Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 10:04:32 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #34


COCKROACH! #34

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1. Zaire, rwanda and Burundi.

2. More on the Trade Unions!

3. Sweden:Report from massive workers protest!

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Zaire, rwanda and Burundi

Austin wrote in reply to bob;
>
>Fine, but who's going to (either) (a) convince the world bank to forgive
>them their debts, (or) (b) convince outside firms to invest, in a
>non-exploitative manner, in these countries, to build their economies?
>(well, where the hell else is the money for this supposed to come from?)

Well Austin, I do not think it is a question of convincing the World Bank to 
forgive their debts. Although Communists and Socialists would certainly 
support the slogan
of writting off those debts completely. But the point is that the 
proletariat and its allies the peasantry are the only ones who have the 
social power to change these things. That means a program to expropriate the 
world bank expropriaters. And International workers Bank would solve the 
problems of "debts". Their would not be "debts". There would be a priority 
of the most urgent needs for investment in regards to the International 
situation, probably going from the advanced industrial countries to the 
third world bringing up the living standard to and acceptable and 
comfortable norm being one of the first prtiorities.

"Convincing outside firms to invest" sounds more like your are trying to 
reform the capitalist system rather then overthrowing it and replacing it 
with a better system.

Finally the money will come from the expropriating the capitalist class and 
replanning the world economy along the lines mentioned above.

>Hold on there guy; I really beleive that the struggle of Black women and men
>on these two continents has little if nothing to do with the other; lets be
>careful before we assume that they might feel this afinity, simply because
>of ancestral ties that, if they exist, go back enough generations that most
>have been forgotten (most slaves that came to the US came from western, not
>central, africa) 

Oh really Sterling! The working class has no country. And the rise of Black 
nationalism in the United States shows that their appears to be a real 
afinity at least by these opportunists! The point being that in the future 
Communist International *real* International class solidarity will be the 
order of the day. And the priorities in planning and restructuring the 
global economy will go along the lines of bringing the whole world up to a 
decent living standard.

Bob Malecki

>
>
>On Wed, 27 Nov 1996, Robert Malecki wrote:
>
>> 
>> Once again we see the complete bankruptcy of in this case third world 
>> nationalism which pits ethnic group against ethnic group, one African nation 
>> against another while the imperialist FN waits in the sidelines to pick up 
>> the pieces after a new round of bloodbaths and mass starvation!

Siddarth C, (SC) replies to bob;
>Once again, a splendid piece of analysis above! So according to Malecki,
>the disease of third world nationalism is pitting one ethnic group against
>another while the "imperialist FN waits in the side lines to pick up
>the pieces" instead of actually instigating such ethnic strife 
>as history demonstrates on many occasions. The role of the world economic
>system as being the major cause of such ethnic eruptions (re-read the
>article on Rwanda posted by Ang) is not even mentioned but third-world
>savages are once again killing one another to the utter dismay of 
>"revolution incarnate" Malecki.

Firstly SC I would like to mention your change in style! On the old M1 list 
you sounded more like a reincarnation of Ghandi. Today much tougher. Is it 
concious or unconcious. Anyhow how the new style is better and clearer--but 
dead wrong as usual!

The above is nothing other then SC's attempt to find a third world 
"anti-imperialist" struggle to capitulate too! Naturally I do not deny that 
the World bank plays a very central role in the incredible situation in 
Africa. But they are being fronted their by the local nationalists and 
African bougeoisie who are their small time partners in carrying out this 
stuff. If I rember Ang's article I have no doubt that much of what he says 
about the world bank is more then likely true. However, finding a solution 
to the problem is the point. I do not think supporting one side or the other 
in this case is helpful. Although in certain cases unconditional military 
support is absolutely correct. For example to the ANC during the Aparthied 
era without giving one ounce of political support to the ANC. Because their 
politics could not solve the problem.

And the point about Malecki thinking "savages" is a typical third worldist 
slander! In fact there is not to much difference between the poor and 
working class concrete jungle and the situation for the African proletariat. 
Perhaps that they have closer links to the land and peasantry then lets say 
the European or American proletariat. 

 >Here, "millions upon millions of African toilers", "millions of
>foreign nationals in Europe" and the "American black proletariat" are
>exhorted by Malecki to join in the revolution in Africa. But curiously,
>no mention of the European (Swedish, British, French, etc) or the North
>American "white" proletariat to support the revolution (to come!) in
>Africa. This and the constant use of the word 'black' to describe
>Africa and her people (indulged in by many western intellectuals, for
>example "Black Africa") is a pointer to the intense racialism (often
>times unconscious) in the western psyche.

Actually you have a point here. But it is not the point you think. Actually 
my original statement could be seen as being a little soft on the third 
world in raising this in the context you mention. Partially it is because i 
am extremely concerned about the key role the black American Proletariat 
will play in any revolution in America and the attacks on foreign nationals 
in western Europe including Scandinavia. This is because this issue is used 
to devide the proletariat in these countries. I am in this case on the side 
of the blascks in America and the foreign nationals in western Europe who 
suffer under these attacks. I do know that we must find ways to unite the 
proletariat while at the same time defending those who are getting the most 
of the shitty end of the stick. So if there is any tendency at all here is a 
tendency by me to reverse the stick in favor of the blacks and foreign 
nationals. Not the opposite that SC would like to have the list believe! 

>"Such people as Malecki with his puffed up phrases... are now the disease
>of the age.... Everyone who supports Malecki's group supports the policy
>of lies and deception of the workers... it is Malecki's special task...
>to throw sand in the eyes of the workers... it is not possible to discuss
>essentials with Malecki, for he has no views... we merely expose him as
>a diplomatist of the meanest description.

Not really! The only disease here SC is your search for and anti-imperialist 
movement and progressive nationalist movements to support. Our program is 
based on the International struggle of classes. The only sand that is being 
thrown around here is that the popular front politics of the Stalinist and 
Menshevik anti-imperialist movements of the 60ties and the early 70ties is 
on the decline. The struggle of the international Proletariat is once again 
coming to the fore. The student movement and petty bougeois intellectuals 
that thrived on this stuff are in a frenzy because of this. Much of the 
discussion on the "search for the western proletariat" is a confirmation of 
the desperation of this trend. Ta Ha SC, perhaps you should join a 
Trotskyist orgasnisation and get involved in some of the future great 
struggles. Why even Adam's state cap group would be a step forward for you!
>
>This bloc is composed of lack of principle, hypocrisy and empty phrases...
>Malecki covers them by the revolutionary phrase, which costs him nothing
>and binds him to nothing.

The above says nothing. It is SC howling in the wind!

>Malecki... as always, entirely disagrees with the social-chauvinists in
>principle, but agrees with them in everything in practice.

Don't really know what you mean SC by this. Perhaps you could be more clearer!

>The name Malecki signifies: Left phraseology and a bloc with the right
>against the aim of the left."

Talking about phraseology the above is a good example.

>I have borrowed the above descriptions from Lenin's periodic characteri-
>zations of Trotsky whose name has been substituted by that of Malecki.
>Just to show that the phenomenon we are dealing with here is quite old
>and has a rich history.

Really! If it is true. Was it quotes from Trotsky's Menshevik position on 
the party question. Or something else. Please by all means bring the quotes 
to the list. Or is this just some more of the Stalinist school of 
falsification SC?

Bob Malecki
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More on the Trade Unions!

Malecki writes;
>>
>>The above is a bunch of ultra-left romantism at best and proves that Neil 
>>has no tactics at all except going out into the desert and screaming 
>>revolution! 

Mauro jr. replies;

>Mauro jr.
>Thus you and your fellows are stating that Engels was a ultra-left romantic.
>If you studied a bit the M-E works, instead of the soc-dem lecturers of
>them, you'd discover that what Neil wrote is what Engels wrote (several
>articles on the Labour Standard (1881) and does not apply only to this epoch
>but to the capitalist period as a whole. You would also know that "tactics"
>in itself means nothing at the best and bourgeois politics at the worst, if
>it's not stright descending form "strategy".

What is the above drivel??

>And, as the strategy, for communists is the assault to the bourgeois state
>and to the capitalism for freeing the labor from the wage system and
>humanity from the need (and so on) and nothing else, you would know that, in
>order to prepare the assault, the revolutionaries have to promote the real
>organs of/for it. And we discovered since long that those organs are not the
>unions (for the reasons Neil gave) but something else.

Yes the drivel is Mauro jr wandering out into the desert with Neil! 
"Assaulting" the bougeois state indeed! You people can not see even the 
elementry class organisations of the proletariat, the trade unions, but 
prefer to hop on your r-r-r-revolutionary high horse and wander off into the 
desert! And promoting the *real*
organs of the proletariat like workers counsils and Soviets. Wow! I am 
impressed!

Impressed with your complete lack of understanding and and principles of any 
kind of working class struggle in the day to day fights. Leaving these 
struggles to the reformist and pro capitlist traitors who unfortunately lead 
the unions is nothing other then deserting the working class and leaving 
them in the hands of these traitors. 

Mauro jr:
>This is simply false. Soviets, workers councils  and similar names for the
>same reality always replaced properly the unions.The workers movement's
>history shows that when those organs failed their "historical roles and
>goals"they changed in ... unions, as a signal of the defeat. The recent
>experience in Poland 80 is there to confirm this "rule" up to the
>imperialist and decadent period of capitalism. Actually the workers councils
>in themselves are the mass organs of the workers for the material clash with
>the bosses and capitalism, but all the bourgeois and petty bourgeois
>tendencies work in them (from the classic reformists to the radical-'new'
>reformists) and if the revolutionary political organisation lacks or  fails
>to get the political leadership of the fight, those tendencies get it and
>the movement is driven to the defeat.
>Here arise a bulk of political, strategical and tactical problem that you
>and your fellows simply cannot realize and approach.

Bullshit! Trade unions were not replaced but complemented by Soviets or 
other organs of Proletarian power. And you make the same mistake about the 
Polish trade unions that you make on unions in general. You throw out the 
baby with the bath water. Instead of putting the blame on the leadership of 
the Polish Solidarnosc' and its alliance with the chatolic church--you blame 
the union, a mass organisation of the Polish Proletariat as a whole! How 
quaint Mauro!

And as far as workers counsils (Soviets) are concerned you are just jumping 
the gun and trying to artifically produce something which will come 
naturally in a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situation! This is just 
fake revolutionary rhetoric that just won,t work. You want to take a 
highroad to r-r-r-revolution! No nitty gritty tactics for the mass 
organisations like the trade unions. Other then condemning them and in 
practice leaving them in the hands of the present leadership. In other words 
DESERTERS of living class struggle. A petty bougeois tendency that wants to 
go off into the wilderness and howl at the moon!

Once again I tell you my friends. I really think that you do hate the 
bougeoisie and the reformist and pro-capitalist traitors in the trade 
unions. Unfortunately you have no tactics and no program to smash this 
system. As the anarchists you will only play a small by role in the great 
events which we will be facing in the future. If you really want to become 
Communist revolutionaries I suggest that you drop completely your ultra-left 
childness on the trade union question. Perhaps then and seeking out a real 
Communist or even Socialist organisation and reprograming your present 
trajectory this can change.

Warm Regard
Bob Malecki
--------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Sweden:Report from massive workers protest!

Taking a lot of this stuff from the USec,newspaper,tv and radio coverage. My 
11 year old has been sick with the flu so I couldn,t get to some of my other 
sources of info.

About 5,000 (!) people took part in the march on parliment against the 
Social Democratic government and its bougeois allies in the Center party 
last Tuesday. Naturally the National TV and radio tried to play this down, 
some saying "thousands" and others very low estimates of "a few thousand, 
etc. The National media also tried to play it up as a "far left" 
mobilization and the "far left" arising from the grave to "use" the 
situation that has developed in the country. However the degree of lying 
depended on which National Channel one watches. However all of them tried to 
play down this demonstration and its meaning!

Naturally this was a big falsehood because this was a very powerful 
manifestation of grass roots working class people who  have been the 
backbone of electoral support of the Social Democracy in this country. In 
fact many of them had never been to a demonstration before in their lifes! 
Although the left was present and quite vocal and with a fairly large 
proportion of paper proganda of the varying sort, the left is no longer the 
place that can draw big numbers to a demonstration. In fact the left 
numerically has never been so small  as it is today in this country. As to 
political line I can not say to much about the left as I have not had a 
chance to look at their newspapers.

However,what is driving these people out on the streets (certainly not the 
left) is the incredible speed that the Social democrats along with their 
bougeois allies have continued the policy of dismantling the "welfare" state 
in this country. In fact they have done far more in tearing down the reforms 
then the previous bougeois government. That government could only run up an 
incredible debt of billions upon billions of crowns to save the banks which 
were on the verge of crashing in the early ninties. The price of bailing out 
the banks was going into foreign debt for billions upon billions of crowns 
naturally can be layed at the door of the former bougeois government, but it 
is the Social Democrats in power that made the cuts in all of the systems 
and reinforced mass unemployment on a scale which has not been seen since 
the depression!

The demonstration brought people in busload after busload from the entire 
country. It would have beem twice the number, but there are thousands like 
myself who have to choose between the busfare and food for your kids! Many 
of the busses were organised by the local trade union sections throughout 
the country! And some people had to ride buses over 1000 kilometers in order 
to demonstrate against the Social Democratic government and did!

Not only that they did it in opposition to the central trade union 
bureaucracy who first went out and said that they did NOT support the 
mobilisation. Only a day later sending a fax out over the country claiming 
that this was all a buig mistake and that they did support the 
demonstration. In fact the central trade union bureaucracy are loyal to the 
hilt to the Social Democratic government and did everything they could to 
try and sabotage the demonstration with out right lies and falsifications. 
Especially the powerful Metall union bureaucracy. One has to on the other 
hand say "Hats off" to the Transport Union who did everything in its power 
to help mobilise for the demonstration. They also have taken the famous four 
child mother who started all of this under their wing. Although their are 
some doubts naturally about the ultimate motiv of some of these people who 
filling the pressure did help to mobilise. Only perhaps too later on down 
the road make a deal of some sort and sell us out. Let us hope that this is 
not the case. Another union which was split on the issue was the biggest 
trade union in Sweden "Kommunal". Where in some sections they tried to 
mobilize and in others did absolutely nothing to help mobilise. This is sort 
of the general trade union picture all along the line. The grass roots are 
getting desperate and beginning to organise themselves and the trade union 
bureucracy is split between loyalists who openly try to smash this 
mobilisation to the center which gives half hearted support on paper and 
serious people that want to really fight and bring down this Social 
Democratic government!

Back to the demonstration which was felt right into the halls of the 
parliment! A meeting with the finance minister and the trade union 
bureaucracy  in Metals "council for labor negoiations" to be held at 1:15 PM 
while the demonstration was to start at 1:00PM. A member of the United 
Secretariat and trade union activist and four representatives of the 
powerful miners union walked out of the meeting to take part in the 
demonstration! While the others sat their as the loyal lackies of the 
politics of the Social Democratic government who were responsible for the 
fact that 15,000 angry protesters were marching on the parliment. Another 
Social Democrat representative of the parliment standing outside the 
parliment in a camelhair long winter coat which probably cost more then most 
workers make in a month! Was free to give interviews to the assembled 
press,TV and Radio about how this demo was a Communist plot! And even a lot 
of his friends had been in the demonstration.

In his speech to the demonstration at the parliment Anton Flink (chairman of 
the Malmo section of the Transport Union among other things if the 
government won't listen to us then " the people should disolve this 
government and elect a new one" and "we are so many here today that if we 
were all to spit the government would drowned!". And this demonstration is a 
lot of people beginning to gather the slem in their throats to spit with! 
And in and interview with a reporter he said that "We are protesting against 
this anti-democratic government and its anti-people politics which Goran 
Persson (the prime minister) and is god damned supporters are for!"

Social democratic parlimentry representatives were enraged that this speaker 
and longtime Social Democrat got up and made this speech after a well know 
actor who sympathizes with the ex maoist KPML-r who in the 60ties and 70ties 
had the line of a "red front" against the Social democrats and the trade 
unions. Naturally this was a show by these parlimentry cretians to paint the 
whole demonstration up as some sort of anti-Social Democratic Communist 
conspiracy!

The unemployed and the long time sick organisations which are beginning to bloom
all over this country was also represented and many had there own placards 
done at home that they brought with them to the demonstration. And over 40 
trade unions with their flags went at the head of the demonstration with a 
brass band singing the International! So this was hardly a Communist 
conspiracy but a rebellion by the grass roots against the Social Democratic top!

The powerful miners union warned the government that if this demonstration 
did not get the government to back down on the anti-trade union legislation 
that we belong to a generation that was in the big miners strikes in 
1969-1979 and even if we have pensions some of us now we are well aquainted 
with how to fought a battle.The delegation from the miners union in Kiruna 
in the far north recieved the following message from the workers in the 
mines. "When you get down their to Stockholm twist Persson's nose until 
there is nothing left but flour!" Also the miners union is now calling for a 
political strike in the beginning of December when the new anti-trade union 
legislation will be voted on.

The stock market reacted to the demonstration with a warning that this kind 
of activity would drive up the interest rates! A clear warning to the Social 
Democratic government that they had better not back down on this issue. 
Commentators are saying that the Social Democratic government can hardly 
back down now that they have put so much pretige into cutting the deficit.

The labor market minister in the government (a womam) as alreadt claimed 
that this anti-trade union legislation is good for women. Thus trying to 
make this a "feminist" question and splitting the working class!

And the struggle is only beginning because the bosses are already calling 
for more anti-worker and trade union legislation along the lines of Forced 
arbitration on contract negoiations,forbidding sympathy strikes, taking a 
vote in a factory before going on strike in other words wripping the only 
serious weapon the working class has out of the hands of the workers and the 
trade unions. And the government and the central trade union bureaucrats 
loyal to the government are prepared to discuss these purposals with the bosses.

Thus the present trend is much like what is going on Internationally in the 
Labor Parties. The leadership mostly intellectuals at the top + a good dos 
of relatives ans sons and grandsons of the leadership are deserting the 
working class with a turn towards the middle class and the bougeoisie. But 
what is different here in Sweden is that we are not seeing the typical labor 
vs conservative governments--but a labor government confronted by the 
working class for its desertion and betrayal of the working class. Thus we 
do not have the situation like in England as well as NZ and Australia about 
which wing of the Social Democracy to capituilate to in order to stop a 
conservative government. Or in the United States the worser of two evils 
debate that the Democratic party labor fakers use to fool the workers. In 
fact we have the reformist traitors exactly where we want them. In power and 
exposing themselves to the working for what they *really* represent. However 
we do have the danger of the traditionalists who want to go back to the good 
old times. The Euro Communist who want to become good Social democrats and 
diverse left groups that are tailing events instead of trying to lead them. 
Out of this mess a cristalization must take place turning it into a tool of 
recruiting the most militant and determined workers to a party which can 
quickly grow from a small sect to a party with mass influence in the workers 
movement. Because the conditions for a political split between the base and 
the top are rippening far more quickly then the material for a vanguard 
party. This connected to the complete bankruptcy of the Social Democracy and 
the neo-Stalinist Euro-Communist party can mean that a small Trotskyist 
party of cadre can find themselves quickly leading mass struggles in the future.

The present attack against the trade unions and the working class must be 
seen in the light of the disintegration of the former Soviet Union connected 
to a world wide offensive against the working class and its organisations in 
the wake of this historical event! No longer having the Stalinist led Soviet 
Union to deal with the cold war has gone over to a hot war directed at the 
working class Internationally to roll back the gains not only won because of 
the October Revolution but all of the gains made since the second world war.

Only a party that understands this connection, but also understands all of 
the historical betrayals in both tactics and politics of the reformist 
Social Democracy and the politics of the Stalinists Internationally over the 
last decades and who has the politics,tactics and program which can show the 
way forward. That is a party which encompises the historical theroretical 
gains of the Bolshevik Party, the first four congresses of the third 
International, the Left opposition of Trotsky and the founding documents of 
the Fourth International can show the way forward.

Thus solving the crisis of leadership and the construction of a 
Revolutionary International.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
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