The parliamentary elections in Russia
on Sunday, December 4, were seen as a popularity test of Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin, who is running for the presidency in March. The result
was a blow to Putin, registering a sharp fall in support for his United
Russia party. According to the official results, which are undoubtedly
rigged, United Russia obtained just under half of valid votes cast,
which gives it a very small majority in the State Duma.
While between 2 and 3 million struck in Britain, in the North of Ireland about
200,000 people took part in the Public Sector strike action on 30th
November. Schools and civil service offices were shut, as were job
centres and council services. Rail and bus services were non-existent.
Union members held marches, pickets, and rallies throughout the country
over the issue of pensions. The main rally took place in Belfast city
centre, where around 15,000 gathered and several thousands spread
over Craigavon, Omagh, Armagh, Ballymena, Derry and other towns.
On Friday more than a million Egyptian
youth, workers and poor yet again assembled in Tahrir Square. The
masses have once again risen in an attempt to remove the remnants of the
Mubarak regime, which are still in power. Not far from Tahrir, in
Abbassiya Square, not more than a couple of thousand people gathered in a
pathetic demonstration in support of the SCAF. To the sceptics who did
not believe in the revolution, this should be a clear demonstration of
the real balance of forces. But at the same time the revolution clearly
faces obstacles, not from external forces, but in its own internal
contradictions.
After overtaking Japan, this year
China became the second largest economy in the world. Some experts have
even predicted that by the end of this decade China may become the
largest economy bypassing the United States. However, that is based on a
mechanical, empirical approach that sees China maintaining its present
levels of growth uninterruptedly for years to come. In the past Japan
was also supposed to keep on growing, but then its apparent meteoric
rise was cut across by a long period of stagnation.
The results of the Spanish elections on Sunday November 20
represented a massive defeat for the Socialist Party (PSOE) which had
introduced austerity measures to make the workers pay for the capitalist
crisis, rather than a victory for the right wing Popular Party (PP)
which will now have to introduce even more savage austerity cuts in the
face of the acute crisis of Spanish capitalism.
Events in Egypt are developing at
lightning speed. Similarly to the last days of Mubarak in February this
year, we see daily battles on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere. The
Egyptian masses are determined to see the revolution carried through to
the end. The clash between revolution and counter-revolution is
provoking a crisis inside all political forces, as the rank and file
instinctively move towards revolution and the leaderships vacillate and
try to hold the masses back.
The Eurozone is passing through the
most serious crisis in its entire history. After Greece comes the
Italian crisis. This places a big question mark over the future of the
euro. We predicted long ago that in a serious crisis all the national
contradictions come to the fore, as we now see with the fractious
relations between Greece, France, Germany and Italy. The European Union
is facing the day of reckoning.
Workers have not only been balloting for action in Britain but also in Northern Ireland, where the Tory-led Coalition’s attacks on pensions will also apply if carried out. Fightback – the voice of Marxism in Ireland – reports on the ballot results in the North.
The bourgeoisie has never,
anywhere, been able to find the key to unlock the mysteries of their own
economic system. The only way to understand capitalism is to accept and
to explain its contradictory, crisis-ridden nature. It cannot be
perfected; its riddle will never be solved from within its confines.
Precisely because the apologists of capitalism can never accept this
fact, they are forever shifting from one side of the problem to the
other.
Berlusconi has lost his majority in
the lower house of the Italian parliament. Although he won a vote on the
latest round of austerity measures included in the budget, he did so
with less than half the votes of the MPs in parliament. The result of
the vote was 308 in favour, 1 abstention, but with the majority of MPs
not voting. This means the budget was approved but now Berlusconi stands
naked having lost his parliamentary majority. His days are numbered and
the pressure is mounting for him to go – something we are told he has now promised.
As we write these lines the Papandreou government is staggering towards
collapse. In a matter of days the whole situation has been thrown into
turmoil. Only
last week, eurozone leaders were congratulating each other on agreeing a
100bn-euro loan to Athens and a 50% write-off of its mountain of debt.
Governments cheered. Stock exchanges rose on the announcement of the
deal. And politicians breathed a sigh of relief. A few days later and
everything turned into its opposite.
Last Thursday’s by election in Dublin
West came down to a three horse race between Councillor Patrick Nulty of
Labour who won and Councillor Ruth Coppinger of the Socialist Party who
came third, while Fianna Fáil (FF) squeezed into second place after a
tie for second and third place – on the basis that they had more first
preference votes.