Thu, 20 Feb 1997 15:33:40 +0100 (MET) COCKROACH! #38 A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to Subscriptions are free at Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH! http://www.algonet.se/~malecki How often this zine will appear depends on you! -------------------------------------------------------- 1. Letter To ITUSC Conference. (Jan.18-22,1997) 2. Reply To a Turkish Leftist. 3. Reply to a fellow Communist! 4. Special Announcement! -------------------------------------------------------- Letter To ITUSC Conference. (Jan.18-22,1997) The Capitalist Crisis and the Tasks of Trade Unions. The foremost problem facing trade unionists today is understanding that the crisis we are facing is a crisis of leadership! But it is also a crisis of having a program which can counter the declaration of war that Capitalism has declared against the working class Internationally after the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. It is a new period of growing imperialist rivalry. It is realising that this is just the beginning of a new period of either wars and facist solutions or victorious working class revolutions. The trade unions and it leadership can be a powerful tool in mobilising the working class against the capitalists and imperialists who once again will use the blood of millions upon millions of our class brothers and sisters to keep their privileges and complete bankrupt,undemocratic, anti poor, anti-working class system from being pushed onto the historical garbage heep of history. There is only one solution. Either they put their solution on us or we the International working class and its allies the urban poor put our solution on them! There is no middle way! The reason for this crisis is obvious to every class conscious militant with any common sense at all. On the one hand it is directly connected to the disintegration of the former Soviet Union after decades of bureaucratic mismanagement and the counter-revolutionary line of peaceful co-existence of these Stalinist traitors with the International Capitalists and Imperialist Countries that Stalinism represented and which led to so many defeats and disasters in the past decades! On the other hand the Social Democracy which already had sold out the International Proletariat at the beginning of the First World War only to be resurrected in the capitalists countries after the second world war along with its historical line of reforming capitalism. These "Socialists" have after the demise of the Soviet Union deserted into the camp of the bourgeoisie! Today they are the best organisers of policies that throw millions upon millions of workers out on the streets. They are destroying most of the reforms won by the working class since the second world war and even reforms that go much futher back in history! They are openly trying to destroy the unions with anti-union legislation. The leadership of the Social Democracy and its loyal supporters in the trade union have deserted the working class and entered the camp of the bourgeoisie as loyal supporters to dismantle and plunder the social gains made by the working class in the previous decades. These events have left the workers movement and the trade unions in a shambles! Beheaded of both the Stalinist and Social Democratic misleaders and being attacked all across the board by and aggressive capitalist class who no longer have the "Communist" threat in the former Soviet Union to worry about, have declared war on the working class everywhere and are trying to take back all of the reforms that workers have fought for in the preceding period. This is not a conspiracy.The general attack on the working class Internationally is only the first sign of this new period we are entering. It is the logical conclusion of a new period of inter-imperialist rivalry which once again finds itself in a historical dead end. It is a new period of both wars and revolutions that we are entering. Because the general attack on the working class internationally will not solve the contradictions that this system produces. Either a new period of wars and facist solutions is on the order of the day or successful proletarian revolutions that will sweep away this system once and for all. In order to combat this general assault on the International Working class and its former treacherous misleaders a new leadership must develop. It must oust these traitors from there posts and put forward a new leadership which will fight on a program ONLY in the interests of the working class. A program which not only defends the old reforms and gains made by workers, but goes on to extending those gains and ultimately posing the question of which class rules. Because if we do not rule with our program for the working class--the International bourgeoisie have a program that they will (with their reformist and centrist allies) impose on the working class. Not only mass unemployment,downsizing,cuts in the social sector, and all the rest. But ultimately fascist solutions where trade unions will be smashed and the working class organisations destroyed! So we need a program to counter this situation. We need powerful trade union organisations and far more! Not in the least a revolutionary International organisation which can show the way forward. Because trade union organisations just will not be enough to counter the present assault being made on our class. Trade unions in the first place only organise a part of the class. So it is necessary in the coming crisis to create other organisations in the course of the struggle. Strike Committees, factory committees, and not in the least Soviets or workers councils. Already today we are seeing that the working class is organising itself. The unemployed Committees, The recent strike committees in France and Denmark amongst the Transport Workers for example. The new mass activity in Germany. As the crisis deepens we will need organisations and more organisations which cohere to the situation existing. We must understand that in periods of acute crisis the trade unions try to become the master of the situation in order to render it harmless. This we can already see happening as the traditionalists in the trade unions try to disarm the growing rage of the workers who see their leaders betraying them day after day. And in revolutionary situations trade union leaders usually become bougeois ministers! To combat this stuff. We have to boldly put forth new leaders and in critical moments be prepared to renew those leaders if they have a tendency to become careerists, functionaries or whatever. Because we want these organisations to be fighting organs in the interests of the working class and not top steered bureaucratic organisations that sell the workers out time and again. A program! Well I suggest "The Transitional Program" written by Trotsky. It is a program which not only takes up the daily needs of the working class but is a program of transitional demands which pose the ultimate question. Either the working class and its organisation rules or the Bougeois destroys us. I suggest that the Transitional program is just as actual today as it was when it was written. So if the ITUSC really wants a program of struggle that is it. There fore I purpose that the Transitional program, here are its main points, obviously be the program your organisation can find worth fighting for in its entirety! 1. Sliding scale of Wages---Sliding scale of Hours. 2. Factory Committees. 3. 'Business secrets' and Workers Control of Industry. 4. Expropriation of Separate groups of Capitalists. 5. Expropriation of the Private Banks and State-ization of the credit system. 6.The Alliance of the Workers and Farmers. (third world countries) 7. (A new Section on and alliance with the urban poor) 8. The Struggle against Imperialism and War. 9. The Slogan of a Workers Government. 10. The section on Soviets. 11. The section on Backward countries. I think that this is the only road forward in the present situation for the trade unions. Warm Regards Bob Malecki Member of the Swedish Kommunal Workers Union. (The biggest union in Scandinavia) -------------------------------------------------------- Reply To a Turkish Leftist. Zeynep writes; The period in which Soviet Union >was a major dividing line in the left is over, for better or worse. Most of >the divisions, and "taking side"s from that era, are annulled. Those that >want to keep them alive can do so. Insisting on being irrelevant is no crime. Adding to what Hugh writes I feel that Zeynep is dead wrong about the above. The problem is that the 'politics' of the Stalinists albeit served to us in a neo-Stalinist form are certainly alive and well. Thus Louis G and his ideological line is not much better than condemning some of the more horrible crimes of Stalinism (the Hitler-Stalin pact) for example while at the same time trying to dump the working class in the west as being revolutionary. Why does Louis G. want everybody to believe that the western working class is written off. Well, it is fairly simple. He wants to continue with the politics of the anti-imperialist popular front! Or at best the politics of the post war "new-left". So the ideology and *real* politics of yesterday are certainly trying to Be resurrected on this list. And one of the foremost spokesman is just Louis G. Although Louis P is also on the same road with his support of the Cubans and defence of the FSLN. Not to mention his latest of "Yankee doodle" new leftism? Just as the general political lines of the broad left have a lot of Stalinist and reformist garbage in their baggage. Whether it be fake trotskyists, the anti-imperialist left, or whatever. The domination of both Stalinist and reformist political line over a long historical period just does not disappear overnight. The former Soviet Union was not just crimes of horror but a line of peaceful co-existence and counter-revolutionary to the core. It has been expressed in the number of defeats that have taken place around the world. Hugh mentioned a number of them. And there will be new defeats around the world unless the politics that the Stalinist represented are defeated politically. A great example of Stalinist *real* politics I am quite sure flourishes right their in Turkey! If I am not mistaken their are quite a number of leftists who more then likely have a stage theory of revolution, or the reformist view of mini-maxi programs, or a Stalinist popular front strategy. Plus a lot of other political baggage which certainly will not show the Turkish workers the way forward. Against all of this stuff , neo Stalinism and reformism politically is certainly alive and well in many countries, another political line has to countered it. That is the line of the Trotskyists. And if you think that this has disappeared then obviously you have not been following the politics closely in Turkey, on this list or anywhere else. I have not seen anything that is really politically new. The only real difference is that the Stalinists no longer have a state power that backs them up. By the way Maoism is nothing other then concentrated Stalinist politics. And it is just anti-Marxist to think that politics and especially the politics that evolved out of the Soviet Union are dead! It is just those politics the line of Stalin and the line of Trotsky which meet daily and clash. However there is one big difference today their is not a GPU and its long arm that tries to kill the Trotskyists. Nor money to support organisations in every part of the world with their line of politics. In fact in Spain the Trotskyists not only had to fight the Fascists but watch their backs for the Stalinists. And you think its difficult in Turkey today. Well, for the Trotskyists in Spain and Vietnam things were at least twice as difficult! However I do agree with you in one sense. The word now! In another letter on the subject you say that people don't give a shit about the former Soviet Union. OK I can understand that. But the politics on the left today are represented with just the rotten politics of the left which you claim no longer exists. The Albanian Maoists, or other variants of Stalinism wheyher derived from China or the Soviet Union you think have disappeared! Not true. The political representatives of Maoism find it pretty hard to defend let say Chinese politics. The Albanian Maoists are in the same position as those who supported the Soviet Union. And words like Maoism,Stalinism, Trotskyism might be a little out of date for the newer generations. But what is important is not the names but the real political lines they represent. Are you saying that Stalinists politics do not exist in Turkey today on the left. Well then you are either naive or blind! So why don't we raise this discussion to the here and now. You could for example give us examples of what the left thinks should be done in Turkey today. I can say what the left says should be done here in Sweden today. Quickly we will see that the historical lines along the politics of Stalin,Mao, Trotsky,state capitalism,anarchism and reformism are what its all about. Now how can that be dead when it lives albeit in clone forms on the left. What politics can lead to success? What politics can lead to failure? Or should we forget about history and say that it can not teach us anything? Warm Regards Bob Malecki -------------------------------------------------------- Reply to a fellow Communist! Hi Howard, Thanks for the very long and nice letter. Yes I have an 11 year old (the last of 6 at home). Just now while dealing with the apsts and writing about Sweden a puppy has moved in here! A Christmas present to my 11 year old. It is like having a baby again without diapers. The political situation here in Sweden is fairly horrible. The Usec has moved far to the right and have become tail enders of the traditional back to the good old times of the welfare state traditionalists in the Social Democracy. The Swedish Euro Communists who recently held their conference are calling themselves "feminists" and "Environmental activists" (this to get as far away from their Stalinist past as possible!) and are supporting also the traditionalists and in fact want to take their place. The militant group who for years was trying to stay inside of the Social Democracy were thrown out and then did some incredible ballot box tricks of putting well know Social Democrats at the top of their lists and their names under actually winning some seats in the local parliaments in the Communes are today running around with banners with the slogan "Save Sweden" among other things.The Maoists have completely disintegrated! Another group which two days ago rang me saying that they were thrown out of the USec for criticising them on Cuba and there capitulation to trade unionism are going to send me there documents. They said that they remember me and the Spartacists and want to cooperate! I told them that there is no Spartacist group here but I would certainly like to read their documents and perhaps cooperate. A real vacuum has developed here. The workers are extremely suspicious of any and all parties after being betrayed time and again by the Social Democracy while at the same time having an anti-Communist, in reality anti- Stalinist tradition engrained in their backbones after such a long historical domination of the reformists here. But their answer appears to be at this point is a beginning of organising themselves both in the unions and unemployment committees to fight back the general attacks being made on there living standard and the welfare state. Talk of putting forth independent candidates from the unions is beginning to flurry. And a general tendency to want to have a cultural revolution in the parliament by sending in a lot of trade unionists and throwing out the professional bureaucrats! I think that is very sound looking at the political scene as it has been here as elsewhere by the workers! And what is more important is that things are beginning to move in our direction. I think that the workers United Front and patiently explaining again and again the cause and the solution to the crisises connected to exposing the various reformist,neo-Stalinist and fake Trotskyists while at the same time working for and international regroupment along authodox Trotskyist lines is the only way forward. Thanks for the tip on Cliff Slaughter and how he operated during the dockworker stuff.There trade union initiative appears to be very contradictory. Thus they think that in the next period recruiting through trade union fronts like the ITUSC more workers =revolution. I think that a discussion about the very fundamentals of Trotskyism and those claiming to be Trotskyists is also on the order of the day. Naturally I have nothing against trade union initiatives but it certainly can not replace the discussions about reforging a Trotskyist International. However with the situation developing as it is. The working class beheaded of any kind of political leadership and real Trotskyist forces being so small that this discussion no longer has to take place as before in small political meetings where only the left is present. It should and will take place in the coming mass struggles. Because we certainly can not abstain from these struggles while waiting for opportunities for regroupment. But it is not really the numbers that are decisive. It will be the program and politics of Trotskyism that will really be the driving force to attract the vanguard of the working class. I think that the authodox Trotskyists have both history and program on their side. All those who have adapted the fundamental Trotskyist politics towards reformism and Stalinism during the post war era and could do this partially because the left was saturated with students and petty bougeois intellectuals. Now that the working class is once again beginning to take the front stage the political lines will be drawn along the classical reformist,neo-Stalinist and Trotskyist lines. Once again it will be the key questions of working class independence vs the popular front, the struggle against fascism, the stage theories of revolution, economismism vs revolutionary Marxism. However the difference will be that the Trotskyists will do this in relation to a much larger audience and literally on the barricades! No more of these lefty intellectuals who think that by recruiting a number of people at a university like in the sixties and seventies on all kinds of revisionist bullshit. Today the lines will be drawn on *real* political struggle in the working class! This is just so great. Already on some of the lists the reaction to just one class conscious worker has sent people into a frenzy! Especially the ageing new leftists types who are trying to revive the "new-left" of the 60ties and 70ties.Some of them are even talking about "Yankee Doodle" patriotism along the lines of the declaration of Independence. Others about anti-imperialist fronts.When we talk about trade union bureaucrats in the unions, But the ageing new leftists are acting in the same way trying to hold on to and ideology of neo-Stalinist and new left trendies which was a product of the post war economic boom which gave rise to a baby boom of spoiled brat students that thought they wanted to make a revolution! Well those days are gone forever! Even if some of their ageing spokesman don't realise it yet. Well, we just have to keep on hammering along. Yeah! It would sure be nice to have a beer and discuss a few things. You could tell me about China and I could tell you about a visit to East Germany. It would really make some very funny history! Hope you don't mind that I send this letter to the apsts. There is some good political stuff in here for our "Marxist" heroes to contemplate. Naturally your letter I would not publish. Take Care and Warm regards to all.. Bob Malecki ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! TO ANTI-DEATH PENALTY ACTIVISTS, ANTI-RACIST ACTIVISTS, SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, AND ALL OTHERS INTERESTED IN SOCIAL JUSTICE: **** SAVE THIS DATE: MAY 3, 1997 **** AD-HOC COMMITTEE WORKS TO BROADEN COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND MOBILIZE GRASSROOTS ACTION ******************************************************** The Ad Hoc Coalition Against Racism and the Death Penalty is sponsoring an exciting media event and conference on Saturday, May 3, 1997 in Philadelphia, PA to increase the level of community consciousness and mobilize grassroots participation around issues of the death penalty including, but not limited to: 1. Education regarding the need to end the death penalty, including the roots of racism and class disparity in determining who is executed, and discussion on a national mobilization for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty. 2. Increasing and consolidating campaigns to free Political Prisoners/ Prisoners of War through community education and support; 3. Organizing to build a strong community-based movement to stop police beatings, frame-ups and murder. WHAT CAN YOU DO: Individuals and organizations who are eager to work with the Organizing Committee to insure maximum community participation by sharing mailing lists, hosting pre-conference meetings, organizing transportation to help get folks to the conference, donating educational and other materials, broadcasting live from the event, videotaping the event to use for future grassroots organizing, and offering your ideas, experience and concrete support should contact ASAP: Sis. Marpessa Kupendua - nattyreb@ix.netcom.com Bro. Komboa Ervin - komboa@mindspring.com !! SPEAK TRUTH TO THE PEOPLE !! ALL OUT FOR MAY 3RD! MORE INFORMATION FORTHCOMING. ================================================== Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and workingclass people http://www.algonet.se/~malecki --------------------------------------------------------