At the dawn of a new year [image:
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By
Alan Woods <http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php> Friday, 02 January
2009
With the exception of New Year, the most important festivals in the western
world are associated with events in the Christian calendar. However, it is
well known that these festivals have their real roots in the old pagan
religions and were generally linked with the different solstices and their
relation to agriculture.
Christmas was the old pagan winter festival derived from the Roman
Saturnalia with other pagan admixtures of Germanic and Scandinavian origin.
There is no mention of the date of Christ's birth in the Bible. The early
Christians celebrated the birth of Christ on the sixth or seventh of January
(a tradition still maintained in the Orthodox Church). With their customary
opportunism, the leaders of the Church changed the date to the 25th December
to take advantage of the old pagan tradition.
Easter was the festival of the Spring Equinox, with its associations with
ancient fertility rites (the English word Easter is derived from the pagan
goddess Eostre or Ostara). Haloween has roots in the Celtic festival of
Samhain, when people communed with the spirits of the dead and thereby
averted their anger. There are countless other examples that bear witness to
the stubbornness with which humanity clings to the past.
The persistence whereby men and women preserve ideas and beliefs rooted in a
remote and primitive past is proof of the profoundly conservative nature of
human thought in general. Tradition, habit and routine weigh heavily on
human consciousness. As a rule people do not like change, particularly
sudden change that upsets their preconceived notions and beliefs.
But at decisive moments a series of small, imperceptible changes reach a
critical point where quantity becomes transformed into quality. Then all the
old ideas and prejudices are thrown into confusion. Men and women are forced
in spite of themselves to question their old ideas, and also the kind of
society they live in, its morality and justice.
Such a critical point was reached in 2008, when, after a long period of
economic growth, the world economy entered into a sharp decline, which has
not yet run its course. This fact has profoundly impacted on the
consciousness of all classes in society, from the ruling class, the bankers,
politicians and bureaucrats, through the middle class, small businesspeople
and intellectuals, to the majority of humankind: the workers, peasants and
poor people.
After a long period of relative prosperity, in which the values of "free
market economics" were accepted without question and the impressive firework
display of globalization dazzled the vision and befuddled the brains of the
so-called intelligentsia (including the "Left"), it is no wonder that the
first reaction to the economic crisis is one of shock and disbelief.
Consciousness, with its innate conservatism, is still lagging far behind
events, which are moving at breathtaking speed throughout the planet.
This state of affairs can only be surprising for minds that have been
atrophied by formalistic thinking. For anyone with the slightest knowledge
of dialectics, it is no surprise at all. Formalism rejects contradictions
and cannot cope with them, whereas dialectics embraces contradictions and
explains their logic and necessity.
It will take some time for the consciousness of the masses to catch up with
events. This consciousness still lives in the past and is hoping against
hope that the present crisis will be only a temporary interruption of
"normality" which, if we are patient, will surely return. The alleged
"backwardness" of the masses is only apparent and is destined to change into
its opposite.
The real backwardness is in the psychology of the leaders of the mass
organizations: the leaders of the trade unions, the socialist and communist
parties, who have long ago abandoned all idea of socialism and adapted
themselves to capitalism. Their only aspiration is that capitalism will, for
some reason unknown to science, shed its ugly and oppressive features and
acquire a humane and progressive character.
But the economic crisis has placed on the order of the day not a peaceful
and democratic capitalism, but mass unemployment, savage cuts in wages and
conditions, the abolition of social reforms and a general worsening of
living standards. This is a recipe for class war on a massive scale. That is
the reality of capitalism in 2009 and not the sugary illusions of the
reformists who understand nothing and are only capable of seeing the
backside of history.
It frequently happens that the intelligent representatives of Capital come
to the same conclusions as the Marxists. At the time when the reality of the
financial collapse finally made itself clear to all, the Financial Times on
5/11/2008 published a very interesting article by Chrystia Freeland, which
deserves to be studied carefully for what it reveals about the current state
of mind of the ruling class in the United States.
Ms. Freeland begins with a small anecdote that in the Halloween celebrations
last October, in addition to the time-honoured witches and demons, current
events inspired many of the revellers at the street party in New York's
Greenwich Village to put on a more unusual costume - Sarah Palin disguises.
This fact, trivial in itself, reveals the degree of contempt with which
people in the USA viewed the discredited Bush administration - a contempt
which they subsequently expressed at the polls.
However, far more interesting was the comments this journalist quoted from
leading figures in the US Establishment. And when we read these comments,
let us bear in mind that they are not meant to be read by ordinary men and
women. The Financial Times is not an ordinary newspaper but something like
an internal bulletin for the bourgeoisie. This makes what we read here even
more important:
"That day a senior Wall Street executive ruefully predicted to me that *next
year it will be New York bankers who are the nation's villains of choice*."
And the article continues: "In private, some of America's most influential
business and political leaders are uttering the same warning: with the
election resolved, the big political story in the US *will be the wave of
public anger directed at capital and capitalists, particularly of the
financial variety*." (My emphasis, AW).
These are quite extraordinary things to read in a paper like the FT. What
do they mean? They mean that the ruling class in the USA is well aware that
the political and social effects of the economic crisis have not yet
manifested themselves. The growing anger of the people has temporarily been
diverted by the electoral circus (this is its main purpose in any case). The
blame for the crisis is placed on the shoulders of the Bush administration
in the first place. And while the masses were distracted by the Obama
campaign (which undoubtedly sowed great illusions) the bankers and
capitalists were temporarily forgotten. But this will not last.
The banker quoted in the above lines is not any banker, but a senior Wall
Street executive (who does not want to be named for obvious reasons). What
is he predicting? He predicts that as soon as the intoxicating fumes of the
Presidential elections clear away, there will be an explosion of popular
anger directed against *capital and capitalists, particularly of the
financial variety*. It would be impossible for us to put it any clearer than
this! The article continues:
"In recent weeks, a former Clinton cabinet member warned a private equity
firm he advises that this new hostility will be the single biggest threat
facing the company. An east coast senator told a lunchtime group of Wall
Street supporters *that public anger toward them will top the political
agenda, and expressed sympathy for the peoples' rage*. A memo about the
financial risks the new president will face prepared for Barack Obama's
transition team listed as point one the possibility that 'sympathetic
victims drive policy response' ". (My emphasis, AW)
Here again, the real situation in the USA is admirably expressed. This
unnamed former cabinet member warns the US capitalists that they will face
the anger of the population, that this question will "*top the political
agenda" *in 2009 and that he himself has some "*sympathy for the peoples'
rage". *
Some of this anger already found expression during the election campaign,
when both Democrat and Republican politicians sought popularity by
denouncing "Wall Street greed". The article continues:
"But this riveting election campaign, and the financial wildfire that
erupted in the middle of it, may actually have served to muffle public
anger. The financial crisis is the reason Wall Street is out of favour, to
be sure, but from September 15, when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, to
October 13, when Treasury secretary Hank Paulson coercibly bought an equity
stake in all of America's big banks, the urgency and the severity of the
economic threat were so great as to preclude much of a hunt for culprits.
The political battle, meanwhile, featured many rhetorical shots aimed at
Wall Street, but the real fight was between the two political parties, and
their two champions, who have been the main focus of public passion in
recent weeks.
"Today, that has changed. The credit crisis, ever so slowly, seems to be
easing, and with it the fears of a second Great Depression. America has
chosen a new president. The country now has the leisure to reflect on its
economic plight - and demand that the man it elected yesterday act on its
conclusions."
This is the central problem. Having struggled to divert the attention of
the public from the crisis of capitalism by building up the image of Obama
as the miracle man, the American ruling class is preparing the ground for a
colossal backlash when the miracles do not appear. We continue to read:
"Americans already are unhappy -Wharton economists Betsey Stevenson and
Justin Wolfers have found that overall happiness plunged in September, the
month the Dow did, and has now declined as deeply as it did during the 1981
recession. Things are likely to get worse, with further economic contraction
and concomitant job losses and bankruptcies. Moreover, the hundreds of
billions the state has committed to shore up the financial sector have not
translated into cheaper personal credit, or fewer foreclosures, for ordinary
Americans.
"Financiers are bracing themselves for a wave of public rage - hence, for
instance, the recent meeting at which they agreed collectively to promise
not to use the Treasury's $135bn capital infusion to pay bankers' bonuses.
They know, however, that gestures like this one won't be enough."
Barak Obama reminds one of the fake medicine men in the Old West who
travelled around the small towns selling bottles of "snake oil" guaranteed
to cure every known ailment for a modest fee. The promise was highly
attractive and many people queued up to purchase this wondrous medicine. The
problems arose when, after consuming it, no signs of improvement were
observed, by which time the medicine man, now considerably richer, had
driven his wagon to the next town. However, Barak Obama cannot just get into
his wagon and move on. He must stay and face the consequences of the
expectations he has aroused.
The revelations of fraud and downright corporate robbery that are already
emerging will pour petrol on the flames. Smart politicians like congressman
Henry Waxman will make their careers from mercilessly exposing leading hedge
fund managers in Washington. In an attempt to pacify public opinion there
will be Enron-style trials, and some bankers are certain to go to jail. But
all this will not be enough to prevent the gathering storm. The article ends
with a significant historical parallel:
"Americans will be pressing their new leader to help them determine who is
to blame. That is, after all, a favourite question of angry people during
turbulent times: it was one of the slogans of the Russian revolutionaries.
If he is to be successful, the president-elect must find a way to move the
national debate beyond this vengeful query to the other great Russian
revolutionary *cri de guerre*: What is to be done?"
The problem for the ruling classes of the USA and the rest of the world at
the dawn of the New Year is that they have not the slightest idea of what to
do. The vast quantities of money that have been handed over to the bankers
in various ways have had very little observable results. The snake oil is
not working. The banks pocket the loot and refuse to lend to the consumer,
the industrialist or even to each other. Demand and credit continue to
shrink, leading to more bankruptcies, closures and unemployment.
[image: No Happy New Year for the people in Gaza (drawing by Latuff)]At
first sight 2009 has opened under the black flag of reaction. Israeli
imperialism has concentrated all its military might on the bloody task of
battering a defenceless Gaza into submission. As usual the "United Nations"
display utter impotence, while the leaders of the "Free world" reveal their
nauseating hypocrisy by placing victims and aggressors on an equal plane,
shaking their heads and weeping crocodile tears about the evils of
"violence".
The bloody events in Gaza are a further expression of the impasse of
capitalism on a global scale. It manifests itself in universal turbulence at
every level: economic, social, political and military. These are the
convulsions of a socio-economic system that has no future yet refuses to
die. The results of this contradiction will be untold misery, poverty,
unemployment, wars, death and suffering for millions. This is the only
future that capitalism has to offer the peoples of the world at the dawn of
2009.
But appearances are deceptive. Beneath the surface, powerful forces are
maturing. As the crisis unfolds, millions of people will begin to draw the
necessary conclusion, which is this: the capitalist system must die in order
that humanity can live. The capitalist class is well aware of the dangers
facing them. The strategists of Capital look to the future with fear and
trembling. The pages of their press are filled with the blackest pessimism
and foreboding.
The year 2009 is a year of many anniversaries. It is the anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution, when the people of that courageous island stood up against
the might of US imperialism and defeated, ending the rule of landlordism and
capitalism. Today the Venezuelan Revolution is reaching the decisive moment
when it must also break the economic power of the oligarchy by expropriating
the landlords and capitalists, or else face defeat in the future.
As they will soon be reminding us, this is also twenty years since the fall
of the Berlin Wall. That was a time when the capitalists and their
spokespersons felt triumphant. They announced the end of Communism, the end
of Socialism, even the end of History. But now it is clear to all that their
predictions were false. What collapsed 20 years ago was not socialism or
communism but only a bureaucratic and totalitarian caricature of socialism.
The collapse of Stalinism was a great historical drama, but in retrospect it
will be seen by history as only the prelude to an even greater drama: the
collapse of capitalism, which is already being prepared. Of course,
capitalism will never collapse under its own weight, through its own
contradictions. History requires the conscious intervention of men and
women, fighting for their own emancipation. It requires the revolutionary
movement of the working class, organized and led by its most conscious
representatives.
January 1919 is a tragic anniversary in our revolutionary calendar. It is
the anniversary of the Spartakist uprising in Berlin, which ended in defeat
and the murder of two of the most outstanding revolutionary leaders of the
international proletariat: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. That was a
terrible blow against the German working class. Then too, the bourgeois and
their agents in the leadership of the Social Democracy, Noske, Ebert and
Scheidermann, felt that they had triumphed. But the German proletariat
recovered from the defeat - as the workers of all countries always recover
from every defeat - and went on to defeat the Kapp putsch in 1920 and two
years later formed a mass Communist Party.
1919 was not only the anniversary of a terrible defeat but also of a great
step forward. In March of that year in Moscow the Communist International
held its first Congress, uniting the genuine proletarian revolutionaries of
the whole world. In the programmatic documents of the first four years of
the CI we find the summing up of all the rich experience and theoretical
heritage of our movement, beginning with the Communist Manifesto of Marx and
Engels.
Today, ninety years later, we stand on the basis of these marvellous ideas,
which have been vindicated by history and which today are more relevant than
ever. While the bourgeoisie and its ideological defenders and reformist
hangers-on are plunged in despair and pessimism, we Marxists look to the
future with confidence and optimism. The American banker who spoke to the
Financial Times last Halloween was already terrified of a phantom - the same
phantom that haunted Europe in 1848 - the phantom of Communism.
The forces of genuine Marxism were thrown back for decades by the material
conditions of capitalism and the crimes of Stalinism, forced to swim against
a powerful current. Now the tide of history is beginning to flow in another
direction and we are beginning to swim, not against the current of history,
but together with it.
The International Marxist Tendency, which is proud to stand on the basis of
the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, has
consistently defended these ideas when it was difficult to do so. Other
tendencies that laid claim to the name of Marxism have sunk without trace or
else abandoned the defence of these ideas. The next period will create the
most favourable conditions for the growth of the IMT.
When the agents of the ruling class murdered Luxemburg and Liebknecht, they
thought they had settled the matter. When the agents of Stalin murdered Leon
Trotsky, they thought the same. But you cannot murder an idea whose time has
come. On this historic anniversary, as we pay homage to the memory of the
martyrs of our movement, we call out with a confident voice: "WE ARE HERE
AND READY TO CONTINUE THE FIGHT!"
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