CAPITALIST EUROPE 1992:
bourgeois plans and
workers' perspectives
1. Europe at the centre of the new world situation
THE EVENTS that have taken place in Eastern Europe and the open crisis the Stalinist regimes overturns the order established after World War II. A :*:cess has begun during which the landmarks and politico-strategic refer:%ies forged during 45 years of the ideology of "blocs" are going to become :ialete. -lthough at first the collapse of Stalinism could benefit capitalism and cial democracy ideologically, and widen the direct or indirect sphere of ș:tal domination, over time there exist a number of destabilizing elements : the imperialist system itself. These fantastic mass movements, mobilizing : i of thousands of workers and youth, also illustrate the explosive charge of ie-ocratic demands and the challenge to privileges. -nese events change the world situation profoundly, and give the political - : social situation in Europe a fundamental role. -ne upheavals in Eastern Europe are combined with a thoroughgoing reor:_ization of the political and economic situation in Western Europe. The e pective of integrating capitalist Europe, and the political and social future :the societies in the East, will not be resolved independently. Both have
126 International Marxist Review important implications. Even if at first the question is above all one of political and ideological correlation, the socio-economic factors will play an increasingly important role. For all that, the outcome of struggles in Western Europe will remain essentially determined by the class conflicts that will unfold in each country.
It is not only the existing states and regimes that try to resolve these problems by proposing various organizational deals, from the "common house" to the project of a European confederation. They are also raised for all the political or social movements trying to elaborate a coherent framework for analysis and action. While the course of struggles remains basically determined by the national political situation, social conflicts in Europe increasingly interact and thus require a new overall thinking.
The political conditions for our intervention in Europe, as well as for all revolutionaries and radical militants in the unions and social movements, have therefore changed. This new situation demands a great deal of analysis; it will introduce new discussions around both political perspectives and strategic questions.
The problems of building the Fourth International in Europe have evolved. The dialectic of struggles between Western and Eastern Europe has been reinforced and modified. New ways of building our movement throughout Europe are gradually taking shape, in the perspective of revolutionary parties rooted in their national reality. 2. The world economic crisis is accompanied by a change in the organization of capital with the appearance of new dominant sectors, changes in the international division of labour and in the forms of domination over third-world economies. European capitalist countries are at the centre of these changes.
In this context, the ruling classes are reorganizing by searching to put into place elements to resolve the crisis.
a) Some new technologies have been applied to production, above all in the area of production techniques themselves, and they have sometimes changed work organization dramatically in industries and the service sector. Profits have been partially re-established since 1984 and the rate of exploitation increased. The questioning of protectionism and the opening up of markets is redefining the terms of competition between different sectors and firms. Mergers and takeovers are accelerating, leading to a colossal strengthening and centralization of capital.
The economic depression does not only mean austerity policies, unemployment and increased poverty. It has contributed to modifying the composition
1992: hourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 127 :: the proletariat and to shaking up the workers' movement. A new socioelitical framework has been sketched out, different from that in which the 'est European workers' movement was consolidated during the previous 30 ears of growth.
?, States have continued to lose their capacity to define their own "nationeconomic policies confronted by the growing internationalization of eco•mic processes. This exacerbates the contradictions between new *Quirements to exploit capital, the confines of national states and their consuing social regulatory function.
The Single European Act (SEA) is seen by the bourgeoisies and European -ultinationals as a dynamic element that could help them out of the crisis. -re social relationship of forces are therefore not only played out at factory * workplace level or in terms of strike activity: the stakes are so high for the : Et and the project of an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) that they ... weigh on the future relationship of forces. : But while the bourgeoisie has made some advances in establishing a =*. European context for capital-work relations, the application of new =hnologies and work organization, none of this is yet sufficiently extensive - i nothing has crystallized out in terms of a state structure. Juring the crisis up until now, the bourgeoisies have only very rarely car- =¿ out a frontal attack against the workers as a whole: profits have been subintally reduced for a whole period but have not collapsed; moreover the rength accumulated by the working class in the preceding period would •-e made any over-eagerness by the bourgeoisie to go for a rapid show:: an adventurist. In spite of numerous debates on the role of the state, the --ing classes have not needed to dismantle the "welfare state". For now, in *sponse to state indebtedness they have been content to qualitatively reduce :: scope, something that has hit only a section of the population. In Europe, *÷2-Keynesian policies have never been totally abandoned. Some of the late -"Os' projects of using the crisis to dismantle fundamental social gains have :•en way to a more prudent strategy: more of a gradual erosion by stages - an a frontal attack. This is one of the major difficulties for the bourgeoisie: the contradiction eiween the need to substantially decrease social spending and labour costs - rile prioritizing the maintenance of general conditions for realizing surplus siue. A new equilibrium would need a much more radical change in the - orld relationship of forces against the working class. Nothing of the sort has *: occurred, even if it is true that some elements of such a deterioration have
128 International Marxist Review begun to appear. d) The other possible perspective for the capitalists could be that of opening up East European markets, beginning with the Soviet Union, alongside the possibility of making sizeable new investments. The bourgeoisie is using the crisis of the Stalinist dictatorships to give itself new political and economic possibilities. The absorption of East Germany by the Federal Republic symbolizes this link between the problems of European integration and the political changes that have occurred in the East.
However, there is already a gap between desires, feasibility and accomplishment. The first steps towards productive investment — substantial and not marginal — in these countries will give rise to new social contradictions even before there is any question of re-establishing capitalism as the dominant mode of production. The bourgeoisie will draw out from the crisis of the Stalinist dictatorships new political and economic resources for itself.
e) The crisis of US hegemony has deepened over the last ten years. The German and Japanese economies have become higher-perfoming in many sectors than that of the USA, and have carried along some European economies in their wake. The events in Eastern Europe are helping to undermine the old "Atlanticist" dependencies and allegiances. The whole imperialist defence doctrine is under discussion today.
This is the context of the discussions about a possible European confederation (including some or all of Eastern Europe) or on the role of the CSCE, as the new all-inclusive framework for imperialist-controlled European security.
The Gulf war also touched on these questions by aggravating the discussion among the Western bourgeoisies on the future of Nato, the possible independence of a specifically "European" military set-up and on sharing the arms markets. B. The threat of the Single Act 3. The Single Act corresponds to the new needs for exploiting capital. Its goal is to create a vast market free from all protectionism, throwing production norms, national regulations, fiscal systems and the conditions in which labour is exploited into free competition. For certain sectors or products, it expresses the collective needs of European industry in the face of Japanese and US competition. But the Single Act also expresses the new needs of the international market in terms of deregulation, restructuring and production alliances that are increasingly realized on a world scale. The idea is to drasti-
:ily reduce protectionism between OECD countries, leading to sharpening impetition and industrial reorganization. So mergers and takeovers do not
- incern only those between European firms aimed at creating a uniform
÷. In this context privatization and deregulation policies have been intensi-
• The social cost of such restructuring has never been taken into account in
-e elaboration of the Single Act. Far from immediately favouring a homog-
-zation of the industrial fabric, working conditions and social protection, he big market exacerbates regional and social disparities, and none of the a esteriori compensatory mechanisms can seriously pretend to ameliorate the
• Far from resolving unemployment, the Single Act first of all implies a est movement of restructuring — in industry and the services — leading to
= losses. In the new market conditions job creation will not reabsorb struc-
--al unemployment or reduce the numbers of those left on the scrap-heap.
The "free circulation" of labour announced by the Single Act remains a uto-
- = that bears no relation to the mass of wage-earners. On the contrary, the
:.isions in the labour market remain marked, while the circulation of capital accelerating. This aggravates the disparity between the availability and the
• The free circulation of capital means revising fiscal systems which reinre the inequality between income from work and capital. Competing
• ¿ional regulations and norms will increase the downward pressure on wag-
*: It sets different working classes against each other on the grounds of their in bourgeoisie's "national" interests. It increases challenges to statutes, vial rights and protection. It also means competition between social regulains, and so particularly opposes the idea of a common social "platform".
iar will the liberal logic that inspires the whole project escape the arena of
-anagement. The reduction of production costs, the development of tempo-
*=?, part-time and flexible work, the new ease with which production can be centralized and so on are integral parts of the mechanisms being estabshed. This is why it is useless to simply want to "amend" the Single Act by adding on some corrective social measures. But this is exactly the aim of the
', made up of generalities and "recommendations" that have
= more chance of preventing the bosses' attacks and overcoming inequalises than the recommendations contained in the Treaty of Rome had in their
European capitalism"
-ercial system in the imperialist countries.
*ed (including on social protection).
ects of the market.
emand for jobs.
Social Charter"
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 129
, but in reality involve the whole industrial and com-
130 International Marxist Review time. 5. The project of an Economic and Monetary Union confirms the necessity for the dominant sectors of the European bourgeoisie to push ahead with economic and political integration. It is also an attempt to bring about a lasting solution to financial and monetary chaos that would otherwise be provoked by the free circulation of capital. But such a process will not be realized without a simultaneous political integration. Without such a more or less combined process the whole system is nothing but a house built on sand.
The recessive wave emanating from the USA and already encompassing some European countries is a very serious threat to this difficult operation. since it is absolutely not certain that a European pole around Germany and the Deutschmark will become strong enough in time to avoid this danger.
• This absence of a European state is gradually becoming an objective limit to economic integration. It has become a major problem at a time when the new opportunities in Eastern Europe have revived competition between European bosses. It is a heavy handicap in terms of the bourgeoisie's necessity for common policies concerning defence, security or immigration control. or when it is necessary to make the EC appear as the nucleus of concentric European institutions, including the association of some of the Eastern countries. It is exacerbated by the unequal development inside the EC itself. between West Germany on one end of the scale and Ireland, Greece and Portugal on the other.
• The same problem is found concerning relations with the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries. They increasingly have economic relations with EC countries. Measures have already been taken more or less aiming for an alliance. Mergers and combines are increasingly affecting both EC and EFTA firms. But total integration cannot take place while the problems of political integration, defence and "neutrality", and legislation remain unresolved.
• This difficulty exacerbates the crises inside the bourgeois parties and produces various about-turns in government policies. It divides "national" capitalist sectors from sectors whose interests are largely international. The dilemma stems from the contradiction between objective needs and the difficulty of going beyond the national states, which for the bourgeoisies remain an instrument both for carrying out their domination over the working class and for strengthening their position in relation to international competition. including inside the EC. Abandoning national prerogatives in order to strengthen common institutions is not an easy choice, in particular for the
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 131 congest of the bourgeoisies, the German bourgeoisie.
• The question of European institutions concentrates all these issues — the *expective role of states, the European Parliament, Commission and Council. -.! these structures have been set up behind the backs of the populations con:amed. None of them can pretend to be democratic.
• In spite of all these difficulties there is already a strong coordination of sonomic and monetary policies, notably inside the European Monetary Sys=m (EMS) where the German Mark plays a pivotal role. There is no doubt *at a section of the ruling classes and some governments have shown a clear = litical desire to overcome objective barriers and as rapidly as possible try
Find ways to a proto-European state (whose first stage will be to give the emmission executive power), combined with the existing states. There is - * the project of speeding up political integration by following the timeta:.= of EMU in order to be capable of responding to what is at stake in Eastern Europe and the integration of the GDR.
• It is also an attempt to promote growth in Germany and, consequently, in -= EC in order to distance themselves as much as possible from the risks of -session. • The question of the absorption of East Germany is causing new contra¿ations to appear. The "unification" operation is complicated and strewn •ith pitfalls for German imperialism and for the whole EC in terms of mone-? disorder and the costs involved. The possibility of carrying through at =e same time the EMU and the integration of the GDR in the long term will :apend on the world economic situation and on German workers' reactions :: the social effects of unification. This is also an attempt to encourage zowth in Germany and thus in the EEC in order to ward off as far as possible he risks of recession: This question, while constituting a relative bloc to the integration of the European Twelve, cannot alone provoke a failure or a reversal in the long :erm of the need for European unification. 6. The EC is heading up the economic and political offensive towards Eastern Europe, as much on the level of proposals for aid, loans and investments is on that of projects for a "confederation" or "federation". • But these projects imply that the Community itself will have resolved its »wn problems of political integration in order to play a role as such. This eads to new tensions inside the Community itself, given the comparative : 'vantages belonging to the different countries and bourgeoisies respectively . is à vis Eastern Europe.
132 International Marxist Review
• The question of bringing these countries back into the capitalist fold remains a very speculative political project for the bourgeoisie itself. Meanwhile, West European firms and governments have to try to find some openings and win business concessions in exchange for their loans, a partial transfer of technology and convertibility of currencies. They operate in relation to these countries using protectionism, industrial decentralization in search of lower wages, loans given after IMF, World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) interventions, loans with strings attached, and the acquisition of holdings or takeovers resulting in redundancies. For this social peace, political stability and a compromise with governments to broaden investment possibilities is rapidly needed.
• This will introduce a new situation in these societies, notably massive unemployment and big differentiations in wages and status. This is going to raise the questions of unequal exchange and subjection to policies decided elsewhere in a new form (different to that of the dependencies vis à vis the USSR).
• The possibilities for aid are, moreover, limited. Investments depend on guarantees offered to investors by the imperialist governments, and they will be given in priority to the countries offering the best infrastructures and most social stability. 7. Unified capitalist Europe itself will continue to be a Europe of women's inequality, of racism and the exclusion of immigrants. Because of the profit logic, it will continue to be unable to solve the big ecological problems. although these are posed at an international level. It will continue to be incapable of resolving the right to self-determination of subjected nations and nationalities, in particular in the North of Ireland and Euskadi, or in colonies such as New Caledonia.
• There is not, strictly speaking, a "European" imperialism. But the EC has found a way of acting in the name of common interests on a series of questions touching on relations with the third world. This Europe, maintaining protectionism vis à vis certain products, is no longer capable of respecting its engagements in the framework of the Lomé Convention. It is incapable of sorting out the debt question, whose social cost is paid by the working populations in the countries concerned. The race for slices of the market, the application of new technologies and the manipulation of interest rates that most European bosses and governments participate in have disastrous consequences for most third-world countries.
It is from the same sort of viewpoint that efforts are made to speed up col-
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 133 aboration between arms manufacturers and to accelerate the establishment :i an integrated European detence system. C. Crisis in the workers' movement and new struggles 3. The establishment of the Single Act is a challenge thrown down to the European workers' movement and to all the social movements. The Europei workers' movement is, moreover, facing this new international conjuncare in a difficult situation.
• The economic crisis and austerity policies have gradually modified the •acio-political conditions in which workers are struggling. In a majority of European countries, the following factors have created a new restricting and sifficult context that has helped to divide or isolate struggles: the appearance : a very high level of structural unemployment (above all, youth and longerm unemployment); the development of insecure employment (above all ar women and young people), short-term contracts and intermittent work; the decline of collective sectoral negotiations in some countries; the growth :f flexibility; the development of external subcontracting; the reduction of Jambers employed in the big companies; the crisis, and even disappearance, * certain working-class communities around traditional industries; and, *nally, the modification of the industrial fabric. The old strong industrial secors, whose workers' won many social victories (sliding scale, union rights, : ollective agreements, social security and so on) that were rapidly extended : the whole of the working class, have gone into crisis and have not yet been :aplaced or are not yet in a situation to play this role once again. • These changes have taken place in a particular political context: after the checking of the Portuguese revolution; the controlled transition in the Spanish state; the impasse of the historic compromise in Italy; the failure of the Union of the Left in France; the disastrous austerity policies of the British Labour Party from 1976 to 1979, which helped Thatcher to defeat them; and he disastrous experience of governments led by social democracy in the : 980s (France, Sweden, Greece, Spanish state). • All this has not happened without leaving its mark on struggles, on their intensity and, above all, their political consequences. The effects have been :elt in all the European countries, at different times, through a marked decline in strike activity. • There have been some important defeats, sometimes with cumulative effects on the whole workers' movement in a country. There has been a visible exhaustion of the generation of the workers' vanguard of the end of the
134 International Marxist Review 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. Among the layer of advanced workers — that is, the workers' vanguard in the struggles — the idea of socialism has lost support, even more so given that in the preceding period there was not a sufficient accumulation of revolutionary forces giving a credible reply to scepticism and a rejection of the Stalinist model.
• Poverty, job insecurity and social marginalization have hit broad sectors of the population, particularly immigrants and "second generation" young people. The educational system rejects them, the workers' movement is not interested and finds itself incapable of responding to their expectations. Their social revolt takes specific, often violent, forms, and constitutes a new, complex problem of organization and politicization. As the social and economic crisis gets worse this will be a lasting problem and a big question for anyone who really wants unity and mobilization of all the oppressed.
• For several years in a certain number of countries we have seen the growth of extreme-right fascist currents without the workers' movement knowing how to prevent it. Racism has been on the rise, with a marked increase in working-class electors voting for extreme-right parties. These fascist forces, who are beginning to address workers specifically and try to use all aspects of the social crisis and the rottenness of bourgeois parliamentarism, will be a stable feature of the new political situation.
Class consciousness has been weakened by all this. And this situation has led to a weakening of both trade-union and political rank-and-file structures, reducing the arenas where class solidarities are crystallized and reproduced.
• Such is the heritage of the recent past. But the particularities of the economic crisis (which have however left the bourgeoisie some economic room for manoeuvre), as well as the scope of the gains and positions won by the workers' movement during the previous 30 years, have for the moment prevented this being translated into a lasting political and social defeat of the working class.
• The bourgeoisie has remained on the offensive, exploiting a favourable relationship of forces. But men and women workers have resisted: they have prevented the bosses' projects being completely implemented or have defeated them. The same goes for women who have also seen their abortion rights threatened, or for young people confronted by austerity policies in education.
• We have also seen over recent years (unequally according to the country and above all in an unsynchronized fashion) rather significant outbreaks of sporadic struggle. This has not only taken the form of the most intransigent fightbacks but also wage demands in line with the enormous profits made in
he recent past, or the demand for reduced working hours. On the basis of rese struggles and the relative phase of expansion recently, in some counles or sectors there has been a resurgence of unionization.
Some new types of struggle have appeared, notably in the public services realthworkers, teachers...) or the most feminized professions, indicating cat a renewal of the strong sectors of the working class was underway.
However these struggles take place in a very unequal fashion throughout
Europe. We have also seem new forms of self-organization developed to
: punter the bureaucratism and crisis of the union movement. However, in the iasence of a political outcome and overall perspectives these movements
Although they have been massive and very determined, the big struggles of re 1980s have still not led to the cumulative development of a new vanguard generation which would make possible a qualitative leap in building our
• There have also been a whole series of struggles among young people,
*eginning with important university and school strikes against austerity polias in education. They show that around concrete demands there is an mense potential for social protest although once again these mobilizations
*ive not represented a political radicalization among young people equivaent in subversive consciousness to that of the end of the 1960s.
• Strong mass movements have been able to develop on trade-union, femiest, anti-militarist or other terrains, mobilizing tens or hundreds of thouinds of people. Such movements will continue to develop. But in their evelopment they will also continue to suffer from the absence of credible
Conditions are therefore difficult. Structural factors linked to socio-
= conomic changes combine with the attitude of the trade-union and reformist
= arty leaderships. It is certainly not the case that the working class and a secon of young people have no capacity left to engage in overall struggles
¿gainst the bosses' policies. But the traditional leaderships oppose this perrective; they block any possibility of convergence of partial struggles,
• hich is the only way of inversing the political and social processes set in
Big social confrontations and new mass experiences will be necessary to vercome all these handicaps. And the role of revolutionaries in encouraging
9. Under the effects of the crisis, of partial defeats and reformist politics, the
:?metimes lead to sectoral isolation.
-ganizations.
cotion by the crisis.
hese processes will be determinant.
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 135
=olitical possibilities for the satisfaction of their demands.
136 International Marxist Review organized workers' movement — trade-union and political - has suffered a series of setbacks and is going through important internal transformations today. The crisis of management and dialogue based on Keynesian politics worsens this turmoil.
• In general, the reformist leaderships have been incapable of consolidating the initial struggles against austerity measures. Aside from demagogic measures and propaganda, they have been unable to reply positively to the changes taking place in the proletariat by organizing the unemployed, women, young people or immigrants, as the situation demands. The increasingly pressing demands for democracy and control have been ignored in favour of increasing cynicism, manipulation and corruption inside the ruling bureaucracies. 10. The trade-union movement has not escaped from this crisis.
• Until now, its scope has been very varied depending on the country, since the rate of unionization of wage-workers in Western Europe varies between 5% and 85%. These qualitative differences are explained by specific trade-union and political histories, or by the various degrees of institutional integration. Not all unions have suffered equally from a loss of efficacity and credibility in confronting new social and economic challenges.
• However, everywhere we are seeing a loss of militant resources and an increasing gap developing between the bureaucracy and the base. In every country, to various degrees, the economic and political crisis of the union leaderships has opened up a new situation in terms of relations between workers and unions and the way in which unions organize the rank-and-file. There has been a total impasse of union strategies and an absence of left alternatives sufficiently credible to change the situation.
• The union bureaucracies are looking for a way out of the crisis by increasingly accepting the choices of European capitalists, and by emphasizing their service functions to the detriment of a class-struggle, democratic and unified trade unionism. "Realism" is spreading and has bit by bit acted as a line of compromise with capitalist projects.
• The European TUC — a bureaucratic apparatus par excellence above the national trade-union movements — reflects this crisis and this inability to adapt to the new challenges via its functioning, projects and policies. It is more preoccupied with finding ways to discuss with the European Commission than engaging in a real fight around demands against the whole of the Single Act. It is busier going along with social democracy's European policies.
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 137
All these accumulated delays can only end in big setbacks and retreats for the unions in the face of the growing internationalization of production and the bosses' strategies.
• Even when the level of unionization is very low in the workplace or in general, trade-union organizations continue to be a framework for the longterm debates about strategic orientation running through the workers' movement. This in recent years there have been several examples of a rise of workers' struggles and progress recorded by oppositional forces in the trade unions. In periods of deeper crisis, the weakening of the trade union constitutes a mortal threat to the workers' ability to fight back. Strengthening the oppositional currents in the trade unions is therefore a concrete and immediate condition for their survival. Revolutionary socialists have to step up their fight to organize such opposition currents around immediate demands for the democratization of the union and around a platform of demands which is in practice opposed to the rightwing policies of the union bureaucrats. 11. The social-democratic parties have confirmed themselves as perfect managers for the bosses' policies. They propose themselves as the main political force with the will and capacity to establish the Europe of the Single Act. • This is not just a conjunctural policy. It corresponds to a new adaptation by the social-democratic leaderships to the new conditions created by the :apitalist crisis. It also highlights a certain number of structural changes at the heart of these leaderships, with a symbiosis between the traditional workers' bureaucracies, technocratic factions (petty bourgeois and bourgeois) of he state and public services and managers of the private sector. Theories about the need to build a "New Left" and the new social bloc (including the most modern and enlightened bosses), correspond to these transformations. L nable and unwilling to develop a real policy to defend social gains, social Jemocracy has substituted an ideology of the "new citizen" and of "democra:!", and has abandoned the last vestiges of a class analysis. It has accepted, er has itself orchestrated, policies of privatization, limitation of trade-union ights, increased military spending and so on. • The working class composition and activist layers of the socialjemocratic parties have dramatically diminished. But their political and elecoral influence has tended to increase in most countries, accompanying the retreats in class consciousness and growing scepticism towards socialism, and partially capitalizing on the crisis of the Communist and far-left parties. Their electors do not have confidence in their projects of big reforms, but
138 International Marxist Review even so they sometimes appear as a minimum guarantee in relation to the projects of the right-wing parties, or as the lesser evil. When in power they practice austerity policies and do what the ruling class expects of them. Today's social democracy is reformism without reforms, weighted down with new contradictions, the bearers of internal conflicts - including into the trade-union movements that they control. 12. The Communist parties, for their part, have experienced a massive crisis.
• During the last few years, in most countries — notably those where the CPs have been in a minority in relation to social democracy for a long time — these parties have either collapsed or exploded, sometimes to the point of nearly disappearing.
• In those countries where the CPs have remained mass parties, sometimes majority ones, the crisis has taken various forms combining massive membership losses, total political disorientation, a complete inability to reply coherently to capitalist projects and an incapacity to propose an alternative and credible line on the economic and social crisis, in particular for the trade unions.
• Above all, they have suffered dramatically from all the effects of the Eastern European regimes' crisis and from the disgust they have increasingly inspired among workers. These parties, which grew again after the World War Il in reference to the divisions in Europe, have been definitively destabilized by the new world situation, while Gorbachev has no more need for these "fraternal parties" as a transmission belt.
• Centrifugal forces were reinforced as soon as a section of the apparatuses integrated themselves permanently into bourgeois state institutions and when links with the Soviet apparatus lost all their substance.
• The crisis of the CPs partially removes an obstacle that revolutionary Marxists have had to confront for the last 60 years. But, for a time, it could provoke new confusion and demoralization, notably in the trade-union sectors influenced by them. In a number of CPs, the idea of renouncing any ideas of radically transforming society or renouncing the "Communist" tradition has been common in the majority currents of the leaderships who are seeking to keep their electoral support and present a more "realistic" profile. But this has also been the case for the minority oppositional currents who have been dragged towards social democracy under the pressure of the crisis and the lack of perspectives.
• The development of discussions and splits in the CPs is also determined today by what's happening in Eastern Europe. There, the extreme weakness
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 139 of those currents claiming to support socialist democracy does not help to give a correct interpretation of Stalinism for those critical sections inside the CPs.
• No substantial and stable left current has yet come out of the crisis of the CPs in Europe, apart from the Greek CP for the moment. A collection of currents inside the CPs are trying to transform themselves into radical forces, centred around "new values" of the "Red-Green" type, aiming at sections of the Greens, the social movements and even the far left. This situation, combined with the weakness of revolutionary Marxists, has negative ideological consequences among certain layers of advanced workers and youth. 13. The Green parties have appeared in the last period as movements winning important electoral victories thanks, in most countries, to the votes of workers and young people. They are often the consequence of a new change taking place inside the left. For example, a section of their activists come from the traditional workers' parties and the far-lett.
Up to now, these parties, particularly electorally, have partially captured the discontent and frustrations born out of the political practice of the social-democratic and Communist parties. Faced with the scale of ecological dangers, threats of nuclear war, racism, poverty in the third world and so on, they have appeared as searching for an alternative society on the base of a radical reformism. These parties as such, or a section of their base, are sometimes prepared to get involved in other struggles.
Although the formation of the Green parties could represent a hope for the regroupment of the non-reformist left, in many cases their electoral gains and their integration into institutions brought about new contradictions. In certain cases this has already led to a rapid adaptation to parliamentary politicians' games or to an ideology of "neither left nor right". This could lead to big divisions within them, leaving disoriented a section of their base which demands satisfactory answers both on ecological struggles and a more overall understanding of the misdeeds of capitalism. 14. Among the new forms of political and social activity that have appeared in the last period figure social movements which, around questions of feminism, anti-racism, anti-militarism, pacifism or ecology have been able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in Europe. Some very important political and social struggles have taken place on these questions, playing a leading role in the activity of sections of the youth, and sometimes posing serious problems to governments. However, these movements have also suffered from the lack of central political perspectives:
• The autonomous women's movement is experiencing an unequal and difficult development, and socialist-feminist currents have declined. There has been a crisis in the peace movement and it now needs to find new themes following the changes taking place in Europe and particularly after the Gulf war. The ecology movement is very dispersed, extremely heterogeneous.
The anti-racist movements maintain a real audience among a section of young people, but they will have to respond to new challenges with the rise
• For revolutionary Marxists, these social movements are not simply timely opportunities. They represent a phenomenon of new social solidarities in the context of the current capitalist crisis. As for the feminist movement, it represents the permanent historic need for women's self-organization to fight
It is therefore necessary to build these movements and lead them under the form of permanent, democratic and unitary structures, at the same time carrying out anti-capitalist educational activity within them. In general, we have a lot of catching up to do in our elaboration and propaganda on questions of defending the environment. Solidarity with the third world will continue to mobilize important forces. Themes against poverty in the third world, the question of human rights and the struggle for peace will continue to mobilize
• Some of these movements that were born at the end of the 1970s or the beginning of the 1980s have been tests in terms of the crisis of the traditional organizations of the workers' movement. In different ways, according to the country, they have often been a means of getting involved in social actions which were barely or not at all under the control of the traditional bureaucrat-
• However, the question of the links between these movements and the parties or unions has come up. The latter should have taken their place, as such, in these movements, while conserving their independence, unity and democracy. But, generally, the reformist leaderships have balked at taking on their responsibilities. They became involved in these mobilizations belatedly, or joined in with the goal of manipulating them and draining them of all subversive content. The more the workers' movement has dragged its feet in contributing to these movements and intervening on these questions, the more it has suffered the consequences in terms of losing credibility, parof the far right.
a series of people.
ic leaderships.
workers' ticularly among young people.
140 International Marxist Review all the specific forms of their oppression.
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 141 D. Build our organizations, build the International 15. The political developments in Eastern Europe have already had an mportant effect on the political debates inside the West European workers' rovement. In the early stages the effects are contradictory: they have accelerated the crisis in the Communist parties and put an end to any final illusions a the Stalinist regimes. At the same time, for the majority of workers they -ave increased disillusionment in the fight for socialism and reinforced the general, the exercise of trade-union and political bureaucratic control over ¿l the activities of the working class and the youth is increasingly difficult. • nus, new forms of radicalization occur in a combined way both inside and atside the traditional organizations. But the present crisis of the workers' rovement should not be interpreted as though the old leaderships have ¿ready been subjectively bypassed. Although having more and more probems in concretely organizing a militant and working-class base, the reform* parties — beginning with social democracy — continue to have a majority afluence electorally and via the trade-unions. Sometimes, particularly in •N'estern Germany, the main European industrial country, the trade-union eaderships still have considerable control over struggles. It is therefore nec*sary to have a line of intervention that takes this reality into account, as «ell as the level of consciousness of the broad sectors still controlled by the =aditional leaderships. This should allow us, as possibilities open up, to comcine party-building tactics inside or outside the traditional organizations including in the revolutionary left, the Greens or among currents leading the acial movements). 17. In the present conditions our organizations must get used to patient, eng-term work • In spite of the struggles and our propaganda efforts, it remains difficult to *ecruit to our organizations and to qualitatively increase membership. In pite of the progress we have made in terms of our implantation and somemes our improved capacities for agitation, we must still give a big place to = Jucation and propaganda. • The rightward evolution of a number of oppositions or splits from the retormist parties, the slide to the right of the Green parties and the crisis of the far-left puts revolutionary Marxists in a difficult situation. These are the :ame general reasons which favour a crisis of disorientation both of far-left orces and of oppositional, critical currents in the reformist parties or breaking with them. In the last few years, working-class struggles have not been ¿ole to exert enough pressure on these currents to make them keep — or
142 International Marxist Review return to — a radical, anti-capitalist orientation. The political difficulties specific to the period have made them more vulnerable to impressionism, to a loss of confidence in workers' struggles and an adaptation to "realism" ". Our own weakness has also weighed negatively on their evolution. The fact that until now currents in Eastern Europe inspired by democratic socialism remain in a small minority accentuates the confusion of those breaking with the CPs or with social democracy in Western Europe.
• In general we can say that the crisis of the left also opens new possiblities for addressing the members of other organizations. We must seize these possibilities. We should participate in the discussions within the left. We should take initiatives for practical joint campaigns. The important precondition for any united initiative in a timer of decline and dissolution for big sections of the left is politically arming ourselves and clearly understanding our goals.
The crisis of the far-left and all the centrist currents also makes our policy of alliances and regroupments more difficult and uncertain. When these are possible, in each case it is a question of a specific orientation. In the current political situation, it is now more difficult to have decisive tests in the course of the class struggle which ensure the longterm success of these convergences.
So we have to be able to carry through such processes by our own political contribution and the specific, non-sectarian activity of the International in relation to our partners.
• Our political perspectives are still situated in a non-revolutionary period. The crisis itself poses the question of unity in sharper terms. This makes it possible for our organizations to take unitive non-sectarian initiatives and to find renewed forces for intervening and touching new circles. But massive social upheavals are not on the agenda in capitalist Europe on a scale that would develop the political and social bases for the emergence of small revolutionary parties regrouping even some tens of thousands of members.
• We follow the real process of differentiation as it is concretely manifested in each country, without rejecting any opening that has acquired mass influence and composition as "petty bourgeois" or "bureaucratic". Above all, we do not judge developments purely by ideological criteria, but in light of the objective effects they have on the unfolding class struggle, on the differentiations inside the working class and on the crisis in the traditional parties.
• We must continue or strengthen attempts to implant our organizations in the workplaces (industry or the public sector). We must reassert the importance of our trade-union work. The question of building a trade-union opposition standing for democratization of the unions and a fight against austerity
remains a priority tasks for our sections. But given the background of the current crisis in the unions it is not sufficient simply to oppose the line of the bureaucrats. The opposition currents should take responsibility for building and organizing the union as such. The opposition is vital for attracting broader and broader layers which are turning away from the unions, considering
In trade-union work it is important to take up a series of political question, such as what is happening in Eastern Europe. A specific task is also to win support in the unions for solidarity tasks. The need to fight against the consequences of growing capitalist integration multiplies these tasks.
• New forms of organization and campaign are necessary to address the most marginalized layers (unemployed, certain layers of young people and immigrants). We consider this as a task of the whole workers'
But today our organizations should already be trying to take this kind of
• The feminist activity of our parties has to be strengthened and must take into account the appearance of workers' struggles with a strong female composition (the resolution on the women's movement in Western imperialist
• Building revolutionary youth organizations — in forms appropriate to each country — must remain a priority so that we have the means for a specific intervention and for recruitment in all the movements where young peoale are active; and, in addition, to create the conditions for education and generational renewal in our ranks. The leaderships of sections must pay much greater attention to this and assure the continuity of the youth work.
There must continue to be activity directed towards high schools and universities, places where there is a very great concentration of young people, con-
• Building broad, united movements to mobilize against fascism and
-acism is an urgent task and absolutely central task in many countries, in
The Gulf war has moreover opened up a new situation. The new and decieve challenges posed during this war must be answered. The formation and more generally the participation in anti-war or anti-militarist movements is a priority task for all our organizations. They could provide new experiences of political activism and thus encourage the politicization of sections of the pac-
We should, while rejecting the rhythm and needs of the movement in each
:ountry, aim for united, joint European initiatives around all question of
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' them as simply the property of the bureaucracy.
initiative.
countries takes up these points).
ronted with government austerity policies.
*hich our sections can and must play a central role.
cist movement.
perspectives 143 movement.
• Within several states, oppressed people are fighting for their emancipation and the recognition of their national rights. Their demands go from use
Three of these peoples (Ireland, Euskadi and Corsica) have maintained a high level of mobilization of the mass movement. The organizations which lead them have been capable of waging mass political and electoral
The framework of the existing states has proved to be unable to satisty the demands for emancipation. The introduction of the Single European Act, despite some possible administrative reforms, will only increase their
We are part of these struggles and we support them within the ruling states, particularly through a continuous intervention in the trade-union movement.
We defend unconditionally the right to self-determination, including independence. In this framework we defend the immediate interests of the workers as well as the perspective of a socialist solution to all national questions.
The Conference of the Stateless European Nations (CONSEU) is a first unitive initiative for joint campaigning activities. We are in favour of such an
We should establish a reputation as defenders of the oppressed nations, so that their most consistent representatives turn towards us, considering us as
18. The workers' movement remains riddled with national and sectarian prejudices. In these conditions, the European "social dialogue" is a trap and a dreadful illusion. The bourgeoisie's project must be opposed by an intransigent defence of demands and gains. In the EC and EFTA countries, workers' parties and unions must oppose the Single Act and the whole project of European integration. The workers' movement has nothing to win by comanaging these policies. What is necessary first of all is a relationship of forces based on social mobilizations, coordinations [strike committees] and
• It is urgent to spell out a plan to defend the trade-union movement when restructuring and international mergers are increasingly dividing union organization. It is vital to explain incessantly what these European policies will lead to in order to educate workers and create the conditions for a united struggle. All the initial experiences of consultation and coordination between unions inside the multinationals should be exploited and extended.
144 International Marxist Review militarization.
campaigns.
dependence.
approach continuing.
their natural allies.
solidarity going beyond national frontiers.
of their national language to independence.
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 145
Against the capitalists' Europe we put forward:
a) The necessity for a new internationalism, that is, the development of all forms of solidarity, coordination and campaigns that break with national isolation and oppose the bourgeoisie's projects. Our approach is to start from the day-to-day demands in each country and to demonstrate in practice their convergence. We encourage solidarity initiatives across multinationals and sectors. The same goes for meetings and initiatives of combative union sectors who want to fight against austerity policies and against the Europe of the Single Act. We must encourage European-wide links and initiatives by feminist, anti-racist, peace, anti-militarist and ecology movements, as well as all the movements among youth.
We undertake similar activities vis à vis the struggles and the independent movements in the Eastern Europe states, because struggles against the Single Act should not lead to a blinkered view of internationalist tasks. We aim to promote all possible convergences between mobilizations in the East and the West. We also welcome all possibilities of organizing forums for discussion and meetings between left organizations in East and West Europe.
In the different countries the bourgeoisie's plan must be opposed by a radical refusal to lose any social advantages in the name of competition in the European market. There must be the organization of a permanent fightback against austerity policies in order to defeat them. Current economic developments in Europe are not a justification for turning to so-called national or indeed chauvinist solutions. On the contrary, the situation requires that demands express common goals and needs (35 hours, on night work, democratic rights, self-determination and so on). In the more backward countries on the question of social rights, the left can fight for the most advantageous norms won elsewhere. Little by little we should spread the preoccupation of having struggles which converge between the different countries.
b) Propaganda for an alternative to the bosses' Europe: the United Socialist States of Europe. For us it is a transitional approach of socialist education within our conception of the world socialist revolution, against all exploitation and oppression. This socialist propaganda will only have any chance of being gradually understood by new radicalized generations if on many subjects we know how to start from immediate demands to then give them a very concrete and detailed transitional content (ecology, education, national rights, direct democracy, equality between men and women, health, and so on). This is a way of clarifying, on the basis of struggles, the vision of another society, counterposed to the populist and demagogic answers of the
146 International Marxist Review far right.
The Fourth International and its parties in Europe must be in the vanguard of all these activities. It is by doing this boldly that we can demonstrate the usefulness of our organizations and the validity of our internationalism. We must improve the functioning and relations between our parties so as to create the best conditions for this: collaboration and elaboration by sector, joint campaigns and initiatives, the youth camp and so on. 19. The process of German unification under the auspices and to the benefit of the FRG is a new element in the European situation and the relationship of class forces. The absorption of the GDR by the FRG would be first of all a victory and a strengthening of German imperialism. This, combined with an advance of European integration, would have important political, social and ideological effects both in Germany and also throughout Europe. Moreover, for a whole period this will modify the hierarchies and relationships of the political, economic and military forces within the EC.
The effect of this unification at first would be to create new divisions and exclusions in the working class and to increase political confusion.
It is important to ensure that the workers do not make an abstraction of the social and political conditions for a reunification, and that they increasingly advance their own demands in the face of the capitalist appetites of the West German bourgeoisie. The workers' movement in Germany and in Europe as a whole must refuse to carry the costs of unification to the benefit of the big industrial companies and the banks. Particularly within the former GDR, there has to be a fightback organized to mass unemployment, to attacks on the system of social protection, to reductions in real wages, to rights won such as to abortion,. The principle of powerful, independent, democratic trade unions must be defended. The cut-price sales of enterprises to West German or foreign capitalists should be denounced. Wages should be immediately brought into line with those in West Germany. Finally, there should be a refusal to pay the bill for a unification which serves the big industrial groups: against the drop in public spending on social services, education, etc; for a stop to military spending.
Military pacts must be denounced and mobilizations organized for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Germany, for the withdrawal of American troops and armaments from Europe, for the de-nuclearization of Europe, for the immediate reduction of military budgets, against the militarization and dragooning of young people, and against the project of European defence. Just as it dominated the beginning of the 1980s, the struggle against militar-
1992: bourgeois plans and workers' perspectives 147 ism could become one of the key battles of the 1990s in Western Europe. 20. The political discussions that will continue to develop in Eastern Europe will be centred around big questions such as economic reform, trade-union perspectives, workplace management, demilitarization, women's right to work and to abortion, ecological questions, freedom of political expression and, sometimes national and regional questions. This should also enable us to demonstrate that such questions are also on the agenda in Western European countries: social protection, trade-union rights, ending military spending, the right to local referenda around popular initiatives such as the protection of the environment or the right to self-determination, and so on.
Pro-market and privatization policies are widely applied in Eastern Europe, and at first divide workers by satisfying the expectations of a section of them in terms of consumption and income. But they rapidly give rise to new discontent in countries that are not used to unemployment and big wage differentials. Selling off national industries cheaply to Western investors or dismantling firms that are decreed to be non-profitable, inflation, the policies of the multinationals, the IMF, the World Bank and the EC, attacks on social security and the appearance of nouveaux riches — sometimes give rise to disapproval. Even before the beginnings of a capitalist class develops, the supporters of the market will be confronted by a strong imperialist pressure in total contradiction with their nationalist and populist professions of faith.
On all these questions it is extremely important that our organizations in capitalist Europe play a central role in terms of information and propaganda and show themselves capable of organizing active solidarity with those who are fighting back. This should be part of the normal activity of our European sections in the new continent-wide context. 21. In spite of the specific tactical problems of building our organizations we are confronted by problems that cannot be substantially resolved without an overall consideration of all the changes in Europe and thus without a collective European framework for elaboration. For example, this relates to anti-militarist work, to our policies at the time of European elections, to solidarity work with social resistance in Eastern Europe to imperialist policies and market mechanisms; to the activities of the social movements (feminist, ecologist, anti-racist, youth movements and so on); or again in relation to changes in the trade-union movements and new forms of workers' struggles.
To deal with these problems we have to promote meetings between comrades working in the same sector or in the same areas of mass work insofar as this is practically possible for us. But what is needed above all is a stable sys-
148 International Marxist Review tem of collaboration, dialogue and reflection between the section leaderships. We need at least one meeting a year for delegations from Political Bureaus for both an exchange of experience and the preparation of joint activities. Our aim is to establish eventually a network of cadres who are capable of following through increasingly important activities in a European-wide framework.
RESOLUTION ON WOMEN IN W. EUROPE/N. AMERICA
The