3 December 2010
All Protocols, Comrades & Friends, Good Evening
We would like to sincerely thank the South African Communist Party for affording us this opportunity to interact with you this evening and accordingly, Mr programme director allow me to extend a warm welcome to the representatives of the advanced battalions of the working class movement from various parts of the world gathered here this evening.
The 12th Session of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties takes place in the context of unprecedented epochal challenges in the world situation today. It is, therefore, appropriate that, as the vanguard of the working class, you take time to reflect on the broad character of the unfolding epoch, analyse the nature and character of its key dynamics and forge an appropriate programmatic orientation to guide the working class and the rest of humanity towards an egalitarian future. In this vein, your theme for this gathering could not have been more apt in laying basis for you to come to terms with these challenges by putting at the centre of your deliberations the need to examine the current crisis of world capitalism; analyse its effects on humanity; identify the social forces to anchor an alternative vision; and most importantly, locate the role of the Communist Movement in leading this process.
To adequately understand the broad character of our epoch, we clearly need to take a long view of history in order trace how we arrived at the current state of affairs. The current conjuncture is undoubtedly shaped by developments in world situation since the early 1970s. In his address on one of his rare visit to South Africa in 1991, the late Ernest Mandel characterised the epoch since the early 1970s as the one defined by what he termed a twin crises – i.e. the deepening crisis of the capitalist system on the one hand and the crisis of legitimacy of the socialist vision on the other. The socialist historian Eric Hobsbawm, in his book titled: Age of Extremes, echoes almost the same line of thinking in characterising the last quarter of the twentieth century ‘as a new era of decomposition, uncertainty … crisis … and for large parts of the world such as Africa, [as an era of] catastrophe’. It is the various dimensions of these twin crises that shaped the broad character of our period. We therefore need to come to terms with the implications of these twin crises in order to generate insights on the broad contours of our time.
The current crisis of world capitalism
Since the end of the golden age of capitalist development in the early 1970s, the world economy has been in a relative downturn from which it is yet to recover. Almost every decade since the outbreak of the 1973 crisis has experienced moments of serious interruptions in the functioning of capitalist economies. The 1980s opened with the Mexican default spelling the era of the so-called lost decade punctuated by growing Third World Debt. The 1990s closed with the East Asian crisis which closed an era of the Asian miracles and raised serious doubts about the viability of developmental states. The new century opened with the Russian crisis and dot.com bubbles in the US. The first decade of the new millennium closes with what has been unanimously characterised as an unprecedented crisis, only second to the great depression in terms of depth and scope. While there is ongoing debate about the sources, nature and character of the current crisis, its magnitude leaves little room for doubt about the enormous impact on the working class and vulnerable sections of humanity.
As the ruling classes of the world experiment with ways to protect their incomes and profits in the light of the crisis, they do so by launching a concerted onslaught on the living standards of the poor and the working class. Consequently, millions of people have trickled down into the ranks of poverty, hopelessness and despair. As they restructure the system, the capitalist classes are simultaneously restructuring the social composition of the working class with the result that the majority are thrown into what Karl Marx termed the reserve army of labour, with its various forms – fixed, latent and floating. It is these various forms of the existence of the reserve army of labour that explain the prevalence of precarious forms of employment like casualisation, part-time work, subcontracting and so on.
As a result of the changing composition of the working class, and unlike previous crises, a distinguishing characteristic feature of the current crisis is the political, ideological and organisational weaknesses of the working class. In the crisis following the break out of the First World War, the working class strength was demonstrated in a partial break registered through the successful socialist revolution in Russia, followed by attempts in the early and late 1920s which made it impossible for the capitalist classes to ignore the power of the working class. In the post-Second World War period the strength of the working class forced the capitalist classes to strike massive concessions that saw an era of social democracy. In the current crisis, relative to earlier episodes, so pervasive is the hegemony of the capitalist classes that most debates and responses to the crisis are by and large limited to factions of the capitalist classes, mainly between the productive and financial sections of this class. In coming to terms with this important feature of the current period, we therefore need to examine how the working class arrived at its relative political, ideological and organisational weakness.
The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the working class movement
According to Eric Hobsbawm, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the implosion of the Eastern European socialist regimes marked the end of an era in world history. To date the working class movement is yet to fully recover from the effects of those momentous events. These events left the working class movement with what Ernest Mandel called a crisis of faith in the validity and viability of the socialist vision. These events left the working class with no coherent world outlook through which to rally other oppressed sections of society behind an anti-capitalist programme. These events also unfolded in the context of serious defeats inflicted by the neoliberal offensive whose wounds the working class is still leaking. It is these events that have meant the working class confronts the current crisis without the benefit of effective institutional apparatus to challenge global capitalism as was the case during the periods of the First, the Second and the Third Internationals. In his book titled: The Communist Movement, Fernando Claudin observes that ‘the dissolution of the Third International in 1943 meant the loss of the directing centre of the international working class movement’. Through this dissolution, the working class movement also lost a crucial platform through which to share perspectives and exchange experiences of struggles.
One of the aftermath of the collapse of the Third International and with it internationalism, was the uneven development of consciousness and political organisation on the part of the international working class movement. In most parts of the world, important organisations of the working class such as trade unions, workers parties, communist parties, socialist parties, social movements etc., either don’t exist or where they do, only do so as shadows of their former selves. So deep is the political and ideological disorientation that it is not uncommon to find working class organisations championing what are traditionally programmes of bourgeois parties. The events left the working class with no source of inspiration as it took to various battles during the decades of crisis.
As a result, the decades of crisis, the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first decade of the new millennium is characterised by two features. On the one hand we have the deepening intensity of the period crisis of world accompanied by negative effects on the majority of humanity. On the other hand we have a working class that is defeated, demoralised, fragmented and lacking faith in the necessity and possibility of an alternative society founded on egalitarian values. These political weaknesses and ideological disorientation leads to many instances where sections of the working class resort to racism, sexism, tribalism, xenophobia and other backward tendencies in response to the effects of the crisis. This only serves to strengthen the capitalist class as it further fragments the working class. It is the failure to understand the nature and sources of the crisis as well as lack of faith in the possibility of alternatives that explains the continued hegemony of capitalism in spite of the vagaries it visits on the working class and other oppressed sections of humanity.
The Meaning of the Twin Crises
It is these twin crises that confront those with a deep yearning for a society organised on egalitarian human values. In other words, the Communist Movement needs come to a realisation that between the current conjuncture and a climate in which the working class is able to stamp its image on major developments in the world lies a dark shadow of the power of capital. A realistic programmatic orientation must therefore put at its centre mechanisms to change the current configuration of social forces. In order to assist the working class to reverse its marginalisation as its vanguard elements, the Communist Movement needs to develop a programme that puts the working class on a path towards breaking the power of capital.
It is in this connection that the theme for this gathering promises to lay bare the challenges facing the working class movement and thus contains great potential to stem the tide. It has become clear overtime that unless the Communist Movement frankly and openly re-examines the legacy of the socialist experience and come to terms with its lessons, then the working class would not have taken firm steps so necessary towards the path of socialist renewal. Urgent measures are required to restore the faith of the working class in its abilities to wage struggles. An important part of this restoration would appear to be the need for the working class to believe in the necessity and viability of socialism. It is only when this happens that the working class will be prepared to ‘spare neither strength nor courage’ in defence of its vision.
We raise the above issues fully cognisant of the daunting challenges facing you as the vanguard elements of the global working class movement. We do so also under no illusions that you will emerge from this gathering with technical solutions to the challenges spelt above. We however do so with a firm belief and profound recognition that the future of the working class movement looks bleak unless you as the vanguard elements assume your rightful place in the front ranks. It is in that way that your gathering would have achieved less than it promised if it fails to clarify the path towards the revival of the working class abilities to wage struggles and the restoration of its faith in its projects. This is mainly the case because we have tried to demonstrate in this address that one of the crucial variables characterising our era is that of the political, ideological and organisational weaknesses of the working class. Your deliberations should therefore hopefully take this as a critical point of departure to unmask deep seated tendencies that reproduce the marginalisation of the working class. It is only this that will clarify a range of tasks to be undertaken on this journey of renewal.
Confronting the Twin Crises
This 12th gathering of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties is therefore legitimately expected to emerge with some degree of clarity on how to deal with the challenges emanating from the twin crises.
With respect issues of how to respond to the crisis, there is a widespread tendency within the working class movement to pose this challenge and address it as a technical function of generating a set of alternative ideas and economic policies on how to manage the capitalist economy. This tendency is itself the legacy of the social democratic era during which it did appear as though capitalist accumulation was organised through policy intervention. Whilst it is clearly important for the working class to work out practical and realistic measures to manage capitalism, it should not escape the Communist Movement that this is only half of the battle.
The other crucial part of the battle relates to how to force the capitalist class to accommodate the interests of the working class. In other words, beyond identifying alternative policy measures to tame capitalist anarchy, the Communist Movement must spell out measures to break the power of capital as a condition for the successful realisation of such measures. It is after all true that economic processes under capitalism are themselves part of the class struggle.
To make this point differently, let us summon the wisdom of one of the founding fathers of the Communist Movement, Karl Marx, who cautioned that ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it’. In the context of our immediate challenges, we need to go beyond understanding the nature of the crisis to spell out a political programme that will allow the working class to regain its place as the leader of all oppressed sections of society towards a new society. The Communist Movement must therefore insist on the inextricably political and social nature of economic activities.
With respect to the political, ideological and organisational weaknesses of the working class, the gathering is better positioned to frankly examine the sources of these challenges. As the founding fathers counselled, we do not ‘make history as we please, we do not do so under self-selected circumstances, but rather do so under circumstances already existing and encountered’. As already alluded to, it is only by frankly embracing the conditions under which we are struggling that we stand a chance of forging correct programmatic choices and thus adopt apposite strategies and tactics.
And lastly, as you knuckle down to the core business of your gathering, it is our hope that you do so with a full memory and clear understanding of the observation that … mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation’.
It is in that spirit that as the City of Tshwane we would like to wish you a happy gathering, fruitful debates and insightful deliberations.
In the process please enjoy the warmth and hospitality of the City
Welcome and Thank You