connections between the seperate struggles

[scarletghoul]

There seems to be be three general regions of rising class war - Latin America, South Asia, and (poorer parts of) Europe, with their three epicentres - Venezuela, Nepal, and Greece. This is as yet an unconnected triangle. What's striking about it to me is that all three have completely differant models of revolutionary organisation.. the Latin American movements tend to be based on a party securing bourgeois state power and trying to empower the masses from there, the South Asian revolutions take the form of a Protracted People's War gradually undermining all bourgeois authority so that the people can take power when the time is right, and in Europe things are just completely disorganised.

Clearly the European struggle is the least developed, and its only been emerging the last one or two years. Greece is the only one in Europe developed enough to look at, and that look reveals that there's still a million contradictions within the workers' movement. In terms of leadership it seems to be roughly divided between the KKE and the Anarchists, between Marxism-Leninism and what could perhaps be described as Workerism-Studentism. Who knows how things will develop there, which currents will grow dominant, what fuckups will be made, what will become of the crude urban guerrilla tactics, how the EU will act, etc. And who knows how it will influence the rest of Europe. Certainly dissent has increased in Europe recently. OK, maybe not so much in the rich places like Britain where the recent election involved increased participation and enthusiasm, albeit ending in a hung parliament, indicating a commitment to no particular party but bourgeois democracy in general. However in Ireland, protesters tried to storm parliament, and there are very logical EU fears that Portugal, Ireland, and Spain could all go Greek soon. Its the very early stage, but I really do think this is the start of an intensifying class war in Europe. It's not like Greece has its own seperate material and social conditions and is isolated from the rest of Europe objectively and subjectively is it.

In South Asia, Nepal's Maoists are on the brink of seizing state power (it seems.. who knows though), the Naxalites are meeting Operation Green Hunt with remarkable success and amidst the strategic defensive recently carried out their largest ever (in terms of death toll) tactical offensive, and are consolidating their base areas. In the Philipines (OK its not in South Asia but its South-East Asia and its a similar style insurgency with ties to the others and in similar semifeudal semicolonial conditions) the NPA is steadily increasing its geurrilla fronts and tactical offensives. A few small Maoist groups have emerged in surround places like Bhutan etc. Without a doubt there is a recent/ongoing advance of revolutionary forces in the area.

Within the last few years leftist governments have been elected all over Latin America, Bolivia has nationalised loads of stuff etc, and most recently the Chavez government has been establishing worker and peasant militias and the revolutionary process has generally been deepening among the people. Whether this will work out ultimately or not remains to be seen .. (can Chavez use bourgeois power to generate workers' power strong enough to overcome the bourgeois power which created it ?? hope so ) but things are definately moving forward there.

So certainly in general its all intensifying. This world situation is very differant to ten years ago for example, no one could deny that. We have emerging new arenas of class struggle; new ideas and forms; an array of new and diverse icons of revolutionary leadership- Chavez, Prachanda, Kanellos... This could be the dawn of a new multi-shaded red wave.

But still the 3 centres of struggle remain unconnected, which is a shame because triangles are the strongest structure. And I don't mean that as a piece of useless stupid rhetoric; I think it really does apply. What's needed is some kind of support between these struggles, perhaps even coordination. A new International if it happened might work but it would have to include all of them, and be very loose in terms of organisational model. There are a few international organisations, the Chavez 5th thing, the ILPS, but none of them include all leading revolutionary forces of today, and that seems to be what would be really awesome right now.

Still it's early days especially in Europe haha and anyway I'm really tired so I'm gonna end this long OP, saving it from the fate of essayism (it would fail as an essay) and reaffirming it as a RevLeft opening post by asking a question. How do you all think these struggles are related and how do they compare to eachother and how can they support eachother ??

[The Vegan Marxist]

This doesn't really help clarify anything or help answer your question (not yet), but isn't President Chavez a Maoist?

[Homo Songun]

Chavez is the leading edge of the type of movement you describe as "party securing bourgeois state power", and I would describe perhaps as "benevolent left-caudillismo", but I think you are a bit off on where the epicentre of the revolution in Latin America is. I describe Colombia, and specifically the FARC territory as the epicentre of the revolution. Chavez heads up a bourgeois state whereas the FARC is trying to overthrow one. Furthermore, Chavez can get voted out of office, but the FARC is not going anywhere. Likewise, the PSUV can be described as mixed at best, whereas the FARC's Clandestine Communist Party has a fully revolutionary program.

[mosfeld]

This doesn't really help clarify anything or help answer your question (not yet), but isn't President Chavez a Maoist? Chavez is a lot of things; a Trotskyist ("What is the problem, I am also a Trotskyist!"), a Maoist (claimed to be one on his visit to China.) Above all an opportunist, though.


I describe Colombia, and specifically the FARC territory as the epicentre of the revolution. Peru as well!

[bricolage]

Well hasn't Chavez aligned himself with the CPI(Marxist) who the Maoists appear to be fighting against?

In any case I can't see what bourgeois states (Venezuela/Bolivia) have to offer genuine struggle like that which we are seeing in Greece.
I'll leave aside my criticisms of Maoism for the time being.

[howblackisyourflag]

They all have a lot more to be united against than they have in common as goals.

The main strand is probably anti-imperialism, and I mention a 4th group you didnt in addition to these 3, the 'taliban' of afpak, and Iran and hezbollah, forming a middle-eastern block of resistance.

This group is not left wing but anti-imperialist.

There is a big difference between fundamental muslims fighting imperialism, to maoist fighting corporate destruction in tribal india, to communitarian socialism in Bolivia, but there can be a common goal found in that their are all attempting popular defiance against the hegemonic power centres of the world.

With Europe, it is unorganised but I think it just takes time. For example, with the last major financial crisis in 1929, it wasnt until 1933 or 34 in the United States that there was an organised working class resistance that fought back and made many gains that still exist today.

So when anger boils over and people try to run into the Irish parliament, I understand their anger but I dont know if its a great idea. Maybe it is because it shows everyone else what the police really think of them when they react to these situations. But I think what we really need to do is be patient and understand that politically minded people like us probably expect things to happen a lot sooner than they do.

In Ireland, there is a campaign coming up to fight water charges. If we can take this event of 'militant particularism' and organise a nationwide campaign against the privatisation of our water supply, the next step would be to put this in a wider context for people and show that it is not a one-off problem but a fundamental one caused by capitalism. Noone really knows how successful this could be but if it worked and tapped into peoples anger in the right way it could at least be as effective as the poll tax riots that brought down Thatcher, and of course hopefully much more so.

[maskerade]

We should also remember the importance of the radical student movements which are emerging. The anti-capitalist messages which emanated not only from the student occupations in California, but from universities in the UK, Germany, Austria and France as well - and most of these movements had support from large numbers of students - should be seen as a growing discontent amongst students, and an important contribution.

Socialism should concentrate on workers empowerment, but in a few years these students will be workers of some sort, and if they manage to keep their leftist leanings they can contribute a lot to an international struggle, right at the heart of the Western capitalist order.

But to answer your question, I support an initiative for a new international (such as the one Chavez has proposed, even though it is far from ideal) which is not concentrated firmly on some sort of ideological tendency, and instead offers coordination between all socialist movements - a network in other words. Hopefully the leftist governments of Latin America will display some sort of support for the nepalese maoists and all other revolutionary forces in Asia

[El Rojo]

would say these struggles are all fundamentally related in thier opposition to capitalism (duh) and furthermore all being products of the neoliberal model of capitalism that is currently the dominant global economic model. also, all of these movements, (although i am not sure with the nepalese / asian insurrection, i dunno enough about it) are democratic proletarian movements (despite being a communist i prefer the term proletarian or people to workers, as this kinda leaves out the unemployed, the youth, aged and non working people ect) this is the key to these movements, and what make them possible revolutionary movements, a mon avis.

how do they compare to each other? again, i dunno enough about the asian situation, however, from what i have seen here and elsewhere it seems to be an extreamly militant confrontation of the state. claro, this is not the case in south america. a couple of points viz this, being in venezuela at the moment i feel relatively qualified to comment.

1) claro, S america in its entirety is not not anti-capitalist. to a great degree it is still the USAs back yard. a lot of the left governments in which you put so much hope are reformist, capitalist and matey of the west. only bolivia and venezuela are to any extent revolutionary. however, resistance movements in S america are some of the strongest in the world, and should therefore be considered part of ye rather nice triangle.

B) you are mistaken viz venezuela, as are, i think, a lot of revlefters. Venezuela is not simply a case of the state under chavez "empowering" the passive masses. it is instead the masses that are using the state as a vehicle for social change. how did chavez get elected, and impose a new constitution? how was he returned to power after the 2002 coup? how has he passed hundreds of popular new laws? all with the support of, if not due to the demands of the working classes. this seems contradictionary, and it is. elements of the state, old bourgoise officials and rather short sighted people inside and outside the state opposing the bolivarian process are trying to stop the revolution developing, as are some elements of the state machinary itself. however, Chavez, his political party, progressive elemtents of the state and most importantly of all, a mass peoples movement, are driving the process forward. venezuela is at a crossroad, and could very rougly be compared to Russia in 1917, where everything the duma did had to be ratified by the soviet. I am confident that there is no danger of the PSUV loosing power, because even if they loose elections, the working classes will keep chavez in place. caracas alone will explode like a bomb is he is voted out. dictatorship of the proletariat, baby! to believe that chavez and the psuv alone are dictating events in venezuela is to be decived by the mainstream media.

so with south america, and venezuela specifically, i would say it would be very hard for the process to go backwards at this point. the worst case senario would be a US invasion. this isnt on the cards in the near future, but dont rule it out. what with teabaggers running round and uncle sam on the the retreat, that place is likely to do(aka nuke) anything. no disrespect to our US conrades.

finally europe. the heart of revolutions of old, eh? im unsure of exactly que pasa outside of the UK and greece, but i think i can say that in europe what we have at the moment has yet to develop into a seriously revolutionary situation. even in greece, what the movement is mainly concerned with is the resistance to austerity cuts. yes this is driven largely by people aware of the historical process as a whole, and yes resistance to the cuts is a challenge to european capitalism, but we have yet to see marchs calling for the end of the eu, or capitalism on a major scale. however, i would say that a respectably gigantic crisis is heading europes way. i wont claim to understand capitalist economics in detail (long words at length = take the workers money) but it seems clear that the euro cannot go on much longer. the only way for it to save itself will be horrificly large cuts, and that is not a guarentee. the only question is, will the european left be capable of resisting effectively? if so, only then could europe be considered to be in a revolutionary situation. (funnily enough, the Liverpool SWP branch leader told me this at marxism 09. good call amigo lol)

finally, how can these movements assist each other. shit, thats a good question. id say more organisation in europe would be requiered before we would be capable of assistance to other areas in conflict. only recently, (ie the parnethion banner) have the struggles in europe really started to see themselves as one, and we have yet to work as one. for starters, messages of solidarity (from workers, not party bosses ect) would be good. such messages have done wonders for the morale of the student movement, factory occupiers and strikers. one we see actualy co-ordination between the movements in these three parts of the world, well hell, thats about the time id say we can kill capitalism. imagine a worldwide (a multiple continent wide) strike? never in history have we seen such a thing, and FML would it fuck up capitalism. i think this question should get its own thread.


ending thoughts / qualifiers

1) this has been a fun little bit to do, shit its got long

b) were trying to predictthe future here conrades. remember this is impossible unless we start practising witchcraft ect

iii) i may be totally wrong in everything i just wrote.