Il Partito Comunista 395

The progress of globalization, accelerated in recent decades by the development of communications and transport, has involved every region of the planet in the hellish cycles of capitalist production. Production, based on the exploitation of waged labour and aimed exclusively at profit, is a volcano that constantly produces goods, mostly useless, in ever-increasing quantities. But capitalism, now in its phase of full economic, as well as intellectual and moral decline, tries to survive by exploiting every resource of the planet, natural and human.

Political and economic power have been concentrated in the hands of a few members of the bourgeoisie at the head of very large companies, which own or control wealth comparable to that of an entire state and dominate the fate of the entire world.

But it is Capital, an anonymous uncontrollable historical force, that determines the permanent clash between the different capitalists and national groups of capitalists and drags them inexorably towards the abyss of financial catastrophe.

If, on the one hand, the extreme concentration of Capital increases, collects, strengthens and unifies the working class, on the other, together with the crisis of overproduction, it also ruthlessly ruins the small-bourgeois, mercantile and productive classes, who are now socially powerless, deprived of any historical role and program – even when they express their noisy rebellion, as we have seen recently with the Yellow Vests in France.

Meanwhile, because of both the unstoppable progress of the crisis and the emergence of the new capitalist colossus, China, which has upset the previous imperialist balance of forces, the old international tensions have been exacerbated and new ones added. Already the major states have started the trade war, by means of tariffs, embargoes and blackmail, and local armed conflicts are being rekindled. It has now been proven that capitalism will never be able to keep its promise of ensuring a peaceful and harmonious development for the human species.

On the contrary, the bourgeoisie is rearming its military forces in preparation for a new general imperialist conflict, in which they would call tens of millions of proletarians to massacre each other: while the misery of working humanity is growing, hundreds of billions of dollars are poured into the production of ever more lethal weapons.

But the world war, this desperate last throw of the dice by the dying capitalist monster, will only impose itself after having divided the forces of its historical adversary, the international working class, pitting proletarians against proletarians. A nauseating “sovereign”, racist and xenophobic campaign has already started everywhere, with the sole aim of breaking the unity of the proletariat above the borders and preparing it for a new war.

The pretext for this foul propaganda is the displacement of millions of men, who have always left the poorest countries, today in Africa, Asia, Latin America, a displacement which is itself imposed by capitalism; on the one hand, capitalism forces a growing mass of underprivileged people into misery through its rapacious imperialist exploitation, and on the other hand it has an insatiable demand for cheap labour.

Millions more desperate people are forced to flee endless wars, fomented by the imperialist bourgeoisie to grab natural resources or to occupy areas of strategic and military importance, such as the Middle East or Central Africa.

Capitalism has turned the world into hell for those who work. Proletarians everywhere see their conditions and presumed securities demolished day by day by the attacks of the ruling class, which is driven only by the lust for profit, and which today takes advantage of the weakness of the working class, threatened as it is by the economic crisis. Cutting wages, increasing hours and workloads, reducing any guarantee of employment, assistance in maternity, old age and illness are the measures taken by the bourgeoisie to defend their profits. The economic crisis, caused by the falling rate of profit and the overproduction of goods, pushes the bosses to intensify the exploitation of workers involved in the production process while others, more and more, are condemned to unemployment.

In many countries, some of the workers are foreign immigrants, very often forced into illegality and blackmailed by the threat of expulsion; this wickedness, which is close to slavery, is maintained by the bourgeois state in order to increase competition between workers, poison their feelings and divide their forces.
Instead, a single historical force stands objectively in front of Capital: the international proletariat, organized as a class, united above nationalities and races. This proletariat will once again become a class for itself, not a commodity for Capital, it will defend its living and working conditions by reconstituting its class unions, an indispensable instrument to unite its forces against the bosses’ attack. In this way it will learn both to expose the trade unions loyal to the bourgeois regime and the opportunistic parties that are false friends, and to wage war against the political, police and military apparatus that protects it.

It will be led in this real class war by its vanguard, who will have joined the Communist Party, revolutionary and international, and its historically invariant program that cries out:

Proletarians have no country!

As class brothers and sisters, they will find themselves united in the world struggle for the overthrow of the regime of capital, for Communism!

[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.

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.