Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 08:27:55 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #20 (Afghanistan Again!)


COCKROACH! #20

A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE.

WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS.

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How often this zine will appear depends on you!

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1. Re: Demonstration, Sweden

2. Afghanistan Again!

3.Re: Spartacists and united fronts

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Re: Demonstration, Sweden

Forwarding to the lists the action in Sweden the last couple of days. And
article by the Swedish Usec. My comments to the article and an article
written recently on the situation for the unemployed!

Bob Malecki
>
>Unemployd march in Stockholm!
>
>
>More than 4.000 people, mostly unemployd unionists, marched against the
>social
>democratic government and its austerity program, here in Stockholm last
>thursday.
>Initiated by a unemployd transportationworker, mother of four children,
>the protest gained
>nationwide attention and support. Among the speakers at the
>demonstration where the
>chairman of the Transport workers union, Hans Wahlstr=9Am, and the Hans
>Karlsson from
>the union federation LO. Notably was the absens of the LO-chair, Bertil
>Johnsson, known
>to all for his steadfast support of the ruling social demokratic party.
>
>
>The swedish primeminister G=9Aran Persson and his minister of work,
>Margaretha Winberg, has toured Europe with their message of =D3severe
>cuts without unrest=D3. Their masage was eaven used by the German
>kapital as a tool against  unions and the SPD in the struggle against
>workers right to full pay for sickleave.
>
>
>However, the marchers in Stockholm showed another side of the coin, a
>growing sense of enough is enough among tousands of swedish
>workers, employd or unemployd. The cuts made in the one-time famous
>swedish well-fare systems have
>made workers in Sweden in a situation not known for generations in this
>country.  More than 700.000 swedes are out of the normal job-market
>and the figure is rising (about 14 %). At the same time severe cuts are
>made in the unemployment system, as well as in the social secutity net,
>leaving tens of thousands on the brink of disaster!
>
>
>No one could miss the anger and the frustration among the marchers
>and the open distrust of the social democratic party in government.
>They listen to big buissiness and show us aside, was one of many
>comments. Im a social democrat without a party of my one said one
>sign of a worker, capturing the sentiments among many.
>
>
>Notably was also the awareness of the danger that EU and the
>projected single currency represent to workers. A mode for generalised
>attacks against workers rights all over Europe.
>
> At the same time the growing need for coordinated actions all over
>Europe come to life, as this manifestation where held the same day as
>the first black thursday day of action in France. As one worker said on
>national radionews: If this doesent help us to get a change, then we
>will
>opt for a solution a la France`!
>
>
>Goran Karrman
>
>Internationalen
>
>Stockholm
>
Hi Internationalen,

Thanks for the article! But pictures are unnecessary. I am unemployed and
can not afford the time for downloading pictures.

I think that you should mention that a BIG demonstration along the same
lines took place in Skellete=E5!  On tuesday night 1500 people went after
Goran Perssons ass. This also was and entirely new segment of "grass roots"
rebellion to the right turn of the Social Democracy into the camp of the
bougeoisie! !500 at a demonstration in Skelleftea says a lot about what is
going on up here.

Enclosed is and article i wrote recently about a meeting on unemployment
here in Robertsfors. It is incredible the radicalization that is taking place!

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------

Robertsfors,Sweden

The Ticking Bomb!
--------------------------------

In a large sal with every seat filled, a Social Democratc Representative
of parliment met with the unemployed in this Commune in northern Sweden.
The meeting, and atomsphere of rage and indignation by the very heart of
the Social Democratic base in the workers movement against its own leaders...

A broad range of young and old, women and men, the grey mass of now over
1 million (!) people in a population of 8 and a half million who for years
have supported the Social Democrats are now beginning to move.

Immediately after the parlimentry member made her presentation defending
the present policies of the Social Democratic government, the fireworks
started. In a statement made by the author of this article who said that
the present policies of the Social Democratic goverment are directed
against the workers movement, and against the trade unions and are
policies, that they have worked out together with the bosses has put
the Social Democratc leadership on the other side of the barricades
with their guns pointed at the head of the working class. There policies
of attacking the trade union laws of "first in last out", there cuts in
unemployment, everything they have done is in principle a direct
declaration of war againt the workers movement.

Against this policy we purpose a 6 hour working day, a mobilisation of
the working class to combat unemployment. We purpose that trade union
candidates  be purposed in the coming elections on a program to stop the
dismantling of the welfare state. We purpose a broad educational program
to combat the passivity of sitting home on the dole. And these purposals
are in direct contradiction to the present policies of the Social
Democratic government. Only a government with these goals in mind
will do.....

This barrage against the leadership was met by stormy applause in the whole
room!

Speaker after speaker attacked the leadership for selling out the workers
movement. For selling out the youth. For throwing women out on unemployment.
For cutting health care. For cutting in the schools. Speaker after speaker
in a growing sense of rage attacking the people that they have voted for
for years!

The Social Democratic leadership tried to counter with that she understood
all of this ,but that we have to understand that the Social Democrats
inherited the situation from the previous government.

Speaker after speaker stood up and said it is you who are passing the
anti-worker and anti-trade union legislation with your partners in the
bougeois Center Party. (A party which represents the farmers in Sweden and
who have made billions off the entry into the common market through common
market subventions to farmers in Europe).

The gap between the Social Democratic top and its working class base as
never been as large as it is today. Although the conciousness of these
social democratic workers is on the level of seeing all of the reforms
being wripped down around them and a million people out of a job. This
conciousness is economic thinking at this point. There anger is directed
at the party which they have voted for for years, as being responsible.
And rightly so!

Although these workers do not understand at present that the leadership
of there party has deserted them. They do understand what mass unemployment
and the cuts mean in everyday life for themselves and there families.

These workers do not understand that their leaders have joined the German
push for a monetary union and a united imperialist bougeoisie led by the
Germans in europe is the goal. They do not realise that the Social
Democratic leadership of professional bureaucrats and people who came
straight out of a college somewhere have taken over the reins of
leadership. That this leadership in a few short years has taken Sweden
to the brink of a gigantic disaster of poverty and unemployment.

But they do know that something has gone wrong. Very seriously wrong
with the politics and the leadership they have voted for. What we have
here is a broad mass of anger and frustration against the treacherous
leaders of Social Democray that has betrayed them. They demand answers
and a new political line which favors the working class.

For the first time in years militants who before would be laughed at are
being applauded and clapped on the back. Statements of we should march
on Stockholm and throw the whole bunch of them out and other wise
remarks were very common at this meeting.

The Social Democratic leadership no longer has a monopoly on the workers
movement. Workers are moving to the left as the situation everyday worsens
for them and the party leadership is moving to the right. The trade union
leadership feeling the pressure is somewhere in the middle. Afraid to
slap the hand that has fed them all these years while having to face the
growing rage of the working class who is suffering the largest cuts
since the depression!

The left party which is the former Euro-communist party but now say that they
are no longer communist, but "feminist" and envionmentalist have also missed
the growing rage of the swedish working class. This turn by the former Euro-
commmunist was an appeal to the present petty bougois feminist movent and
bougeois enviornmental movement. But they have no clear answer to the
millon workers who are growing angry.. Very angry. In fact the workers
movement at this point is much futher to the left then both its Social
Democratic and former Euro-communist leadership.

Only a new leadership forged in struggle with this growing army of enraged
working class people can forge the way forward. On a program to fight for
the preservation of the welfare state but also a workers government that
will go forward and crush the Swedish capitalists dreams of a united
european bourgeoisie.

For a workers government in Sweden as elsewhere is the only garantee of
keeping the reforms and defeating those that will take us down the road
of unemployment and starvation..

Warm Regards

Robert Malecki
Member of the Communal Workers Union in Sweden

We organise the most people in Scandinavia!
--------------------------------------------------------
Afghanistan Again!

>Bob,
>
>You wrote:

>>Louis is absolutely right on this question. In fact Martens and the Maoists
>>are trying to cover their tracks. It was these kinds of people they were
>>supporting against the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan why
>>Trotskyist defended. And now when the political program of these
>>fundementalists is seen for everybody Martens is covering his ass. By the
>>way they did the same thing in Iran. But in Iran the Maoists themselves
>>wound up in the torture cells of the Mullahs.
>>
>>Although in noway can i take responsibility for the Soviet Unions
>>intervention the reforms were a good step and should be defended.
>
>Ah, so you "don't" take responsibilty for that aggression?

No; Trotskyists do not take responsibility for anything the Stalinists do.
In Afghanistan it was the then Soviet Union a degenerated workers state
which sent its forces in to occupy and battle Isalamic fundementalists
backed up by imperialism and the Islamic states like Pakistan and Iran. In
that struggle we stand on the side of then then Soviet Union. But that does
not mean taking responsibility for the way the Stalinists did the operation.
>
>What you in reality are doing *is* defend that aggression.

YES! If the Soviet Union despite the Stalinists would have crushed the
Islamic fundementalists it would have been a step forward! Trotskyists do
take sides between feudal Islamic fundementalism and the former degenerated
Workers States.
Because if the Stalinists had won. we would not have been seeing what is
going on in Kabul today which is not a step forward but a leap backward into
the middle ages!
>
>On the side of the people, fighting the social-imperialist
>aggression, there *were* some quite reactionary forces. But
>they were NOT as reactionary as those so-called "Marxists"
>are who're still, today, defending and condoning the rape
>of Afghansistan.

Bulllshit. The Maoists politics on the National Question are completely
bankrupt. Because you wind up defending Islamic fundementalists which means
that you but bougeois soverniety of the national state before the struggle
of classes.
>
>There *may* indeed have been a positive aspect of the
>actions of those people in Afghanistan who weclomed the
>aggressor. But that was, if so, naturally completely a
>*minor* aspect compared to the *main* thing they did.

Their is a big deference for poor and working class people in the reforms
that the Stalinist bureaucracy brought with it to Afghanistan and the
reforms now being carried through by the Islamic fundementalists.
>
>The defence of Najibullah by some people who call themselves
>"Marxists" one more time show the enormous importance of
>that correct and very sharp differentiation which was made
>by Mao Zedong between,

Trotskyists would never have any tears for Najibullah, but between
Najibullah and the Islamic fundementalists we would certainly take sides.
However in that war the Trotskyists would organize its own military
detachments independently of the pro Stalinist forces. Linking the struggle
not only to smashing Islamic fundementalism but the overthrow of the
Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union back then!
>
>on the one hand: SOCIALISM,

Rolf is trying to tell us that the Islamic fundementalists were fighting for
socialism along with Pakistan and Iran?
>
>and on the other hand: REVISIONISM (including TROTSKYISM) and
>SOCIAL-IMPERIALISM, a MAINSTAY OF REACTION in its days.

The bankrupt policy of the Maoists, just like the bankrupt policies of the
State capitalists leads towards a complete capitulaion to Islamic
fundementalism and imperialism. That is the bottom line. You were on the
side of reaction. A line which is clearly shown today in Kabul and yesterday
in Iran.

Only a trotskyist party of World Revolutuion can solve the crisis of
leadership that the bankrupt Stalinists and their state capitlaists lackey
friends have shown on this question as many others.

Bob Malecki

>Bob M writes:
>
>>Any kind of marxist orientation goes right out the window when Adam starts
>>spouting his state capitalism (social imperialist?) line here. Of course the
>>death of Najibullah does not raise tears to the eye where as Richard starts
>>posting revolutionary arbituaries. But the difference between mullah
>>fundementalism and the "reforms" of the pro Soviet bureaucracy must and should
>>be defended by Trotskyists. In fact i am almost to the point where i could say
>>that even bougeois democracy could be defended against these Mullah
>>fundementalist taking us back to the middle ages.
>
>Whoa, Bob! Bourgeois democracy in a semi-colonial country is just a crazy
>utopia. That's the whole point of the theory of permanent revolution.

Yeah I know! You are right. It is just that i get enraged to see the
Stainists and the State caps with a position to the right of the imperialists!
>
>So we're confronted with imperialist occupation, Stalinist occupation, some
>version of petty-bourgeois nationalism or rule at gunpoint by sectarian
>warlords. None of which provide a solution. Slavery, slavery, slavery or
>slavery. It's a bit like the old conundrum of free trade or protectionism
>-- do you want to be skinned by a foreigner or one of your own?
>
>In semi-colonial countries, nothing will be solved unless the national
>question is solved first, but the democratic tasks of which this is the
>first can't be solved on a national bourgeois or petty-bourgeois basis any
>more. No bourgeoisie or petty-bourgeoisie is willing to lead a revolution.
>So the best you can get here is small armed groups with a petty-bourgeois
>ideology leading the proletarian and poor peasant masses in a revolution
>which contradicts itself by on the one hand overturning property relations
>(China, Cuba) and on the other forcing the mobilization to remain within
>national bounds and strangling any free development of workers' union and
>political organization. Then you get aborted revolutions like the one in
>Nicaragua which didn't even get near overturning property relations. The
>worst alternative you can see in Liberia and Afghanistan.

I subscribe to this too..
>
>This calls for a transitional strategy, agitating for the solution of
>democratic tasks, and mobilizing the popular masses behind the leadership
>of the working class. No other leadership will be able to provide a way
>forward that doesn't involve the masses capitulating to some insufferable
>tyranny or other. A working class leadership will also be the most
>effective when it comes to mobilizing solidarity abroad, both for getting
>help for the revolution at home and for spreading the revolution to other
>countries.

In Afghanistan this struggle would have also been linked to a political
revolution in the Soviet Union.

Bob

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------

Re: Spartacists and united fronts

Chris writes;
>The passage quoted from Robertson ("In defence of democratic
>centralism") is particularly interesting for its comments
>on the problems of united fronts. I never felt Robert hit the
>mark in repeatedly criticising supporters of the PCP as likely
>to sell out to the bourgeoisie as a result of united front
>policy, however many times he asserted this. Although
>international relations I suggest are a different case, within
>countries, I would not have thought the track record is one
>of "maoists" being soft on the bourgeoisie as a result of
>such policies.

The problem chris is that you missed the mark entirely on the Maoists vs
Trotsktyists and the United Front. Actually the Maoists presented two
versions of the Stalinist model of the United Front on M1.

Aldofo and his WMC saw the united front as the "Red Front". In other words
"unity" around the complete program of the PCP, every speech that Gonzalo
made in his life time, and Aldolfo's ideas that everybody who did not agree
with him was at best a fascist and an agent of Fujimora. This was the
typical line of the Stalinists in Germany when the Social Democrats were
"Social Fascists" kind of united front.

Then there was the New Flag people with Quispe and Gina among others that
had a better concept of a united front around solidarity work for Peru,
however leaned towards the popular front unity of a block with all
"progressive" elements against the Fugimora's of the world.

Then there is the Trotskyist ideas of a proletarian united front. That is
mobilization of the working class and its parties independantly of all
bougeois forces with the right to have political differences, but to strike
together against the common enemy.

So the answer is obvious. Aldolfo even admitted he was prepared to make a
deal with the liberal wing of the bougeoisie after taking power.

Gina was more contradictory in that she called for an immediate cultural
revolution after the revolution. I see this as a confused Maoists taking a
step in the right direction.
>
>The argumentation in Robertson's piece is criticising
>united fronts which are conceived in organisational terms.
>In contrast, quoting Trotsky, he says, "the proletarian base
>should be set against the bourgeois top." I am not
>quite sure what that means in practice.

What it means in practice is that a united front is for the working class
still split into reformist,centrist and revolutionary wings where the base
should be set against the bougeoisie top. Where as this is not a tactic used
for building the party! The party is the instrument of proletarian
revolution along the Bolshevik model, not a collection of fractions agreeing
to disagree as long as they fight the common enemy.
>
>The Maoist tradition is to recognise the existence of the
>problem but to have a different type of answer to it.
>Mao argued that in a united front "all struggle and
>no unity" was an incorrect policy, and "all unity and
>no struggle" was an incorrect policy.
>
>This solution puts the emphasis on ideological struggle in the course
>of achieving the aims of the united front, (which
>also deepens the marxist "correct" position
>within the united front).

The above is true in a general sense. But not in the maoist sense because
they do not organize proletarian united fronts but popular fronts with the
class ernemy.
>
>The emphasis on ideological work is strengthened by organisational
>policies of a surprising nature like stipulating that
>party members should not have more than 1/3 of the representation
>on village committees, or other similar broad organisations.
>So the party cannot prevail just by organisational means,
>without striving to convince others, eg winning over middle elements,
>and neutralising "backward" elements.

What does the above maoist organization of a village Soviet have to do with
the below assertion?
>
>Such a  solution to the problem of united fronts I suggest gives
>general direction coupled with a lot of flexibility.
>I find Robert's repeated assertions that "Maoists" will
>inevitably sell out to the bourgeoisie, unconvincing.

The point is that the Maoists do sell out to the bougeoisie. Historically
with the Koumintang which led to the slaughter of the Shang Hai proletariat,
to the block of four classes, to Peru today and the pervers Maoism of
Aldolfo and his supporters.
>
>
>The formula at the end of the passage he quotes from
>Robertson is also interesting IMO when it says
>
>"One of the great achievements of the Bolsheviks was to recognize that a
>political split in the working class is the pre-condition for the
>proletarian revolution."

Yes!
>
>
>I understood the Leninist position was to combat revisionism and
>opportunism within the working class but not to look for a political
>split as such. I am open to correction but the line of
>argument in Left Wing Communism an Infantile disorder in favour of
>joining the British Labour Party at a certain limited time early on in its
>development does not imply that the policy should really be
>summed up as one of aiming for a "political split in the working
>class" . The emphasis given in this quote does not really seem
>to me to be consistent with Leninism, although logically it is
>just about compatible at a stretch. It would explain the reputation
>of Spartacists for sectarianism, and weakness at uniting with others
>for the achievement of at least some limited practical goals.

As if  the class collaboration of the last decades by the Stalinists has
anything to do with the tactics of the Bolshevik party. Hardly. The whole
and simple lesson of the October can be summed up in Robertson's quote on
the Bolshevik party. This was the key between February and October which
consumated the victorious events of a Bolshevik victory.

And naturally the Spartacists view on "unity" today is certainly in line
with the Unitef Front policies of the Trotskyists. But this does not extend
to party building or the popular front formations of the Stalinists nor the
fake Trotskyisys like the SWP who blocked with the spokesman of liberal
American Imperialism for the sake of "Unity" of the NPAC. This is not
sectarianism on the Spart of the Spartacists, but political suicide for the
working class and any party with pretentions of leading a working class
revolution.
>
>Put this way, the fight for principle is a fight to split,
>not a fight to unite on a principled basis.

No the fight around principles can mean a split or a fight to unite on a
principled basis against all of the horrible mistakes of the Stalinists,
reformists and Trotskyist liquidaters in the past decades.

>It does not seem to me to be compatible with what is IMO
>one of the fundamental principles of the Communist Manifesto,
>that "the Commmunists...do not set up any sectarian principles
>of their own by which to shape and mould the proletarian
>movement".

Sure! If you don't think that nothing has happened in the world since the
Communist manifesto was written! Like the Russian revolution, the first four
congresses of the COMINTERN, the Left Opposition and the creation of the
Fourth International by Trotsky.

So in reality you are using the word "sectarian" in order to justify the
complete bankrupt politics of both reformism and especially Stalinisn in all
of its variants which have meant so much blood under the rotten and counter
revolutionary politics of "unity" that they have really stood for in the
past decades.

Bob Malecki

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