750,000+ British workers to go on strike this week

[~Spectre]

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/6/27/1309170339909/Union-members-at-an-anti--007.jpg


Trade union leaders and anti-cuts campaigners are to hold talks on Tuesday to hammer out plans for a summer of industrial action and protest against the government's austerity programme.

Members of the direct action group UK Uncut and campaigners from the Coalition of Resistance are among those who have been invited to the TUC headquarters in London to meet the deputy general secretary, Frances O'Grady.

The move signals an increase in co-operation between the mainstream union movement and the wider – and often more radical – anti-cuts groups, and comes before a day of co-ordinated industrial action over public sector pensions on 30 June.

Andrew Burgin, from the Coalition of Resistance, said it was part of a drive to mobilise a broad opposition to the government's plans.

"We need to unite these unions who are prepared to take a lead with the anti-cuts movement campaigns and broaden it in that way – with the anti-cuts campaigns, the students and the unions. We must have real unity of all the anti-cuts campaigns."

Tuesday's meeting will be the first time UK Uncut, one of the country's fastest growing protest groups, which has closed scores of high street bank branches in anti-cuts and tax avoidance campaigns, has been involved in direct talks with the TUC, although it has worked increasingly closely with individual unions over the past few months.

A spokesman for the group said: "It is really encouraging to see the TUC reach out to different groups and we are looking forward to working with them to build the anti-cuts movement in the coming months."

About 750,000 public sector workers from major unions including the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) are due to strike on 30 June, and UK Uncut has already announced its supporters will join picket lines, adding that it will be staging a "public spectacular" to coincide with the strike.

Thousands of students are also expected to support this week's industrial action, joining picket lines and staging occupations and sit-ins around the country.

Activists say the wider anti-cuts campaign has been inspired in part by protests across Europe over recent months, particularly those in Spain and Greece.

This week's action could be the start of an ongoing campaign against the government's plans. Earlier this month Dave Prentis, the head of Unison, the UK's biggest public-sector union, promised to mount the most sustained wave of industrial action the country has seen since the general strike of 1926, vowing not to back down until the government has dropped its pension changes.

Tuesday's meeting is not expected to focus on this week's strike, but rather to discuss the impact of the government's cuts and how best to oppose them over the coming months.

A TUC spokesman said: "The TUC is meeting with a wide range of local, regional and national community and campaigning organisations to listen to their concerns about the impact of the government's spending cuts.

"The TUC is fully committed to supporting the four unions and their members who are taking industrial action this week, and those unions will be leading efforts to co-ordinate events and activities on the day."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/27/trade-unions-anti-cuts-protest?INTCMP=SRCH

[Coach Trotsky]

I heard UNISON---the second largest union in the UK---is not going to be involved in the June 30th actions.
Is that true?
If so, why?
Shouldn't they come out like the other unions?

[~Spectre]

I heard UNISON---the second largest union in the UK---is not going to be involved in the June 30th actions.
Is that true?
If so, why?
Shouldn't they come out like the other unions?

Correct, they aren't striking the 30th, though they claim that they might strike later on in the summer. If they were a part of the June 30th actions, the total number of striking workers would be a little over 2 million (imagine that?).

I'm not sure why they're doing it, though certainly one can speculate a wide variety of competing motivations. Perhaps a British comrade can help us out.

[scarletghoul]

Its gonna be awesome, I can't wait.

Unfortunately though a lot of private sector workers are hating the public sector workers out of jealousy, encouraged by the media and government of course.. If some unity could be forged then this would be a potentially lethal weapon, considering the amount of rage there is.

[brigadista]

unison website

http://www.unison.org.uk/education/schools/pages_view.asp?did=13037

[bricolage]

Unison isn't striking because it hasn't balloted for it, neither has Unite which is the largest in the country but it is spread across the public and private sector so as far as I know can't ballot all members on the pensions issue. I saw this notice (http://www.unitetheunion.org/images/028-2011-30-june-banner-v5.jpg) up on the Unite noticeboard at the hospital where I work which seems to give all the support it can without directly calling for secondary action (this is illegal so would probably get them in trouble). I believe in certain areas Unison branches are striking, in other areas it's of course different, in the borough where I live the library workers were told the earliest they could get action approved for was the 1st July.

[Tommy4ever]

Some of the Unions still want to continue talks with the government. They haven't wholly given up yet.

I'd expect the bigger Unions to begin their strikes sometime next month. We'll see what is accomplished - I know quite a few people who are very, very worried about their pensions, the sort of people who would never normally consider striking but now seem determined to go out and do so.

[Coach Trotsky]

Are these unions ever going to do what must be done, to hell with what those bogus anti-worker anti-union laws say?

Not with a reformist leadership, not without pressure from below on the part of the rank-and-file membership, not without pressure of mass militant workers' organizing and action beyond the unions, they won't.

[RED DAVE]

One of the problems is that a classic tactic of the union bureaucracies, the French have made this into an art, is to hold sporadic strikes over a long period of time, exhaust the working class impulse, and then claim that that struggle is lost.

Remember that at this stage of the class struggle, the union bureaucracy is more afraid of victory than it is of defeat.

RED DAVE

[Bitter Ashes]

I must admit that althoguh I'm on my way to a rally in support of the strikers, I think this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. After all, these are the same teachers and union-prudes who were screaming at us in London to "Show [our] faces!" and "The anarchists are releasing poison gas on us!" (yes, they really said that!). Then they went howling to the papers about how evil anarchists are.

Why should I support their fight for their pensions when they have been so vocally against us at every step of the way? I'm half tempted to think that they can go fuck themselves tbh.

[Lord Testicles]

Why should I support their fight for their pensions when they have been so vocally against us at every step of the way? I'm half tempted to think that they can go fuck themselves tbh.

Because anarchists don't matter, peoples pensions do.

[Bitter Ashes]

I retract my statement. Just got back from the support demo and the attitude has changed since March. About 200 people marched through Huddersfield following anarchist flags and chants. I was shocked, surprised and it was a lot more than I could have ever asked for. I apoligise publicly.

[Manic Impressive]

I was a little surprised by your previous comment I didn't see any of that at previous demos. And on the news I didn't see any teachers having a go at anarchists. The students were the ones doing that. Also at one of the meetings I went to one of the teachers stood up and asked people to come to his school and convince students to walk out. He said that the teachers couldn't do it themselves because they'd get fired but any member of the public could. Personally I didn't think that me hanging around outside school gates was a good idea but the sentiment was there.

[Tommy4ever]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13967580

[bricolage]

How do people think the day went?

There is a thread on libcom (http://libcom.org/news/j30-strike-updates-accounts-29062011) with some interesting accounts, but would be good to hear some others here.

[Coach Trotsky]

How do people think the day went?

There is a thread on libcom (http://libcom.org/news/j30-strike-updates-accounts-29062011) with some interesting accounts, but would be good to hear some others here.

Well, an English friend of mine went out, and he said it was like a carnival atmosphere, lots of whistles and vuvuzelas (or whatever those noisemakers from South Africa are called).
We both are wondering: what the fuck was this event celebrating?
Why is every damn left event a totally unserious carnival party scene where the objective seems to be to make as much noise as possible, act like freaks, and go out of their way to alienate themselves from most working people (who also probably wonder what the fuck these so-called leftists are celebrating)?
Maybe if unions actually waged serious mass militant strikes instead of trying to hold carnivals, they'd get a little more respect from both working people AND from their foes.

[bricolage]

Well in the first instance I think it's incorrect to describe this as a 'left' event, whilst various leftist groups were present the vast vast majority of people on the march were not political activists but teachers, civil servants, university staff and so forth. Quite clearly there are a number of faults to deal with but I think qualitatively this was a workers event and not a leftist one, in terms of the fact it originating from workers in (albeit low level) struggle and not from the abstracted call of some left group. With that in mind to talk about this alienating 'most working people' is perhaps misleading, this was working people. We can definitely talk about the divisions between those on strike (relatively politicised) and those not, those in the public sector and those in the private sector, those in permanent contracts and those in temporary ones, and so forth, but in this case I'm not sure the ever present issue of voluntarist leftists isolating themselves from 'ordinary' workers is the main issue.

You are right there was a lot of 'carnival' type stuff, flags, whistles and so forth and that this in itself isn't a display of militancy. That being said I think it's an all too common of fall back of 'revolutionaries' to simply blame everything on 'the unions'. You are right the trade unions are not calling for 'serious mass militant strikes' but on the other hand if they did do you really think workers would answer the call? The working class is not some beast on a leash ever ready to wage revolution but held back its trade union master, on the contrary class confidence, organisation and struggle is extremely low. While it's clearly the case the trade unions play a enormous role in limiting, controlling and manipulating struggle, if we are honest at the moment there isn't really that much for them to manipulate. If the class were as militant as if often painted the unions could provide all the vuvuzelas they wanted, workers would ram them back down their throats. I think the idea that the problem lies with unions not calling enough has the solution of 'radicalising' unions with the aim of using them for militant means. Aside from the problem outlined above I think this displays a limited idea of where social agency lies, militant strikes do not occur from trade unions being taken over by militants but from the existing social conditions of strikes seeking to call out other workers via flying pickets, secondary action and so forth. In this way workers in struggle take on the role of generalising action themselves as opposed to it simply coming from up high. With this in mind the role of revolutionaries is not to take over trade unions and use them to direct their subservient minions but to interact with workers already engaged in struggle (and those not as well) and to work towards expanding strikes from the bottom up. Carnivals aren't great, but then shouting 'TUC CALL A GENERAL STRIKE!!' over and over again without any consideration of the futility of this, and the way in which it takes agency away from the class itself, aint much better.

[Coach Trotsky]

Well in the first instance I think it's incorrect to describe this as a 'left' event, whilst various leftist groups were present the vast vast majority of people on the march were not political activists but teachers, civil servants, university staff and so forth.
Most Leftists are stuck to the buttocks of the Labour Party and its union bureaucracies, and consider that part of "the Left".
Sorry, but this is a case of guilt by association, and quite frankly, most so-called Leftists are trying to somehow burrow into that part of 'the Left', usually in some sort of unprincipled compromise or entryism sui generis.



Quite clearly there are a number of faults to deal with but I think qualitatively this was a workers event and not a leftist one, in terms of the fact it originating from workers in (albeit low level) struggle and not from the abstracted call of some left group.
No, this originated from the Labour Party and the union bureaucracy, NOT from the independent initiative of the rank-and-file. If it actually had, the unions and the Labour politicians would be calling the ones calling the police on the worker activist-initiators. Guaranteed! Such a common thing to do on 'the Left' is equating the misleadership bureaucracies with the worker's movement rank-and-file.



With that in mind to talk about this alienating 'most working people' is perhaps misleading, this was working people. We can definitely talk about the divisions between those on strike (relatively politicised) and those not, those in the public sector and those in the private sector, those in permanent contracts and those in temporary ones, and so forth, but in this case I'm not sure the ever present issue of voluntarist leftists isolating themselves from 'ordinary' workers is the main issue.
The issue is that the leftists don't come with their own independently mobilized forces of the workers and oppressed, but rather only to burrow themselves into the bureaucracy, to leech for recruits to their little sects, and play hacks for the misleadership bureaucracies (trying to earn brownie points with the sellout misleaders). If you don't even try to bring your own forces by organiizing independently, and you don't really bring MASSIVE critical power to bear against the misleaders in the context of a united front, then yeah...just fake-Left aspiring wannabe bureaucrats is how I see it!



You are right there was a lot of 'carnival' type stuff, flags, whistles and so forth and that this in itself isn't a display of militancy. That being said I think it's an all too common of fall back of 'revolutionaries' to simply blame everything on 'the unions'. You are right the trade unions are not calling for 'serious mass militant strikes' but on the other hand if they did do you really think workers would answer the call?

If the Labour Party and the TUC actually called a serious mass militant general strike by all the workers and oppressed? Oh hell yes I think that would happen!


The working class is not some beast on a leash ever ready to wage revolution but held back its trade union master, on the contrary class confidence, organisation and struggle is extremely low. While it's clearly the case the trade unions play a enormous role in limiting, controlling and manipulating struggle, if we are honest at the moment there isn't really that much for them to manipulate. If the class were as militant as if often painted the unions could provide all the vuvuzelas they wanted, workers would ram them back down their throats. I think the idea that the problem lies with unions not calling enough has the solution of 'radicalising' unions with the aim of using them for militant means. Aside from the problem outlined above I think this displays a limited idea of where social agency lies, militant strikes do not occur from trade unions being taken over by militants but from the existing social conditions of strikes seeking to call out other workers via flying pickets, secondary action and so forth. In this way workers in struggle take on the role of generalising action themselves as opposed to it simply coming from up high. With this in mind the role of revolutionaries is not to take over trade unions and use them to direct their subservient minions but to interact with workers already engaged in struggle (and those not as well) and to work towards expanding strikes from the bottom up. Carnivals aren't great, but then shouting 'TUC CALL A GENERAL STRIKE!!' over and over again without any consideration of the futility of this, and the way in which it takes agency away from the class itself, aint much better.
Oh Gawd, here comes the whole "objective conditions aren't ripe" and "the workers are too backwards and underconfident" argument. The conclusion of that argument is "let's just be liberals and act like that is progressive, because those darn workers just ain't ready for anything more". They ain't ready for more ONLY because at present they are stuck with nothing but shitty incompetant cowardly sellout misleaderships! And yes, YES, I totally believe in the power of subjective intervention and social agency to change the objective conditions today to the point where workers and the oppressed are more than ripe and ready to conquer power. You think you got a few hundred years for the workers to gradually evolve to revolutionary socialist consciousness? Who benefits from dispensing that sort of outlook and the logical conclusions regarding activity amongst the Left? THE RULING CLASS, who by the way, are NOT waiting around for people to just gradually spontaneously evolve and adjust to serving their interests. The ruling class knows that if you want something, you gotta act and go get it! Until you likewise get that attitude, you will not lead workers through revolution to be the ruling class of its own society, but rather always end up being losers underneath the capitalist ruling class.

[bricolage]

Most Leftists are stuck to the buttocks of the Labour Party and its union bureaucracies, and consider that part of "the Left".
Sorry, but this is a case of guilt by association, and quite frankly, most so-called Leftists are trying to somehow burrow into that part of 'the Left', usually in some sort of unprincipled compromise or entryism sui generis.
I don't really get what you are saying here...
P.S. I'm not a leftist.
P.P.S. fuck leftists.

No, this originated from the Labour Party and the union bureaucracy, NOT from the independent initiative of the rank-and-file.
Well the Labour Party has distanced itself from it and repeatedly condemned the strike but don't let that cloud your polemic... you are right it came from bureaucratic union structures that doesn't change the fact that the people actually on strike were to the majority neither a) leftists nor b) the forces of the labour party. I'm talking about the composition of those who didn't go into work but if you want to subsume every single worker on strike into Mark Serwotka then ok but you have a pretty patronising view of workers.


If it actually had, the unions and the Labour politicians would be calling the ones calling the police on the worker activist-initiators.
Ahem, like I said the Labour party has already routinely condemned strike action.


The issue is that the leftists don't come with their own independently mobilized forces of the workers and oppressed,
So where are these 'independently mobilised forces' going to come from? For starters this whole idea about 'the left' (whatever that may be) collecting workers so to speak for its own gains seems very problematic and more to the case how can these forces (to play with your rhetoric) come about if not from the intervention into already existing struggles? If you have the right line (and it appears you have the oh so right line) why do you not have these forces already? Maybe, just maybe, it's because class organisation comes as the accumulation of class struggle and there aint no 'independently mobilised forces' of workers and (by the way who are the ever vague 'oppressed'?) because there aint no protracted struggle to speak of? To say it once to say it a million times we don't need the party to build the struggle, we need the struggle to build the party.

to leech for recruits to their little sects, and play hacks for the misleadership bureaucracies
These are all real problems yes.

If the Labour Party and the TUC actually called a serious mass militant general strike by all the workers and oppressed? Oh hell yes I think that would happen!
Ok, go into a school, go into a hospital, go into any workplace you want and tell me how many people are ready to strike at the heart of capital if only the trade unions were to weak to call it. I'm interested as to what you find out... Which brings us on to the next points...

Oh Gawd, here comes the whole "objective conditions aren't ripe" and "the workers are too backwards and underconfident" argument.
The objective conditions are always ripe and struggle, nay revolution, is possible at any instance. That being said if this was to erupt tomorrow it would come from material conditions (which of course according to you are not ripe) forcing this and not the ideational calls of trade unions. The working class is perpetually capable of creating a real human community... that does not mean it is subjectively in favour of this at the moment, however according to you...

They ain't ready for more ONLY because at present they are stuck with nothing but shitty incompetant cowardly sellout misleaderships!
this is only because the goals of independent workers is dependent upon the goals of various trade union leaders. Oh if only Dave Prentis was a communist, if only Brendan Barber was an anarchist, if only Derek Simpson was a communard then EVERYONE would be a communist, then EVERYONE would be a revolutionary. These dumb workers, whose every thought is a replica of general secretaries, why can't we get someone better to control their thoughts...
Come of it, struggle originates from real lived conditions not dictates handed down from TUC headquarters. 'shitty incompetant cowardly sellout misleaderships' is a result of low class struggle, the latter does not come from the former.

You think you got a few hundred years for the workers to gradually evolve to revolutionary socialist consciousness?
No, but then you are pretty good at putting words in my mouth.

[Coach Trotsky]

On the Left, I have constantly come across this defeatist "we can't do anything, objective conditions aren't ripe, we're too small, so we might as well go along and play with the liberals" attitude.
But I did come across one group that was very different. Revolutionary Workers League/US was its name, and independent subjective intervention within the masses of workers and oppressed peoples to change things was their game. The whole "Left" hated this group for not playing by the rules of politics-as-usual, for not being a bunch of milquetoast social democrat wankers in Popular Front coalition with bourgeois liberals singing 'kumbaya', for actually daring to intervene, to mass mobilize and organize mass forces of the workers and oppressed and then to actually bring them into direct mass militant confrontational action with the ruling powers-that-be! The union bureaucrats hated them for actually daring to criticize and challenge their misleadership, and especially for daring to provide its own independent leadership along with the most advanced and militant worker-leaders found in workers' struggles. These RWL folks weren't the typical cowardly groveling Leftists that they had obviously been accustomed! The establishment "civil rights" group misleadership also hated the RWL...how dare these revolutionaries come around, intervene in their minority communities, show up their pathetic cynical sellout wannabe-Obama asses in action (not hard to do, if you really want to do it), and actually radicalize working class minorities and teach them that INDEPENDENT MASS ORGANIZATION and INDEPNDENT MASS MILITANT ACTION OF THE WORKERS AND OPPRESSED is the key to securing victories against the enemy system! Yes, the whole "Left" looked at the RWL the way the money-changers in the Temple of Jerusalem must have looked at a particularly pissed-off and not-hippie-like Jesus who'd turned over their tables and chased them around with a cat-o-nine-tails.
If the Left wasn't trying to distance itself and distinguish itself from the RWL, it was holding hands with bureaucrats and praying to their Gods that the bureaucrats' thugs or the police would come around and put a stop to the RWL.

I distinctly remember the fake-Left holding hands with the liberals (they called themselves "peace keepers"), trying to prevent an RWL-led mass of 500 workers, minorities and youth from actually getting around or through through police lines and smashing a KKK rally in Ann Arbor.
You know, that was just one microcosmic example of the real role that most of the "Left" has played IN SERVICE TO THE RULING CLASS throughout history. When push comes to shove, you'll find most of the "Left" holding hands with the bourgeois liberals and their so-called "progressive" bureaucratic running dogs, trying to prevent or suppress independent mass militant action of the workers and oppressed, and trying to sideline or get rid of the revolutionary socialists. There the majority of the "Left" misleaders will be, on the wrong side of the barricades opposing revolutionaries and the fighting workers and oppressed, with amazing consistency both historically and geographically. It ain't just a 'mistake', it ain't just that they're naive...it's that, to one degree or another, they are part of the system itself (or wanna be), and thus they're part of the problem! When you understand that, you'll understand why they always pimp out defeatist apologies dressed up as Leftie theory and analysis that "the conditions aren't ripe", "the workers aren't ready", "we're too small to do anything now", "let's hold hands with the liberals and try to gradually persuade them through reasoning and moral appeals by distinguishing ourselves from anything that might even slightly hint at Bolshevism", "let's focus on trying to become (and become good friends with) union bureaucrats or civil right bureaucrats or tenured professors/university department chairs or bourgeois media bosses or elected politicians/appointed bureaucrats for the bourgeois state, etc", "let's just tail the lowest common denominator of the current leaderships and current state of consciousness of the workers and oppressed communities", "let's vote for the 'more progressive' lesser of evils during elections", and so on.

It has been asked where we could get our own independent forces. You will find most of tomorrow's revolutionaries among those who are disgusted disillusioned ex-"Leftist" activists who reject Popular Front sellouts and have come to see the Popular Frontist agents as enemies just as much as the fascists (performing a similar role for the ruling class, in fact, though usually with different target audiences, different rationalizations, and sometimes different practical methods) AND among
the usually not yet politically affiliated/organized but newly engaging, highly motivated, alternative-solution-seeking, more youthful, more precarious, worse off layers of the working class and oppressed communities who REALLY have "nothing to lose but their chains" in making a serious fightback. That is to say, fuck the politics-as-usual monopolized and utterly rotten political marketplace, fuck playing games with supposedly "more educated" "have-some" "middle class" wankers who think they are just temporarily unlucky potential millionaries and celebrities...go outside it, go beyond it, where the politicians and activists of the Right and Left don't tread, to those people whom this system has NO FUTURE BUT BARBARISM for, to those whom this system has clearly shafted and left behind ...especially youth from the worse off working class and oppressed communities.

[bricolage]

Well seeing as you've now decided to ignore everything I wrote and instead attack strawman arguments whilst write some random love letter to a Trotskyist group you used to be in there isn't much I can really say...
Evidently this is an example of my defeatist, pro-bureaucrat approach.

[Reznov]

Amazing, it seems the entire EU is going into an uproar.

750,000 workers is no small feat. This is really inspiring.

Do we have any Communists in the area organizing?

[Blake's Baby]

...

Do we have any Communists in the area organizing?

'The area' = the UK?

'The area' = state workers?

'We... communists' = your tendency (I don't know what that is)?

'We... communists' = any communists?

Yes there are 'communists' in the UK, of the Left/Libertarian/Free-Access varieties, and the Stalinist/Trotskyist varieties. At the demo I was at there were a few left communists and symapthisers and a much larger number of Trotskyists (several dozen members and supporters of the Socialist Workers' Party and smaller number of members and supporters of the Socialist Party of England and Wales). Reports of one anarcho-syndicalist are unconfirmed (we saw a flag, but it had gone when we tried to find the person waving it). No Stalinists in evidence but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

I thought on the whole the day was quite disappointing. The unions decided to march us (about 4,000 of us I reckon) in a circle and then hold a 'rally' that most people weren't interested in. By the time the tail end of the march had arrived back at the point where the rally was happening, most of the people near the front had already gone. In the process of holding the demo in other words, about 2,500 people just left. It was pretty much irrelevant. What message it sent to anyone I'm not sure.

[CynicalIdealist]

Because anarchists don't matter, peoples pensions do.

Quote of the fucking year.

[Coach Trotsky]

Well seeing as you've now decided to ignore everything I wrote and instead attack strawman arguments whilst write some random love letter to a Trotskyist group you used to be in there isn't much I can really say...
Evidently this is an example of my defeatist, pro-bureaucrat approach.

You say "we need the struggle to build the party".
Struggle objectively is at a low level, so you seem to conclude that revolutionaries will just have to wait out a bad period (how long has this bad period been going on...since WWII?). At this rate, people who are waiting for the objective struggle to spontaneously increase and evolve, who are waiting for the bureaucrats to jump-start struggle, who are waiting for the consciousness and confidence of the working people to advance all by itself...these people are merely waiting for their own expiration date to pass away, because they are NOT history-changers.

[Lyev]

You say "we need the struggle to build the party".
Struggle objectively is at a low level, so you seem to conclude that revolutionaries will just have to wait out a bad period (how long has this bad period been going on...since WWII?). At this rate, people who are waiting for the objective struggle to spontaneously increase and evolve, who are waiting for the bureaucrats to jump-start struggle, who are waiting for the consciousness and confidence of the working people to advance all by itself...these people are merely waiting for their own expiration date to pass away, because they are NOT history-changers.I think a fair number of communists would agree with you that revolutionaries--in the sense of party members or leftists--are not exactly "history-changers". Maybe there is a slightly ambiguous cross-over in your thinking between revolutionaries and the class they at least purport to represent, because I reckon that a lot of the time, these two distinct bodies are merged into one by some pro-revolutionaries. The working class is not the party, especially in a period like today. I don't think that revolutionaries can increase the consciousness of workers from the outside. We cannot build a movement. Creating a truly human society is not about gradually accumulating pro-revolutionaries into the party with the most correct line or whatever--which organisation does have the correct line anyway?--until 51% of the population are persuaded round to the ideas of class struggle. Events create revolutions; not the other around. Recent social upheavals from Greece to Egypt and Syria to Spain vindicate this claim, I reckon. Where were the RWL or some other group as a mass party urging people to take to the streets in the their millions in these examples? Of course, there was no such group: These movements come about because people are simply fed-up with society; they don't come about because loads of people have starting subscribing to a socialist journal or joined the Communist Party. And since WWII there has been plenty of workers have fought against capital. Folks might point to the wave of class struggle that started around May '68, the Hot Autumn etc. etc. Or more recently there have been vibrant and interesting strikes etc. that have grown in Turkey, South Korea, China and Bangladesh amongst other places. Perhaps they are not quite on the historic scale as the aforementioned movements and events, but, generally speaking, I would say the working class has been weaker since the 1970s and '80s internationally. There is nothing wrong with "leftists" taking easy for a while, since class struggle is not at a high-point, there is no point constantly vying for relevancy or recognition with workers--thrusting our ideology at people--when they are not really in struggle.


EDIT: I just looked back at this post, and I don't think it's very good; it's a bit rambling and goes off on a tangent somewhat. My basic point is: When the working class are weak so are communists as a reflection of the weakness of the former. And when the proletariat is stronger and on the move again, revolutionaries are stronger and their numbers start to grow. ("Stronger" and "weaker" are perhaps quite simplistic descriptions, but I think you can get the idea.)

[IndependentCitizen]

The once pro-privatisation of the health service, and now ultra-pro NHS, British Medical Association is approaching members on how they could take industrial action without putting patient lives at risk. Which is incredible, I didn't think the BMA would ever be on the side of people, and not the big healthcare groups!