From Unity, 10 May 2008

Join the class struggle now!

by Lynda Walker

May Day is that special day for working-class solidarity when we take stock of the political situation regarding the workers of the world. It can be a kind of truism that on the one hand oppression breeds revolution and uprising, but on the other hand people who are so oppressed may be the least likely to offer confrontation.
     This is the case with people who are facing food shortages (a euphemism for famine). “Food shortages” are becoming more widespread, with food riots being reported in Egypt, Haïti, and other places. In fact the “shortages” are caused by rising prises: in Haïti the cost of staple food like rice, beans, fruit and condensed milk has gone up by 50 per cent. In Ireland the cost of living is spiralling, but not yet to the point of famine.
     On the 150th anniversary of the “Great Hunger” in Ireland a May Day lecture was held in Transport House, Belfast. One of the speakers said that the difference between the famine in the rest of the world today and the “famine” in Ireland in 1845 is that you can watch it on television. And that is true, up to a point. But what you do not see on television are the facts relating to the reasons why this unequal distribution takes place, and that the 35,000 people who died of starvation on one day in 2001 could have been saved if the unequal distribution of food and wealth was rectified; that within those countries there are very wealthy people and wealthy institutions. In terms of our own situation in Ireland, it is very unhealthy to rely more and more on imported foods to Ireland and less on our own food production.
     It may be simplistic to point out that it is ruthless and unjust if the rich own land, factories, property, and wealth; that according to the Forbes annual list of billionaires, the three hundred richest families in the world possess more than 50 per cent of the world’s wealth. Well, that is in monetary terms. What we as communists and Marxists understand as wealth is the value of people’s power in making that wealth and in using the natural resources of the earth to make the things that we need to survive. But unfortunately wealth is only too often calculated in monetary terms, rather than the provision of social and welfare services.

The “C words”

At the present time we hear in everyday news how the banks and big businesses are transferring billions of pounds or making adjustments to offset the “credit crunch” that’s now happening (an “in” term that will no doubt find its way into the dictionaries)—for “credit crunch” read “capitalist crisis,” because that is what it is. This crisis in capitalism means that other ways of procuring wealth are sought. That is what is happening in Iraq with the oil, and that is also what is happening with the privatisation of water. A global push is on for this last vestige of our natural resources.

“Blue gold”

In the west we have come to take for granted the provision of clean water—forgetting that social reformers campaigned for water to be installed in houses, and the struggles that went before, that these struggles are still with us, big time. Throughout the world, big business is determined to privatise water, including rainwater. “It is precisely the class struggle against the privatisation of water that was one of the causes of mass popular rebellions and the electoral victory of the left wing in Bolivia” (Dan Jacopovich, Morning Star, 6 April 2008).
     Just about four weeks ago the ICTU and members of the Belfast Trades Council helped to organise a meeting with trade unionists from Ecuador and Italy. What was patently obvious from the information that the speakers gave was that there is ongoing collaboration of the capitalists to privatise and control the sale of water. The experiences were so alike in each country that it was uncanny when we heard all the speakers say, “The governments say that work on the water infrastructure needs to be upgraded but that governments cannot afford to do the work, therefore we have to bring in private capital. We need to upgrade the water and sewage system, using public money, before the sell-off. Contract out the work piece by piece, but deny that it is being privatised. Make public servants in the water industry redundant, but sell off to private industry in the name of efficiency. Set up private companies to send out the water bills.” And so on, and so on.
     We as communists do not profess to have all the answers, but we do know with conviction that there has to be a better way of organising the world in comparison with the present system. Who can justify the fact that, according to the UNICEF “State of the World’s Children” 2008 report, close to 9.7 million children died before their fifth birthday? The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation states in its report The State of Food Insecurity in the World that approximately six million children are dying from hunger each year. “They are dying minute by minute, from day to day and from year to year. Meanwhile, billions are being traded on the world stock markets and rich people flaunt their obscene wealth” (Dan Jakopovich). The life expectancy in Botswana has dropped to the pre-1950 level, only 39 years; in Swaziland it is below 33 years. Thirty thousand children die from generally preventable diseases, like diarrhoea, measles, malaria, acute respiratory infections. AIDS is killing millions in African and Asian countries, and the multi-billion-pound pharmaceutical industry refuses to allow those countries to manufacture cheaper versions of drugs to combat the effects of AIDS.

Sunshine

If all this makes for depressing reading, it surely means that capitalism has to be fought, that radical changes have to be made by us in whatever way we can contribute through the trade union and labour movement. In South America some countries are leading the way. Spurred on by the spirit of socialism in Cuba, Venezuela is becoming the sunshine of our smiles. First the oil industry was nationalised, then the telecommunication and electrical industry, and in April this year the Oil Minister, Rafael Ramírez, announced that three foreign-owned cement companies that have failed to provide low-cost cement for the domestic market would be nationalised. President Chávez explained: “What we are doing is to nationalise what was privatised.” Those being brought under state control were the big cement companies that were practically given away by a previous right-wing government.
     Further to this is the taking over of land that is unused and whose ownership is in question. This is also to come under state control for the needs of the people.
     No doubt the millionaire owners are smarting, but, as James Connolly once said, “And our demands most moderate are: we only want the Earth.” We seek to make the world a better place not just for the few but for everyone. Lenin so prophetically wrote: “Capitalism, formerly a liberator of nations (as in its takeover from feudalism), has in its imperialist stage become the greatest oppressor of nations. Formerly progressive, it has become a reactionary force. It has developed the productive forces to such an extent that humanity must either pass over to Socialism, or for years, nay decades, witness armed conflicts of the great nations for an artificial maintenance of capitalism by means of colonies, monopolies, privileges, and all sorts of national oppression.”
     After the dark days of the fall of the socialist system, the changes that are happening in South America are an inspiration to us all, to go forward to change, challenge and overthrow the capitalist system. Join the Communist Party; join the class struggle. Now.

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