The Euro zone is in a mess. After a
year of huge financial bail outs intended to calm the markets, the
latter are very unstable, with a marked downward tendency. Signs of
slowing global growth, and the continuing euro zone debt crisis, have
caused the markets to slump. The nervousness of the markets is an
accurate reflection of the growing anxiety of the bourgeois about the
economic prospects for Europe.
The Euro zone is in a mess. After a
year of huge financial bail outs intended to calm the markets, the
latter are very unstable, with a marked downward tendency. Signs of
slowing global growth, and the continuing euro zone debt crisis, have
caused the markets to slump. The nervousness of the markets is an
accurate reflection of the growing anxiety of the bourgeois about the
economic prospects for Europe.
The Euro – a bomb waiting to explode. Illustration: Latuff & Dromos“Events
in Greece have brought the euro area to a crossroads: the future
character of European monetary union will be determined by the way in
which this situation is handled.” (Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank president and European Central Bank governing council member, Hamburg, May 20)
The
politicians are panicking once again. Their latest recipe to raise cash
is to privatise on a massive scale. In a desperate attempt to raise
cash, the Spanish government is selling off the family jewels. They are
privatising the state lottery, as well as the state airports authority.
The sale of the state lottery is expected to raise between €6.5bn and
€7.5bn. If completed it would create Europe’s most valuable listed
gaming group. That will make a lot of money for big business, but it
will lose money for the Spanish state. The state lottery earned a net
profit of just under €3bn in 2009, with €2.92bn going to the Spanish
treasury. This is an excellent example of the plundering of the state:
nationalizing the losses and privatizing the profits.
Already the
big banks are queuing up to get their hands on this highly profitable
business. Lazard is viewed by company insiders as a favourite to manage
the process, with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley among
several others that are in the running for other roles, which count
among the most prestigious investment banking outfits. Given their
record in gambling (and losing) billions of their clients’ money, thus
provoking a collapse of the world’s banking system three years ago, they
seem well qualified for the running of the world’s largest gambling
company.
But the main concern is still Greece, which they are
pressurizing to privatise more than the previously agreed €50bn. The
only snag is that the EU doesn’t trust the Greeks to do it themselves.
Instead, they want an “independent commission” to do the dirty work.
“Make the Greeks pay!”
“Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks – and the Acropolis too!” The hysterical headline of Bild,
Germany’s leading tabloid when the dire state of Greece’s finances was
first made public sounded like the usual exaggerations of the yellow
press. But one year later, the same far from elegant message is being
delivered by Europe’s finance ministers. As we predicted, the rescue
package to Portugal was not enough to stop the crisis spreading to
Spain, Belgium and Italy. Now everybody is talking about contagion.
At
a time when the attentions of the world’s press were fully occupied
with the exciting adventures of the (former) President of the IMF and a
certain chambermaid in a New York hotel, the heads of European finance
were busy deciding the destinies of millions of people in Greece.
Serious commentators expressed concern lest the absence of DSK
(unavoidably detailed as a guest of the New York Police Department)
might affect the efficacy of the proceedings. They need not have
worried.
The trials and tribulations of Monsieur Strauss Khan did
not prevent the recent meeting in Luxembourg, where ministers from the
countries that use the euro delivered a harsh message to the people and
government of Greece: push through more reforms and privatize
everything, or you will not receive a single euro more from your
European “partners”.
This indicates that Europe’s financial crisis
is not over. On the contrary, it is entering a new and even more
dangerous phase. All the rescue packages have failed to save the Greek
economy, which continues to fall. The mood in Germany is hardening. This
is not just a reflection of public unease, or the fears of Angela
Merkel that she will not be reelected. It is a realization that the
financial resources of the Bundesbank are finite after all, and cannot
serve to prop up the whole of Europe.
The Germans are taking an
increasingly harsh line. The Bundesbank, which controls the EU’s purse
strings, has warned that if politicians take even a modest step towards a
restructuring of the Greek debt, the ECB will cut Greek banks off from
its liquidity supply, triggering a financial collapse that would push
the country’s economy into the abyss. Today’s Financial Times described the Bundesbank’s threat as the “nuclear option”:
“How
the ECB responds to the conflicting pressures created by the Greek
crisis matters enormously. Shunned by financial markets, the country’s
banks survive only because the Frankfurt-based central bank meets in
full their demands for liquidity against collateral of rapidly declining
quality. Early next month, the ECB has to decide whether to continue
that euro zone-wide “unlimited liquidity” policy; so far it has said it
will last only until early July. The bank also owns about €45bn of Greek
government bonds, acquired during the past year as part of efforts to
calm financial market tensions.”
The indignation of
the assembled dignitaries against Athens knew no bounds. “Urgent
measures are needed in Greece in order to reach its fiscal targets,”
said Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who presided
the aforementioned meeting. Greece had to “increase the volume of
privatisation” as well as adopt further belt-tightening measures to meet
its deficit-reduction target this year he said.
Christine
Lagarde, the French finance minister, complained that the ungrateful
Greeks had so far failed to act on their promise to raise €17 billion
(raised earlier this year to €50 billion) from the sale of state assets.
Why did Greece not behave like Portugal (whose bail-out was approved)?
There both government and opposition parties have pledged to support the
“reform” programme negotiated with the European Commission, the
European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund.
European
leaders are pushing to work out measures that would ensure the Greek
government lives up to its promise to deliver €50bn ($70bn) in
privatisation proceeds. Privately EU officials believe that far bigger
sums can be squeezed out of Greece from the sell-off of public assets –
with estimates ranging from €250bn to €300bn. This massive sum would
account for almost all of Greece’s outstanding debt.
The
privatisation plan amounts to a systematic plunder of the country. These
people are like bandits planning to skin their victim and sell his hide
when he is still alive. They are planning to plunder Greece of its most
treasured national assets to fill the bank accounts of the
international money lenders. But there is a small difficulty. The
leaders of Europe do not trust the Greeks to carry this out. They point
to repeated failures by Athens to start such sell-offs and are
questioning the way Papandreou is proceeding with the privatisations.
The
practical Dutch advocated a more radical measure: the creation of an
external agency run by the EU to take charge of selling the plundered
assets. That is a blatant violation of national sovereignty that will
provoke fierce resistance in Greece. The drive for an outside agency to
run Greek privatisations is being spearheaded by Jan Kees de Jager the
Dutch finance minister, whose comments sum up the mood of the European
bourgeois:
"Right now we are beyond sensitivities. Our common
predicament is too serious." One wonders what would the French say if a
committee in Brussels ordered them to sell off the Eifel Tower and the
Louvre to pay off the National Debt. But Greece is a small and weak
country and nobody is concerned about hurting its feelings.
But Greece cannot pay…
When the crisis in Greece first became news, I wrote the following:
“There
has been talk of a German-led rescue scheme. But this has its own
problems. If it materializes, other European countries may be queuing
up, cap in hand, for assistance. The problem is by no means confined to
Greece, as the bond markets are well aware! The international
moneylenders are increasingly worried about the credit-worthiness of
Spain, Ireland and Portugal, and there is dark muttering about the state
of Britain’s finances. It is one thing to bail out the Greek economy,
which is relatively small. But what will happen if they have to rescue
Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even Britain?“In order to reassure
the markets that these countries are able and willing to repay their
debts, the international Shylocks are insisting that they must increase
taxes and cut spending. But such a policy spells disaster for economies
that still remain trapped in a recession with rising unemployment. “This
is madness. If we cut state spending now, it will destroy the
recovery!” But the plaintive laments of the Keynesians have no effect on
the icy hearts of the international bankers, who are only interested in
getting their money back – with a handsome return.” (Euro crisis
confirms Marxist perspectives, 16 Feb. 2010)
This was written in February 2011. Over a year later, I have no reason to change a single word. Later I wrote:
“Papandreou’s
chances of actually implementing his austerity policy are therefore
close to zero. In the end, no matter how much pressure is applied on the
people of Greece, they will never be able to pay their debts. The
so-called “aid” can only postpone the Day of Judgment. And the merciless
pressure from Brussels to slash living standards, and therefore reduce
demand, will only succeed in pushing Greece further along the road to
national bankruptcy and default.” (A new stage in the crisis of
capitalism, June 2010)
This is exactly what has
happened. The bourgeois strategists usually come to the same conclusions
as the Marxists with a slight delay. Now a growing number of economists
believe Greece’s debt, already at about 150% of GDP, cannot be repaid.
But they cannot agree on what is to be done about it. Some advocate
“hard” restructuring, which would mean imposing losses on creditors.
Since
most of the creditors are German, Germany is naturally unenthusiastic
about this remedy, preferring instead a “softer” rescheduling of the
debt to delay repayments. That means “softer” for the German creditors,
of course, not for the people of Greece. Like the merciless money lender
in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, the Shylocks in Brussels
will demand their pound of flesh. The only discussion is about when and
where to stick in the knife.
George Papaconstantinou, the Greek
finance minister present at the meeting cut a pathetic figure, insisting
that ministers had not been as harsh as may seem. After all, they
acknowledged the unprecedented reduction of Greece’s budget deficit,
worth 7% of GDP. “At the same time they acknowledged that we need to do
more. We concur.” This is like a lamb brought to a slaughterhouse
praising the butcher for his welcoming smile as he approaches the
chopping block.
Yes, these apparently hard men of money have a
human heart after all. Asked whether the absence of Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, the IMF’s boss sitting in jail in New York on charges of
sexual assault, Mr Juncker said he had been “close to tears” at the
sight of his friend in handcuffs. It is not recorded whether he shed any
tears for the plight of millions of Greeks faced with bankruptcy,
unemployment and poverty.
Whatever scenario one chooses, the
consequences for Greece will be the same: a period of falling living
standards, austerity and cuts, accompanied by extreme political
instability and heightened class struggle.
Spotlight on Italy
After
Greece, Ireland and Portugal and Spain, the markets are turning their
unwelcome attentions to Italy, like hungry wolves seeking out the
sickest and weakest members of a herd of reindeers. The EU is
increasingly concerned. In March a meeting of the European Commission
started talking about Greece and ended talking about Italy. Spain is far
more important. But Italy is a key piece in the euro zone. A crisis in
Italy would have the most serious effects on the euro. It would drag the
rest of the euro zone down with it, including Germany and its pampered
satellites, Austria, Belgium and Holland.
On the face of it, it
seems strange that they should pick on Italy. From the capitalist point
of view, its public finances have been improved – that is, slashed. This
was particularly the case under Prodi, when the Centre-Left government
imposed deep cuts, and was thrown out of office as a result. What was
the result? In 2009 Italy’s debt stood at 128% GDP. It now amounts to
120% of GDP – the same as it was 20 years ago. This means that all the
cuts carried out by the Centre-Left government have resolved nothing.
Only the fact that Italy is not so dependent on foreign financing has so
far saved it from a Greek-style crisis.
Investors with exposure
to euro-denominated sovereign debt cannot ignore Italy, which has the
third-largest bond market in the world (after American and Japanese
government debt). Greece, Ireland and Portugal are peripheral economies.
Italy’s stock market fell sharply after the Standard and Poor credit
agency changed its credit-rating outlook on Italy from stable to
negative. The decision of Standard and Poor was a call on Italy’s rulers
to change course. And when the markets call on a country, it is not
merely a friendly visit but a direct order.
Italian capitalism has
a problem. To pay off its huge debt, Italy needs to grow. But for the
last decade its economic growth was close to zero in per capita terms.
The economy has lost more than half a million jobs in the recession.
Data show more than 22 per cent of young people are not in a job,
education or training. It is impossible to get out of this problem while
it has to spend so much on debt servicing. The markets therefore
conclude that Italy is in urgent need of what they call “reform”. That
is to say, it requires a dose of the same bitter medicine that have
already prescribed for Greece, Ireland and Portugal: cuts, cuts and
still more cuts. The EU is demanding cuts in public spending to the
value of 46bn Euros.
The message is not new. Some years ago The
Economist pointed out that Italy was not competitive, and in order to
retain its position in Europe, it would have to sack one third of its
workforce, and the remainder would have to accept a wage cut of thirty
percent. That is the real programme of the Italian bourgeoisie. But what
the capitalists want and what they can get away with are two entirely
different things. One government after another has attempted to carry
out these “reforms”, but every time they have foundered on a solid rock,
which is the Italian workers’ movement. Mass demonstrations, strikes
and general strikes have defeated all efforts to make the workers pay
for the bosses’ problems.
Berlusconi tried and failed. Then, for
the first time in history, the Centre Left was elected. But Prodi
carried out a programme of cuts that went far further than Berlusconi
had ever done. This naturally caused deep demoralization in the working
class and led to the defeat of the Centre Left, which was replaced with
yet another unstable coalition under Berlusconi. Now the right wing
coalition is in deep trouble.
Berlusconi took a drubbing in local elections on May 15th and 16th
and the fissures in the coalition are deepening. This underlines the
main problem of the Italian (and the Belgian) bourgeoisie: they lack a
strong party able to form a solid ruling coalition. But this is what is
needed in order to carry through the kind of austerity programme they
are demanding. Instead of representing the interests of the bourgeoisie,
Berlusconi is spending all his time fighting to stay out of prison.
Now, the international markets, tired of the endless scandals associated
with Berlusconi, are showing their teeth.
Silvio Berlusconi
suffers from the same incurable illness as Dominique Strauss-Kahn – a
chronic inability to keep his trousers on. This tells us a lot about the
immaculate moral character of our most Christian rulers. However, the
reason why the Italian bourgeoisie wants to get rid of il cavaliere
has nothing to do with his weakness for Moroccan models of a tender
age, but rather his weakness in dealing with the Italian working class.
The ruling class requires a strong government to deliver strong and very
unpleasant medicine. But Berlusconi is unable even to keep his shaky
coalition together. Therefore the ruling class has decided he must go.
The only problem is: who will replace him?
Faced with such a
situation, the bourgeoisie will have no alternative but to pass the
poisoned chalice of government to the Centre Left again, hoping that the
reformists will do the dirty work for them, as in Spain. But as recent
events in Spain have shown, this will only lead to further social
explosions. Giulio Tremonti, finance minister, likes to say his
deficit-cutting measures have not resulted in social unrest because of
government interventions. But he speaks too soon.
Already there
are signs that the patience of the workers is being exhausted. Italian
shipyard workers protesting against planned job cuts have clashed with
police following the latest announcement of austerity measures by
Berlusconi’s government. On Tuesday riot police with teargas fought with
protesters outside government offices in Sestri, a suburb of the
north-west port of Genoa. Two workers were reported injured as the crowd
demanded talks with the prime minister.
In the south, workers
trapped local officials in their offices overnight at the historic
Castellammare di Stabia shipyard near Naples. The protests were
triggered by the announcement on Monday from Fincantieri, the
state-owned shipbuilder, that 2,551 jobs – about a third of its
workforce – would be affected under its new plan. Union leaders have
warned that discontent at the government’s austerity measures is
simmering dangerously.
The bourgeois breathed a sigh of relief
when the Spanish protests were met with only a limited echo in Italy.
But this satisfaction is premature. Movements on the same scale are
implicit in the situation in Italy. It is only a question of time.
Belgium
Belgium
seemed to be a safe haven for European capitalism. Like Austria and the
Netherlands it appeared to be a cosy little corner, basking in the sun
of its German Big Brother and immune to the storm and stress of Greece
and other poorer relations within the euro zone. Some foolish people
actually believed this fairy story. But like all fairy stories in the
end it was an illusion.
Belgium has the third highest debt burden
in Europe. Belgium’s public sector debt totalled 96.6 percent of annual
output last year, putting it behind only Greece and Italy in the euro
zone and on a par with Ireland. Yet it has not pressed ahead with an
austerity package. The international bourgeoisie is now breathing down
the necks of the politicians in Brussels. Standard & Poor’s, the
ratings agency, has said that Belgium’s credit rating could be
downgraded if it cannot form a government in the coming months. Fitch
became the second ratings agency to threaten Belgium with a credit
downgrade, saying a lack of government undermined budget efforts in one
of the euro zone’s most indebted states.
Like Italy, Belgium lacks
a strong government and is plagued by the eternal friction between
Flemish and Walloons. The corrupt and degenerate Belgian bourgeois is
split into rival Dutch- and French-speaking parties, arguing about the
extent to which powers should be devolved like two dogs fighting over a
bone. Each side wants to grab more power and money for itself. But both
sides are agreed on making the working class pay for the crisis. The
political imbroglio caused by the national question means that Belgium
has not a permanent government since April when a fragile coalition
between Dutch-speaking and French speaking parties collapsed. As a
result the country has also been without a proper government for more
than 11 months since a parliamentary election last June.
The debt
and political crisis disturbed financial markets at the turn of the
year, and there is no sign of an end to the political deadlock. The
financial situation has become so worrying that King Albert II has
intervened to order caretaker prime minister Yves Leterme to draw up a
new budget for 2011 that makes deep cuts in public spending. The
bourgeoisie demands that the full weight of the debt crisis be placed on
the shoulders of the working class.
Fitch fears that Belgium’s
exposure to peripheral euro zone and eastern European entities were
"significant. Standard & Poor’s put the core groups of Belgian
banking group Dexia on CreditWatch negative because of exposure to
Greece. "Political risk is higher in Belgium than in other euro area
peers given the fractious disputes over the future shape of the
country," Fitch said. "The negative outlook reflects Fitch’s concerns
over the pace of structural reform in the coming years and the ability
to accelerate fiscal consolidation without a resolution to the
constitutional crisis," Douglas Renwick, a director in Fitch’s sovereign
group said.
This warning means that, without effective action in
Belgium, it is more likely than not to cut Belgium’s credit rating
within one to two years. The ratings agency said Belgium’s high debt
left the government with little capacity to deal with future shocks.
Already borrowing costs in Belgium are rising as the markets demand a
higher return for lending to the country. This is the economic
equivalent of taking hold of a man by a delicate part of his anatomy and
applying a gentle squeeze.
Following the well-trodden path of
Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, Belgium will be compelled to cut
public spending, privatize and attack workers’ living standards. The
united action of the working class is absolutely necessary to resist the
attacks and cut across the vicious nationalism of both wings of the
bourgeoisie that is the main way it seeks to divide and defeat the
Belgian labour movement.
The domino effect
By declaring it
would act as a safety net in bond markets, the ECB bought the euro zone
a little time. A year later, however, the programme has clearly failed.
The debt crisis has spread beyond Greece to Ireland and Portugal, both
now subject to ECB-backed international bail-out plans and the
accompanying brutal austerity policies. Greek bond yields have soared
this week to record highs as investors shun the country’s debt, and the
nervousness spreading to countries such as Spain, Italy and Belgium.
Although
Greek, Irish and Portuguese banks together account for only about 5 per
cent of euro zone gross domestic product, they now take up about €242bn
of ECB liquidity – 55 per cent of that provided to the euro zone
financial system. The whole financial system of the EU is being pushed
to the limit. At some point in the future, unless something id done, it
will face collapse.
By all the laws of economics, the ECB should
have abandoned Greece long ago. According to the terms of the European
Union treaty, national governments were meant to take responsibility for
their own finances. Therefore, Greece should have been left to its
fate. But the European bourgeois are trapped. If Greece goes down, the
knock-on effect throughout the euro zone would be catastrophic.
Therefore the EU was forced to break its own rules and launch a rescue
plan for Greece. But by so doing they tied the destinies of Europe to
its weakest link.
The EU finds itself in a dilemma. If they pull
the plug on Athens, it will have calamitous consequences for the entire
euro zone. But on the other hand, they cannot continue indefinitely
pouring money down a black hole: “All of those options are potentially
lethal for the euro zone,” says Thomas Mayer, chief economist at
Deutsche Bank. Taxpayers elsewhere, particularly in northern Europe, may
revolt at demands for fresh help. “But the ECB becoming a backstop for
Greece would amount to ‘monetary financing’ [central bank funding of
governments], which is forbidden by European Union treaty.”
The
contagion is spreading inexorably. The British bourgeois contemplated
the crisis of the euro with something between complacency and contempt.
In their insular blindness they imagined that because they did not join
the euro zone they could escape the storm that is gathering over the
continent. But Britain cannot remain aloof from the general European
crisis. It has already pledged £7bn towards the £72bn Irish bailout.
This was not an act of charity or good neighbourliness but was dictated
by the heavy exposure of British banks to Ireland.
The deepening
of the debt crisis makes the risk of a spill-over to the UK and the
British banking system ever more serious. Andrew Bailey, a senior Bank
of England official warned: “I cannot say that the UK is insulated from
the risks we observe in other parts of Europe.” The British bourgeoisie
would do well to ponder on the celebrated lines of John Donne:
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a
promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own
were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
The
attempts of the LibDem-Conservative coalition to slash public spending
have already provoked a rebellion of the youth and the biggest
demonstration called by the trade unions in history on 26 March. On
Thursday 30 June the unions have called for co-ordinated national strike
action involving teachers, lecturers and civil servants, which could
involve nearly one million workers. Unite’s leaders have said that its
members will take part in the pickets wherever they are established.
With universities and schools closed in many areas, hundreds of
thousands of students and school students will be out on that day. The
action will constitute the biggest strike movement against this
government and represent a further move forward following the mass
demonstration on 26 March.
Europe in crisis
Lenin
said that with the Russian Revolution capitalism had broken at its
weakest link. That is entirely logical. It is not likely that the
breakdown of capitalism will commence in its strongest link – the United
States of America. The cracks first began to appear in Latin America –
in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Now new and even deeper fissures have
appeared in North Africa and the Middle East. But the movements in
Europe are part of the same revolutionary ferment and stem from the same
cause.
The same process that we see on a world scale is
replicated in Europe. The crisis began in the weakest link, which was
Greece. That was followed in quick succession by Ireland, Portugal and
Spain. Some imagined that Germany and its satellites could isolate
themselves from the general decline. But that is impossible.
After
Spain come Italy and Belgium. And that spells a crisis of the euro so
profound that Germany will not be able to come to their rescue and will
be dragged down together with them. This is what they mean by
“contagion”. Like a group of mountaineers tied together by the same
rope, if one falls, they must all fall.
Lenin also pointed out
that politics is concentrated economics. The economic slump, which the
capitalists succeeded in delaying only at the cost of aggravating and
deepening it, has set in motion social forces that they cannot easily
control. Just as they have used up the mechanisms that they would
normally use for getting out of a slump, so they are discrediting the
reformist leaders that should serve them as a brake to stop the car from
swerving out of control.
For a time the reformist political and
trade union organizations can hold back the tide. But they do so only at
the cost of discrediting the old leaders in the eyes of the masses. The
workers will put these organizations to the test time and time again.
But the policies of the reformists only prepare the victory of the right
wing. We have seen this in Britain, France, Spain and Italy. Tomorrow
we will see the same in Greece. The problem is that neither the
reformists nor the bourgeois parties have any solution to the present
crisis.
This is a highly volatile, unstable and explosive
situation. A Greek default would have the most serious consequences for
Greece and the whole of Europe. It would signify the collapse of the
Greek economy and a crisis similar to that of the Weimar Republic in
1923. It would place revolutionary developments on the order of the day,
not only in Greece but throughout Europe.
The serious
representatives of Capital understand the seriousness of the situation
in Europe. Hans Jörg Sinn, one of the main bourgeois economic analysts
in Germany is warning of a civil war in Greece. In the long run such a
perspective is possible, not only for Greece, but for other countries,
especially in southern Europe. But the bourgeois would not be in a hurry
to go down that road because they could not be sure they would win.
In
the past a crisis of such dimensions would have led swiftly to a
conclusion, either in a revolutionary or counterrevolutionary direction –
either the victory of the working class, or the coming to power of a
fascist or Bonapartist regime. But under present day conditions such a
scenario is ruled out. The central problem of the European bourgeoisie
is easily stated. For over half a century the social reserves of
reaction have been whittled away.
In the past the peasantry formed
a solid base for reaction in France, Germany, Italy and Greece. Now it
has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. The students, who in
the past provided the shock troops for the fascists, have swung to the
left. The white collar workers (teachers, bank employees, civil
servants) who were conservative are now unionized and among the most
militant sections of the class.
The bourgeoisie cannot resort to
fascism or Bonapartism in the immediate future, although it is
constantly chipping away at democratic rights. On the other hand, the
working class is held back by the absence of a revolutionary leadership.
This produces an unstable equilibrium that can last for years, perhaps
decades. On a capitalist basis no lasting solution is possible.
Political instability is inherent in this situation. There will be
violent swings to the left and right, as the masses seek a way out of
the crisis. That is inevitable.
Limits of spontaneity
Many
people thought that the Arab Revolution was something peculiar to the
countries of North Africa and the Middle East. They failed to see that
these movements of the masses were a product of the global crisis of
capitalism. They arose out of the same social and economic conditions
that exist in every capitalist country – including the most advanced
ones.
If these movements had occurred in just one or two
countries, they might be attributed to chance or accident. But the wide
scope of the movement rules out such an explanation. We have no right to
speak of chance. Globalization manifests itself as a global crisis of
capitalism. The same process will unfold in one country after another,
with greater or lesser intensity, and at a faster or slower pace. That
is the meaning of the mass protests in Wisconsin and in Spain.
The
recent movement in Spain, was a spontaneous movement, mainly of the
youth. This had both the positive and negative features of spontaneity.
The wide sweep of the mass movement was partly a reflection of its
unorganized and spontaneous character. But as time passes the limited
character of such movements will be revealed. Without adequate
programme, perspectives and leadership, it will tend to decline. If all
that is offered is to constantly go to the Puerta del Sol, nothing
serious can be achieved.
One can point to the limited nature of
their demands. The protesters are demanding more democracy, more
accountability from governments. But how can one speak of these things
in Ireland and Portugal, where the bureaucrats of the EU have already
dictated draconic austerity plans as a condition for their “support”?
Elections will soon be held in Portugal. But what is there left for the
next government to decide?
The case of Greece is still more
blatant. The EU will impose a special commission to carry through the
programme of privatization, removing the matter from the elected
government’s hands altogether. Similarly, the agenda in Spain is being
decided, not by the Spanish people but by the unelected boards of
directors of the big banks and companies and by faceless bureaucrats in
Brussels. In order to solve these problems, more radical revolutionary
measures will be necessary.
Some will say: “These movements are
very confused. They lack a clear revolutionary programme!” Others will
say: “We cannot recognize these movements as real revolutions because
they are not led by a Marxist workers’ party!” Such objections are
childish in the extreme. The socialist revolution does not unfold in a
planned and orderly fashion. The masses are facing serious problems
right now and cannot wait until we have created an ideal Bolshevik
Party. Therefore, all kinds of “spontaneous” movements are bound to
arise.
The idea that the masses must wait until we Marxists are
ready, and that the revolution will be like a well-drilled orchestra
following the conductor’s baton, has nothing to do with reality. This
kind of empty formalism has nothing in common with Marxism. Lenin, who
was a great Marxist theoretician, said that for the masses an ounce of
practice was worth a ton of theory. The workers and youth can only learn
through experience.
The masses in Tahrir Square learned more in a
few days than in all their lives. The workers and youth of Greece,
Spain, Britain – and tomorrow Belgium, Austria and Germany – will learn
in the same way. They will learn from their experience, put leaders,
parties and programmes to the test and draw conclusions. This can be a
slow and painful process. But so far nobody has suggested any viable
alternative.
If we are to play a role in these developments, the
Marxists must take the living movement of the masses as it is, not as we
would like it to be. We must not appear as preachers or teachers giving
orders from without, but as comrades in the struggle, participating
shoulder to shoulder with the most advanced workers and youth, helping
them to draw the conclusions from every battle. Our slogan is that of
Lenin: “patiently explain”. Only on that basis can we earn the right to
lead in practice, as opposed to talking about leadership in theory.
