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Permanent Revolution Collective’s Manifesto
The
Spanish Social-Democratic President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero declared after
his election: "Europe must have
confidence in its belief it can become the most important power in the world in
twenty years" (Der Spiegel,
9 November of 2004). This perspective names Europe the European Union of 25
countries, which should be able of competing with the United States: $10.5 billion GNP as opposed to $11 Billion,
455 million inhabitants against 295 million.
On the basis of this perspective, social democracy, European Stalinism
and most of their so-called far left allies talk of a United States of Europe,
that the workers would merely have to make "social" and
"democratic".
All
the latter mean that the capitalist class can unify Europe when only the
working class can do this by overthrowing the capitalists. Europe is not like
America. The USA was a state created by the bourgeoisies of the British
colonies of North America at a time when capitalism was still juvenile, when
the bourgeoisie was still able to play a revolutionary role, to lead the
popular masses, and mobilize and to arm them against the colonial power (War of
Independence) and, later, against the slave-owning landowners (War of
Secession).
The
European Union appeared much too late when capitalism was in its epoch of old age
and decay. It has been a patch up job
of the old national bourgeoisies, today all reactionaries because they none are
capable of leading any progressive struggle to abolish their bourgeois states.
The
budget of the European Union shows that the EU is not a real state. First, the EU taxes only 1% of its
member states’ income (116 miliards euros), whereas the US taxes more than 20% of the national
income.
Moreover,
the largest part of this tiny budget, 45%, goes to agriculture. The largest
spending in the USA is on the military 350 billion. The total spending of
all 25 armies of the UE is no more than
150 billion euros.
The
European Union so is divided that it does not have its own troops, aside from
the "Rapid Reaction Force". This was formed after the European Council
of Helsinki of 1999. It is not a supranational force or an embryo of a European
Union Army. It is limited to
cooperation between the armies of only four states (Germany, Belgium, France
and Luxembourg). Not only that, but most European states are still members of
the military alliance controlled by the United States, NATO.
The
Balkan wars of the 1990s and the second imperialistic war against Iraq, proves
that the EU is no more than a
heterogeneous federation around an unstable agreement between German and
French imperialism.
The
1957 agreement that founded the UE, aimed: "To
strengthen. . . and safeguard peace and freedom" (Introduction to the
Treaty of Rome). The new EU
Constitution of 2004, affirms: "The
Union’s objectives are to promote peace, the values and well-being of its
peoples" (art. I.3).
These
pious platitudes were contradicted by the devastation of ex-Yugoslavia from
1990 to 1999, as a result of the persistent rivalry of the European
powers. To preserve and to extend their
zones of influence, French and German imperialisms actively contributed to the
break-up of the Yugoslav Confederation, supporting one or another national
sector of the old Titoist bureaucracy.
All the fractions of the bureaucracy wished to restore Capitalism, to
convert themselves into bourgeois, and to prevent a united working class
staging a political revolution to kick them out of power and create a real
workers’ state.
Germany
backed the independence of Croatia and
Slovenia providing arms and military advisors.
France backed a "Greater Serbia" and armed Serbia against
Croatia and Bosnia. The United States made use of their diplomatic and military
superiority to end the conflict and to advance their influence in Europe at the
expense of their European imperialist rivals.
The
UE pretends to liberate the peoples and to assure their well-being. But since it guarantees the borders of the
existing states, it also guarantees the oppression of many different peoples of
Europe, for example Basques, Albanians of Kosovo, Irish. Still worse, it
entraps the overseas territories of the old British, Portuguese, Spanish,
Dutch, French, Danish colonial empires as "countries
and overseas territories of the European Union" (PTUM) and as "ultraperipheral regions"
(RUP). These PTUM are associated with
the UE: Greenland, New Caledonia,
French Polynesia, the Dutch Antilles, Aruba, Anguila, Falklands Islands,
Bermuda, etc. The RUP, often further
removed from the European continent than Turkey, are also parts of the
territory of the UE: French Guyana,
Guadeloupe, Martinique, La Reunion, Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands.
The
goal of "European Peace" overlooks the participation of the armies of
almost all the capitalist countries of Europe in the war against Iraq in 1991,
the scandalous UN embargo that strangled the Iraqi population for the next ten
years. Its "peace" is blind to the bombing of Serbia in 1999,
Afghanistan in 2002, by NATO and the US military; ignores the many armed
interventions where the "democracies" of "old Europe" invade
the Ivory Coast, Haiti, etc. Its
"peace" forgets the support from all these states to the oppressor
state of Israel in Palestine, or Turkish oppression of the Kurds, and the new
capitalist Russia’s oppression of Chechnya.
As
for "European Unity". The reality is a cruel contradiction. Against their main rival, US imperialism,
the European states are clearly divided. Great Britain, Spain, Italy and the
countries of Central Europe, supported the US when it unleashed its war of
terror and looting against Iraq, when the policy of French and German
imperialisms was to use the UN to bleed Iraq’s oil wealth.
This
rivalry also appears in the increasing antagonism between European imperialisms
over their foreign trade and investments, in order to increase their shares of
the resources of Eastern Europe or Africa, Latin America, Oceania and Asia.
Therefore,
it is evident that the European imperialistic powers cannot deliver ‘peace’ and
‘unity’. They joined in the brutal restoration of capitalism in the former
workers states; the recolonisation of the dominated countries, such as the imperialistic invasion of Iraq led by the US
(Great Britain, Spain State, Italy, Poland...); the invasion and occupation of
the ex-Yugoslavia by NATO, the occupation of Afghanistan by NATO (with France,
Spanish sState, Germany), and the invasion and occupation of Haiti (France,
Spain State, along with the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, etc.).
Inside
and outside, the minority of exploiters must mask and legitimize its rule by
means of patriotism, the mass media, religion and the education system. Where that fails it needs to repress, and if
they are able to, destroy, the resistance of the exploited and oppressed
majority. Without counting the
expenditures on police and prisons, which constantly rise, the 25 countries of
the UE spend on average more than 2% of their GNP on their armies.
The
attacks on the rural and urban workers today, have nothing to do with a
‘neoliberal’ ideology of the European institutions. The struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is
inherent in capitalism. Increasingly
since the onset of the world economic crisis in 1973, every capitalist class in
the world is forced to fight to increase the rate of exploitation and to
devalue the value of the work force.
The result is that from 1975 to 1999, the share of wages in the UE15 has
been cut by an average of 9%. The rate
of unemployment of the UE25 today averages 9.1% of the active population. The right to a decent pension, unemployment
insurance, access to health and education, public services, which are all past
conquests of the European labour movement, are cut back because they are a
drain on the profits of the capitalist system that destroys the basis of all
economic and social life.
There
can be no other unified Europe than a socialist Europe. To make the UE a social
Europe is a reformist myth.
Far
from being a victim from the building of UE, as the reactionaries claim, the
nation state is reinforced as a repressive apparatus. All the European bourgeoisies are strengthening their state
apparatus, especially the mercenaries that keep capitalist order: police of all sorts, secret services and the
army. At the same time, they all attack democratic liberties.
The
ascendant capitalism of 19th century justified colonialism by racism. Now, at the beginning of 21st century, all
the reactionary demagogues attribute the evils generated by capitalism
(unemployment, poverty, delinquency...) to foreign competition (always
"disloyal"), to the offshore relocations, the "technocrats of
Brussels", etc. Fascists and,
sometimes even respectable bourgeois politicians try to divert the popular
anger towards the Jews and, above all, towards Pakistani, Arab, Turkish
immigrants, etc. or to their descendants.
Actually, capitalism in decline continuously secretes the xenophobia by
means of its "immigration policies", its "fight against the
terrorism", its national and racial division of the working class, its
social segregation into urban ghettos.
All
the governments of Europe restrict the right of asylum. They reject Arabs and Kabyles whose lives
are threatened by Islamic fanatics and military dictatorships; they persecute
the Kurdish or Turkish immigrants in all the countries of the UE; the Basque
militants are pursued in France and tortured by the Spanish state; the Italian
militants who look for refuge in France where they are extradited to the
mafioso Berlusconi.
Every
state restricts the freedom of movement and the rights of the immigrant
workers, treating them brutally and locking them up in infamous detention
centres, to make easier the superexploitation of the other ones and thus
dividing the working class.
The
two great imperialistic wars were, first of all, the expression of the
rebellion of the productive forces against the limits of the national borders,
particularly archaic in Europe. On two
occasions, German imperialism tried to unify Europe under its military
hegemony. In the second, it did it
under the rule of Hitler and Nazism, the despicable incarnation of the
bourgeois counterrevolution and capitalist reaction. On two occasions, the European ruling classes, with the aid of
the North American bourgeoisie, made war to each other to re-divide Europe and
the world, sacrificing millions of young working people, devastating the
continent, massacring the civilians, and using their colonial subjects like
cannon fodder.
Against
the endless horror of imperialistic slaughter, the proletariat rebelled and
opened up another road for humanity.
The socialist revolution began in October of 1917, taking power in
Russia and overthrowing in 1918 the monarchy in Germany. Thus, the working class ended the war
between the bourgeoisies, a war in which it was a victim.
During
World War II, the defeat of Nazism began, thanks to the Russian workers, in
Stalingrad in February of 1943. The
same year, the Italian proletariat rose up against Mussolini. But the big revolutionary fires that were
sparked off by World War II were damped down by the counter-revolutionary
alliance between the imperialistic bourgeoisies of the United States (and Great
Britain) and the Stalinist bureaucracy of the USSR. The agreements of Tehran,
Yalta and Potsdam were an alliance by common fear that the potential
proletarian revolution in Western and Central Europe that would have extended
to the USSR. Stalin dissolved the 3rd International
in 1943, as a pledge to the imperialists that he would suppress the
international revolution. The so-called
democratic coalition of the White House and the Kremlin feared the revolution
more than Nazism. So, their armies let
the Nazis troops massacre the insurgents of Warsaw and deliberately attacked
the German civil population to terrorise it and to destroy any will to revolt.
Their
political agents in the working class, the "socialist" parties,
"communist" parties and reformist union apparatuses, have fought
against the struggle of the working class since 1943, the date of the Italian
uprising. They were able to contain the
revolution, disarming the workers of France, Greece..., participating directly
to the reconstruction of the bourgeois states broken by the military defeats and
the armed uprisings, denouncing and suppressing strikes, and slandering the
revolutionaries.
Victorious
US imperialism reconstructed the bourgeois nation states in Europe, restoring
the discredited bourgeois regimes, risking the modification of some borders. With the complicity of Stalin, the Democrat
Party’s presidents Roosevelt and Truman divided up the European working classes
more than ever, particularly that of the largest one, the German proletariat. At the same time, the counter-revolutionary
alliance of Yalta ensured that the colonial peoples of Africa, Asia and the
Middle East continued to live under the boot of their European masters.
Only
when threatened with revolution did the European bourgeoisies make large
concessions to their respective proletariats:
restoring democratic freedoms and the right of strike, extending Social
Security and nationalisations. In Albania and Yugoslavia, armies of partisans
controlled by the Stalinist parties took power in spite of the orders from
Stalin.
The British, North American and
Australian bourgeoisies had sent young working people to all the fronts and
across all seas on the pretext of fighting fascism. But as soon as their
Japanese and German rivals were overcome, the US bourgeoisie turned against the
USSR and allied with the fascist regimes of Portugal and Spain. The US provided aid to the weakened European
ruling classes with the Marshall Plan in 1947.
At the surrender of Germany, the US mounted an offensive against the
USSR with the objective of restoring capitalism. This "Cold War" received the support of social
democracy and most of the union leaderships.
With
its own caste privileges safeguarded, defending at the same time in its own way
the USSR against North American imperialistic aggression, the bureaucracy of
the Kremlin in 1948 expropriated the capitalists of Central Europe. It established workers’ states bureaucratized
from their birth, as copies of the USSR, states in which the workers did not
really hold power, nor have basic democratic rights, such as the right to
strike, but in which they had access to free health and education.
Everywhere around the world, US
imperialism supported or created dictatorships against any revolutionary
threat. In Europe, it participated
directly in the constitution of an authoritarian regime in Greece in 1967. But the dictatorial bourgeois regimes of
Greece, Spain and Portugal could not resist the revolutionary flames which broke
through the post-war order of Yalta in 1968, as much in the West as in the East
of Europe.
In
1960, the Portuguese state faced a crisis with the uprising of the peoples of
its African colonies (Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola). In 1974, the Portuguese revolution overthrew
the dictatorship of Caetano, the heir of Salazar. The fraternization of
soldiers and workers on the May 1st brought the occupation of
factories, the winning of democratic liberties and the end of the former secret
police. Only class collaboration and
the ferocious split in the ranks of workers between the PSP and the PCP, with
the support of centrists of all types, allowed the bourgeois state to remain in
power and to save the weakened Portuguese capitalism. So, the road to the European
Economic Community was opened to Portugal at the same time as in Spain.
In Spain, still greater
contradictions faced the Francoist regime.
The working class reconstructed its forces, angry youth entered the
struggle and the oppressed peoples reactivated their struggles. To stop a possible revolution, King Juan
Carlos de Bourbon-Parma, designated by Franco as his heir, introduced
preventive reforms in 1976. Both the
PSOE and the PCE supported the king and its "transition" plan. They supported the constitution of December
6, 1978 which restored some democratic freedoms, while maintaining the privileges of the Catholic Church, denying the right
of secession of the national Basque, Catalan and Galician minorities and
restoring a monarchy with strong Bonapartist traits.
Although
the reformist leaders Hollande, Buffet, Zapatero, Schröder and company, falsely
claim that the workers’ conquests are the progeny of the "republic"
or "parliamentary democracy", the truth is very different: both in the East and in the West of the
continent, the great conquests of the European proletariat in the 20th
century were the by-product of the world-wide revolutionary uprisings that were
unleashed in 1917, 1943 and 1968.
The
European Union is the base on which the European imperialists defend their
positions in the world economy and try to conquer new ones in the former
bureaucratic workers’ states of Central Europe, China, Vietnam and Cuba, in the
traditional semi-colonial countries, and in the imperialistic countries
themselves. The bourgeois governments
hide this reality behind speeches on the "unity of the continent" and
on "peace".
The
European Council, that is to say the meeting of the governments of the EU 25
states members, adopted on the 18 of June of 2004, a project for an obviously
capitalist constitutional treaty: The Union acts in favour of the sustainable
development of Europe founded on a social economy of a highly competitive
market... (I-3 article of the project).
The word "social" only has a decorative function. The expression "market economy"
refers, in hypocritical terms, to capitalism.
The capitalist mode of production, born in Europe, is not only a market
for products but the exploitation of wage-earning workers. In capitalism, the labour-power of the
proletarians is, itself, sold to the minority class of society that owns the
means of production. The social product
escapes to the control of its producers, to benefit these capitalists who can,
thus, monopolize the surplus value in the form of profits.
The
concentration of capital, that has continued on a world scale at the cost of
economic crises and wars, takes the form of large capitalist multinational
firms. Nevertheless, it does not lead
to the disappearance of nation states and borders. On the contrary, it leads to the increase in the competition
between companies and the between national territories in which these move and
on which they depend. On the one hand, the overwhelming majority of the
"multinationals" have a clearly identifiable national base; on the
other hand, the most powerful states not only guarantee the profits of all
capitals by the maintenance of the conditions of extraction of surplus value
against the resistance of the wage-earners, but in addition, defend the
interests of their national fraction of the capital against their competitors.
EU
itself was built by national states, especially the old imperialist powers.
What politicians, university professors and journalists call the "European
construction" arose from secret deals between the politicians of France
and Germany mainly, although these negotiations have also included Great
Britain, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.
From
the 1950s, to overcome the narrow limits of their territories, and to counter
the loss of markets in Eastern Europe and their former colonies, some states
agreed to form a free trade zone. First the three countries of
"Benelux" of 1948, then the six countries of the "European Economic
Community" of 1957 (Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg). This agreement between
some national bourgeoisies to overcome the barriers to the accumulation of
capital posed by their own borders was baptised the European Union in 1992. In
1973, Britain, Eire, Denmark joined this regional agreement; in 1981, Greece
did; in 1986, Spain and Portugal; in 1995, Sweden, Finland and Austria, in
2004, Poland, Hungary, Check Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia, Malta and Cyprus. Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania are waiting.
Germany
and France have controlled all the stages in the evolution of the UE, from the
creation of the European Community of Coal and Steel in 1951 to the
proclamation of the UE in 1992. No
significant decision (as the adoption of euro in 1999 or the extension to ten
countries in the 2004) has been taken in the UE without the agreement of the
governments of the Germany and France.
Moreover, these two states can break the UE rules if their interests
require it, as was the case in 2003 and 2004 when their budgetary deficits
widely exceeded the criteria of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and of Amsterdam
Treaty of 1997. Thus, through their
Prime ministers and their governments, the European Union is under the control
of the corporate of these two countries.
The European Commission of Brussels, far from having power, is in charge
only of the application of these policies.
The
new constitution will not question these foundations of UE.
Referendums
on Turkey’s admission and the Constitutional Treaty are underway in some
countries.
The
new Constitution project, drafted by Giscard d'Estaing, a former president of
the 5th French Republic, guarantees the hold of the great powers on the
European Union and their control over the other members. On the one hand,
national governments will continue to make the essential decisions, although
the European Parliament will have to give its approval in some domains (budget
estimates, internal market, immigration...).
On the other hand, the decisions will be by consensus of all 25 (fiscal
policy, social policy...) or by a "qualified majority" so that
agreement must be by, at least, 15 states representing 65% of the population (I-23
article, I-25...). In this way, France
and Germany can paralyze any decision.
Consequently,
the new Constitution maintains the economic domination of the continent by the
imperialist states, but also the survival of the monarchies, the existence of state
religions (Christian), and the maintenance of the oppressed peoples of Europe
within the existing capitalist states.
Thus religion is enshrined as a founding value (Introduction of the
Constitutional Treaty) and it forces the European Union to consult the Churches
(art 1-52). Under the pretext of the
"fight against terrorism", the new Constitution allows for the
collaboration of the states, police and secret services, against the oppressed
countries and radical organizations (articles I-42, III-271, III-276, III-309).
No
conscious worker can support this constitution. But equally s/he cannot be associated with the chauvinists that
oppose the constitution for a bloc with their capitalists which divide the
working classes along national lines.
The
reformist leaders of the main workers organizations and their centrist allies
are all partisans of capitalism. So they agree, whatever their attitude in
front of the UE, that the bourgeoisies are able to unify the continent. But
most of bourgeois worker parties and union leaderships think that the UE is the
only way to resist US competition; while a minority reject European integration
altogether and bloc with the weaker fractions of their bosses who remain tied
to "their" nation against the "dictators of Brussels".
In
some countries, the Parliament has to ratify the Constitutional Treaty; in
other ones, there will be a referendum. When there is a popular consultation,
workers cannot choose the new 2004 constitutional treaty, nor the continuation
of the former constitutional one, the 2001 Nice Treaty.
The
peaceful unification of the continent would be historically progressive. But the bourgeoisie, in the epoch of
imperialism, is totally incapable of doing this. The economy suffocates in the iron shackle of private property
and the inherited borders of the previous historical period. The bourgeoisies of Great Britain, France,
Italy, Germany... cannot abandon their national state, indispensable against
their proletariat and against the bourgeoisies with which they compete.
The
unification of Europe is the historical task of the only progressive class of
our time, the proletariat. The ever
increasing contradiction between the development of the productive forces,
which include their tendency to internationalization and socialisation, and the
capitalist relations of production, can only be overcome by a social
revolution, carried out by the class that is simultaneously the product of
capitalism, its condition of existence and its potential negation: the working class. This class has the capacity to overthrow the exploiting class,
due to its numbers, concentration and the strategic place that it occupies in
production.
In
order to rise to this historical task, the proletariat must begin to affirm its
independence of the bourgeoisie and all its political fractions.
Of
course, the workers of a certain country may see in a referendum the occasion
to declare themselves against the bourgeois government in power, whatever its
composition (reformist party alone, coalition between reformist party and
bourgeois party, bourgeois parties only in power). Nevertheless, the referenda will be used for the division of the
workers ranks. It will not be with a
‘no’ vote that workers will show their force.
The campaigns for a ‘no’ vote will be, overall, an occasion of
chauvinism and xenophobia, especially against the Turks.
Where
workers are consulted on the modification of the European constitution they
have to boycott it: Neither Treaty of
Nice, nor the Constitution of Giscard!
Neither national move back nor parody of European unity!
Like
the present Russian state, the Turkish state has part of its territory in what
is called "Europe" but more in "Asia". From 1963 Turkey has been associated to the
EEC. From 1995, this agreement included
a customs union. Since 1987, successive
Turkish governments have requested entry into the European Union.
Some
bourgeois parties argue against the entrance of Turkey because they exploit a
xenophobic fear of Turkish migrants.
Others don’t want to pay big agricultural subsidies to Turkey. Many fear
that the admission of a Muslim population will weaken the ideology of UE built
up by Christian Democrats, when Islamic terrorism is used to justify attacks on
democratic rights in the whole EU.
On
the other hand, the possibility of extending the European market to include
Turkey and win it away from the US appeals to some sectors of the European
bourgeoisie. At the moment, the European
Council (the executive of the UE constituted by the prime ministers of the
member states) continuously defers the question of Turkey’s entry.
The
proletariats and revolutionary communists in Turkey must fight against the US
bases, the NATO, the alliance with Israel as well as domination by German and
French imperialism. They have to reject all illusions of the Turkish and Kurd
workers towards the UE, but also all political illusions in the national
bourgeoisie, either Kemalist or Islamic.
The
Kurdish people must be able to freely decide their future inside from Turkey or
separated from any of the existing bourgeois states in the Near East. Following the march of history, the Turkish
proletariat will freely decide to contribute to the Socialist United States of
Europe or the Socialist United States of the Near East.
In
the countries already members of the UE, the workers vanguard cannot endorse
the reasons the bourgeois give for exclusion or entry of Turkey. The workers of the UE countries must resist
all chauvinism and all imperialistic domination on Turkey. They must pronounce
for the unity of all workers of the continent including all those of Turkish
nationality or of Turkish or Kurd origin, for the free movement of Turkish
workers into Europe and for the same political and social rights for their
Turkish sisters and brothers.
Bourgeoisies’
attempts to make workers vote on the fate of Turkey in the EU is a trap. Neither the workers of Turkey, nor the
workers of the UE, can win any political victory in a vote that make them side
with one of two bourgeois options: the annexationists or the chauvinists. Therefore, in case of referendum on this
question, the slogan of the proletariat must be the boycott.
The
future that capitalism offers the European peoples is that of decline,
reaction, massive unemployment, increasing competition between imperialistic
powers, and world economic crisis and war.
But
the working class, first victim of the constant degradation of the conditions
of existence of the vast majority of the population, also has the power to put
and end to capitalist rule and truly unify Europe. To do this, the proletariat must take over the leadership of all
the exploited and oppressed parts of the population.
Against
the open or veiled political alliances with the bourgeoisie, practiced by
traditional social democracy and former Stalinism trying to convert itself, the
Bolsheviks oppose the united front of all workers against the bourgeoisie, the
building of a political coalition of all the workers’ organizations against the
bourgeois governments, their states and their European Union, in order to
achieve its complete overthrow.
We
demand of all the organisations who base themselves in the workers to break
politically with the bourgeoisie and commit themselves to fight for a workers’
program. Bolsheviks should support any step in this way:
·
No to unemployment! No to dismissals without equal
job! Defend all the proletarian
conquests! Free quality Education,
health and housing for all!
·
No to labour flexibility and anti-union laws! 35 hours per week! Fight unemployment with
shorter working week! Wage, pension and
benefit increase! Sliding scale of
wages!
·
Abolition of the VAT!
Not subsidies to the capitalist corporations! Workers control of the
industry and services! Expropriation of the capitalist banks and big
companies! Plan production and
distribution under workers’ control!
·
For unified industrial unions! Total democracy in the unions! No to co-management or partnership! Workers
assemblies and elected workers’ committees to lead the struggles!
·
Real equality between men and women! Right to free contraception and
abortion! Equal rights for all forms of
sexual orientation!
·
For a secular Europe!
Separation of Church and State!
No state finance for religious institutions! No state recording of
religious affiliation! Emancipation of
youth from all clerical control!
·
Independence for remaining European colonies! Self-determination for Kosovars, Basques,
Irish, Kurds, etc.!
·
Abolition of the agreements of Schengen! Open the borders for all workers! Recognition of all rights and of citizenship
to worker immigrants!
·
Freedom for all revolutionary and union militants, for
all the activists of the oppressed nations!
Working self-defence! Dissolve the professional armies and repressive
police forces!
·
Abolition of all the monarchies! For the abolition of all ‘Upper Houses’
(Senates, Lord House, etc.)! For the right to recall the representatives and
wages of representatives limited to that of a technician!
·
End of any threat against China, North Korea, Iran and
Syria! Close all the US military bases!
Dissolve NATO! Disarm the
"European Rapid Force"!
·
Cancel the debt of the poor countries! Defence of the collectivized economies of
Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam! Hands off the Ivory Coast, Haiti, Bosnia,
Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq! Workers
United Front to block the military transport and transmissions! Victory for the people of Iraq! Defeat imperialism!
·
Against the UE, against all treaties and capitalist
agreements of the EEC, and the UE, from 1957 to 2005! Workers’ governments in every country of Europe! For a Socialist United States of Europe!
Every
serious demand of the masses reaches beyond the limits of the private property.
So, the workers have to unite to overthrow the bourgeois state that allows the
minority of capitalists to exploit them and rule over the masses. Only a workers
government shall preserve the future. The workers government will have the task
of expropriating the expropriators, to put the giant corporations under
workers’ control, so that workers can begin to reorganize society on a
national, international, and finally, world-wide basis.
All
previous social conquests of the working class in East Europe were lost because
the bureaucracy was not overthrown and capitalism was restored. All the political and social conquests of
the working class of Europe of the West are being eroded and threatened because
the bourgeoisie is still able to control the working class through the
reformist unions and parties. The proletariat faces an inevitable struggle to
fight for socialism or else collapse into the barbarism of economic crisis,
fascism and war.
In
the course of the last world-wide revolutionary wave, the European proletariat
once again demonstrated its capacity for the struggle: Belgium in 1961, France and Czechoslovakia
in 1968, Italy in 1969, Poland and Great Britain in 1970, Turkey in 1971,
Ireland and Portugal in 1974, Spain in 1976, Poland in 1980… Recently, facing the counter-offensive of
the global bourgeoisie, resisting the local offensives against their political
and social rights, against the imperialist wars, strike movements and massive
demonstrations have taken place in Spain, Italy, Greece, Great Britain,
Germany, France, Austria…
Nevertheless, the spontaneous protest of the workers and youth is not
sufficient. The union bureaucracies and
the traditional parties of the working class are the paid agents of the bosses
and are used to contain and divert workers’ struggles. The petty-bourgeois nationalists (SSP,
Batasuna, Sinn Fein...), the Islamist currents and the Christian youth
organizations, the anti-globalization movements (ATTAC...) and "the
ecological" parties..., they also contribute to the confusion of
proletariat and youth. These fakers
feed the masses with the myth of "another Europe" that would be less
"neo-liberal" (but equally capitalist), or divide the masses along
the lines of gender, nationality, race or religion.
Across
Europe, the union bureaucracies and the bourgeois-worker parties practice class
collaboration daily, because they are corrupted by the powerful ruling class.
Most of the Social-Democratic and ex-Stalinist parties in the European
countries have abandoned talk of socialism. They were accomplices in the
restoration of capitalism in the USSR and in Central Europe. They try to make
workers believe in a "social Europe", as if the capitalist European
Union could satisfy even the social needs of the masses.
Actually,
the reformist parties are accomplices in the bosses anti-worker attacks. The
prevent general strikes and the self-defence of the workers, they preach
confidence in the police and the army, they agree with the bourgeois parties or
they support the representatives of the bourgeoisie, accept the boot of Israel
on Palestine, are accomplices of the oppression of the nationalities of Europe,
support the UN and the intervention of its troops. When they are in the power, they further the privatisations and
the anti-worker plans, and deport or jail migrant workers.
Their
allies on the “far left" also call for "another Europe". The most audacious ones promote a
"Europe of the workers", without socialism, nor revolution, and,
definitely without any dictatorship of the proletariat! For instance, in
France, LO and the LCR claim to transform the UE, which is a coalition of
bourgeois states, into a Workers Europe. Meanwhile, the PT accuses the UE of
the deterioration of the life of the workers, like the most reactionary
parties. The liquidators of the 4th International behave as the left
wing of reformism, because of their growing adaptation to capitalism and
accommodation to bourgeois state.
For
a long time, some of them have even been praising the parliamentary road
(ex-Militant, today CWI and Socialist Appeal – El Militant tendency), all
nowadays renounce more and more openly the revolution. In France, the centrists call for a vote
Chirac (LCR), defend the "bourgeois Republic" (PT), support the
protests of police officers or the Chirac law prohibiting wearing the Islamic
headscarf by Arab and Turkish young people (LCR, PT). In Britain, they give up
the struggle for one secular and democratic Palestine, for the right to abort
and for scrapping of all immigration
controls (SWP). Across Europe, they become increasingly part of the corrupt
union apparatuses. Such "Trotskyites" along with petty bourgeois
anarchists are typically enthusiastic supporters of the "World Social
Forum", led by the Christian churches and their recycled Stalinist
friends, the NGOs financed by the bourgeois states and the ecological
parties.
Libertarians
and centrists oppose to the building of a revolutionary party. In this way,
anarchists give room to the lieutenants of the bourgeoisie. The ones who
claimed to be Marxists, prefer a “large” party, no firmly separated from
reformists, whose goal would be to drive capitalism better. In France, the
former PCI disappeared in a reformist and chauvinist party, the PT. En England,
Militant majority, when expelled from the Labour Party, built up a SP with a
reformist program; following the collapse of the reformist project of a
Socialist Alliance, SWP and ISG are launching (with Islamists) Respect, led by
George Galloway who is against abortion and for the control of migrants.
Pseudo-Trotskyites have helped for a decade former Stalinist parties: PRC in
Italy, IU in Spain, PDS in Germany, PCF in France, etc.
Sometimes,
they entered political parties with no relation with the working class: German
ecologists, Catalan nationalists, Scottish nationalists… All these organizations have nothing more to
do with socialist revolution.
In
order to defend themselves and to prepare its future, the proletariat needs a
new leadership, a party of the Bolshevik type, internationalist and
revolutionary, that use all proletarian tactics for evacuation of the armies of
European imperialisms in Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, Bosnia, the Ivory Coast,
Haiti; for the defeat of imperialism. The party must stand shoulder to shoulder
with the proletariats of all other countries on the side of the countries
oppressed by the European, Japanese and US imperialists. It must defend the
national rights of all oppressed peoples, like the Iraqis, Palestinians,
Chechens or Kurds.
But
the most important task of the internationalists, in particular those who live
in the imperialist countries, is to work to overthrow the bourgeoisie in their
own countries. In every country, they have to fight for the united front of all
workers organisations in front of the capital bourgeois state attacks.
The
European workers vanguard must regroup in revolutionary internationalist
Marxist parties in each country, parties which the Trotskyite-Leninist groups
have to build. This is the International that will fight to the end against its
own bourgeoisie, that will create workers’ militias, fight for the overthrow of
the bourgeois state and impose a workers government to expropriate the
capitalists and open the road to a Socialist United States of Europe. This union will be open to all the workers’
republics that wish to join it, from Turkey to Norway, from Switzerland to
Russia, because it will be only a step towards a Socialist United States of the
World.
The
unification of the continent only can be made by a social revolution. Such a revolution only can be made by the
exploited and oppressed class that has nothing to lose and that “has no
country”. The victory of the revolution
in Europe will be an inspiration for revolutions elsewhere in the USA and
everywhere, to create the material conditions of the end of classes and the
withering of the state.
Europe
was the cradle of capitalism.
Consequently, the modern proletariat first appeared in Europe, and the
latter was also the theatre for the first workers’ revolutions and the first
seizure of power by the workers: Paris in 1871, Petrograd and Moscow in
1917. Although capitalism has been
restored in Russia and the Centre of Europe; although the social conquests have
been eroded little by little in the West of Europe, the proletariat of Europe
has not said its last word. Tomorrow it
will once more take up the cause of the Paris Commune and the program of
October 1917: it will take the power.
Let
us construct the International whose red flags will proclaim: Long live the union of the workers of the
city and the country of the entire world!
Long live the workers and working farmers of the entire world! Let us overthrow to the bourgeoisie in each
country! Long live the world republic
of workers counsels!
9 April 2005
Permanent Revolution
Collective
Groupe Bolchevik (France), Grupo Germinal
(Spanish state), Lucha Marxista (Peru)