By Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary
2016 was
the year when the pent-up anger of the masses worldwide finally spilled over in
a series of political earthquakes - a delayed reaction to the devastating world economic crisis of 2007-08. And tremors are
still being felt, with serious aftershocks - if not new earthquakes - expected
in 2017.
The
changed situation was dramatically illustrated by Brexit, with repercussions
not just in Europe but worldwide. At bottom, this reflected a working class
revolt against the austerity programme both of the British Tory
government and the predatory capitalist EU.
The Socialist
Party has consistently opposed the capitalist, imperialist EU from its origins
and therefore called for a Leave vote in the referendum, along with the
transport workers' union the RMT and many others.
Fight the right
We also fought against the
corrosive nationalism of Ukip and other reactionary forces who
attempted to seize hold of Brexit as a means of dividing workers against one
another. We will stay implacably opposed to the neoliberal EU while at the same
time proposing a class and socialist alternative: no to the EU, yes to a
socialist confederation of Europe.
It is no
exaggeration to say that the leave vote resounded throughout the world. How
dare the ignorant untutored masses defy their rulers, reasoned an army of
capitalist comentators!
The leave
vote upended the Tory cabinet and Cameron was soon consigned to history. Absolute
turmoil has ensued, which continues into 2017, plunging the Tory party under
Theresa May into an endemic crisis. The capitalist media constantly harps on
the split within Labour but from the medium and long-term perspectives, the
divisions within the Tory party are much more serious.
A schism within the
Tory party, like that over the Corn Laws in the first half of the
nineteenth century, is entirely possible. This saw the Tory party out of power
for generations.
In Italy,
Renzi has followed Cameron, after a stunning 60% to 40% rejection of his own undemocratic
referendum, which sought to consolidate his austerity regime.
But the
far right in Europe is still on the march, having been given a lift by the
victory of Trump in the US presidential elections. Although the Austrian far right failed to win the re-run presidential
election.
It is not
even excluded that at a certain stage some countries - Austria, France, the
Netherlands and possibly also Italy - could repeat the successes of the far
right in Eastern Europe, participating in right-wing coalition governments.
Failure
It is the
transparent failure of right-wing social democracy in Spain, Greece, Portugal
and Britain -
trapped within the framework of diseased capitalism and consequently presiding
over savage cuts, eye watering poverty, mass unemployment etc - which has
provided this opportunity for the right to emerge and threaten past conquests
of the working class.
They
believe that they have been given a huge comfort blanket by the victory of
Donald Trump in the US elections. There are even some on the left who believe
that a 'festival of reaction' will follow.
Nothing
of the kind is likely or possible. Without in any way minimising the threat
from the right - which should be fought - the relationship of class forces is
still decisively in favour of the working class and its organisations, although
weakened. The fascists could not successfully use today the methods of
Hitler or Mussolini, the mobilisation of mass middle class forces to
terrorise and atomise the working class.
Coming to
power - even partially sharing power in a right-wing, conservative government -
would act like a crack of thunder to awaken the working class
and particularly the youth into ferocious resistance to such governments and
the measures that they would undertake.
Look also
at the mass resistance that erupted against Trump's fraudulent
victory in cities in the US, in some cases led by our co-thinkers in Socialist
Alternative. It is expected that mass demonstrations in the US and worldwide
will take place on 20 January at Trump's inauguration. This is just a little
payment on account for the mass working class resistance he is likely to
encounter in the next years.
Moreover,
such right-wing governments with far-right participation would pave the way for
a massive swing towards the left among the working class, which would be
reflected in the labour movement. This will act to further discredit the
right-wing social democrats, who through their failure have paved the way for
the right's re-emergence.
Unprecedented
mass movements have also a broken out in South Korea, which are likely to force
the president out on corruption charges.
Middle East
Of
course, this has to be balanced against the horrific intractable crisis in the
Middle East with its countless victims - a monument to the endless horrors to
which humankind will suffer on the basis of outmoded capitalism.
The war in
Syria has lasted longer than World War One, and moreover there is an element of
that situation in the present conflict with its mutual slaughter. Leon Trotsky
remarked in relation to the pre-1914 Balkan war: "Our descendants... will
spread their hands in horror when they learn from history books about the
methods by which capitalist peoples settled their disputes."
Indeed,
imperialism in all its guises - British, French, US - is the author of the
present divisive patchwork divide-and-rule tactics on a massive scale,
undemocratically stitched together when these imperialist powers were forced to
retreat from direct domination of the region in the post-1945 situation.
A
representative of the British spy agency MI6 recently appeared on British
television and had the effrontery to quote from the Roman historian Tacitus -
"You create a desolation and call it peace" - while attacking Putin's
Russia! If so, then Putin learnt well in the school of the British ruling class
and MI6. They were the first to pursue a bloody divide-and-rule policy, to
carve out their empire upon which the 'sun would never set'.
Only the
decisive intervention of the working class and poor in the Middle East region
through a programme of class unity and socialism on the basis of a democratic
confederation can put an end to this horror once and for all. The first step
towards this would be the development of an independent political voice for the
masses.
Only by determined struggle, and a vision of a new humane,
socialist society, will the forces of the right be pushed back.
Donald Trump
He lacks
any real 'legitimacy' for his right-wing programme. While he won the Electoral
College, he was decisively beaten in the 'popular vote' by 2.6 million,
receiving fewer votes even than the last defeated Republican presidential
candidates Romney and McCain, and George W Bush when he won.
Within a
matter of weeks - and without being installed yet as president - he has shredded most of his promises. His proposed government,
true to form, is stuffed with billionaires, representative not of 'Main Street'
but of Wall Street, which he denounced during the election campaign.
He is
recruiting heavily from Goldman Sachs, which after the crash of 2007-08 was
described by Rolling Stone magazine as "a great vampire squid wrapped
around the face of humanity". Its tentacles are poised to try and further
strangle working people in the cause of Trump's pro-big business agenda.
The trade
unions face a massive challenge as he seeks to emulate Ronald Reagan in rolling
out so-called 'right to work' legislation to weaken them. He will seek to
reward Wall Street sharks who supported him by ruthless measures like
privatisation and sackings, particularly of public sector workers.
Infrastructure and jobs
He hopes
to soften the blatant pro-billionaire agenda by borrowing from capitalist
economist Keynes with a promise to increase government spending of at least $1
trillion on the US's collapsing infrastructure.
However,
as welcome as any new jobs would be in restoring the confidence of the US
working class to fight back against the bosses and providing the unemployed
with work, nevertheless these would not replace the high paid secure jobs which
have been lost in the massive deindustrialisation of the US.
An
estimated 70,000 factories in the US disappeared during this process, never to
return on the basis of capitalism. Since 2010 something like 15 million new
jobs were generated in the US but these have been overwhelmingly low paid and
insecure, many the equivalent of the hated zero-hour contracts in Britain.
Moreover,
the US is already saddled with colossal debt - government, corporate and
personal - which is the main reason why enfeebled US and world capitalism has
been able to still stagger on.
But will
even a Republican congress ratify big increases in public spending, without any
overall economic growth and ratcheting up even more debt? Top US tax expert and
Congressman Ken Brady has declared: "The greatest threat to our prosperity
long term is our growing national debt."
On the
basis of capitalism, particularly the parasitic kind which Trump represents, a
return to a 'golden age' when today appeared to be better than yesterday, and
tomorrow would certainly be better, is over. The 60% of the US population who
now consider themselves worse off than before signifies this.
Bernie Sanders
Hence the
explosive developments in the US with the rise of the Bernie Sanders movement. Sanders' call for a
political revolution drew mass support from discontented workers and
young people and in turn terrified the pro-capitalist Democratic Party
establishment.
When he
was denied victory in the primaries by the manoeuvres of the pro-Clinton Democratic
establishment, Bernie made a big mistake in not taking to the open road and
establishing a new party. He had successfully appealed to the same impoverished
and discontented layers of workers and young people to whom Trump was also
pitching his message.
If he had
stood for the presidency, then if not beating Trump, he would have at least
attracted sufficient support to have allowed for the possibility of Hillary
Clinton coming to power. This would have been the ideal scenario for the
prospects of the further political awakening of the American working class and
the youth.
A Clinton
Democrat administration, which would have been tested to destruction - much as
the Liberal Party in Britain was at the turn of the 20th century - could have
created the base for the emergence of a new mass workers' party. Given the
economic catastrophe of US capitalism and the desperation of the masses for an
alternative, a new mass movement for socialism would have taken shape.
The
election of Trump - the whip of counter-revolution - will not halt but
ultimately spur on this process. There are features present in the current
situation reminiscent of the explosive years in the 1960s and 70s. Socialism is
an idea which has already captured the imagination of the new generation of
workers and young people.
Socialism in the US
'Trotsky
in New York 1917' - part of the avalanche of new books in preparation for the
hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution this year - while
inaccurate about Trotsky's real political views, nevertheless provides valuable
insights about the powerful attraction for the American masses of socialism and
its leading international figures then.
We are
informed that "at least six New York newspapers with more than half a
million readers would announce Trotsky's arrival in the city. Three put the
story on the front page." There was a vibrant socialist movement and
Eugene Debs had stood as a Socialist Party
candidate in every presidential election since 1900, receiving over one million
votes in 1912, the equivalent of six million today.
Those
traditions will be revived, alongside those of the monumental class battles of
the 1930s. American capitalism's colossal wealth and power allowed it to soften
class relations in the post-1945 situation. Its relative economic decline has
now sharpened these divisions, which will be further deepened by Trump.
And this
will develop with American speed and elan. The success of our US co-thinkers,
with the spectacular growth of Socialist Alternative and the election of the first socialist
councillor in 100 years in Seattle - Kshama Sawant - is a measure of
the changes wrought in the heartland of world capitalism.
As is the
success of the
school student union in Spain, which chalked up a big national
victory against the PP government - the first in five years - when it
successfully mobilised two million school students in a national strike which
compelled the government to withdraw its attacks on education.
Warnings
Never has
this been more necessary. Even the representatives of the capitalist system,
like Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, have warned the class they
represent of the inherent dangers arising from the current crisis. Carney
warned of the worst crisis for over 100 years with the UK "suffering its
first lost decade since the 1860s", when Karl Marx was alive.
He
repeatedly referred to the sense of insecurity and frustrations with global
trade and technology, which has favoured "the superstar and the lucky...
But what of the frustrated and frightened?" He denounced
"inequality" as well as the banks who had been, according
to him working in a "heads I win, tails you lose bubble".
Its
intent was to warn the bosses who Carney represents of the incendiary economic
and social situation in Britain which threatens to blow the system apart. And
the examples which he uses are damning indictments of British capitalism, as
well as an indication of further seismic events to come.
More than
a fifth of the UK's population - almost 14 million people - is below the official
yardstick for calculating poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
That includes 4.8 million adults and 2.6 million children in poverty despite living in a working family. The numbers in
this category grew by over a million in the last decade, symbolising the
inexorable impoverishment of broad swathes of the British people.
Stories
now creep into the press of how those who come from the middle class can now
rapidly sink into a desperate situation. From having a job, to no job,
therefore no income, then being incapable of paying the rent and ultimately
ending up on the streets. The wheel of progress has gone into rapid reverse
towards barbarism, with some homeless people now found to be living in caves in Wales!
Jeremy Corbyn and Labour
It was
these conditions - arising from the complete failure of traditional 'social
democracy' trapped within the framework of outmoded capitalism to provide an
answer - which lit the flame of populist revolt symbolised in Britain through the mass movement gathered around Jeremy Corbyn. And yet 18
months after this - and with the crushing defeat of two right-wing Blairite coups - his campaign has now
stalled. Jeremy himself seems to be missing in action. Why?
Because a
policy of 'peaceful coexistence' during a civil war, which has existed in the
Labour Party and the labour movement from the very first day that Jeremy was
elected, has been adopted by his closest supporters in the leadership of
Momentum. It is potentially fatal for his leadership prospects and the mass
anti-austerity movement around him. This has been successfully urged on him by
his closest advisers in Momentum.
There is
an element of dual power in the Labour Party
at the moment. The right controls the Parliamentary Labour Party - mainly the
unreconstructed Blairite right, who display their opposition and contempt for
Corbyn and his allies on a daily basis.
These
'Labour' MPs are unmistakably in the camp of the bosses. This was illustrated
by Chris Evans, MP for Islwyn - one of the poorest constituencies in South
Wales - seeing himself as the 'voice' of the parasitic hedge funds rather than
the working class, and proposing a parliamentary liaison committee with these
City of London creatures.
This
right-wing MP is prepared to get into bed with the financial spivs, who create
nothing and who treat factories and workplaces as 'assets' that can be gambled
away on the stock exchange. They are the sworn enemy of working people and yet
this alleged representative of the workers of South Wales seeks the
participation of corrupt, parasitic swindlers who are shunned by even 'respectable'
capitalists.
This
shows just how politically corrupt large swathes of the Parliamentary Labour
Party are - the sooner they are driven out the better. The Labour right have
played for time, while the left has dithered and refused to conduct a real
struggle, therefore playing into the hands of the right.
This is
particularly the role of the leaders of Momentum. They refused to consistently
support the one measure that would have mobilised hundreds of thousands of
left-leaning workers and youth who joined the Labour Party in great enthusiasm
to complete the Corbyn revolution: namely, subjecting
right-wing MPs to reselection.
There
have been no systematic protests at the arbitrary and bureaucratic denial of
access to its ranks or that of the Labour Party.
Our
request for readmission of 75 supporters of the Socialist Party previously
expelled has met a brick wall. This while the right have ruthlessly used their
position on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party to
consolidate their grip.
Unresolved civil war
All of
this could have been avoided if clear direction had been given from the
beginning to the hundreds of thousands who rallied enthusiastically to Corbyn's
anti-austerity programme and clearly demonstrated the desire to drive the
Blairite right out of the Labour Party. The response of Momentum's leadership
was to rule out any such political 'confrontation' with the right.
The civil
war which has existed from the beginning of Corbyn's accession to the
leadership remains unresolved. The right, having failed to remove him in an
open coup and afraid of leaving the Labour Party in the hands of the left, have
fallen back on a 'creeping coup'. The tactics consist of a war of attrition,
constantly seeking to discredit Jeremy and John McDonnell, and marginalising
and excluding their supporters.
Blind alley
There is
nevertheless everything to play for in 2017. Capitalism is a blind alley,
incapable of taking society substantially forward. All of those parties who
accept the system will ultimately fall under the wheels of history.
The
movement around Jeremy represents a determined attempt to throw off the
outmoded shell of Blairite pro-market, pro-capitalist forces and take to a more
radical, socialist road.
The
Socialist Party, together with the CWI, will do everything in its power to
assist workers and young people to attain the goal of a mass, socialist party
fighting for a socialist society in Britain and the world.
