward, achieved through the emancipation of the working class and evolvement of socialism.

That was over one-and-a-half centuries back. But, time does not stand still; nor can one turn the clock back. Much has happened in this period. The 20th century witnessed not only two major socialist transformations, it also ended with their reversals. The victory of socialism in some major parts of the globe, and its development for some three decades in both countries, is a vindication of the science of Marxism, first put forth by Marx and Engels and later developed by Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Their reversal indicates some lacunae in these first ever experiments where the oppressed become the ruling class. Generations and centuries of class thinking obviously take time to uproot, while the privileges of power can intoxicate even the best, unless coupled with the antidote of continuous struggle against bourgeois values and bourgeois right. And herein lies the brilliance of Mao and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which further developed the science of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The echoes of the GPCR — fight revisionism, fight self; restrict bourgeois right; partake in social production and labour; deepen the socialist education movement; take class struggle as the key link; red and expert; grasp revolution, promote production; it is right to rebel; etc — resound even today reminding the genuine revolutionaries of the pitfalls that push one into the mire of revisionism and class collaboration. On this May Day we cannot but recall this major contribution of Mao that can help us keep on the true proletarian path.

Betrayal of the working class in the name of the working class is the fashion of the revisionists, Trotskyites and other fake Marxists the world over. Marxism does not need idolization of the workers or any individual — it is a science, which evolves and develops, to be wielded for the furtherance of democratic and proletarian revolutions as steps towards the ultimate goal of communism. Marxism is no dogma, but a guide to action; an outlook, an approach, a tool with which to understand all and any aspect of society, in order to change it for the better.

On this May Day in 2005 it is particularly necessary to uphold the revolutionary traditions of the working class; as the earlier and current betrayals by the revisionists have pushed them deep into the morass of reformism and economism making them open prey to the massive attacks of Capital. In this period of Globalisation, and more particularly since Sept 11 2001, capital’s offensive on the working class is on a scale not seen since World War II. Though the workers have been leading heroic battles in defence of their rights, the continuous betrayals by their union leadership has been blunting the edge of these struggles resulting in horrific conditions for the workers. Unemployment, hunger and poverty which are endemic in the backward countries are now beginning to haunt the workers even in the developed countries. Wage cuts, casualisation of labour, longer working hours, reductions in social welfare and pension schemes, labour flexibility and removal of Trade Union rights, etc etc are all being pushed through by governments throughout the world in the interests of Big Capital. In addition, the fascist teeth of the bourgeoisie are beginning to show in all countries and the mask of bourgeois democracy is being torn asunder.

Imperialism/capitalism in crisis will seek ever-greater attacks on the working class in the days-to-come and unless freed from the trammels of bourgeois/revisionist unionism success in battles against capital cannot be expected.

So, on this May Day in the year 2005 the clarion call of the working class could be: "Resist the Offensive of Big Capital"; "Free the working class movement from the betrayers"; "Ally with all other Oppressed sections for the Total Emancipation of the masses of people".

But to realize these slogans it is not possible without once again taking stock of the present state of the working class within the overall framework of the international situation and the challenges and opportunities it posses to the working class in general and its vanguard in particular.

Notwithstanding the higher growth rates reported last year, unemployment is shooting through the sky. In just the one month of March this year, Germany lost 90,000 jobs to push the unemployment rate to over the 5 million mark (unofficial figures put it at nearer 6 million) amounting to 12% of the labour force — the highest since World War II and parallel to what existed during the Great Depression that saw the rise of Hitler to power. The figures in France are much the same. So also is the case in the US and other imperialist countries.

The worst case scenario in the imperialist countries has been those of the earlier Soviet bloc. Poverty levels in Russia have gone up from 2% in 1990 to 40% in 1998 while the handful of conglomerates has made billions in this period. Life expectancy has gone down drastically. And in these horrifying conditions Putin has just brought a series of ‘reforms’ that push the already starving population deeper into poverty. In January the government sought to remove all benefits to pensioners, the military and police. It replaced free public transport, free medicines, reduced payment for power and gas, etc, with a nominal hike in cash payments. It plans further reforms in the health, education and housing sectors. Massive militant demonstrations throughout the country forced a partial reversal of the measures.

In China the closure of 3,300 public sector units has led to the displacement of 6.2 million workers. Recently the government has decided to open up four vital sectors of the infrastructure to private investment: power, telecom, rail and civil aviation. This would mean lakhs more thrown out of jobs. France has been rocked by massive demonstrations against the government’s attempts at raising the working hour week from the existing 35 hours.

The US leads the way in matters of anti-labour legislation. In the public sector, about 40% of all workers are denied basic collective bargaining rights. Over two million employees of the federal government fall under the 1978 Federal Labour Relations Act, which outlaws strikes, proscribes collective bargaining over hours, wages and economic benefits and imposes extensive management rights. Legislative restrictions on trade union rights exclude 32 million workers from collective bargaining while private companies continue to harass trade unionists and discourage all attempts to unionise. In addition, the massive shift from blue-collar to white-collar employees is rooted in the process of extracting monopoly super profits in a world economy that is stagnating at the level of production. Similarly, another important change in the composition of the working class – the growing shift from permanent to temporary/part-time/flextime employment – is to a great extent associated with a changeover from the old Fordist model of mass production to lean production or just-in-time (JIT) production. The latter means producing – and supplying to the market – the exact quantity, quality, and specification of products or services demanded within a very narrow time-frame. It utilises high-speed transport and communications and computerised accounting to establish instantaneous reciprocity between demand and supply, thereby reducing costs of keeping big inventories and stocks of finished products. Such a system can operate only on the basis of unrestricted hiring and firing of workers or a high degree of casualisation. Thanks to the internet, in many cases it is possible to get the job done by workers at home. Apart from JIT, non-standard employment is resorted to for other purposes like reducing the wage bill and avoiding the hassles of dealing with a unionised workforce. It takes different forms and is popularly known in America as "Brazilisation", i.e., the extension of labour practices initiated in Brazil. We can gauge how rapidly such practices are spreading in the advanced industrialised countries from the fact that in the European Union the percentage of employees with a temporary contract increased by about fifty percent between 1985 and 1998: from 8.4% to 12.8%. In 1996, no less than 49% of European employees with a length of service of less than one year were working on a temporary contract. Indeed, the most striking development in the New Economy for many has been the end of the 40-hour week: Americans now log more hours on the job than workers in any other industrialized nation. But growth in real hourly payment has dropped. Most jobs are of a casual nature and now many have to take two jobs to earn as much as they did through one a couple of years back. Besides, in the US 2 million prisoners (the largest number in the world) are used as modern-day slave labour — the bulk of the big TNCs, including those like Microsoft use this labour for which barely any payment is made.

Another important development in the composition of the working class is feminisation: the transfer of mostly low-skill jobs to a workforce that is expected to be more pliant and less costly. The process has been going on for a long time in industry, agriculture, mining and service sectors, and more or less in all countries. In the European Union, for example, 20 million out of 29 million new workers joining the labour force between 1960 and 1990 were women.

High technology and the internet is being used on a huge scale to shift jobs out of the country to low wage enclaves like East Europe, India or other backward countries of the world. The so-called BPO business is thriving The Guardian revealed that the National Rail Enquiries service is likely to move to Bangalore, in south-west India. Two days later, the HSBC bank announced that it was cutting 4,000 customer service jobs in Britain and shifting them to Asia. BT, British Airways, Lloyds TSB [and many other firms] have already begun to move their call centres to India … In August, The Evening Standard came across some leaked consultancy documents suggesting that at least 30,000 executive positions in Britain’s finance and insurance industries are likely to be transferred to India over the next five years. In the same month, the American consultants Forrester Research predicted that the US will lose 3.3 million white-collar jobs between now and 2015 which will shift to the backward countries.

The following table gives the extent of the attacks on the working class of the developed countries:

From the above table it can be seen that during this period of globalization that the cost of labour has been actually dropping; in real terms it would mean an actual decline in living standards.

Finally, the top 500 TNCs of the world have seen their net profits grow by a gigantic 60% in 1993 and over 45% in 1994. These huge increases in profits have been squeezed from the blood of the working class.

The situation in the backward countries is ten times worse than in the developed countries. Here, aggressive finance capital in this period of globalization has destroyed the lives of millions of workers and employees. The Latin American countries have been devastated. Counties like Argentina, Ecuador, etc have not only seen unemployment rise to 25% but the entire savings of the population wiped out due to a run on the banks to pay off foreign debts. All other countries too have been badly hit by the policies of liberalization and privatization, as in India.

In India the massive displacement of organised labour has led to a virtual end to any opportunity for a permanent job (except in the army and police). During the last six years 8.4 million people have come of employable age. Where will they go? Temporary jobs, casual jobs, contract jobs are all that is available. In the organised sector the number of jobs have actually been declining. As per the World Bank instructions jobs have to reduced in the public sector even further. The railways plan to reduce it by a further 3 lakhs; the state governments by 2-5 lakhs and the centre by 5 lakhs. Banks have already given 1 lakh employees VRS reducing its force by 12%. All private sector companies are continuously downsizing. For example TISCO has reduced its labor force in the past five years from 75,000 to about 45,000. The situation has got so bad that the unorganized sector in manufacturing has jumped from 28% in 1993/94 to 39% in 2000. The extent to which the workers are being squeezed by capital is indicative by the fact that the percentage of wages in value added has drastically dropped while that of profits have risen. In the two decades from 1981 to 2000 the percentage of wages dropped from 30% to 18%; while that of profit rose from 47% to 62%. All trade union laws in the country are being amended to totally bind the working class of the country to the ruthless domination of capital.

Such then is the scenario world wide for the working class. But the workers throughout the world are not taking this attack quietly; they are rising up in more and more militant attacks on capital.

This year has witnessed a massive upsurge in the working-class movement in Europe, Russia and the USA, besides other countries of the world. There has, in fact, been a rising tide in these movements ever since the impact of globalization began to be fully felt. Prior to the massive movements against globalization and war, initiated by the actions against the Seattle meet of the WTO in 1998 there were huge political mobilizations. Kim Moody wrote in 1997 that there were at least two dozen political general strikes in Europe, Latin America, Asia and North America between 1994 and 1997 - more than at any time in the 20th century. In 19996 alone, there were over seven general strikes in various parts of the world against privatization plans, pension cuts, unlivable wages, anti-worker, anti-strike legislations and other anti-people policies entailed by imperialist globalization.In Germany in 1996 1.1 million workers stuck work against the cancellation of the continuation of wage payments in case of illness planned by the then Kohl government.

In Germany the massive strike at the Opel (General Motors) plant in October last year was accompanied by working-class strikes at Bosch, Siemens, Daimler-Chrysler as well as the Monday demonstrations and the March on Berlin. Though the Opel strike was betrayed by the Union leadership there is now much more assertion of shop-floor level leadership.

In February this year strike activity swept entire France. Over three lakh wokers demonstrated against the government’s plan to extend the working hour week. The changes could result in workers working 48 hours instead of the present 35 hours. In total 3,21,000 people joined 140 demonstrations across France.

In January this year militant demonstrations stuck entire Russia after the government’s new legislations to cut welfare measures particularly of pensioners and government employees. Road and rail blocks, occupation of government build-ings were accompanied by student protests and tacit support from the army and police.

In the USA tens of thousands of workers have either threatened to go on strike or have gone on strike. This is because the corporations have tried to reduce the impact of the current economic crisis by either firing workers, reducing salaries, freezing raises, or reducing benefits. The traditional tactics of the trade union leadership to broker deals with management has not worked. The workers are now undertaking shop-floor level initiatives and leadership is emerging from the rank-and-file. In 2003 there has been a surge of strikes and protests. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) led many struggles against the plans for retrenchment. ILWU has traditionally been one of the most militant unions and even struck work in solidarity with the Seattle protests and shown solidarity with international workers from South Africa to El Salvador. The lockout of 10,500 dockworkers caused 29 docks on the western coast to shut down causing an estimated $2 billion loss per day to the US economy. The US President invoked to Taft-Hartley Act which forced the workers to get back to work.

Britain has seen massive strike activities this year in February and March against the huge ccuts in pensions. Employment in the manufacturing sector has been falling for years and has dropped by one million since Labour come to power in 1997 to a record low of 3.5 million. 26,000 more jobs were lost in the first three months of this year.

In India too we have seen big strike activities particularly in the Public sector, but all these have been brutally crushed by the governments at the Centre and States and betrayed by the revisionist and bourgeois leadership. The strikes of the state government employees of Rajasthan, Bihar, J & K, Tamilnadu have gone on for months. In Rajasthan 2,500 were arrested; in J & K ESMA was invoked; in Tamilnadu over 5,000 were removed from their jobs and hundreds arrested on the very second day of the strike. In the UP strike of the Electricity Board workers against privatisa-tion 17,000 were arrested and 3,000 dismi-ssed. Though most have been given their jobs back they have had to re-start work in even more humiliating conditions. Also there were the all-India strike activities in 2001 and 2002against the draconian amend-ments to the labour laws and Maharashtra even saw a successful bandh call, these struggles were not taken forward due to the bourgeois/revisionist union leadership.

So we see all over the world there is a rising tide in the working class movement but it is a continuous losing battle due to the betrayals of the leadership and the viciousness of the rulers. The hard won rights of the workers are being gradually eroded and their standard of living pushed down drastically. Continuous defeats in battles for economic demands also tend to lead to demoralistaion. And this is just what the revisionists desire to maintain their hold as brokers of the management. But, through these defeats there is also arising a new shop-floor leadership. Also there is utmost urgency to devise the ways and means of orgnaising the unorganized sector which are growing by leaps and bounds particularly in the underdeveloped countries.

On this May Day of 2005 let the class conscious proletariat take stock of their victories and defeats and work out new tactics to face the challenges of the day and thereby beat back the growing offensive of capital. The workers no doubt have a "world to win", but only if they are able to shake off the shackles that bind them to reformist trade unionism.

Today, in this period of imperialist globalization, the slogan "Workers and oppressed people of all countries unite" is all the more relevant.

Enhanced economic exploitation is coupled with growing political enslavement, particularly by US imperialism, throughout the world. This is likely to have serious repercussions for the oppressed people of the world as wars and aggression will hit them most. On this May Day one has to take stock of this growing danger.

It is clear, using the ‘mandate’ Bush received in the elections, the US imperialists plan to continue their aggressive war-mongering polices abroad, while increasing fascist repression at home. The root cause of the present volatile world situation is the deepening crisis in the imperialist economies, particularly that of the US. The growing crisis is pushing the US imperialists particularly into a frenzy to seize markets and sources of raw materials and keep other imperialist powers (specifically Europe & Russia) away. Faced with a record trade gap of $617 billion in the last year (a massive 24% increase over the previous year), a huge budget deficit of $450 billion, a public debt of $1,500 billion (the highest in the world) and a continuous fall in the value of the dollar — US imperialism is desperate. With the value of the dollar having fallen by 40 to 50% vis-à-vis the Euro, central banks of many countries have already started shifting their reserves away from the $ to the Euro. The trend will gather momentum if even a part of the global petroleum trade starts getting invoiced in Euros (a trend started by Saddam, but reversed after the US aggression). There is speculation that given the present geo-political scenario, Russia may start that trend, followed by Iran and Venezuela. This is the first time that the US has had to face a serious challenge to the dollar. Today it is no longer able to sustain primacy of the $ through mere economic competition, but by flexing its military muscle.

It has renewed its aggressive posturing in West Asia, once again openly threatening Iran and Syria. It is said that the Americans already have commandos working in Iran and is heavily pursuing old monarchial elements to destabalise the country. Israel has openly stated that it does not rule out missile attacks on Iran’s nuclear installations; and the US openly states it is willing to give diplomacy a chance before a direct attack. In Lebanon it master-minded the assassination of the ex-Prime Minister and then put the blame on Syria. It then organised the so-called ‘cedar revolution’ to oust Syrian troops in Lebanon and put pressure on the popular Hezbollah. In Palestine, Israel puts pressure on its new puppet, Mahmoud Abbas, to destroy and disarm the militant Palestinian groups. In addition, the new hawkish Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, has extend the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’ to ‘Outposts of Tyranny’ including in addition Burma, Zimbabwe and Belarus. According to her all these are in need of "regime change".

In Russia’s backyard it organised the so-called ‘orange revolution’ in Ukraine and a repeat in Kyrgyzstan, dislodging legally elected governments. In this they had the backing of Europe against the pro-Russian rulers. Since the last couple of years Washington has been expanding its influence in the arc of the former Soviet republics — in the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the Balkans (Bulgaria, etc), the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, etc) and Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan) — with an aggressiveness that has disturbed Russia. But in both the latest cases the Russians have outmaneuvered the US and have, to some extent, won over the opposition put in power by the US. Besides, soon after the Bush-Putin Summit, Russia formally signed a nuclear fuel agreement with Iran; and took a decision to sell arms to the (anti-US) Chavez government in Venezuela.

In Europe, in spite of a high profile Bush visit after getting elected, conflicts continue to aggravate. Trade disputes are intensifying with the EU now having slapped sanctions against the US for not implementing a WTO decision to cut subsidies. The acute disputes between the two have continued to put the WTO into a state of freeze which has been continuing ever since the Doha round of negotiations began. On Iraq the major EU countries give lip sympathy to the fake regime but are not willing to send its forces. In a most strange incident an Italian secret service agent after being released by her Iraqi kidnappers faced a volley of fire by US forces as her car entered Baghdad airport. She miraculously escaped, with injuries, though her bodyguard was killed. This created a storm in Italy and till now it is not clear as to why she was targeted!!! American dealings worldwide are getting murkier and murkier.

The US’s aggressive plans worldwide can well be understood by its two latest appointments. The new president of the World Bank appointed by the US in end March is none other than Paul Wolfowitz, the ex Deputy Secretary of Defence. He is known as one of the most aggressive hawks of the ‘neocon’ establishment of the Bush administration and the main architect of the Iraq war. It was he who demanded occupation of Iraq even during the 1991 war and openly advocated attacks within days of the 9/11. He is passionately pro-Israel. He was one of the early theorists of pre-emptive strikes against nation states. He was also ambassador to Indonesia when Suharto butchered 2 lakh East Timorians. And now this Wolf (Bush affectionately calls him Wolfie) is to take control of the World Bank which lends countries $20 billion a year. One can well imagine now how these funds will be used by this megalomaniac.

But this is not all. A couple of weeks earlier Bush appointed a new ambassador to the United Nations Security Council. This is one John Bolton, a State Department’s senior arms control official and a known UN-baiter. This notorious cowboy once said "the UN security Council should have only one permanent member, because this would correctly reflect the distribution of world power". He is also known to have said that the "UN is valuable only when it directly serves the US". He has made no secret of his belief that the body should be radically restructured to make it more acceptable to the US.

This is only the extreme military face of the US administration. It means merely the pursuance of economic interests through military means. Those that do not face direct military attacks will face increasing forms of bullying, arm-twisting, economic and political blackmail, etc. if they dare resist US dictates.

In India we see this all-round attack of the imperialists — in industry and finance, in agriculture, in health care, in education and culture, in the military, police and intelligence services, and in fact in every sphere of the life of the country. Military aggression has not been necessary as the ruling class servilely fall at the feet of the imperialists. They docilely implement all their dictates as can be seen with the latest enactions of the new Patent Act the new tax reforms in VAT, the further opening out of banks to foreign investments, the reduction in customs duties even further, etc etc. All these are having a disastrous impact on the lives of the people of the country. In India though all imperialists compete it is primarily the US imperialists that call the tune.

So, throughout the world there is need to propagate the call to the people to "fight back the Aggressive war designs of US imperialism" and mobilise the masses worldwide against all the war steps of the US throughout the world.

So, on this May Day in the year 2005 there is need that the working class of all countries be aroused by the following three main slogans:

* Win back Genuine Proletarian Ideology to the Working Class

* Workers and oppressed people of all countries unite

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