The strike wave in Europe and the decay of bourgeois democracy

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The strike wave in Europe and the decay of bourgeois democracy
20 October 2010

The growing struggles of the working class in Europe and internationally against
mass unemployment and government austerity policies are exposing the reality
behind the façade of bourgeois democracy. In every country, the government,
whether conservative or nominally “left,” is cutting jobs and wages and slashing
social programs in complete disregard for the overwhelming opposition of the
population.

Elections, parliamentary debates have no effect on policy. The state does the
bidding of the financial aristocracy, tearing up the living standards of the
masses in the interests of the bankers who are responsible for the economic
crisis. The financiers and corporate executives are making more money than ever
by exploiting mass unemployment and growing social distress to slash wages and
increase the exploitation of the working class.

Where the best efforts of the trade unions do not suffice to hold the workers in
check and struggles break out that challenge the plans of the capitalists, most
prominently in France and Greece, the state uses its powers of repression to
smash strikes and protests. In France, the Sarkozy government has deployed riot
police to break up workers’ blockades of oil depots and attack protesting
students with tear gas and rubber bullets, arresting hundreds across the country.

In Greece, the social democratic PASOK government, elected with the support of
the unions, deployed the military to break a strike by truckers in August. Last
week, the same government used riot police and tear gas against culture ministry
employees occupying the Acropolis to protest mass layoffs.

Despite these attacks, the resistance of the working class is growing. The
current wave of strikes and protests in France is the most developed expression
of a new stage in the international class struggle. It marks a shift in the
world political situation of historic proportions. The working class is once
again entering into battle against the capitalists.

Recent days have seen the spread of the strike movement in France, the outbreak
of a strike in Greece that has paralyzed the country’s rail system, and a
demonstration of hundreds of thousands in Rome protesting the policies of the
Berlusconi government.

There have been one-day general strikes and mass protests in Spain, Portugal and
Ireland, strikes by workers in Romania, and powerful strikes by auto workers in
China and by workers in India, Cambodia and Bangla Desh.

In Britain, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is imposing
historically unprecedented cuts totaling 83 billion pounds, which will mean the
loss of at least 500,000 jobs in the public sector and another 500,000 in the
private sector.

British workers have repeatedly sought to resist the government-corporate
onslaught, but have to this point been stymied by the treachery of the trade
unions, which oppose any serious strike action or social mobilization. London
tube workers have struck against privatization and mass layoffs, prompting the
government to draw up anti-strike legislation. BBC and British Airways workers
have voted for strike action, but the union leaders have refused to call them out.

In the US, Obama, who came to power by appealing to the intense hatred among
working people and youth for the pro-corporate, militarist policies of Bush and
the Republicans, is carrying out uniformly right-wing, anti-working class
policies, shattering the illusions of millions who voted for him. The inability
of the White House and the Democratic Party to in any way distance themselves
from the corporate-financial elite has been underscored by the administration’s
actions over the past week, just two weeks before the congressional elections.

The administration has lifted the moratorium on Gulf oil drilling, announced
that Social Security recipients will receive no cost-of-living increase, and
rejected calls for a moratorium on home foreclosures.

The growing opposition of the American working class is finding expression in an
incipient rebellion by workers against the United Auto Workers union, which is
seeking to make the 50 percent wage cut for newly hired workers worked out last
year between itself, the auto bosses and the Obama administration the new
baseline for the industry.

The contempt of the American ruling class for the democratic will of the people
was summed up in an editorial on the events in France published Tuesday by the
New York Times. The major organ of the “liberal” Democratic Party establishment
acknowledged that there is broad support in the French population for the
strikes and protests against Sarkozy’s plans to raise the retirement age.
“Despite the widespread inconvenience and economic losses,” it wrote, “public
opinion has remained sympathetic to the unions.” (French polls show upwards of
70 percent supporting the strikers).

This did not prevent the Times from insisting, “France’s Parliament should give
final approval to the retirement age reform bill this week,” and adding, “Even
with the age raised to 62, further painful adjustments would be needed before
the end of this decade.”

What is emerging in the experience of hundreds of millions of people around the
world is the incompatibility of the capitalist system with their most basic
needs. The growth of the class struggle is exposing bourgeois democracy as
little more than a fig leaf for the dictatorship of the banks and corporations
over economic and political life.

The political conclusions must be drawn. The fight for jobs, decent living
standards, housing, education, health care and all other social rights is a
political fight against the capitalist state. It is not a matter of pushing the
state to the left, reforming it, or replacing one bourgeois government with
another, but rather of replacing it, through the revolutionary mobilization of
the working masses, with a workers’ state, based on social ownership of the
means of production and workers’ democracy.

The fight for workers’ power emerges organically and inevitably out of the
struggles of the working class against the attacks by the bourgeoisie. It must
be conducted consciously, in opposition to the trade unions, the official “left”
parties and the various middle-class pseudo-left organizations, such as the New
Anti-Capitalist Party in France, that seek to keep the working class tied to the
existing political setup and prevent it from mounting an independent struggle
for power.

This fight is, moreover, an international struggle. Workers throughout Europe
and around the world are facing the same attacks and fighting the same enemy. No
matter how bitter the conflicts between the ruling elites of the various
nations, they are united in seeking to impose the full cost of the crisis on the
backs of the working class. International finance capital is carrying out a
coordinated offensive against the workers. They must fight back by uniting their
struggles across national borders and fighting for the program of world
socialist revolution.

Barry Grey

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o20.shtml

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