All-India general strike

[Crux]

All-India general strike

Enormous potential for struggle demonstrated

15/09/2010
Workers showed courageous determination

CWI reporters
http://www.socialistworld.net/img/201009141.jpg

On the day of the strike, 7 September, the right-wing nationalist paper, The Hindu, had not a mention of the action on its front page. Instead the lead article itself demonstrated very clearly the need for the strike and for further action. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has come out against a high court order that the poor should be given grain that scandalously will now be allowed to rot in the go-downs (ware-houses). It is estimated that 70% of India’s population lives on less than Rs20 a day - less than half a dollar!

http://www.socialistworld.net/img/article/2010-09-14Grafik4620422127763232252.jpg
Young women working at Gold Winner Oil near Chennai were striking for better wages.
The strike gave a glimpse of the potential power of the working class in India. In Mumbai it was reported that 90,000 auto-rickshaw drivers struck. Nationally hundreds of planes were grounded and rallies and protests took place across the country. In Bangalore, where garment workers are super-exploited, members of New Socialist Alternative (NSA), the CWI in India, helped to bring out workers from six garment factories to join the strike.

However, the experience in Chennai gave the impression that more planning and preparation could have yielded much greater results. Auto drivers complained that they had not received a single poster or leaflet to help them advertise the strike. No posters were visible before the day itself. It appears that most areas did not have preparatory meetings either.

http://www.socialistworld.net/img/article/2010-09-14Grafik1931647384483016988.jpg

There is a myriad of reasons for the workers, poor and young people to strike and protest in India. Poverty, dire working conditions, lack of public services, oppression on the basis of gender, sexuality, religion, caste or language, state repression and many more transgressions of human rights. This strike was particularly focused on the enormous price hikes in food and fuel which further punish the poor. The cost of staples like rice and dal have rocketed while wages stagnate and hours and jobs are cut. Meanwhile the wealthy of India live on a different planet of air-conditioned restaurants and chauffer-driven shopping sprees.

The leaflet of the New Socialist Alternative called for genuinely elected committees of working and poor people to control food prices and for the general strike to be followed by further action - well-organised and prepared.

The strike was called by a number of trade unions mainly, but not all, affiliated to the Communist Parties. Even unions affiliated to the biggest ruling party – Congress – came out and its leader, Sonia Ghandi mouthed words of concern for the plight of workers just before the strike! The attitude of some Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)) members was that the general strike should sound a warning shot to the government. But a ‘warning shot’ with no clear signal of a determined and organised follow up is unlikely to put sufficient pressure on the government.

However, the workers who took action showed courageous determination. Young women working at Gold Winner Oil near Chennai were striking for better wages. Satya has been at the company for six years and receives a miserly Rs3,100 a month (US$ 67). When Priya spent 30 minutes in the bathroom, the ladies’ supervisor at Gold Winner publicly asked her who she had been sleeping with! These women workers also took strike action against sexual harassment. For two days’ action they lost eight days’ pay! They described their conditions as “semi-slavery” and were angry that the mainstream Indian and Tamil Nadu media did not cover their conditions and struggles.

Workers from the Special Economic Zones were also out on strike. Companies in these areas are not required to recognise trade unions or the minimum wage. Of the 70 companies in the ‘Tambaram SEZ 50’ pay below the appallingly low minimum wage.
http://www.socialistworld.net/img/article/2010-09-14Grafik1127282793617167964.jpg

Young men working at RSB, a supplier for the giant US-based firm Caterpillar, were striking against the price hike and against job insecurity. They were members of a new independent trade union, the United Labour Federation (ULF). Their complaints were many. While managers took home 1,500,000 - 2,500,000 rupees ($32,000), 400 workers shared one toilet, received no lunch or dinner at work and faced suspensions over minor issues. When they established their union, the ULF, the management set up a new boss-friendly union, bringing in political parties for support. It was thus unsurprising that these young militant working class fighters felt there was no political party that represented them. They hoped that Caterpillar workers in the US would organise solidarity with their struggles.

The police were also determined and made mass arrests at the CPI(M) unions’ rally. Hundreds of workers were driven away in vans and trucks. However the presence of western tourists with cameras seemed to keep them at bay at the ULF rally.


http://www.socialistworld.net/img/article/2010-09-15Grafik2900458613271053144.jpgThe ULF’s honorary president, V Prakash, described the horrendous wealth gap and the conditions of the workers. He condemned the political parties and the way that the trade unions had ordered the strike from the top when it should have been organised from the bottom up.

There was a warm welcome for visiting socialists (from the CWI) who gave solidarity greetings, with particular applause for the call for a new workers’ party to be built across all sections of society and with no discrimination on the basis of gender, caste, sexuality, religion or language. This point was made in the NSA leaflet and repeated by V Prakash. Many participants expressed interest in the leaflets and the work of New Socialist Alternative.

[RED DAVE]

Question: What was the attitude of the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists towards this general strike?

Both the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists seem to have ignored the massive workers protests in Bangladesh in the past few months.

RED DAVE

[chegitz guevara]

Nope, no working class in India. No potential for organizing a workers revolution.

[Ele'ill]

This is unrelated but I've always thought Indians are amazingly beautiful people.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Question: What was the attitude of the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists towards this general strike?

Both the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists seem to have ignored the massive workers protests in Bangladesh in the past few months.

RED DAVE

I'd also be curious to know what their position and/or involvement (if any) is in regards to this.

[Lyev]

Nope, no working class in India. No potential for organizing a workers revolution.Are you serious? I can't tell. If you're not joking, bear in mind that 1917 Russia's working class was only a tenth (roughly) of the total population. With the right strategy etc., a proletarian (and socialist) revolution is possible I think. (Trotskyist) permanent revolution can be applied to such a situation, IMO.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm pretty sure that he was joking, considering the fact that, like, one-sixth of the world's population lives in India.

[zimmerwald1915]

Are you serious? I can't tell. If you're not joking, bear in mind that 1917 Russia's working class was only a tenth (roughly) of the total population. With the right strategy etc., a proletarian (and socialist) revolution is possible I think. (Trotskyist) permanent revolution can be applied to such a situation, IMO.
He's caricaturing - not very much, but still - the third-worldist conception that exists among some western leftists that there is indeed little or no potential for independent workers' struggle for workers' demands and eventually a proletarian political program and finally worker-led society in countries like India. The logical conclusion being that alliances must be made with the "national" bourgeoisie or other groups. Indian workers, of course, give the lie to such claims.

[Barry Lyndon]

He's caricaturing - not very much, but still - the third-worldist conception that exists among some western leftists that there is indeed little or no potential for independent workers' struggle for workers' demands and eventually a proletarian political program and finally worker-led society in countries like India. The logical conclusion being that alliances must be made with the "national" bourgeoisie or other groups. Indian workers, of course, give the lie to such claims.

Great way to misrepresent others positions, zimmerwald1915. I have always held the opinion that the Indian subcontinent, along with Latin America, has the highest level of working-class political consciousness and the greatest potential for socialist revolution today. It's Left-coms like yourself who are filled with resentment that the revolutionary workers of those countries don't join your tiny Left-Com talking shops but join Marxist parties which actually have bothered to actively participate in the struggle for the rights of the workers, women, and lower caste members.

[Barry Lyndon]

Question: What was the attitude of the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists towards this general strike?

Both the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists seem to have ignored the massive workers protests in Bangladesh in the past few months.

RED DAVE

Actually, I believe that Comrade Alastair provided evidence that they did come out in support of the protests in Bangladesh, but cannot do much at the moment to materially aid their struggle.

But nice job slandering a Third World people's movement, a hobby you seem to be prolific in.

[zimmerwald1915]

Great way to misrepresent others positions, zimmerwald1915. I have always held the opinion that the Indian subcontinent, along with Latin America, has the highest level of working-class political consciousness and the greatest potential for socialist revolution today. It's Left-coms like yourself who are filled with resentment that the revolutionary workers of those countries don't join your tiny Left-Com talking shops but join Marxist parties which actually have bothered to actively participate in the struggle for the rights of the workers, women, and lower caste members.
I have to wonder why you're taking offense, as nobody in this thread has mentioned you or gone so far as to ascribe any position to you.

[Devrim]

Great way to misrepresent others positions, zimmerwald1915. I have always held the opinion that the Indian subcontinent, along with Latin America, has the highest level of working-class political consciousness and the greatest potential for socialist revolution today. It's Left-coms like yourself who are filled with resentment that the revolutionary workers of those countries don't join your tiny Left-Com talking shops but join Marxist parties which actually have bothered to actively participate in the struggle for the rights of the workers, women, and lower caste members.

Wow there was somebody else on here the other day accusing me of being resentful. I'm not sure where this meme has come from.

If you are referring to the Maoist parties here, then the working class aren't joining them. The Moaists recruit amongst the peasantry and the poorest sectors of society, not the working class.


Actually, I believe that Comrade Alastair provided evidence that they did come out in support of the protests in Bangladesh, but cannot do much at the moment to materially aid their struggle.

What does it mean to come out and support? I remember in the TEKEL struggle here DHKP/C attacked a police station in a city seven hours away 'in solidarity with the strikers'. Er...well yeah.

Even if the Maoists did make some vague statements in support of the strike, it is not something they were involved in, nor something they see as particularly important.

The Maoist strategy is not aimed at building independent working class consciousness and developing workers struggles. It is aimed at building a peasant army in the countryside.

Devrim

[chegitz guevara]

Are you serious? I can't tell. If you're not joking, bear in mind that 1917 Russia's working class was only a tenth (roughly) of the total population. With the right strategy etc., a proletarian (and socialist) revolution is possible I think. (Trotskyist) permanent revolution can be applied to such a situation, IMO.

I am very much joking. There are some rather dogmatic Maoists on this board who claim that India is a feudal state and economy, that there is no real proletariat to speak of, and that the revolution can only be carried out by the revolutionary peasantry by means of protracted people's war. The article in the OP gives the lie to that belief.

Which is not to say I oppose people's war necessarily. I believe in a diversity of tactics to bring down capitalism and imperialism.

[RED DAVE]

Question: What was the attitude of the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists towards this general strike?

Both the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists seem to have ignored the massive workers protests in Bangladesh in the past few months
Actually, I believe that Comrade Alastair provided evidence that they did come out in support of the protests in Bangladesh, but cannot do much at the moment to materially aid their struggle.

But nice job slandering a Third World people's movement, a hobby you seem to be prolific in.Actually, you're wrong. I asked about the support of the Bangladeshi Maoists and he answered me. Unless my search was incomplete, always possible, I was never answered about the Nepali Maoists or the Naxalites with regard to the labor unrest in Bangladesh.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1812578&postcount=28

So, unless you can come up with a correction, an apology would be nice.

Also, I would still like to know the answer to my original question on this thread: What, if any, has been the response of the Naxalites and the Nepali Maoists to the general strike in India? I would add that to ignore this action by either of these groups would be politically extremely irresponsible.

RED DAVE

[Saorsa]

I hate to say it, but why are people getting so excited about a general strike called in order to apply political pressure by a coalition of reformist and/or openly bourgeois parties?

The working class can learn from this, sure. Strikes always teach workers about the power they have. But this is hardly an example of organic class war - the workers are on strike because their trade union leaders ordered them to go on strike. The trade union leaders ordered them to go on strike because their political party masters told them to. The involvement of Congress affiliated unions tells a story about the nature of this strike. The Congress is the leading capitalist party in India!

The bourgeois parties are concerned about the growing militancy of the Indian working class, and the growing strength of the Maoist-led revolutionary movement. So they give the masses a phoney little exercise to take part in that will, they hope, allow the masses to let off some steam and go home feeling they accomplished something. They might as well have organised a parade and handed out cotton candy.

This strike was (in most cases and in most areas, bound to be exceptions) not about the workers consciously deciding to engage in class struggle against their bosses, let alone revolutionary struggle against the state. The workers are being used as pawns by the bourgeois parties they are currently misled by - why should this be celebrated? What role could the Maoists have played in this, and why should they have bothered?

And just in case anyone forgot... the Maoists are an illegal organisation. Their members are extra-judicially murdered by the state forces on a routine basis. It's a bit silly to condemn them for not having an open and above ground presence in this state-sponsored carnival of reformism.

[RED DAVE]

I hate to say it, but why are people getting so excited about a general strike called in order to apply political pressure by a coalition of reformist and/or openly bourgeois parties?Maybe for the same reason that you got so excited when the Nepali Maoists called a general strike to further the establishment of a reformist and bourgeois constitution


The working class can learn from this, sure. Strikes always teach workers about the power they have. But this is hardly an example of organic class war - the workers are on strike because their trade union leaders ordered them to go on strike. The trade union leaders ordered them to go on strike because their political party masters told them to. The involvement of Congress affiliated unions tells a story about the nature of this strike. The Congress is the leading capitalist party in India!The Nepali Congress Party is the leading capitalist party of Nepal, but the Nepali Maoists were willing to head a bourgeois government formed by a constituent assembly that included these capitalist lackeys.


The bourgeois parties are concerned about the growing militancy of the Indian working class, and the growing strength of the Maoist-led revolutionary movement. So they give the masses a phoney little exercise to take part in that will, they hope, allow the masses to let off some steam and go home feeling they accomplished something. They might as well have organised a parade and handed out cotton candy.Kind of reminds me of a recent general strike in ... better not go there.


This strike was (in most cases and in most areas, bound to be exceptions) not about the workers consciously deciding to engage in class struggle against their bosses, let alone revolutionary struggle against the state. The workers are being used as pawns by the bourgeois parties they are currently misled by - why should this be celebrated? What role could the Maoists have played in this, and why should they have bothered?How about lending critgical support to a massive working class effort and use the occasion to criticize the actions of the bourgeois parties and the trade union leadership?


And just in case anyone forgot... the Maoists are an illegal organisation. Their members are extra-judicially murdered by the state forces on a routine basis. It's a bit silly to condemn them for not having an open and above ground presence in this state-sponsored carnival of reformism.A simple press release would do.

Translation: the Nepali Maoists and the Naxalites declined to support the general strike and they have, as far as anyone knows, declined to support the workers actions in Bangladesh.

Way to build international and national working class solidarity, comrades!

RED DAVE

[Amphictyonis]

Nope, no working class in India. No potential for organizing a workers revolution.

Get a time machine and tell that to Lenin ;)

[Saorsa]

Maybe for the same reason that you got so excited when the Nepali Maoists called a general strike to further the establishment of a reformist and bourgeois constitution

Dave, you have had it explained to you over and over and over again that the Maoists are not struggling for a bourgeois constitution. They've been quite explicit about this. Why do you keep slandering their efforts? Nepal is on the precipice of victory - decades of struggle for a Constituent Assembly have finally met with success, and the struggle over what kind of constitution gets written is currently being fought. Why do you continually accuse them of fighting for a 'bourgeois' constitution when they have never said they are doing that, and no concrete evidence points towards them doing that?

Furthermore, a massive general strike called by a genuine revolutionary party as part of it's struggle to restructure the fabric of Nepali society is very different to a general strike called by a coalition of bourgeois parties over purely economistic demands.

Politics is primary. Always. Political line determines everything.


The Nepali Congress Party is the leading capitalist party of Nepal, but the Nepali Maoists were willing to head a bourgeois government formed by a constituent assembly that included these capitalist lackeys.

The Congress was not part of the Maoist-led government. It was in opposition. Nice try though. Ignorance breeds arrogance Dave.


How about lending critgical support to a massive working class effort and use the occasion to criticize the actions of the bourgeois parties and the trade union leadership?

A simple press release would do.

You're attacking the CPI (Maoist) for not yet releasing an English language press release about the strikes? What difference would that even have made?

I suspect they see this strike for what it is - a bourgeois circus.


Translation: the Nepali Maoists and the Naxalites declined to support the general strike and they have, as far as anyone knows, declined to support the workers actions in Bangladesh.

It takes a special kind of sectarian mind to dismiss the historic, inspiring achievements of the Maoist movements exploding in South Asia... and to instead focus on the press releases you think they should have put out. Honestly, your brain works in a way I just can't understand.

It's bizarre. When we recently organised nationwide pickets of Burger Fuel in NZ for sacking its employees, would you condemn us for not mentioning the broken down negotiations between the teachers and the govt in our leaflets? Struggles complement each other through their existence and their success - this is a lot more meaningful than an English language press release for the benefit of Western pessimists.

[pranabjyoti]

This strike is a pure BS. The main organizers of this strike, the CPI(M) and other parliamentary "lefts", who are the killers of peasants of Nandigram, Singur and are supporter of operation Green Hunt. Actually, CPI(M) with its cadres are now organizing a armed attack beside para-military forces in Jangalmahal area.
DO YOU THINK THOSE B*S**RDS CAN OR WILL ORGANIZE A REAL WORKING CLASS STRUGGLE? This strikes are nothing but safety valves of bourgeoisie and other oppressing classes of India. And, oh dear champions of working class, can you explain how many militant struggles of working class has been observed in India regarding the past decades? IN FACT NONE. In contrary, those parties attacked independent working class movements, as for example the movements in the jute industries of West Bengal, had been crushed with both police and CPI(M) cadres.
Basically, this thread clearly revealed the ignorance of some people here in revleft about the ground reality of India. They are far away from the reality by which we are suffering everyday.

[t.shonku]

This strike is a pure BS. The main organizers of this strike, the CPI(M) and other parliamentary "lefts", who are the killers of peasants of Nandigram, Singur and are supporter of operation Green Hunt. Actually, CPI(M) with its cadres are now organizing a armed attack beside para-military forces in Jangalmahal area.
DO YOU THINK THOSE B*S**RDS CAN OR WILL ORGANIZE A REAL WORKING CLASS STRUGGLE. This strikes are nothing but safety valves of bourgeoisie and other oppressing classes of India. And, oh dear champions of working class, can you explain how many militant struggles of working class has been observed in India regarding the past decades? IN FACT NONE. In contrary, those parties attacked independent working class movements, as for example the movements in the jute industries of West Bengal, has been crushes with both police and CPI(M) cadres.
Basically, this thread clearly revealed the ignorance of some people here in revleft about the ground reality of India. They are far away from the reality by which we are suffering everyday.

I completely agree with you!
CPI(Marxist) started in 60s as a party of petty bourgeoisie and lumpen proletariat and today it works for corporate houses, it kills farmers in order to grab land for it’s corporate masters,actually CPI(Marxist) have attacked Lalgarh by getting direct instruction from it’s corporate master like Jindal (the Indian steel tycoon),they are there to plunder the resources destroy the forest and kill tribals.I personally consider CPI(Marxist) to be one of the biggest enemy of communism.

[Devrim]

I hate to say it, but why are people getting so excited about a general strike called in order to apply political pressure by a coalition of reformist and/or openly bourgeois parties?

The working class can learn from this, sure. Strikes always teach workers about the power they have. But this is hardly an example of organic class war - the workers are on strike because their trade union leaders ordered them to go on strike. The trade union leaders ordered them to go on strike because their political party masters told them to. The involvement of Congress affiliated unions tells a story about the nature of this strike. The Congress is the leading capitalist party in India!

I think that this shows a great deal of contempt for the working class, and sees them merely as pawns that are used by bourgeois political parties. Workers merely do what the bosses of political parties tell them via the union leaders.

If we take an example from a different country, England, until a few months ago the Labour Party was in power. Virtually every English trade union is a part of that party. The same logic would lead us to take the same position on every strike called by a British trade union over a period of 13 years. As the trade unions were actually formally a part of the ruling party.

If we look at an example from this country, the pro-government trade unions pledged 'support' to workers in the TEKEL struggle in the general strikes in solidarity with it. Are we merely to dismiss the actions of workers who took solidarity action as those of puppets being manoeuvred by the bourgeois parties?

Of course what this argument fails to do is to go beyond seeing workers as passive actors on the stage of history. Personally I doubt that the trade unions just decided to call this strike without any signs of agitation within the class as a whole. I don't know any details, but I do know that India has seen quite large scale strike movements over recent years. I will attempt to get in touch with our Indian comrades and find out some details about it.


The bourgeois parties are concerned about the growing militancy of the Indian working class, and the growing strength of the Maoist-led revolutionary movement. So they give the masses a phoney little exercise to take part in that will, they hope, allow the masses to let off some steam and go home feeling they accomplished something. They might as well have organised a parade and handed out cotton candy.

Again the contempt for workers shines thorough. Of course it is true that the trade unions do organise things like this and what they objectively do is to 'let off some steam'. In some cases it is a conscious strategy.

It seems to contradict the opening paragraph though where you wrote "the workers are on strike because their trade union leaders ordered them to go on strike". Then here you are talking about the growing militancy within the class, which seems to me to imply that workers are struggling for their own demands.


This strike was (in most cases and in most areas, bound to be exceptions) not about the workers consciously deciding to engage in class struggle against their bosses, let alone revolutionary struggle against the state. The workers are being used as pawns by the bourgeois parties they are currently misled by - why should this be celebrated?

But as you said there is "growing militancy within the class". Is this then unconscious 'growing militancy'. Is this merely a workers being "used as pawns". But if workers were complete 'pawns' why would it be necessary to organise something like this to "let off some steam". Surely if there is a need to "let off some steam", it shows that workers aren't a passive agent?

The point is that there is obviously class struggle in India a strike like this is not separate from it, but a part of it. The task of communists is to take part in actions like this and to oppose the unions role within them.


And just in case anyone forgot... the Maoists are an illegal organisation.

They are also an organisation that has made a conscious decision that the way to what they see as revolution is by building a peasant army in the countryside, and not by taking parts in the struggles of the working class.

Devrim

[RED DAVE]

(1) I will reiterate that critical support for the strike could have given the Maoists in Nepal and the Naxalites an opportunity to state their positions and attract working class. Others, who think that the Nexalites and Nepali Maoists shit chocolate and piss lemonade don't think so.

(2) I sincerely hope that the Nepali Maosists lead the Nepalese working class and peasantry to seizing state power and establishing a workers and peasants government. May it spread and take over the world, starting with India. in the meantime, even just as an anti-imperialist movement, the Nepali Maoists deserve support.

(3) However, at this point, their politics and those of the Naxalites seem to be leading them down the USSR/China/Vietnam/Cuba road: state capitalism to private capitalism. History will show who's right.

(4) In the meantime, gestures of international solidarity, even critical gestures, are important. Some people apparently don't think so. How about Bangladesh then? Not a word that I could find.

(5) As to publishing in English: considering that English is the most widely spoken language in the world, publications in that language are easily read in international circles. The Nepali Maoists publish a magazine in English.

RED DAVE

[Crux]

This strike is a pure BS. The main organizers of this strike, the CPI(M) and other parliamentary "lefts", who are the killers of peasants of Nandigram, Singur and are supporter of operation Green Hunt. Actually, CPI(M) with its cadres are now organizing a armed attack beside para-military forces in Jangalmahal area.
DO YOU THINK THOSE B*S**RDS CAN OR WILL ORGANIZE A REAL WORKING CLASS STRUGGLE? This strikes are nothing but safety valves of bourgeoisie and other oppressing classes of India. And, oh dear champions of working class, can you explain how many militant struggles of working class has been observed in India regarding the past decades? IN FACT NONE. In contrary, those parties attacked independent working class movements, as for example the movements in the jute industries of West Bengal, had been crushed with both police and CPI(M) cadres.
Basically, this thread clearly revealed the ignorance of some people here in revleft about the ground reality of India. They are far away from the reality by which we are suffering everyday.
I am sure the indian comrades who wrote the article would disagree with your impressionist anti-marxist bullshit. Yes we are no fans of CPI(m) and their neo-liberal and anti-workingclass policies. But neither are we fans of say the PSOE in spain's who's union will also be on general strike soon. Your anti-workingclass nonsense will not win you a single member of the workingclass, thankfully, I might add. You separate yourself from a general strike because the CPI(m) union participates? That tells us all we need to know about how terribly confused you are. also stop capitalizing, it does not make your point stronger, it just makes you seem desperate.

[Barry Lyndon]

I am sure the indian comrades who wrote the article would disagree with your impressionist anti-marxist bullshit. Yes we are no fans of CPI(m) and their neo-liberal and anti-workingclass policies. But neither are we fans of say the PSOE in spain's who's union will also be on general strike soon. Your anti-workingclass nonsense will not win you a single member of the workingclass, thankfully, I might add. You separate yourself from a general strike because the CPI(m) union participates? That tells us all we need to know about how terribly confused you are. also stop capitalizing, it does not make your point stronger, it just makes you seem desperate.

Funny given how your same organization denounced the ILWU's blocking of an Israeli ship in Oakland in protest of the Gaza siege....picking and choosing which workers actions you support, aren't you?

[Saorsa]

There's a difference between unions *affiliated* to groups like the Labour Party (I was a member of one for a while) in imperialist countries, and unions that are *directly under the control* of groups like the Congress and the CPM. The Labour Party can't order a general strike to take place and what's more it never would - the relationship is very different.

In countries like India and Nepal, from my understanding, the unions are direct appendages of their political parties and strikes of this magnitude are political acts carried out under party orders.

It's a very different situation.

[Saorsa]

I think that this shows a great deal of contempt for the working class, and sees them merely as pawns that are used by bourgeois political parties. Workers merely do what the bosses of political parties tell them via the union leaders.

You're reading too much into this Devrim, and I kind of take offence at this statement. I dedicate a lot of my time and energy to helping organise low paid workers and helping build left wing projects that can struggle against the employing class, and I don't do it to save workers - I do it because I have faith in working people and believe that one day, maybe not that far away, we'll be able to collectively build a better world using our power as a class.

Of workers aren't just pawns of their union leaders. But we need to also recognise that a lot of workers are politically wrong in their support for reformist organisations and for the capitalist system itself - we can't endorse an opinion or an action just because it happens to have been made by workers.

This strike is both good and bad, as I said. All strikes are valuable in that workers learn through them how to struggle and become conscious of their own power. But this strike is a just for show strike.

The unions in my country are currently waging a 'campaign' against the government. Maybe I give them too much credit... it's been truly astounding how badly its been fucked up so far and there's certainly no chance of strike action being used as a weapon in this struggle. The unions are divided against each other and unwilling to call on their members to do anything more than attend a rally. They're even pushing for the rallies to be stationary, held in theatres etc, rather than street marches! It's depressingly awful.

Now I'm involved in this pretty heavily. I support the struggle, I defend the unionised workers of this country against govt attacks, hell I've been a unionised worker for much of the past two or three years. And if there was a general strike called of course I'd support it.

The point is that I can be simultaneously involved in working class struggles without feeling the need to pretend what is happening in India right now, this specific strike, is an example of organic working militancy leading to a major struggle for social gain. The unions, wings of political parties under political control, have called this and the workers have showed up. The union leaders and their political masters have different agendas to working class liberation.

The strike should be supported but we need to keep it in perspective. That's all I'm saying.

[Crux]

Funny given how your same organization denounced the ILWU's blocking of an Israeli ship in Oakland in protest of the Gaza siege....picking and choosing which workers actions you support, aren't you?
A harsh debate on the blockade issue by irish comrade on revlft =/= a denounciation from the CWI, but cool story, bro.

[Crux]

There's a difference between unions *affiliated* to groups like the Labour Party (I was a member of one for a while) in imperialist countries, and unions that are *directly under the control* of groups like the Congress and the CPM. The Labour Party can't order a general strike to take place and what's more it never would - the relationship is very different.

In countries like India and Nepal, from my understanding, the unions are direct appendages of their political parties and strikes of this magnitude are political acts carried out under party orders.

It's a very different situation.
Even an openly yellow union gets ruptured in a time of strike. if you read the article a bit closely you'll see that we were involved with an independent union.

[Devrim]

There's a difference between unions *affiliated* to groups like the Labour Party (I was a member of one for a while) in imperialist countries, and unions that are *directly under the control* of groups like the Congress and the CPM. The Labour Party can't order a general strike to take place and what's more it never would - the relationship is very different.

In countries like India and Nepal, from my understanding, the unions are direct appendages of their political parties and strikes of this magnitude are political acts carried out under party orders.

Of course the unions in 'third world countries' are nationalist, anti-communist, sectoral, linked to bourgeois political organisations, and make deals with the bosses against the interests of the workers.


It's a very different situation.

I just don't see what is different between them and unions in the West.


The Labour Party can't order a general strike to take place and what's more it never would - the relationship is very different.

No, it wouldn't, but then neither would the English trade unions, who after all haven't called a general strike since 1926. In India though there have been 13 general strikes in the last two decades. This is more to do with local circumstances, but is not a split between the 'third' and 'first' worlds. Unions in Spain, which are also linked to bourgeois parties are calling general strikes at the moment.


Of workers aren't just pawns of their union leaders. But we need to also recognise that a lot of workers are politically wrong in their support for reformist organisations and for the capitalist system itself - we can't endorse an opinion or an action just because it happens to have been made by workers.

No, we can't, and there are times when workers support openly reactionary strikes, the UWC strike in 1974, or the Powell strikes in England in 1968 would be good examples. This strike is obviously not on those lines.
The demands of this strike are based around a five point programme:


1) urgent steps to curb the continuous price-rise through universalisation of PDS and banning speculation in commodity market, 2) Strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violation of labour laws, 3) Concrete proactive measures to be taken for linkage of employment protection in the recession stricken sectors as a condition for the stimulus package being offered to the concerned entrepreneurs and for concrete steps against retrenchment, lay-off, contractorisation and outsourcing, 4) removal of all restrictive provisions based on poverty line in respect of eligibility of coverage of the schemes under the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act 2008 and creation of National Fund for the Unorganised Sector to provide for a National Floor Level Social Security to all unorganized workers including the contract/casual workers 5) Disinvestment of Shares of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) is not resorted to for meeting budgetary deficit and instead their growing reserve and surplus is used for expansion and modernization purposes and also for revival of sick Public Sector Undertakings.

Now these aren't revolutionary demands and they are based around a corporatist programme. It is though obviously a strike not motivated by reactionary demands and in fact by the defence of workers' living standards.


This strike is both good and bad, as I said. All strikes are valuable in that workers learn through them how to struggle and become conscious of their own power. But this strike is a just for show strike.

Of course it is possible to say that it is just a 'show strike', but is it any more of a show strike than many of those 24 hour actions organised by unions in the West.


The unions in my country are currently waging a 'campaign' against the government. Maybe I give them too much credit... it's been truly astounding how badly its been fucked up so far and there's certainly no chance of strike action being used as a weapon in this struggle. The unions are divided against each other and unwilling to call on their members to do anything more than attend a rally. They're even pushing for the rallies to be stationary, held in theatres etc, rather than street marches! It's depressingly awful.

Without wanting to say "I told you so". I think I did. Perhaps it should lead you to think more deeply about the role of the trade unions.


The point is that I can be simultaneously involved in working class struggles without feeling the need to pretend what is happening in India right now, this specific strike, is an example of organic working militancy leading to a major struggle for social gain. The unions, wings of political parties under political control, have called this and the workers have showed up. The union leaders and their political masters have different agendas to working class liberation.

To me though there seems to be some sort of double standard where struggles in India are judged by a different standard from the struggle you are throwing yourself into at home. The fact that in India they are forced to launch a national general strike in co-operation with virtually all the unions in the country, and in New Zealand the unions are holding seperate meetings held in theatres, probably says more about the background class struggle in both countries than anything else.


You're reading too much into this Devrim, and I kind of take offence at this statement

I obviously don't mean to cause personal offence, and apologise if I have. I try not to be rude or swear at people like many on this forum, but some things have to be said. In your case I don't think it comes from a general contemt for the working class. What I think is the case here is a reflected contempt for the working class from the sort of organisations that you support abroad.

I think that this is something very common in Maoist type of movements. In this country for example there were huge struggles between the left and the right thirty years ago involving thousands of people being killed, which ended in a coup and 1% of the population of the country being imprisoned (1% is a small number in itself, but when you think about it, it is a massive number of people to imprison).

Many of those involved in the struggle were people recruited to left organisations from universities, and when you talk to them today, most are completely disillusioned with the working class seeing it as right wing and Islamicist. The fact is that the working class didn't really move in the whole series of events, and the left ended up battling it out in the streets with the right, and at one point Istanbul was seeing an average of 30 political murders a day, on behalf of the working class. Many of the people who were involved then certainly 'blame' the working class for not supporting them and see it as being reactionary.

I see parallels between this and what is going on in India at the moment. There are many, including yourself, who see the Maoist movement as a revolutionary one. The Maoist left in India finds itself in a battle against the state, with, to a large extent, the backing of the peasantry and the most dispossessed elements within society, but not the working class. There is of course class struggle going on, as there was in Turkey in the period leading up to the coup*, but it has no direct connection to the so-called 'revolutionary struggle'. The working class struggles that are occurring are seen as being 'reformist', or 'controlled by bourgeois parties', or treated with some such other disdain.

And they are not wrong. Their characterisation of the class struggle is reasonably accurate. The problem comes when they counterpoise it to the struggles they are involved in, which they see as 'revolutionary'. Then comes the dismisal of the working class, and the start of the development of contempt for them not involving themselves in revolutionary struggle.

The problem though is that the struggle for socialism is the class struggle of the working class. If the level that the class struggle is at is one where workers are being manipulated by bourgeois parties that is the level that it is at. Even within these struggles though, struggles where the working class is fighting in its own interests, using its own weapons, there is the possibility of the working class turning the tables and acting as a class for itself. As Rosa Luxembourg put it 'Every strike contains the germ of the mass strike'.

The struggle of armed groups removed from that of the working class does not offer this perspective, and ultimately leads to the development of disdain and contempt for the working class, which I think you reflect here.

Devrim

*An English friend of mine commented that it was quite interesting talking to the Turkish leftists in exile about the pre September 12th 1980 events in that they talked for ages about the fighting and the struggles they were involved in and then casually mentioned things like, "Oh and there was a massive coal miners strike at that time".

[chegitz guevara]

Should we have opposed the march led by Father Gapon?

[HEAD ICE]

The proletariat in a particular region and in a particular industry is divided, let us assume, into an advanced section of fairly class-conscious Social-Democrats, who are of course atheists, and rather backward workers who are still connected with the countryside and with the peasantry, and who believe in God, go to church, or are even under the direct influence of the local priest—who, let us suppose, is organising a Christian labour union. Let us assume furthermore that the economic struggle in this locality has resulted in a strike. It is the duty of a Marxist to place the success of the strike movement above everything else, vigorously to counteract the division of the workers in this struggle into atheists and Christians, vigorously to oppose any such division.

- Lenin, using the example of striking workers in a bourgeois Christian trade union.

[Crux]

General strike of 7th September heralds new wave of radicalisation

www.socialistworld.net, 22/09/2010
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI
As we reported last week, the general strike of 7 September in India was called by a wide range of trade unions. It was in protests at the rocketing prices of food and fuel while wages stagnate and hours and jobs are cut.
Jagadish Chandra, New Socialist Alternative (CWI, India)
http://www.socialistworld.net/img/20100920Grafik196667350682158897.jpg
“It was an unprecedented and inconceivable strike all over the country. It is the unity (of the trade unions) that inspired workers to join the stir and its impact was massive”, said AITUC general secretary and CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta in New Delhi.
As usual, most of the print and electronic media screamed at the general strike, saying it was a futile, wasteful exercise, and the Trade Unions and their struggles are a drain on the buoyant Indian economy, yet the general strike took place involving millions of workers.

In each of the state capitals around India and in major cities, tens of thousands of working-class poor demonstrated their anger; primarily against the central government ruled by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) under the leadership of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi of the Congress Party.

In many states their frustration was very evident against the so-called opposition governments, which follow the same anti-poor, neo-liberal economic offensive against the organised and the unorganised sections of the working people.

Given the vastness of the land mass of India, it will be difficult to put a number, to say how many took part in the general strike on 7 September, but the statement of G Sanjeeva Reddy, president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) said: “Around 100 million (10 crore) workers and employees from sectors including banks, insurance, coal, power, telecom, defence, port and dock, road transport and petroleum, and unorganised sectors such as construction had joined the strike”, gives a glimpse of what happened on the day.

http://www.socialistworld.net/img/article/2010-09-20Grafik1542769843159188085.jpg

Ten crores and more!

“Around 10 crore workers, both from organised and unorganised sectors participated in the shutdown. Several unions did not openly come but they are with us,’’ H Mahadevan, deputy general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC - linked to the Communist Party of India - CPI) commented on the success of the strike.

A joint statement issued by the unions said the strike had affected the metropolitan cities. West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, even Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other states responded to the strike call.

Contrary to biased media reports limiting the participation of the workers to the customary three states - West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura where traditionally the left parties have a substantial working class base, the 7th September General Strike was historic on two counts: it was the biggest in the past few decades, and it was the first time since independence from the British Raj that INTUC - the Congress-controlled union - officially joined the strike.
Crocodile Tears of Sonia

Many on the left thought that INTUC would be pressurised to withdraw from the strike. In fact, a section of the INTUC leadership, hailing from Andhra Pradesh, did issue misleading press releases to the effect that the union had withdrawn from the strike.

But even the top leadership of the union could not have deterred the workers from participating in the strike, because the underlying economic reasons were far more convincing in leading the workers to join the strike and express their anger.

The last-minute statement of Sonia Gandhi (president of the Congress Party), extensively flashed by the media, to the effect that she sympathises with the plight of the workers and that she would speak to the prime minister to look into the workers’ demands, was an attempt to distract the attention and to blunt the edge of the strike. It is not the strike that the establishment feared, but the domino effect that a united struggle would have on the consciousness of workers in the coming period.
Strike demands

Keeping to the traditional style of ‘minimum’ and ‘maximum’ demands, the trade union leaders put forward the following five point charter:-
Urgent steps to curb the continuous price-rises through universalisation of the Public Distribution System (Food Rationing) and the banning of speculation in the commodities market.

Strict enforcement of all basic labour laws without any exception or exemption and stringent punitive measures for violation of labour laws
Concrete pro-active measures to be taken for linking employment protection in the recession-stricken sectors as a condition for the stimulus package being offered to the concerned entrepreneurs and for concrete steps against retrenchment, lay-off, contractisation (casual labour contracting) and outsourcing
Removal of all restrictive provisions, based on the poverty-line, in respect of eligibility of coverage of the schemes under the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act 2008 and creation of a national fund for the unorganised sector to provide for a national floor for social security to all unorganised workers, including the contract/casual workers
Disinvestment of shares of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) should not be resorted to for meeting budgetary deficits and instead the growing reserve and surplus should be used for expansion and modernisation purposes and also for the revival of suffering public sector undertakings.

The trade unions also demanded the rehabilitation of the workers and employees who have lost their jobs due to the economic recession and for Rs.50,000 crore for an unorganised workers’ social security fund, while the government has only allocated Rs.1,000 crore for 40 crore (400 million) unorganised workers in the country. It must be noted that the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukharjee, in his Union Budget gave over Rs 5 lakh crore (Rs 5 trillion) to business enterprises, which is around 8 per cent of the GDP.

Given the extreme poverty and injustice, even the mild reformist minimum demands put forward by the JCTU (predominantly led by left-wing trade unions, such as the Confederation of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the All-India Trade Union Confederation (AITUC), found a welcoming and enthusiastic response from the vast majority of the organised and unorganised working population.

Farce

Though underplayed by the leadership of the Joint Committee of the Trade Unions (JCTU) as a strategy, the decision of the union, controlled by the right-wing opposition controlled BJP - Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) - to stay away from this historic strike shows that the empty sloganeering of the BJP against the economic hardship of the people was a farce.
The BJP knows very well inside and outside parliament, that its free market ideology completely coincides with that of Congress and it has been directly supporting the neo-liberal policies of Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukharjee and Chidambaram combined.

Their regimes in Gujarat, Karnataka, Chattisgarh are in competition with the Congress-ruled states and with the centre as to which state is most conducive for maximum exploitation of labour and resources by foreign and national companies.

In spite of the global economic crisis, the 7% to 9% growth rate of the Indian economy in the past four years has undoubtedly been achieved by the super exploitation of the workers and poor in India.
A very thin layer of educated middle class have benefited from the much heralded boom and growth, the startling revelation of the deprivation of the majority of the population comes from the statistics of the government itself. Apart from the government-acknowledged fact that 77% of India’s population (836 Million) earns a meagre income of Rs.20 (less than half a US dollar), the great land grab that is going on in the name of “development” has displaced more than 60 million people from their land and livelihoods across India.

Given this extreme poverty and injustice, even the mild reformist minimum demands put forward by the JCTU (predominantly led by left-wing trade unions such as Confederation of Indian Trade Union, CITU, and AITUC) found a welcoming and enthusiastic response from the vast majority of the organised and unorganised working population. But apart from cheering the overwhelming participation of the workers in the general strike, if one critically looks at the pre-strike preparations, it was very much wanting.
Except in the three left-ruled states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura where Bandhs, Gheraos and strikes have become routine, most of the times officially supported by the ruling party/front, there was hardly any preparation and mobilisation for the strike. In the rest of the country among the major metropolitan cities such as Bombay, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore, the leadership did hardly anything extra to mobilise for success of the strike.

The top leadership of the left and the trade unions suffered enormously from a crisis of confidence, because their claims to be the custodians and leaders of the working-class movement had taken a severe beating in the recent years. When the class collaborationist politics of the left parties practised during the late 1980s at the time of the National Front Government, led by the early neo-liberal V P Singh’s regime, was receding from the memory of the class, they again plunged into the same treacherous exercise of joining the Congress-led government of United Progressive Alliance (UPA), albeit this time to keep the BJP from coming to power.

Their stint with the UPA not only gave enormous leverage to Manmohan Singh to unleash his aggressive neo-liberalism, while engaging the “comrades” to memorise and read by heart the different clauses of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP). This was a programme drafted by the left parties as the minimum to go about in economic and social governance of the country during the UPA regime. It also made them practise capitalist economics and politics more forcefully and successfully than the capitalists themselves in the rest of the country.
West Bengal’s CPI (M) regime, for a time at least, was showered with accolades and by the capitalists nationally and internationally, for its “pragmatism” in practising capitalist-friendly communism. The famous quotes of CPI (M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, such as “Reform or Perish”, and “There is no alternative to Capitalism” became subjects for theses in many management institutions.
The way the CPI (M) and the rest of the Left Front eroded its own base among the rural poor by sending their goons and police to rape, harass and shoot down villagers protesting at the land grab of Tata’s and Indonesia’s Salim Group of companies at Nandigram and Singur did, above all, show up the fundamental contradictions of these Stalinist parties who are increasingly behaving like other bourgeois parties.
Many analysts, including some of the left, have started predicting the rout of CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal in the coming assembly elections in 2011. Even in the last few local elections and by-elections, the CPI(M) has lost heavily and has conceded defeat in many of its strongholds.
The more than routine success of the general strike, as claimed by the left leaders, especially in the left-ruled states, does produce a contradictory picture of the whole objective situation.
The general strike has brought many issues to the fore. While the leadership of the left parties will try their best to bolster their sagging image among their own rank and file and try to win the next elections in West Bengal and Kerala, the working class in general will get an enormous boost to their confidence in struggle and direct action. There will be increasing demands for unity and militancy among trade unions in future. Already there are indications that a “Parliament of Trade Unions” will be held this winter as an alternative forum for workers to address their concerns.

One of the AITUC (CPI-led) leaders, Gurudas Dasgupta, considered a militant, speaking to the press after the successful strike, rebuked the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, for criticising the tendency of the trade unions to call for strikes by saying: “Before Buddhadeb was born, before I was born, the workers have protested through strikes. And this will continue.”
Dasgupta asserted: “The all-India strike called by nine trade unions on September 7 is a new wave and initiative in the trade union movement”.
“If the government does not heed our demands after the strike the movement will be intensified. We will march to the parliament to lay siege to it.”

Regardless of what happens on the ground in the coming weeks and months, a psychological burden has been lifted from the most militant sections. A new search for ideas will begin as to whether there is scope for reform within the system of capitalism or that the system must be changed.

A press release during the general strike by a less well-known trade union centre of Manipur, from the remote corner of the North East of India, speaks volumes of the churning that is taking place. It commented: “As the crisis of imperialism grows more severe all over the world, in spite of bourgeois economists trying to persuade us that the situation is improving, the only possible answer for imperialism is to burden the working class and the consumer.

“Indian governments, whether the UPA in its present or past edition or the NDA or any other, have been following the neo-liberal credo of allowing the free market to solve all problems. Actually, this has meant allowing the greatest leeway and concessions and help to big industry - the removal of all obstacles in its path - while burdening the working class with closures, retrenchments, contract system, casualisation, privatisation and price rises. While fully supporting this strike on 7 September, we also call upon the working class not to let this strike, like the scores that have preceded it, become a mere flash in the pan.

“This strike must signal the start of a continuous movement to take up the demands of the workers in a sustained and systematic fashion. We have to fight the system itself. It is not the workers who are to blame for the lack of politicisation in the working-class movement, it is the leadership.

“Unions like the INTUC, CITU and AITUC, while calling upon the working class to support such strikes, end up also exhorting the workers to support the Congress, the CPM and CPI respectively.
“This is no answer for the working class. We call upon the workers to unite with all like-minded unions and politicise this struggle and to take it on towards a struggle for real democracy and for socialism".
The general strike has surely heralded a new wave, it is bound to radicalise the new generations of workers and youth who for the first time were drawn into struggle. It is no accident that the visiting Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) supporters from Europe got an enthusiastic response for their intervention during and before the strike in Bangalore and Chennai.

A challenging task lies ahead for the forces of genuine Marxism and socialism grouped around New Socialist Alternative (CWI, India), to reach out to the new layers looking for socialist solutions to the present day capitalist anarchy.
The fighting programme of the New Socialist Alternative includes:

A campaign to demand a living wage and jobs for all.
Elected committees of workers and poor people to decide on price and subsidy levels.

An end to all ’reforms’ in the interests of capitalists and the rich.
An end to cuts and ’austerity’ programmes; there is enough poverty in India!

Cancel the debts of the poor! Genuine nationalisation of all the banks, to be run under the democratic control and management of working people.

Stop the rape of India’s resources and the destruction of Adivasi, Dalith and others’ livelihoods!

Take over the monopolies – foreign and Indian - and run them through democratically elected representatives of workers and poor people!

For a mass workers’ party to fight for a government of workers and poor with a socialist programme.

For a Socialist Confederation of the sub-continent and for socialism in Asia and internationally.

[Crux]

pranabjyoti, nothing to comment on the latest article? Or indeed no comments from anyone else?

[pranabjyoti]

pranabjyoti, nothing to comment on the latest article? Or indeed no comments from anyone else?
Days have gone since the so called "General Strike". Now, can you tell me what is outcome of the strike and in which revolutionary direction this so called "workers movement" has taken the workers till date? We are observing such strikes since the 70's, without a single step forward towards any kind of revolutionary direction. It's nothing but some kind of act of parliamentary parties to prepare the steps of those, which are not in power, to go to power or to take a share of power, NOTHING ELSE.
You have repeatedly asked Maoists stance about the strike. Can you inform me and others about the stance of the striking organizations towards the struggle running by Maoists? For your information, nearly all the states, ruled by the parties, whose organizations had called the strike, enacted the demonic UAPA and pressing the Govt. to continue the bloody "operation Green Hunt" with more repression.
If this kind of "strikes" will be an expression of anger of the working class, it will certainly end up in clashes with authority. Can you produce at least one example of militant struggle on that day. At least, I can not remember a single example of militant clash during the last 25 years. Do you think a revolutionary organization would take such long time. Maoists started far later but is now widespread in India and the state had to invent and apply demonic laws like UAPA to control them. Well, by this way, can you produce at least one example of the leaders to be arrested or warrant issued against them? Just search the answers and I hope you will get the answers to your own questions by yourself.
N.B, I hope you can understand why I take some more time to reply to you.

[Crux]

Days have gone since the so called "General Strike". Now, can you tell me what is outcome of the strike and in which revolutionary direction this so called "workers movement" has taken the workers till date? We are observing such strikes since the 70's, without a single step forward towards any kind of revolutionary direction. It's nothing but some kind of act of parliamentary parties to prepare the steps of those, which are not in power, to go to power or to take a share of power, NOTHING ELSE.
You have repeatedly asked Maoists stance about the strike. Can you inform me and others about the stance of the striking organizations towards the struggle running by Maoists? For your information, nearly all the states, ruled by the parties, whose organizations had called the strike, enacted the demonic UAPA and pressing the Govt. to continue the bloody "operation Green Hunt" with more repression.
If this kind of "strikes" will be an expression of anger of the working class, it will certainly end up in clashes with authority. Can you produce at least one example of militant struggle on that day. At least, I can not remember a single example of militant clash during the last 25 years. Do you think a revolutionary organization would take such long time. Maoists started far later but is now widespread in India and the state had to invent and apply demonic laws like UAPA to control them. Well, by this way, can you produce at least one example of the leaders to be arrested or warrant issued against them? Just search the answers and I hope you will get the answers to your own questions by yourself.
N.B, I hope you can understand why I take some more time to reply to you.
A general strike does not have to directly topple the state, it can help build a movement, a worker's movement even. Something you clearly show you have not the slightest concept of. I a also suspect you didn't read the article at all since you failed to comment on anything mentioned in it. But your hostility to the working class and your "no gunz = not revolutionary" idiocy is plainly obvious. Just so you know, I never did ask for the maoists position on this. I do hope your opinion is not representative of their stance though.

[pranabjyoti]

A general strike does not have to directly topple the state, it can help build a movement, a worker's movement even. Something you clearly show you have not the slightest concept of. I a also suspect you didn't read the article at all since you failed to comment on anything mentioned in it. But your hostility to the working class and your "no gunz = not revolutionary" idiocy is plainly obvious. Just so you know, I never did ask for the maoists position on this. I do hope your opinion is not representative of their stance though.
We have observed such nationwide strikes since the 70's, what is outcome of those strikes and which workers organization and movement has arisen out of those strikes. Kindly also tell me is the "withdrawal of operation Green Hunt" and the demonic laws were among the agenda of the strike? As far as I know, NO.