Primero de Mayo de 2019 Los proletarios no tienen patria: son la clase internacional de los trabajadores! Contra el militarismo y la guerra entre los Estados del capital por la guerra social revolucionaria de la clase obrera
El progreso de la globalización, acelerado en las últimas décadas por el desarrollo de las comunicaciones y del transporte, ha involucrado a todas las áreas del planeta en el ciclo infernal de la producción capitalista. La producción, basada en la explotación del trabajo asalariado y destinada exclusivamente a la obtención de ganancias, es un volcán que incesantemente hace erupción de mercancías, en su mayoría inútiles, en cantidades cada vez mayores. Pero ahora el capitalismo, en su fase de plena decadencia económica, así como ideal y moral, trata de sobrevivir mediante la explotación de todos los recursos del planeta, naturales y humanos.
El poder político y económico se ha concentrado en unos pocos burgueses al frente de grandísimas empresas, que poseen o controlan riquezas comparables a las de un Estado y que dominan el destino del mundo entero.
Pero es el Capital, una fuerza histórica anónima e incontrolable, el que determina el choque permanente entre los diferentes capitalistas y grupos nacionales de capitalistas y los arrastra inexorablemente hacia el abismo de la catástrofe financiera.
La extrema concentración del capital, mientras que por un lado aumenta, acumula, refuerza y unifica a la clase trabajadora, por otro lado, junto con la crisis de sobreproducción, arruina implacablemente a las clases pequeñoburguesas, mercantiles y productoras, clases socialmente impotentes, ahora sin fuerza y sin programa histórico, incluso cuando expresan su ruidosa rebelión, como recientemente han hecho los chalecos amarillos en Francia.
Mientras tanto, sea por el imparable progreso de la crisis, o sea por el surgimiento del nuevo coloso capitalista de China, que altera el equilibrio imperialista anterior, se agudizan las viejas y las nuevas tensiones internacionales. Ya la mayoría de los Estados han comenzado la guerra comercial, con derechos de aduanas, embargos, chantajes y se vuelven a encender los conflictos armados locales. Ahora se ha demostrado que el capitalismo nunca podrá cumplir su promesa de garantizar el desarrollo pacífico y armonioso de la especie humana.
Por el contrario, la burguesía rearma sus ejércitos para prepararse para un nuevo conflicto imperialista general, en el que llamarían a decenas de millones de proletarios a masacrarse entre ellos: mientras crece la miseria de la humanidad trabajadora, cientos de miles de millones de dólares se destinan a la producción de armas cada vez más letales.
Pero la guerra mundial, este terrible golpe de la cola del moribundo monstruo capitalista, podrá imponerse solo después de haber dividido las fuerzas de su adversario histórico, la clase internacional de los trabajadores, poniendo a proletarios contra proletarios. Ya ha comenzado en todas partes una nauseabunda campaña “soberanista”, racista y de odio a los extranjeros, con el único propósito de romper la unidad del proletariado por encima de las fronteras y prepararlo para una nueva guerra.
Se toma como pretexto para esta infame propaganda el movimiento de millones de hombres que siempre han salido de los países más pobres, hoy África, Asia, América Latina, impuesto por el capitalismo que, por un lado, con la rapaz explotación imperialista empuja a una creciente masa de desposeídos a la pobreza y, por otro lado, siempre requiere fuerza de trabajo, y a un precio bajo.
Adicionalmente millones de desesperados se ven obligados a huir de las guerras interminables fomentadas por las burguesías imperialistas para apoderarse de los recursos naturales o para ocupar áreas de importancia estratégica y militar, como en el Medio Oriente o en África central.
El capitalismo ha convertido el mundo en un infierno para quienes trabajan. Los proletarios ven en todas partes sus condiciones y la supuesta seguridad demolidas día a día por los ataques de la clase patronal, animada solo por sus ansias de ganancias, y que hoy se aprovecha de la debilidad de la clase obrera, amenazada por la crisis económica. Los recortes salariales, el aumento del horario y de la carga de trabajo, la reducción de cualquier garantía de empleo, de la asistencia en la maternidad, en la vejez y en la enfermedad, son las medidas adoptadas por la burguesía para defender sus ganancias. La crisis económica, determinada por la caída de la tasa de ganancia y la sobreproducción de mercancías, empuja a los patronos a exasperar la explotación de los trabajadores para la producción, mientras que otros, cada vez más numerosos, están condenados al desempleo.
En muchos países, una parte de los trabajadores está constituida por inmigrantes extranjeros, a menudo forzados a la ilegalidad y chantajeados con la amenaza de expulsión; esta depravación, que se acerca al esclavismo, es mantenida por el Estado burgués para aumentar la competencia entre los trabajadores, envenenar sus sentimientos y dividir sus fuerzas.
En cambio, una única fuerza histórica se levanta, objetivamente, frente al Capital: el proletariado internacional, organizado en clase, unido por encima de las nacionalidades y razas. Este proletariado volverá a ser una clase para sí, no una mercancía para el Capital, defenderá sus condiciones de vida y de trabajo, reconstituyendo sus sindicatos de clase, instrumentos indispensables para unir sus fuerzas contra el ataque patronal. Aprenderá así a desenmascarar a los sindicatos fieles al régimen burgués y a los partidos oportunistas falsamente amigos, y a librar una guerra contra el aparato político, policial y militar que lo protege.
Será guiado en esta verdadera guerra de clases por su vanguardia, que habrá adherido al Partido Comunista, revolucionario e internacional, en su invariante programa histórico que grita: ¡los proletarios no tienen patria! Hermanos de clase se encontrarán unidos en la lucha mundial por el abatimiento del régimen de capital, por el comunismo!
Modena, 6 April 2019 - Class Solidarity
[Text of the ICP’s leaflet at a 1,200 worker protest in Modena, Italy in defense of rank and file unions.]
The trial of the National Coordinator of the SI Cobas is part of an overall attack by the bourgeois regime [on rank and file unions]. This attack is being carried out against a 10 year long struggle in the logistics industry, which the SI Cobas union has been able to organize and represent.
Through hard fights – made up of real strikes, made without notice or predefined length, with pickets blocking goods and fighting scabs – thousands of workers have obtained important victories, wage and regulatory improvements. The SI Cobas has gone against the tide compared to other industries which have suffered defeats and retreats for years, seeing their living and working conditions worsen.
The bosses’ aim is to prevent the extension of this struggle beyond the logistics sector. An enlargement of the working class’ front could lead the workers to rise from the dead end where the regime trade unions (CGIL, CISL, UIL, UGL) have led them. The rank and file unions could break the hegemony of these organizations, who defend the national economy – the interests of the bosses and the State. These regime unions have repeatedly shown that they constitute the first line of repressive action against the most combative workers. They are the ones who sabotage the strikes, signing downward agreements with the companies to try to stop the fight, thus offering justification to the police to attack and clear the pickets.
Of course, repression against workers in struggle is carried out primarily by the bosses in the workplace. Disciplinary reprimands, suspensions, transfers and other measures that often prelude dismissal, but when these means and the dirty game of concerted unionism are not enough, the bourgeois regime intervenes in the first person, that is, the State, which now at every strike ranks in front of warehouses, factories, construction sites, carabinieri and policemen in order of war.
Last December the Parliament passed a law – the so‑called Security Decree – aimed at immigrants, who represent a significant part of the working class. But the decree also attacked pickets and demonstions, in short, the freedom to strike. The decree is therefore against the whole working class, both immigrant and native. Of course, this law is a further exacerbation of repressive actions against the entire working class and its struggles. These repressions carried out by the employers and the various governments with continuity over time.
In January, courts condemned delegates, leaders and some supporters of SI Cobas for having participated in a picket at DHL Settala (Milan) in 2015. And now there is the trial of Aldo Milani [National Coordinator of SI Cobas]. The legislative, executive and judicial powers are in a common front in the defence of the bourgeois regime.
Against this line‑up of advisaries, the proletariat can and must only count on its forces. Only by the extension of the workers’ struggle and strengthening of class unionism, its currents and its organizations, can generate a solidarity which constitutes a far‑sighted, not ephemeral defence. That solidarity is a needed prerequisite for the future offensive against capitalism and its political regime.
Solidarity coming from «honest democrats», from cultural, legal and academic «personalities» must not be allowed to deceive the workers about the nature of democracy. A democracy which in the test of economic crisis and with the resumption of the proletarian struggle, will reveal its true face: the dictatorship of capital over the working class.
We work for the unity of action by all the organizations and currents of combative unionism. We need to defeat the trade union opportunism which dominates in the base unions. Because their fragmentation and their methods of struggle by the majority of the current leaders, will not be able to defeat the regime’s trade unions.
Report on the Mass Movement in Sudan
Sudan has been shaken by a powerful mass protest movement since December 2018 with the slogans «freedom, peace and justice», “We are out [in protest], we are out [in protest] against those who stole our sweat [hard work]” and «revolution is the people’s choice». Also opposition to the Darfur genocide was expressed with the slogans «You arrogant racist, we are all Darfur!». As it is common in Sudanese protests, women are playing a particularly important role in the movement, to the extent that it has been deemed a “women’s revolution” by the participants of the movement.
The public reason that triggered the mass movement in Sudan was the rising bread prices. Sudan has a tradition of workers struggles, going back to 1903. The protests began in rural areas and in cities such as Atbara, where there is a strong tradition of independent trade unions. A leading force of the movement was one of these unions, the Sudanese Professionals Association (including the Agricultural sector, Geologists, Dentists, The pharmacists, Specialized Medical Associations) which served as an organizational backbone for the movement. The regime responded with mass arrests of labor cadres and leadership.
In December 24, 2018, trade unions and professional associations called for a nationwide work stoppage soon after the protests started against price hikes and worsening economic conditions, and doctors vowed to continue their indefinite strike. The mass movement developed slogans against Omar al‑Bashir, the genocidal tyrant supported by the Muslim Brotherhood ruling the country since a coup d’etat in 1989. As the mass movement continued, so did class struggles, such as the port workers strike against privatization. All activities usually carried out in the Southern Port, Northern Port, the Green Port, Al‑Khair_Port, and the Osman Digna Port, in Suakin city were shut down by the workers who went on strike in different parts of the country in solidarity with each other. An important center of union activity within the protests seems to be The Alliance for Restoration of Sudanese Workers Trade Unions, which has also formally joined «the revolution» in early March, 2019, calling on all the “disbanded unions» to join forces with the protests.
Nevertheless, it has been reported that unions and professional classes are no longer as active in the movement as they had been in the 80ies. Other than the unions, women’s and youth organizations are involved with the movement, as well as parties of the bourgeois left such as the Sudanese Communist Party, which is a part of the Alliance of the National Consensus Forces along with other bourgeois parties. The general orientation of this “Communist” party, unsurprisingly, is a return to democracy. There is no doubt there are many others who envisage such a future for Sudan, such as the rest of the signatories of the Declaration of Freedom and Change, which include the Sudanese Professionals Association and the The Alliance for Restoration of Sudanese Workers Trade Unions. As such, these unions are ready to become regime unions as soon as a democratic regime is established.
The 2018‑2019 mass protests in Sudan are similar to two other incidents in the history of the country. The first, in 1964, was sparked by clashes between students and police at the University of Khartoum. These incidents mushroomed into a much wider protest movement that ended up toppling the military dictatorship of Ibrahim Abboud. The second, in 1985, broke out after years of economic unrest and, like today’s protests, was set off by an increase in the costs of basic goods, leading to a mass movement that forced Jafa’ar Nimeiri to step down. In 1964 and 1985, Sudan’s army intervened to support the transition to a multiparty democracy. It did this under pressure from junior and middle-ranking officers, and these decisions proved crucial to the overthrow of the rulers. This time too, after earlier reports that soldiers had intervened to protect protestors from police violence, the Sudanese army toppled Omar al Bashir and declared there will be two years of military rule, to be followed by free and fair elections. The defense minister in Bashir’s government, Awad Ibn Auf briefly became the face of the coup, only to be replaced following his resignation by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Adelrahman Burhan as the head of the Military Council. Burhan, unlike Ibn Auf, isn’t accused of war crimes in regards to Darfur.
The Sudanese Professionals Association rejected the army’s overthrow of al Bashir as a military coup and vowed to hold further demonstrations, as did many other organizations. In a post on Twitter, the SPA said it was demanding the «handover of power to a civilian transitional government that reflects the forces of the revolution». Furthermore, the professional union called for mass protests in defiance of the curfew announced by the military, declaring «To comply with the curfew is to recognise the clone rescue government». Nevertheless the SPA declared Ibn Auf’s replacement with Burhan as a «triumph of the will of the masses», while calling on the masses to continue their protests in front of army garrisons.
Workers, and especially «professionals» are playing a very important role in the Sudanese mass movement but the democratic union leadership with their bourgeois party allies are in control of the movement politically. There is no indication anyone seriously hopes for a dictatorship of the proletariat in a situation and geography where a genuine, international Communist Party isn’t present.