We need militancy in the Workers and Students movements
Callum Williamson looks at the need for militancy in the Workers and Students movements
It is an inevitability that this economic downturn will lead to a heightened state of class conflict across the globe. In past weeks 250,000 Irish public sector workers went on strike against wage cuts. In Turkey there have been walk outs involving thousands of public sector workers, over the right to collective bargaining (vital particularly during this crisis). There have also been labour disputes closer to home in previous months. The Vestas and Lindsey oil refinery workers were successful in attracting significant media attention, although the latter was a dispute that manifested itself in displays of petty nationalism. What we need now is class solidarity. We must expose the lies of the right and rally behind Marxist politics. Not only must the workers defend what they have already attained, but they should be making further demands and pushing for more concessions from the capitalist class and the state. This is of particular importance in the UK where a Tory victory in the next general elections would spell disaster for the working class. The time has come for a step-up in militancy. The Conservatives, who will probably form the next government, will be vicious in their attacks on social welfare and the public sector. The workers must be organised for the fight back and set out basic demands around housing, wages and benefits.
THE STUDENTS STRUGGLE
So where does this leave students? It is likely that the recession in Britain will be used as an excuse, by whatever main party is in government, to cut on education. There must be no cutting on our future. As well as this tuition fees may well rise to up to £7,000. There is no doubt that the students movement is on the back foot and so we must double our efforts to see the tuition fees abolished and our education made completely free. However, the students have other struggles to partake in as a section of the youth. Communist students demand full democratic rights at 16 and a decent adult minimum wage for all. The youth must have a voice and must no longer be exploited as cheap labour. Students have the ability to win these demands if they are prepared to be radical enough. In January this year students up and down the country occupied university buildings in response to Israel’s incursion into Gaza and the horrific human rights abuses there. The students set out their demands and many of them were won. At Kings College in London the occupation won scholarships for Palestinian students, forced the university to disinvest from the arms trade and the university agreed to send teaching equipment to Gaza. Here was an example of students standing up for oppressed people thousands of miles away and there is no reason why they cannot win their battles at home.
What is required now from workers and students is education, agitation and organisation. In the current economic climate the capitalist class will try and take back every concession the workers and students have wrestled from them . However,out of the intensification of the fight comes an opportunity for the people to change our society for the better. We must strive for an egalitarian and liberated world, free from poverty and oppression. There are hard times ahead for the working class, but the victory of the masses will come if people are prepared to fight for it. It is our duty as Communists to win the majority over to Marxist thinking. This is no small task but it is something we must achieve and it is something (with patient building) we can achieve.
May I also add the abolition of so called “work experience” which is needed in order to eventually get on the pay role for most students begining a career. This isn’t cheap labour but totally unpaid labour which promises to teach students invaluable experience in their chosen field but usually involves menial tasks or doing others work for them.
Get back to work! You give a bad name to students, it thanks to f**kers like you we all get labelled as lazy communist students making absurd suggestions.
Capitalism is the way forward, and the way to happiness. Why are you even at university if you are a fan of communism? Surely you are there to achieve, to get a good job, to get high pay, to get a nice house, and to get a nice car.
“Capitalism is the way forward” to what exactly? War, barbarism and poverty not happiness. I am sure those in the third-world and countroes facing austerity measures are not very happy at the moment. It is funny to read people defending capitalism in the middle of the deepest economic crisis for generations.
You need your head examined.
And communism gave it up years ago.
So come up with something that will
work. Now you see how bankrupt you are.
The idea of a class struggle being the crux of the world’s problems is I think somewhat short-sighted by Marx. The lowest common denominator of man is the struggle for power.
No matter how small or how big the unit, a couple, a family, a student union, a religion, a business, a government, a social class, a political body or a country, all are striving for power within and without the group. Some gain power thru their personality and political
acumen like Obama and some thru there name and political clout like GW Bush.
This said we can see that “power struggles” are all around us and are normal and for the most part healthy. However when power struggles result in the revolutionary overthrow of large organisms such as countries by groups unprepared to carry out the responsibility of
caring for the basic needs of the people of that country, Pol Pot and Cambodia come to mind, tragic events transpire that does not justify this struggle and this becomes an abuse of power.
So far this has been the outcome of almost every Communist revolution. Although
“Communism” sounds like a noble idea it is susceptible to tyrants using it as a means of gaining power. This has resulted in untold suffering and murder on a mass scale of people from all classes of society(remember Stalin and Mao). As the saying goes power corrupts and absolute power(thru the barrel of a gun or propaganda) corrupts absolutely.
Yes different power relations exist within all aspects of human life and Karl Marx recognised this. He did not argue that all of the worlds problems are caused by class struggle, he argued that it was the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie under capitalism which needed to be overthrown and that the bourgeoisie had exhausted its revolutionary potential, leaving only those who are divorced from the means of production and left to sell themselves under capitalism to bring about a democratic society with production based on need not profits.
Power struggles can be positive, but they can also be extremely dangerous, look at the idiotic laws recenly passed against LGBT people or immigrants in the USA. What about the continuing subjugation of women. Power struggles are only healthy and positive when they have the aim of liberation or equality within a specific social relation. Pol Pot and Mao were not communists and they did not carry out communist revolutions. These so called “communist” states were an abomination and a disaster for the people in those parts of the world, but they were no more of a disaster than what the capitalist states have inflicted on the populations of the world.
The communist revolution and the seizure of power by the working class cannot be carried out with the abscence of mass democratic bodies, the involvement and support of the majority of the people. Maybe you should read Marx on what communism is, I would suggest you should start with the ‘Civil War in France’.
To Chris S.:
I suggest you read Solzhenitsyn’s
“The Gulag Archipelago” and the Bible
(preferably on your knees) starting from Genesis.
I guarantee you a much better education doing that than a roomful of professors will ever give you.
You will a least be a much wiser person.
If I was going to read a book containing fairy tales, I would pick one with dragons and elves not this boring God creature. Solzhenitsyn describe a very real crime against humanity caused by stalinism which is the negation of socialism and democratic planning by the bureaucracy.
Jesus Christ is many things but boring
he’s not!
vote Labour sir, your country needs you, the time has come. VOTE LABOUR!
You need the “God” factor. That is why “communism” will
never work. Hasn’t worked yet. Won’t work in the future.
Saul,
As a comment I got your point very seriously but We must study who is the God & Where is he? According to my opinion The God’s word & The Communism have not worked yet why the both are better than Capitalism.
We must fight for social justis & peace The God tried to do it but What was the people’s reaction? They refused God’s words that therefore We have to face those troubles so We have to live this uncertaint world.
All over the world The Communist parties must think very seriously than freviously otherwise no solution !!!!!!!!
Samantha Rajapaksa