Globalization

Achim Churs, Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands
(KPD, Communist Party of Germany)

Contribution to the International Communist Seminar

"The World Socialist Revolution in the Conditions of Imperialist Globalization"

Brussels, 2-4 May 2001

    Dear Comrades of the Workers Party Belgium ! Dear Comrades of the international delegations ! Dear hosts! In the 11 years following the counter-revolution in the European socialist countries, the International Communist Seminar in Brussels has developed itself into a forum of political and ideological ideas and into a place where more than 60 left and communist parties and organizations could exchange their experiences. Interesting questions and subjects were discussed. The main resolutions of 1999 and 2000 which were subscribed by the majority of the participating parties, witness in particular that, in many questions, common points of view can be reached. It is undoubtedly a positive development as we know that a large political and ideological spectra is represented by the delegations. The main theme of the International Communist Seminar of 2001 is 'Globalisation'. I must precise that I put this political-economic category 'globalisation' between quotation marks, because it is a terminology of the bourgeois ideology and economy, and not at all a concept of the political economy of Marxism-Leninism. It has become a fashionable concept, that many theoreticians, including theoreticians calling themselves Marxists, have adopted and use in their pseudo-scientific discourse. These theoreticians are not aware to which point they have themselves developed by their dissertations into tools of the class enemies. We, Communist Party of Germany, emphasize with energy that behind the concept of globalisation are hidden social processes and that this concept dissimulates nothing else as something which was already proved by Lenin in his work 'Imperialism, supreme stage of capitalism'. Already in 1967 appeared in the GDR the publication 'Imperialism today', which already analysed deeply the development trends of the present imperialism. Comrade Harpal Brar has also demonstrated these last years, in his work about the economic development of imperialism, that the theory of imperialism by Lenin is valid for the present. The Cuban authors, Martinez, Chamizo, Alvarez and Loureda, draw also this conclusion. Other economists, who are also Marxist Leninists, have reached similar conclusions. There is thus no reason to deny Marxism Leninism or to present it as old-fashioned. Marxism Leninism, grounded by Marx and developed by Lenin, is more topical than ever ! I would like however to discuss into more details an aspect of the present development of imperialism, which is important for our political work. It is the following important aspect, which for us communists is not to neglect: the subject of the society, the human being. Let's develop this point. The working class -this has been scientifically shown by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels more than 150 years ago- is the only social force which can lead a change from capitalism to socialism/communism. But the high-concentrated, disciplined and well-organized old-style working class is apparently more and more narrowing. It looks as if the statement by Marx and Engels in the 'Communist Manifesto' that the bourgeoisie had produced its own grave-diggers was not valid anymore. Today there is even Marxist political experts who discuss if one can still talk about a working class. According to their views it is not only the numerical force and the ability to organize of the working class which decrease but it is also the character of labour in the direct production process which is changing. In the manual activities, the whole process of production is in the hands of technicians and engineers. The number of workers in the service sector is increasing. The highly organized mass character is thus lost. The trend to an apparent independence increases. There are still large companies with hundreds of thousands of employees, but not anymore in a big factory localized in some place, but in various dwarf factories, in so-called profit-centers. The growing autonomy of the daughter-companies leads also to a decrease of the mass character of the employees and to the lost of their solidarity with the mother-company. Many excluded people are dreaming about independence for themselves, influenced by petty-bourgeois ideology, in spite of the continued decrease of the number of small private companies. More and more people are excluded from the social work process and, because of their isolation, these people are not in a situation where they can politically organize themselves. Because of the growing internationalisation of production and trade, the splitting of the revolutionary forces is increasing. Their necessary unification is made difficult by the behaviours and by the subjective representations of the masses and of their leaders. The workers in the production and in the service sector need a superior or university formation. As a result, they will be counted according to the bourgeois social structure as being part of the intellectuals or to the upper layers of the society. Does it mean that the working class is decreasing ?  No ! In my article 'Proletariat' and other contributions to this theme, which have been published in our scientific organ "Trotz alledem" (In spite of all), I have demonstrated on the scientific basis of Marxism Leninism, that the assertions, raised for decades, that the numerical size of the proletariat is decreasing, these assertions are false. The opposite is true. Till now, one has considered as worker only the one who executes in the production process a manual activity in the broad sense. But Lenin has formulated the character of a class in an exact way in his article "The great initiative". 'One describes as a class big groups of people, who distinguish themselves from each other according to their place in an historically determined system of the social production, according to their relation to the production means (relation which is in a great part fixed and formulated in the laws), according to their role in the social organization of labour and thus to the part of the social richness which is at their disposal'. In this definition, it is not important whether the worker is doing a manual or an intellectual work. The proletariat is today also this force, which puts into motion and controls the whole production process, also when it has a higher formation. It is precisely because the proletariat is directly active in the most modern production means, that it is the most modern, the most progressive part of the social forces; the proletariat is directly connected to the most modern necessities of the social development, even if many of the members of the working class are now working with a tie, a white shirt and a jacket suit. While the workers are more and more isolated, they have the advantage of a better formation. The production disciplines and organizes them, forces them to be active in a collective way. Together with the ones who are directly taking part in manual work and the ones who organize the production process, they form today like before a powerful force, which with other forces is able to lead humanity to a just, socialist and communist, social order. The working class has today the advantage that it takes itself part to the organization of production and thus can realize without friction the transition to the next social order. Because of the social development, a revolutionary transformation of the society becomes more and more urgent. But because of the present development of imperialism and of the weakness of the national organizations of the revolutionary forces, it is more and more difficult to realize a fundamental change of the society. The organization of a revolutionary movement is more and more complicated because of the growing isolation of people in the scientific-technological revolution. Added to this is the division of the left forces, who are making reproaches to each other and accuse each other to be the cause of the division instead of thinking where is their common fight, which could transforms us into a bigger force. The more and more acute fights of the trade-unions are not only concerning salaries claims but also the keeping of the social state against the attempts by the bourgeois governments or their social-democrats accomplices to dismantle it and to create American behaviours; these fights necessitate a new approach to the current questions. The unions directions refuse politicising the struggles and they still have a large part of the workers behind them. By a further aggravation of the struggles, the strikers will also at some point put forward political demands, which are already contained in the social claims. The capital will attempt everything to stamp out the struggles of the masses and to put them back on the right tracks. What it important in this movement is to clarify at the right time the political and ideological questions among the revolutionary forces. If this clarification is only done in the revolution process, there is a great danger to lose the fight. The European capital and its politicians still believe that they have the time to suppress gradually the political and social rights that the working class has obtained by its struggles of the last century and to inspire a behaviour, first to the youth, similar to the American behaviour, where personal freedom is put first, where one has to live one day after another without social security. Strong indices of this trend among the European youth are more than enough at disposal. The bourgeois media support this attitude by the propagation of the 'American way of live'. Because of their division as a result of the splitting of the world communist movement after the 20th congress of the CPUS and because of the temporary victory of the counter-revolution in 1989-1991, the communists are today numerically too weak to counter this trend and to mobilize the working class and the youth against it. Their force is however the consequent application of Marxism Leninism and resides in the unity and purity of its three constituting parts - in their daily political work, which they perform with perseverance, often with very small financial means against a class enemy that looks invincible, which possesses the political and economic power and has plenty of financial and organisational means. Other left forces, which at least are calling themselves left, are more and more slipping towards neo-liberal conceptions, as they don't fight in a consequent way the measures taken by the capital and don't win the support of the working class and of the youth for a combative way towards political and social security. What is dangerous is the right-radicalisation of the youth, which is tolerated by the politicians, from the far-right to the social-democrats, and supported by the monopolies. With the continuing expulsion out of the work process of larger parts of the workers, with their deportation to the edge of the society, with the smaller and smaller possibilities for the youth to get a safe formation place, the interest of giving access to a high education for all the members of the society is decreasing. Illiteracy is growing - only in Germany, around 4 millions people are concerned - and the high cultural values of humanism will not be reachable anymore for the masses. They will be given cheap and demoralizing manipulative entertainment, which will help to their subordination. We are entering a phase of strengthened 'de-culturisation', which will end for many in homelessness and in the slums. These people are resigning and will be largely lost for a revolutionary process if one doesn't succeed in building among them appropriate forms of organizations and in reinforcing solidarity among them. This necessity goes against the slipping into resignation and crime. Capital excludes the poorest among the poor as members of the society, lets them thus vegetate and hopes so to prevent a powerful anti-capitalist movement. There is also an attempt to put the social relations in the rich countries in correspondence with the ones of the poor countries. If we take as 100% the level of the salaries in the western part of Germany, the level in countries of South-East Asia, like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea corresponds to 3%. Western European capital invests in the former socialist countries of Europe like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and the former Soviet Union, where the salary level doesn't even reach 25%. At the same time, the people in the countries in rapid development begin to raise higher and higher demands for a better standard of life. The trend to a gradual social levelling of all the countries towards the lowest level becomes visible. One must however also consider the fact that in South Korea the struggles between trans-national and national capital on the one side and the population on the other side have begun and have become accentuated. The pressure of the multinationals and of the state on the rebelling people is so big that the struggles are gradually weakening, in particular the struggles aimed at keeping up the standard of living. Because of the fear of unemployment like in the Volkswagen factory, the workers give up some social rights. The Bertelsmann trust, the bigger media trust of the world, employs already more than a third of their workers on worse conditions as the other two thirds and this even for the same kind of work. Here also the workers and employees have given up in the previous two social contracts social rights, have surrendered to the pressure of the direction of the trust, because of the fear to lose their jobs. The ghost of unemployment is sent by the capital and is used consciously as a pressure mean in the social struggle. The workers in many countries still possess powerful defence organizations in the trade-unions. But these defence organizations are weakening. As long as the trade-unions fight in the framework of the present social relations, as long as they just want to improve or only to keep these social relations and don't orient their struggles against the current social order, they will not be able in the present conditions to defend the social conquests. With their policy of a "Association for work" they will in fact help to carry on the development and the goals of the capital. The workers leave these organizations by disappointment instead of reinforcing them by clear positions and demands. On the other hand, the pressure of the capital on the workers to discourage them to become members of these organizations is also increasing. End of 1995 the French workers have answered to the attacks of the French capital helped by its bourgeois government with a general strike and in 1997 with the election of a left government, although the current French government made of social-democrats and communists is also only an executing arm of the capital. In Germany the trade-unions defend themselves against social dismantling with warning strikes. There is not yet in Germany revolutionary goals behind these struggles but the class struggle, which was pretended to be death, is again alive and could quick put in its demands political goals. Also in Asia, as in South Korea, the workers are fighting in big massive strikes against the continuation of social dismantling. In Indonesia, a government was put into question by the actions of the masses. The highly developed automated production allows an individual production, which is adjusted to the specific needs of the clients. The new production structures demand a bigger flexibility in the division of the work, in the professional formation and in the work schedule as well. The management is also taking place on a more and more international scale in a more flexible way thanks to the information technologies. These factors lead to a bigger individualization of the workers. This individualization helps to destroy the solidarity inside the working class. This process leads to the destruction of the old organisational structures of the proletariat, which become superfluous. Another striking example is the one of interim-work companies: their employees are not organized in any trade-union, they often don't know the other workers of the interim company and are sent by their boss in the firms which need them and don't have in these firms the possibility to become integrated into the work atmosphere of these firms and are not represented by the unions and company councils which are acting there. The working forces of these interim-companies are already today in the plain sense of the word victim of a double exploitation. The traditional branches of production use more and more computers and information technologies. The human being disappears from the factories. It reigns there a scientific-technical spirit with a persistent very high and never weakening precision, which is much more superior to the human being with its biological rhythm. To the human is left repairing and supervision. But the information systems take also more and more this work in charge. Human stays in the preparation of the work, a growing part of its work being related to the information technologies; works, which before needed months or years, must now been realized in the shortest time possible. Smart systems can be programmed in such a way that they do themselves proposals for the development of the products and of the production process. Thus the preparation work will also be automated with the goal of making the production more profitable, of employing less work forces, in spite of a work which is more scientific and more scientifically organized. The sector of services in the sector of information technology is violently growing. In the US 75% of the work force and 60% in Germany are employed in the sector of services. Germany, like the other West-European states, wants to catch up the USA. The impulse to profit and the sharpening competition struggle constraint them to achieve this goal. The production places and the large companies of services dismiss more and more people through automation, Information technologies, etc. New forms of work organization and work schedule are discussed. One talks about shortening of the working hours, of part-time work, of more flexible working hours and of an increase of the work done at home. The technical possibilities for this exist already. The growing inter-connection of the computers allows the necessary communication between arbitrary places and with the company. People working at home, designers, administrative staff, advisors, are gradually put out of the company and become independent workers. In this way the salaries costs for the capital are decreasing significantly, as the independent workers have to take care themselves of their social security. In this way the social security, which was obtained by the more than a century long struggles of the working class, is dismantled. The salaries are assigned more and more according to the worker's productivity. The individual has less and less time for its personal life; it must sacrifice its free time for its work and ruin its health. The deadlines for the production are shorter and shorter, in order to keep the workers competitive and the salaries are kept as low as possible. It is possible because the competition on the work market is very strong, the insecurity of the existence is growing. The capitalists are also trying to escape their obligations of taking in charge the social security of their workers. More and more the workers must bear themselves the costs of social security. The workers will become fully aware of this when they will be ill, unemployed or will have to retire, when they will have to pay higher and higher contributions for the pensions, health, or unemployment insurances. The individualization of people is thus a social process with many aspects. The solidarity between the workers in the former masses concentrations was their big strength. The trade-unions, which were before strong organizations in the fight for a better quality of life of the workers, have now become insignificant associations, even if in Germany end of march of this year the trade-union for the service sector 'ver.di' has been created. The capital finds always new sources of enrichment at the expenses of millions of workers. They will become only visible with the next development of the capitalist system. It is not anymore necessary for the companies to conclude work contracts with the organizations of the employees. They don't respect these contracts anymore in order to offer worse working conditions to the groups of workers and to the individuals. In the US, the unemployment rate has sunk to about 5% because of devastating work conditions. 20% of the workers are living below the minimum level and they are simultaneously confronted to a worsening of the social security with respect to health, unemployment and retirement. Similar trends are taking place in Europe. There is today no warranty to be able to pursue the profession that one has learnt till the age of retirement. The workers have constantly to carry on their formation or to acquire a new one. Many people, who are excluded from the work process, see a new formation as their only hope to get a new job. There is also a trend in politics to free the state and the companies or their formation tasks and to let the workers pay the costs of their new formation, who are often not able to cover these costs. According to the current opinions of politicians and companies, they have to get debts in order to become a better object of exploitation. After having achieved their formation, the workers are finally told that they are too old or don't have enough experience in their new profession. This process leads to an inferior social status. Unemployment allowances will be given to conditions, which are harder and harder to fulfil, which accelerates the process of social decadence. These people become resigned to their destiny and are not able anymore to fight for a better future. But when they are integrated into a large current, many of them still find the force to rise up. The work forces have to learn a new formation several times in their lives and they must be flexible and mobile in order to be able to take any job at a national or international level. Long unemployed people don't need a education anymore or will forget it. For young people who are not necessary in the work process, a high education seems meaningless in the current development of imperialism. The growing rationalization, the elimination of small or even not so small companies by the very big companies, the decrease of the real salaries of a larger part of the employees, the tired international market, the flow of capital towards countries with low salaries and towards the stock-market, a wrong policy of the work market and the flexible working times lead to the fact, that even in a time of good conjuncture the unemployment rate stays very high and even increases. The long-time unemployment with its devastating social consequences increases constantly. The unemployment rate of the G7 countries is around 12%. In Germany it is now about 10% but it is on average of 18% in the former GDR and even reaches 40% in some regions of the former GDR. These are the official figures. But behind, there are also millions of people in each country, who are excluded from the unemployment statistics, like the people who have retired before the official age, people depending on social allowances, the ones who are in education and the housewives. In Germany, it is at least 15% that are not in a working life. No bourgeois statistics talk about the personal suffering, sometimes leading to suicide, of the concerned people. The unemployment rates are constantly increasing. The flexible working hours with socially unsafe work contracts create new low-paid jobs, like in the USA, in England and in the developing countries. In Germany now, 4.1 millions of people of working age are officially unemployed. But the real figure should be more than 10 millions when other categories of not working people are taken into account. The situation in the other high-developed countries doesn't look very different. And the number of unemployed people increases also in time of good conjuncture. When, one year ago, the number of unemployed people fell from 4 million to 3.7 million, the bourgeois media were gloating. But the unemployment statistics of march 2001 gives again a number of 4.1 millions of unemployed. Mid-March 2001, the German chancellor Schroeder announced that unemployment will fall under 3.6 millions for mid-2002. Today one already discusses behind closed doors whether one should not introduce a general work service, which would employ people with a salary equal to the level of the unemployment allowances. The decrease of unemployment in some countries, USA, the Netherlands, Germany, for example, happens at the expenses of social security and of the standard of living of the workers. The aspiration of the capital is all around the world to push the workers to a lower life level and to push the work forces, which are not necessary anymore to the edge of the society. Comrades, these are facts, which we, communists, are not allowed to hide to ourselves! They give the proof that the theory of alienation, which was created by Karl Marx on the basis of his scientific analysis of the capitalist development, is still valid today, under the conditions of the development of imperialism, even if the standard of living of the working class in the high-developed capitalist industrial countries has increased, compared to the time of Marx, 150 years ago. Comrades, on 24 March 2001, our Party had its 21st congress. In the document that was proposed at the congress and discussed before in all the party organizations, and titled 'Socialism/communism: future of humanity - political basis for the further development of the strategy and tactics of the communist party of Germany', we have stated: "In the meetings of the party members that discussed the project of this document one has several times referred to the words of Rosa Luxemburg 'Socialism or barbarism, meaning that there is only one alternative for the survival of humanity, that is to say the building of a socialist society. For the communists it is unthinkable to behave blindly with respect to capitalism and to accept without resistance that the barbarous character of capitalism and imperialism, which endangers the whole planet, deploys itself without being opposed. In the introduction of the document, the KPD chairman, comrade Werner Schleese, says: "It is the truth needed by the proletariat in order to stay faithful to its historical task of saving humanity from all the consequences of the barbarism of imperialism, in agreement with the character of our epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. Armed with this document, and led by bolshevist parties, it will finally be able to understand its own situation in the system of exploitation and to fight for the economic and political power in necessary class struggles." It is a right and important statement! But it is only one of the necessary arguments. It is of course the task of every communist party to spread the truth about the capitalist and imperialist system among the proletariat. It is the task of every communist party to contribute in this way to give again to the workers a class consciousness, which has somehow disappeared through decades-long bourgeois, social-democrat, revisionist and reformist influences, and through the current economic, ideological and social development of the imperialist system. To my opinion, it is something that each communist party, since there exists a scientific communism, has put on its flags. We have to take care of the fact that we communists are not allowed to relax our attention to the long-term process of the formation of the class-consciousness of the working class, we can not forget that the object of the imperialist exploitation of today, the working class, will become tomorrow the subject of the proletarian revolution and of the construction of the socialist society. It is important to acknowledge that, because without proletariat, without the majority of the society neither the revolution nor the construction of socialism can be achieved. It is also important to apply the Marxism Leninism, in theory and in practice, in the unity of its three components -dialectic and historic materialism, political economy and scientific communism- in the current class struggles and, as well, during the proletarian revolution and the construction of the socialist society. The applications of the statements and experiences of the Marxist Leninist philosophy are important, in order for us communists to understand that the human being is the decisive element for the transition from capitalism to socialism and for the construction of a new and better society. Without the human beings, without the proletariat, these goals could never be reached. For us communists there is still the question of which strategy and tactics the Marxist Leninist parties have to apply. In consideration of the fact that imperialism is a class opponent, which is well organized and acts on a world scale, that necessitates that the communist, Marxist Leninist parties organize themselves in the same way. It should not be the case anymore that the class struggle in one country stops at its borders, according to the point of view 'I acknowledge what happens in another country but my own business is closer to me'. Such a limited way of thinking limits the range of action on a national scale, even if many communist parties in their own countries lead a more or less successful fight against imperialism. Comrades, we have today to lead the political, social and ideological fight of the proletariat and of its Marxist Leninist parties against imperialism on the basis of a strategy and tactic adopted in common; we have to extend our basis in the masses of the proletariat, to mobilize the working class and especially the youth and to prepare the always necessary social changes from capitalism/imperialism to socialism/communism on the basis of Marxism Leninism. The international common work of the Marxist Leninist parties must go beyond common political and ideological points of view and become a common elaboration of strategies and tactics by the application of the principles conceived and practised by Lenin of proletarian internationalism in the political, economic and social fights again imperialism. In the current conditions of the catastrophic social developments of imperialism, it is not sufficient anymore to hold here and there yearly congress, conferences and seminars, to exchange opinions and experiences of the Marxist Leninist parties. They are still important and necessary in order to establish an ideological clarity in the class struggle against imperialism but also against right and left tendencies, which are still acting on the proletariat. This important part of our political work will however stay only a partial achievement if we don't succeed in developing an organization and a common work of the Marxist Leninist parties on a world scale. The goals of this organization and of this common work must be the following: - to bind again Marxism Leninism to the working class movement on the international scale. - to be of an irreplaceable help to the communists of many countries in the creation of proletarian, Marxist Leninist parties. - to develop a scientifically founded general line for the policy of the international communist movement, which corresponds to the present and future conditions of imperialist development and of the resulting necessity of the transition of the humanity from capitalism/imperialism to socialism/communism. - to lead the irreconcilable fight against revisionism and sectarism and to fight also in a clear way the right and 'left' opportunism and nationalism in the communist movement. - to accomplish in a consequent way the principles of proletarian internationalism for all the forms of the class struggles led by the Marxist Leninist parties. - to give to the Marxist Leninist parties theoretical and practical tools to overcome the splitting of the working class movement achieved by imperialism, social-democracy and revisionism. There are today a lot of Marxist Leninist parties. Some of you have many members, others have a great amount of scientific and theoretical knowledge, others have experiences in the daily class struggles, others have experiences in the struggles against fascism and counter-revolution. Not few Marxist Leninist parties possess theoretical and practical experiences with respect to the construction of the socialist society. There are still often ideological differences in the question of the strategy and tactic of the class struggle to lead. But: it is a theoretical and practical potential that, if organized in common, gives to the working class movement new possibilities for the extension of Marxism Leninism on the international scale. The times are ripe for drawing the right conclusions for the common strategy and tactic of the Marxist Leninist parties. The goal, as was said by the president of the KPD, comrade Werner Schleese, at our 21st Congress, is to oppose to capitalism a world movement against exploitation and war, a further unification of the already existing forms, means, methods and organizations and the mobilization of the proletariat under the leadership of the communist parties. It is an urgent necessity for the creation of the world communist movement on the basis of the unity and purity of Marxism Leninism. In this sense: Workers of all the countries, unite !       Achim Churs, secretary of agitation, propaganda and education to the Central Committee of the KPD  

Contribution to the International Communist Seminar

"The World Socialist Revolution in the Conditions of Imperialist Globalization"

Brussels, 2-4 May 2001