Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 23:30:22 -0500
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #44 


COCKROACH! #44

A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE.

WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS.

It is time that the poor and working class people
have a voice on the Internet.

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How often this zine will appear depends on you!
--------------------------------------------------------
1. Workers on the move in Portugal.

2. Inside the head of a Russian.

3. Academic Marxism? (Part 2)

4. Letter to Cockroach!


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Workers on the move in Portugal

There is been of late a marked revival on workers demonstrations
throughout this little country. The cause of the unrest has been a vile
legal fraud by the "socialist" government of Ant=F3nio Guterres. This guy
is a particularly spineless social-democrat always eager to perform ever
more
cerimonial bows to the big bosses and the catholic church.

Workers have been promised a 40 hour limit on their weekly work for some
years now. The promise was fullfiled (kind of) some time ago, but wraped
up in some concessions on "flexibility and polivalence". This means the
bosses now can distribute the work schedules more or less as it suits
their necessities and the workers may be ordered to perform tasks
totally outside their professional cathegory and contract
specifications. This is in line with pomo managerial theories (just in
time, lean and mean, etc.). Only the yellow unions confederation
(UGT-socialists and popular democrats) signed this theacherous
agreement that was later to be put into law.

Worst was to come. The bosses all over the country (leaning on an
ambiguity of the law) are now counting the little technical pauses of
work as not being effective work time. These pauses of 10 to 15 minutes,
two or three times a day (during which the worker is at the disposal of
the bosses) are made for technical and productivity reasons and they
have always been counted as effective work time. No more. The workers
are being forced to work longer than before the fucking 40 hour law.
They are taking to the streets led by the CGTP unions confederation
(communists and left independents). The Provedoria da Justi=E7a (kind of
an onbudsman) says the workers are right in their protests. But the
prime-minister is already siding with the bosses in his despicable
doubtful ways.

This confederation (CGTP) is by far the largest here and one of the few
good things we have in this country. It's led by a card carrying
communist,
an articulated chap by the name of Carvalho da Silva. It's good to see
some red flags waving around.


Unidade, unidade, unidade
do trabalho contra o capital
camaradas lutemos unidos
porque é nossa a vit=F3ria final

camaradas lutemos unidos
porque é nossa a vit=F3ria final


Jo=E3o Paulo Monteiro
Porto
--------------------------------------------------------
Inside the head of a Russian.

Dear Cockroach readers,

I have some unfortunate news for you. In the issues to come there will be a
number of blank spaces in Cockroach. A serious principled question has put
one of
our contributers to future issues of Cockroach in a situation where the
redaktion of Cockroach no longer can take responsibility for the words he
has written connected to a principled revolution praxis.

Thus he has sided with two Maoists who have been expelled from M-I for
issuing deaths threats and threats of violence against political opponents
in the workers movement. This step by our contributer puts him outside the
principled bounds of which Cockroach adheres too of "Workers Democracy" and
opposing violence and death threats in the workers movement.

Thusgiving political support to the two Maoists who think it is OK to make
death threats and threats of violence of political opponents on Internet our
contributer has proven that he has put himself on the wrong side of the
barricades.

So instead of and article (one a series in ten parts) by our so called
"Marxist" the place in Cockroach will be left (empty) only with the title of
the article and this letter.

Naturally, if the the person in question takes back his political support of
these Stalinist vermin who argue with death threats and threats of violence
against their political opponents then he will be welcome once again to
contribute to Cockroach.

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
-------------------------------------------------------
>[G'day Bob,
>I'd been away a couple of days and not yet signed off from the list, so I
>got to read your taxonomy of listers (I don't know whether to be upset I
>didn't quite make your list, or pleased that I shall at least not be the
>first with my back to the wall when the revolution comes).

Hi Rob,

Well nobody has made it to the wall YET! But perhaps some hard work in a
coal mine somewhere would be appropriate for a few. Fuck I used up my posts
today so I will send this only to you and M.G. No some of this stuff is
important so i will wait to send my answer to you until tomorrow! By the way
I have a question before we start. I put a question mark after the original
header and you changed it back by taking the question mark away. Was this
intentional or just a sort of gut reaction? Well, I put it back again! 
>
>A couple of points I thought might be worth making in this connection:]

>[From my experience, now that adhering to marxism has begun to require
>'professional courage' amongst academics, the technical bunch have gone
>over to the economic rationalists and the humanities people have gone over
>to the pomos.  I can't see any old-fashioned fascism there - even if to be
>an ecorat is to be for the plutocracy (which is close enough to fascism to
>scare me).  'Smarties' in this regard are much the same as all the other
>workers I know.]

Well, perhaps! We are only at the beginning of a new cycle and the real
pressure is yet to come. But the Ebonics debate shows some tendencies of a
bit of desperation from the intelligensia here at M-I. And the intellectuals
in general never make the move till the fight is usually over. So the
majority of them will only jump to the right or the left when they know for
sure which way the wind is blowing. It is only a small element that will
stay loyal always to the proletarian cause. And far less in its
revolutionary wing!

>[You also mention the rapid growth of the education sector, followed now by
>as quick a decline.  That rapid growth meant that people from social strata
>not traditionally associated with the academy got work there for the first
>time.  I'm sure it is these very people (among whom I am numbered) who now
>face structural problems.  The established types are still there - believe
>me.

Actually you have a point here. I see another aspect from my little part of
the world that reflects this aspect. It is called, for no better name
"Inter-Class marriages" which during the 60ties,70ties and glad 80ties were
on the rise. This was connected to the relative class peace and that quite
numerous layers of the working class got them self educated in the
imperialist countries.  However with the down turn these marriages are
breaking up both because of incompatibility and that real wages are being
driven down. Thus the middle class is once again being down-sized! But those
that THINK they are middle class are trying desperately to be part of the
fucking facade. And this facade has both a material, social, cultural, and
certain rules in order to be a part of it.
>
>We also earn less than labour mandarins, and have more bosses (unless you
>are naive enough to believe a mandarin has bosses in the rank and file).
>Allowing for inflation, I earned as much as a builder's labourer and a
>clerk (although admittedly with less job security) as I do now.
>Furthermore, those of us not born to an inheritance will never have access
>to the means of production.  We are not capitalists, most of us do not come
>from the capitalist class, most of us did not go on to academe stright from
>school (because we could not afford to), and I doubt we are any more
>right-wing than the rest of the non-property-owning class.

This is also true. That is why I keep saying that the decisive issue here is
not when You or Joshi point this shit out. But what I said in my original
letter. I said;

"But what Yoshie and others leave out despite their plight is the bougeois
world of thoughts, values and ideals that are served to them on a silver
spoon from birth. It creates a constant pressure to capitulate to these
forces and in this case under the cover of being "Marxists".

And if the above I believe goes for "Marxists" on this list it goes even
more for those who try to hold up the facade of the middle-class which is
not only the above but allso a general living and consumtion standard which
is higher then the poor and working class population in general. Thus we are
seeing tendencies of a bougeoisifying of certain elements in the work force
at least here in Sweden. The nurses for example are doing everything to beat
on the lower ranked hospital attendents and cleaning personal. The drive is
to have a professional high paid corps of nurses who run the hospitals. The
price is driving out the lower ranks and taking their jobs. In industry we
are seeing the robots take over etc. Naturally the price is growing
lumpenisation of the most backward members of the class. This is also
connected to throwing high labor intensive industries into the third world
and the former eastern block contries!

In speaking about the third world Boddi is waving the poor little third
world stick very high. This is partially true but we should not bow to a
marxist version of back to the stone ages on one side and protectionism on
the other. But coming from our little third world professor and his ideas on
market socialism i do see the link between the "peasabnt economy" and his
love of "freedom of choice". But this is not marxian economics but a
glorification of peasant economy by our little third world professor.
Completely bankrupt by the way Boddi. But you might be able to unite with
the Greens on this shit. They will love it!

So their is both a general shifting of whole industries leaving thousands on
the dole while to the east here we are seeing new slave like production
units developing in production of textiles in Poland for example by a
grateful but sometimes complaining working class of these former Stalinist
satelite countries. Now the general atomosphere is sort of a time of
capitalist wild west accumilation and exploitation of the former eastern
block countries at the expense of down sizing in the west!

I am getting a bit off thread here. But perhaps some of our geniuses can add
something on this thread. It's actually important..
>
>What we are, I think, is (on the whole) a fashion-conscious bunch of
>gutless wonders.  Western society has got sick very quickly; and this is at
>least as much our fault (as a whole) as anybody else.  Twenty years ago,
>you couldn't walk down a corridor without running into a leftie, or at
>least a communitarian liberal.  Nowadays you wouldn't find one in a month.
>Academics could certainly have done more while the world was going to
>pieces - that'll be something many people won't forget in a hurry.  Gary
>reckons he's the only proud leftie at QUT - as far as I know, I'm the only
>one here (unless, of course, I don't count because of my menshevik
>tendencies) - although I do detect a gratifying increase in the amount of
>undergraduates who express sympathy with left-wing politics (sympathy is
>usually as far as it gets because the poor buggers have never been exposed
>to coherent political debate outside the 'free-market' Mont Pelerin
>propaganda agenda).

I think that this is connected to the above that I am talking about. But
also that there is a general yellow streak in everybody when the capitalists
after the fall of the Soviet Union went to the counter attack all across the
board. It also has to do with the collaspe of Stalinism and the desertion of
large parts of the Intellectual elite in the Social Democracy deserting the
working class.

This stuff poses rthe question that Zeynep partially took up back on the old
M1 list.

The urban poor and the general structural changes going on connected to
technical advances and a whole new part of the world which is poor and anti
Communist to the core because of Stalinism. Must be a god sent gift to
imperialism. The only exception is Germany! Because I think their goal is a
unified and strong new Germany being the present goal of German Imperialism.
Although they are certainly having their problems..

Actually I was quite surprised that the last elections in the United States
still was politically directed at the middle class. The big stick was
Clinton turning on the welfare people as a clear indication to the middle
class that you will be the last we desert! I wonder sometimes if you
smarties in America are really so bad off. It appears that both the dems and
Pubs are pampering the middle class and making conditions for the broad
urban poor and lower layers of the Proletariat even more horrible then it
was during the heydays of the post war boom. And the return to patriotism
and waging foreign imperialist war being fairly accepted once again in the
United states. Makes me wonder where all those lefty intellectuals running
around back in the good old days went. One of them is Bill Clinton by the
way and even this fucking guy coming from Arkansa was attracted to the
anti-war movement. Well look at him today! Not to mention all of those who
dropped their berets for a piece of middle-class security! By the way this
happened in sweden allso. I don,t want people to think it is just the
Americans on this stuff. So as of yet it appears that the heyday for the
middle class is not over at least politically. So I do not really understand
the whining. On the one hand the pressure has certainly put the middle class
in and uneasy position. But politically nothing as of yet has changed. Most
politics appears still connected to appeasing the middle class at least in
America and sweden. And in Britain the Labor Party appears to be going the
same way! So what is all the fuss and "woe is me" complaining going on here.
I don,t really get it Rob and even you admit the students are still coming
and you got a job.
>
>As for academics not speaking in the language of the worker.  Well, that is
>largely true.  But, on this list people are working out what their stance
>is - in that process, jargon has a tenable purpose - it can save space and
>time (you actually use it a lot too - it just doesn't seem like it because
>you've been a committed leftie for so long, it comes naturally to you).
>Jargon becomes a negative when it's used to exclude people.  I don't think
>that's a fair charge against most of the listers you criticise.  I don't
>think jargon is the distinction you're after - it seems to me that the
>listers you like have politics closer to yours than those you don't like,
>anyway.

Well Sorry! But take it for what it is! I do not think that some people
relate to the poor and working class in the way they carry themselves. In
fact women, not in the least the feminists, see this question very clearly
when it comes to men. So why can't workers have and opinion on who appeals
to them or not. In fact this is going on all the time. Tale a look at the
media, press Tv film whatever there is quite a difference in how things are
understood by workers vis a vis the middle class.

 And I certainly have not asked for the exclusion of our smarties. And as
far as those you claim are close to me on politics I do not think that i
leave them out, although it does make me a bit softer on them. But niether
Adam, nor Aldolfo can exactly be called being near me politically. In fact
Aldolfo is at the other side of the universe! And Adam is a state cap which
Trotsky and others called at best a petty bougeois trend in the workers
movement. And i praise them for having a way of writting that workers can
understand. So I think i have been fairly subjective in describing the
present human material on the list although I certainly do not consider my
opinions as being those of and expert on the social behavior of the smarties...
>
>Me, I like all of 'em.  My general rule of thumb is that most lefties are
>more decent, more interesting and more worthy of respect than most
>right-wingers.  Bolshies might not be able to stand menshies - but menshies
>realise bolshies are at least lefties in a western world too short on
>lefties.  At least, that's what I reckon.

Well the above is honest Rob. a good hearted Menshevik. But unfortunately a
lot of this stuff when push comes to shove actually means that millions of
skulles are going to roll one way or the other. Usually the skulles of poor
and working class people. So it is not just this cozy corner of cyberspace
where everybody can just be nice to each other. What is discussed here as
consequences in real time. For example popular front politics, stage
therories of revolution, the women's question, the national question, or the
question of Ebonics or whatever. Because behind all of these questions are
millions upon millions of poor and working class people who will either gain
or lose perhaps even their skulles because of stuff just like this.

Bob Malecki
--------------------------------------------------------
Letter to Cockroach!

Dear comrade Malecki

I was glad to receive your messages. It is very important to have a
plece in Internet open to the workers struggle in the world. Your
informations about Albania helped me to write an article. I am a
journalist and work at the international section of a paper in Sao
Paulo, Brazil.
I am specialized in Latin America and could help you with informations
>from here. By now I have started to open my horizons (Internet helped it
a lot) and I am studying the situation of Eastern countries, mainly
China. I am also interested in the situation of the Tibetan people. I am
not sure but I think we have a first difference. In a message you have
put China as a degenerate workers state. I dont agree with it. I think
China is already a capitalist country with a great percentage of state
owned economy.
It is important because change a lot of the policies of the
revolutionaries.
But in reality the main thing I wanted to discuss is the letter of Joao
that I didnt read, just your answer. I agree with almost all your answer
but there are some things that are incredible in this Joao (is he
portuguese?).
When he writes about the national question and the democratic rights, he
has a completely euro-centric vision of the world. I suggest him to come
to Latin America or to go to Africa (maybe the former Portuguese
colonies) and know the reality.
He wrote
>15. "Backward countries and the program of transitory demands"
>
>There are no "colonial or semi-colonial countries" left. Permanent
>revolution is out of business, if it ever made any sense. No
>significative "feudal heritage" can be found anywhere. No national
>independence problems. All countries of some relevance in the world
>today are predominantly capitalist and industrialized, although most of
>them are peripheric and dependent, which is totally another problem.
>There are more hunter-gatherers than "feudals" now-a-days but I suppose
>we're not considering permanent-revolutionizing the inuit, the
>amazonians or Iryan Jaya.
>Permanent revolution was an interesting concept in the sense of world
>revolution. But if we have learned something with the XXth century
>revolutions it is precisely that we can't voluntaristicaly whip out
some
>isolated backward country into socialism just like that.

This is incredible out of reality, even in some countries like Brasil
that in some sense is more developed
than most Europeans country or at least has a bigger economy, we still
have some features of underdevelopment.
And we still some things that remember us the feudal relations. For
example, in all Latin America we can find slavery or semi-slavery in the
countryside, mining, etc. The national question is still a very
important thing in all the underdeveloped countries. Many countries in
Africa, Asia or Latin America have problems with the most basic right:
the right to vote. The national independence problem exist everywhere,
>from Papua Nova Guine to East Timor to Tibet in Asia, Occidental Sahara
in Africa, Suriname in Latin America (and a lot of small islands in
Caribean Sea). There was a war 14 years ago between Argentina and
Britain for a national question, the invasion of Malvinas in 1833 by
England. Although we cant forget the interests of the Argentinian
militaries in this war.
But the national question cannot be forgotten anyway. To think that
there are no national problems or feudal heritage in the world is to
forget also what happens in the most backward muslim countries like
Saudi Arabia or Kuweit, Oman and others. Nos rights for the women,
foreigners, feudal methods of punishment, etc. If Joao thinks these are
not national problems, this is his great mistake and is caused by his
eurocentric vision.
And if he says that there are no national independence problem, he
forgets the question of  economic independence. Or national independence
is just to have a president and a parliament? The policies of almost all
the countries in the world are decided in the corridors of Washington or
the EU. For example, the beggining of the so called reforms in Latin
America was decided in a meeting in Washington and was called Washington
Consensus. What does Joao has to say about it? Is it our national
independence?
Even the industrialized countries like Brasil are dominated by a handful
of multinationals companies like Ford, GM, Volkswagen, etc. Although
Brasil are trying to be a minor imperialist also.
I invite Joao to come to Brasil and travel through the North-East (one
of the regions most underdeveloped of the world), to go to a favela
(shanty town) and see if  the Transitional Program is wrong.
At last we cant forget South Africa. What does he have to say about it?
Thats all by now,

Revolutionary greetings
Marcelo
-------------------------------------------------------

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