An answer to the leftist action of May First

Capitalism is our misery...

Let’s sow revolutionary confusion!

This past Mayday was dished out to us on a sickening Procrustean bed by the various leftist organizations polluting Quebec’s proletarian political milieu. Indeed, a profusion of libertarian organizations coming from burst horizons (NEFAC, Anarkhia) was linked to the Maoists and other Stalinists (Revolutionary Communist party, Carrefour Quebec-Cuba) around a judicious extremely confused leaflet to represent the anger of the world’s so-called “poor” and “oppressed” – two ambiguous and catch-all terms typically used by the bourgeoisie, which will never represent anything other than social categories of variable geometry; two terms, therefore, utterly alien to Marxists and proletarians…

And so throughout the text, no mention at all of the only class capable of bringing about the revolutionary project – the proletariat! The autonomy of the proletariat in facing the opposing class, the bourgeoisie, is an essential condition for the development of its struggles toward the communist revolutionary project – without a doubt the only historical project focused on putting a final end to the capitalist mode of production. However we must stop and consider that there is no doubt some real revolutionary will on behalf of certain individuals within these groups; perhaps even some of the signatory groups themselves which don’t know the “program” and haven’t yet made an assessment of the struggles and defeats of the working class since the introduction of a state capitalism during the Twenties in Russia.

Keep in mind that the groups having signed this call don’t share the same vision of “anti-capitalism” and class-struggle. Most of these groups are, in fact, openly reformist, crypto-reformists, or haven’t a clue what tap they’re drinking from, while choosing between various forms of capitalism (like the state capitalism of the Stalinist PCR and Carrefour Quebec-Cuba, or the self-managed capitalism of the NEFAC).

We should also get it through our heads that capitalism with a human face does not exist. For the working class, to mend the broken pieces of capitalism through capitalist means is a misleading and impossible idea. Capitalism is a class system based on the surplus produced by our class. It’s not simply a question of human solidarity, as one would have it, since this world is divided into two antagonistic classes which clash daily. Where’s the human solidarity in events like Katrina? You find it mainly amongst the proletariat. How many of these fine bourgeois do we see investing their time, energy, and money in our assistance? Very few. And often, it s the pressure of the circumstances themselves which forces even that assistance. Thus there’s no point in talking about communism, here, since these groups in fact are not. For us, the only social class that can change the world is the working class, and proletarian internationalism is an essential precondition for that change to occur.

Communist ideas, the communist perspective, are disseminated only while working within the ranks of the proletariat, not isolated in leftist groups aligned with capitalism. Alliance with these groups, whose policies clearly oppose the interests of the proletariat, can only lead to one opportunistic dead-end which, in the final analysis, serves only the intentions of the bourgeoisie by sowing confusion within our class.

Indeed, all alliances, common, united, or antifascist fronts, with the left or the right-hand of capital (and ipso facto with fractions of the bourgeoisie), only end up by disarming the proletariat in the face of its adversary, forcing it away from the only ground from which it draws its conscience and its strength – its class terrain! Any political current which attempts to drive the working class from it’s own terrain, while trying to associate it with interests contrary to those of the proletariat, directly serves the interests of the bourgeoisie. For Marxists, it’s never a question of the lesser of two evils. The only real objective is the interpenetration of class struggles towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, initially, and then finally Communism.

Down with the dictatorship of the parties!

Down with frontism and popular fronts!

Long live the global dictatorship of the proletariat!

Factory closures, layoffs and suspensions: this is what the bourgeoisie offers us globally!

May 1st 2008

Today, everywhere in the world, capitalism in crisis manifests plans of economic management resulting in factory closures, through mass layoffs, wage cuts for those who manage to keep their jobs… Primarily, by more misery for our class, the proletariat. This, without mentioning the 2/3 of humanity starved by this system. Today, here, there and everywhere, this very capitalism spreads its barbarism in every conceivable form: escalation of wars and areas of inter-imperialist tensions, the proliferation of numerous terrible acts of terror – and let’s not forget those ecological catastrophes occurring ever more frequently – maiming and killing thousands, each and every day.

The ruling class, abetted by its media, manages to justify all its anti-worker policies by so-called “imperative necessities” of an ideologically planned and manufactured “globalization”, as it sweeps under the rug the daily atrocities generated by its system while offering local assholes (such as Vincent Lacroix, Pierre Karl Péladeau and Conrad Black) as scapegoats or by putting it all down to fate and luck of the draw.

But some workers resist!

At Olymel of Valley-Junction, Friday, April 18, following disciplinary measures aimed at seven of their comrades, workers from the “Cutting” sector went on a massive strike, paralyzing the factory. They didn’t wait for the union, which wanted to take the suspensions to arbitration while sticking to a nauseating 7-year collective agreement.

Then, the boss’s watchdog, the State, came to the rescue, ordered the resumption of work deeming the strike under consideration for Monday to be illegal. Despite this and the union’s disavowal of the strike, that evening the factory’s employees voted 78% in favour of an illegal strike on Monday morning. As a result of their action independent of the trade union, the disciplinary measures against six workers were overturned! The seventh case will be the subject of an accelerated arbitration.

Elsewhere in the world, let us also consider the example of Pomigliano’s FIAT factory in southern Italy that’s paralyzed by a strike. A working committee, formed independently of the union apparatus, organized the mobilization. Until Sunday April 13, the picket lines were supported by 99% of the employees. Monday April 14, the strikers decided to block the flow of commodities to shut the factory down completely. The conflict concerns the fate of 316 skilled workers considered “inconvenient” by the company, which decided to subcontract out their jobs. Trucks will continue to be blocked so long as the 316 workers are not reinstated. Active solidarity and support are essential for strikers manning the picket lines 24 hours a day.

As these two battles clearly show, the working class is not ready to accept the increasing and massive sacrifices that capitalists and their State seek to impose on them.

Careful with fake solutions!

The two battles of Olymel and FIAT are quite different from those of Crocs of Quebec and Golden Brand delicious of Montreal. In Crocs, the State, through its Minister for “Employment and social Solidarity”, Sam Hamad, maintains that its ministry will do everything to accelerate assistance to workers and to facilitate the search for employment while the union spokesman speaks of a revival project. In spite of no mobilization and the complete isolation of the workers, the company chose to close the factory for a few weeks rather than face the prospect of resistance. Some 540 workers will lose the jobs at Golden Brand as a result of outsourcing of its clothing workshop abroad. Silly actions such as the boycott of Moores stores will not change anything. Politicians like Giles Duceppe, leader of the Block, have become political assets on the backs of workers. Their slogan may be “Buy Canada” but what they’re really saying is “Sell everywhere”. Today it’s “Buy Canada” and tomorrow it’s “Defend Canada or Quebec”… And let us kill our enemies, the workers of Vietnam, China, Russia, Romania or elsewhere through a world war of their choosing. Capitalist competition, economic crises are always regulated by wars with workers from opposing imperialist camps, obliged to kill themselves.

Workers, we do not have to support these nationalist slogans; we are the many; it is we who produce the wealth but control nothing.

Our struggles are legitimate, but are they sufficient to drive back the exploiters?

For its fight to be effective, the working class must first shift the balance of forces against the bourgeoisie. To that end it is necessary for it broaden its struggles and extend them, by means of mass delegations to other factories, companies and sectors, to do everything possible to unite them. Even though our struggles are legitimate, are they sufficient to drive back the exploiters?

To undertake this requires workers to take their struggles in hand through sovereign general assemblies and elected strike committees subject to immediate recall, and not turn back to the trade unions which are no longer, nor have been for a long time, organizations for the defense of workers interests. Quite the contrary! Today it’s the only way the proletariat can effectively defend its immediate interests and to push back the repeated attacks of capital.

But this is also that way which will enable workers tomorrow - through the development of their struggle and because they are the revolutionary class - "to storm the heavens" and rid us of this system which can only lead humanity to a new and surely a last word war.

LET’S DEVELOP AND UNIFY OUR STRUGGLE AGAINST CAPITALISM, AGAINST ITS RATIONALE OF MISERY AND DEATH

Some internationalist communists, Montréal and Internal Fraction of the International Communist Current

email : cim_icm@yahoo.com

Address : CIM_ICM, C.P.55514, Succursale Maisonneuve, Montréal, (QC) H1W 0A1