"The working class, its role and
its mission today.
The tasks and concrete experiences of the Communist Party in the working class
and the trade union."
Brussels, 16-18 May 2008
www.icsbrussels.org , ics@icsbrussels.org
General Conclusions
After the exchange of experiences and ideas and after discussion about the current situation and problems of the working class, its composition, role and struggles, the attacks on its rights and achievements, the role of the trade unions and the tasks of the communist parties in the working class and the trade unions, we, the participants of the 17th International Communist Seminar gathered in Brussels, have arrived at the following general conclusions :
1. Over the past thirty years, the working class has seen significant changes in its number and composition, but its historical role as gravedigger of the capitalist system has remained unchanged.
The breathtaking breakthrough of the information technology and telecommunications has induced changes in the production process. Capital profits from it in order to manage worldwide industrial and financial operations in real time, to introduce systems for flexible production and to split up the production process in networks of subcontracting. In many fields, this has brought manual and intellectual labour closer together.
Capitalist restructuring means the enhanced mobility of production, with its concomitant fate of closures and relocations. The working class has also become more mobile, with migration flows following the capitalists' demand for labour force and the workers' hope for a better future. However, monopoly capital allows migration flows only for its own interests, repressing and illegalising any other migration. Uncertain jobs, subcontracting, contracts of limited duration, interim contracts and clandestine labour have become generalised. Major achievements of the working class such as the 8-hour working day are being eroded by the lengthening of the working day and the generalisation of overtime hours. The phenomenon of working poor is spreading, including in the most developed countries.
At the same time, major realisations of the working class have been destroyed by the commercialisation of the public systems in the fields of education, health services and other social services. The capitalist restructuring that followed the outburst of the world crisis in the 1970s has attacked public services and collective property. Public property is being sold out to the private sector. Private management methods are being applied, and working conditions have become more stressful. This is the case for hospital workers, postal workers, workers in public transportation and railways, teachers, etc. The buzz words are no longer "service to the public" but "cost-effectiveness", not "users" but "clients".
The victory of the counterrevolution in the socialist countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has provoked the unlimited aggressiveness of the capitalists and the bourgeois governments, as they don't have to fear for "contagion" any longer. This has resulted in a general onslaught on social achievements and on trade union and democratic rights, and in the degradation of statutes, working and living conditions in the whole world.
2. Exactly 160 years ago in Brussels, Marx wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party,
in which he said: "But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to
itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons -
the modern working class - the proletarians."
Engels studied the wretched condition of the
working class in England, but he discovered already, through their misery, the revolutionary
potential of the exploited class.
In every period of capitalist development, material developments have generated theories announcing the end of Marxism. This was already the case in 1896, when Bernstein pretended that Marx had not foreseen the birth of a middle class. It was once more the case in the 1920s, when Kautsky judged that part of the proletariat was sufficiently educated and experienced to impose its will through elections. And it was yet again the case in the 1960s, when Gorz bade "farewell to the proletariat". Today, the idea is being floated that material production would not be the main source of capitalist profits. Philosophers like Negri and Hardt are babbling about the irreversible disappearance of the proletariat into a "multitude", and they have found an echo in the new social-democracy of the Bertinotti type.
Each time this was part and parcel of an ideological offensive to contest the fact that in capitalist society, there are two antagonistic classes, the bourgeois class and the working class. The negation of this contradiction leads straight to the political conclusion that the working class is no longer "the truly revolutionary class" as Marx described it, and that its vanguard role to change society was over. And in the same sweep, the necessity of building a party that takes upon itself the task of guiding the proletariat in its historical task has disappeared.
Contesting the road described by Marx and Engels (the vanguard class) and later by Lenin (the vanguard party) serves to create reformist illusions regarding the peaceful and parliamentary transformation of capitalism.
3. Nevertheless, recent developments have shown once again that the capitalist world system is not capable of managing its own contradictions. And that the antagonistic contradiction between capital and labour inevitably leads to crises of overproduction and to crises on a planetary level. After the bursting of the financial bubble of the Third World debt (1982), after the bursting of the Asian financial bubble (1997), after the bursting of the financial bubble of information technology (2000), it is now the financial bubble of subprimes (associated with housing loans in the US) that has burst, starting 2006. This is occurring against the background of an unsustainable US trade deficit and a US dollar in decline. All these conjuctural phenomena are waiting for a major crisis to explode.
This shows once more that the "health" of world capitalism is extremely fragile and has been artificially boosted by speculative bubbles. The monopolies' struggle for markets and raw materials, including agricultural and food products, are causing spectacular price increases, enhanced even more by speculation. This leads to yet more impoverishment of the toiling masses, engendering hunger revolts and popular movements for a better purchasing power the world over.
All these social catastrophes would be impossible if the earth's wealth were collectively owned and managed, in a planned way, and in the service of the people. The same holds true for the environmental and ecological catastrophes that are threatening the planet.
It is but a handful of monopolies that decide, in line with their own interests, because in their run after maximum profits, they are ready to commit crimes against humanity. We are assisting at an ever greater concentration of power in the hands of the financial oligarchy that spreads its tentacles over the entire planet.
The internationalisation of production and the technological advances reinforce all sorts of disasters that are caused by the private ownership of the means of production and exchange.
4. As Marx and Engels have shown, only the working class has both the interest and the forces to overhaul society and put an end to the exploitation of man by man. The working class is in permanent development, but its distinct characteristic doesn't change: the working class is defined as the entirety of the exploited workers, i.e. all those who survive by selling their labour force.
The criteria put forward by Lenin for belonging to the working class remain valid: "We call classes huge groups of people that differ by their place in the historically determined system of social production, by their relation to the means of production (mostly stated in the legislation), by their role in the social organisation of labour, and consequently by their capacity to receive a concomitant part of social wealth. Classes are also groups of people among which one group can appropriate the fruits of the work of another one." (The Great Initiative)
From this follows that the working class is more numerous than ever, as attested to by the figures for salaried labour.
Within this working class, only a part produces surplus value. Its concentration in large groups of production, transport and communication provides it with the means to block the economy. If we believed bourgeois statistics, this layer would be on the road to extinction in the advanced capitalist countries, as a result of the development of the tertiary sector of the economy. But the figures distort the reality that many of those `services' were erstwhile counted as belonging to the chain of production and that they remain intimately linked to production.
While in the Western countries the number of industrial jobs is diminishing in certain sectors, the total number of industrial jobs remains at least stable, while the number of factory workers is actually increasing in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America.
Around this productive core of the working class, there are the ever more proletarianised layers in the sectors of the social services, public administration, education and the "liberalised" public sector.
Today's working class is more diverse than in the past. Capital exploits the differences in statutes, rights, nationality and origin to the hilt in order to worsen the conditions of the entire working class. Fixed contracts are countered with temporary contracts, workers in subcontracting earn less than their colleagues, migrant workers do the same job for less pay, and in the public services, workers with statutory contracts are being replaced with contractual and interim workers.
In many countries, the informal sector, without contracts and without organisation, occupies an ever more important place, especially in countries that have practically no laws to protect workers. In the sector of clandestine labour, no protection exists at all, leading to super-exploitation.
The working class is becoming more international and differentiated, and experiences a degradation of its living and working conditions. This gives a renewed urgency to the appeal of Marx and Engels: "Workers of all countries, unite!".
The fact that the working class, under the current conditions of imperialism, has become more international and that it has more knowledge of scientific and technological developments renders it better prepared to bring about and lead socialist society. It is capable of handling the productive apparatus, of socialising it and putting it in the service of the entire planet. That is why it is the working class which carries the future.
Nevertheless, as Karl Marx said: "The struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, even as it is not a national struggle in its essence, first of all takes on this form. It goes without saying that the proletariat of each country has to do away with its own bourgeoisie in the first place." (The Communist Manifesto)
5. The working class needs communist parties to defend their fundamental interests. As Marx and Engels pointed out in the Communist Manifesto :
"The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class [organisations] by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of entire proletariat, independently of nationality. (2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class [organisations] of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement."
Communist parties give priority to work in the working class. At the same time and for strategic reasons, in the struggle against capitalism/imperialism and for socialism, communists pay particular attention to the major systems of production and exchange, to the key sectors of the economy. That is where the core of the current economy is located, and that is at the same time the core for organising and struggle. That is where the workers are best able to bring in other layers of the working class in the fight for a society without exploitation. This implies the need to be above all present on the workplace, in the class struggle. Without neglecting the importance of having elected representatives in bourgeois parliaments, it is ultimately by being firmly rooted in the working class that the relation of power will be determined. The presence of communist parties within the working class remains the first priority. The current anticommunist campaign, notably in the European Union, wants above all to prepare the terrain to crack down on the ever more numerous protest actions, demonstrations and strikes.
Faced with the material evolution of today's working class, it is in the interest of the communist parties to pay even more attention than before to three specific orientations.
One: above all, the key issue is to play a leading role in the organisation and the struggle for the unity of the working class and for its alliance with the middle layers in the cities and with the poor and middle peasants in the countryside.
Two: it is necessary to intensify the common action of the communists in order to arrive at a common strategy of the communist and workers' parties against imperialism.
Three: the work in the working class cannot be limited to economic and social issues, but must pay equal attention to ideological and political themes, to the struggle for democratic rights (including in the workplace), against racism, for peace (against imperialist wars), for national liberation, for the protection of the environment, and for radical changes that undermine the foundations of the capitalist structure. This way, it prepares the struggle for a society without exploitation of man by man, for socialism.
6. The work of the communist parties in the working class inevitably involves work in the trade unions. The trade unions are the organisations that bring together the largest numbers of workers. The trade union fulfils another role than the communist party. The Party aims at organising all those who consciously aspire to socialism (which is not at all the case with the entire working class). The trade union, on the contrary, wants to organise almost the entire working class as a class. As a consequence, there is no "competition" between the Party and the trade union. On the contrary, the Party fully supports those forces and tendencies that are committed to transforming the trade unions into genuine class organisations. The Party encourages all its members to become active trade-unionists and to aim for trade union mandates. That will help communist workers become mass leaders and give them greater authority in the political debate.
Diverse political tendencies cut through the traditional trade unions, from top to bottom. Aside from numerous anti-capitalist forces, there are forces preaching and acting in the sense of (re)conciliation with the capitalist system. Two opposing tendencies are active within those trade unions: the line of class struggle, and the line of class reconciliation and compromise. Communists direct their criticism first of all against the parties of the bourgeoisie that succeed in imposing their viewpoints on the trade unions and that take up the defence of capital. In their trade union work, communists stand out by their desire to advance the class struggle, by their support for all things positive, for all that unifies and strengthens the trade unions as class organisations.
It is true that anti-trade-unionism exists at the grassroots, as a consequence of disappointments suffered, of struggles diverted by trade union leaders and of propaganda for the ideology of individualism and corporatism. But this sentiment should be transformed in a constructive way, for more democracy and for more debate on society. In short, in a sense that makes the communists the best fighters for strong and militant trade unions. In certain countries, new trade unions have been founded, in some cases on the initiative of communist parties. It remains of vital importance not to abandon the organised masses in the other trade unions.
7. In view of the evolution of the working class, the unifying role of the trade unions becomes an even more urgent imperative. Capital's strategy is to divide and disperse the working class. Its strategy is also to organise competition between different layers of the working class, in order to impose a race to the bottom. The words of Marx deserve to be quoted here: "Capital is concentrated social force, while the workman has only to dispose of his working force.(…) The only social power of the workmen is their number. The force of numbers, however, is broken by disunion. The disunion of the workmen is created and perpetuated by their unavoidable competition among themselves. (…). The immediate object of trade unions was therefore confined to everyday necessities, to expediencies for the obstruction of the incessant encroachments of capital, in one word, to questions of wages and time of labour. This activity of the trade unions is not only legitimate, it is necessary. It cannot be dispensed with so long as the present system of production lasts."
Today, the trade unions have to face more virulent attacks in all fields, and have to work in a more difficult environment. The dispersal of production and the precariousness of contracts go hand in hand with the weakening and under-representation of trade union forces. The liberalisation of the labour market increases competition among sections of the working class and stresses the urgency of the slogan "equal pay for equal work". From all sides, the trade unions' very reason of existence is put into question, by anti-strike laws, a strict regulation of social peace, judicial decisions that impose damage payments and target trade union delegates. In many countries, free trade zones with "no strike-no union" policies are wreaking havoc on workers' rights and on their working and living conditions. Increasingly, trade unionists are the victims of various forms of persecution, up to and including political assassination.
In this global context, trade unionism must return to its source and fully get back to its pioneer, militant and daring character. It is the development of world capitalism itself that pushes in that direction. Otherwise the trade unions may see their fighting force being decimated. Through their action, trade unions must unify all layers of the working class: those who have a job as well as the jobless, migrant workers and undocumented workers as well as native workers, workers with stable contracts and those with atypical or precarious contracts.
This is also the precondition for the trade unions to be able to play that other role that Marx attributed to them: "If the trade unions are required for the guerilla fights between capital and labour, they are still more important as organised agencies for superseding the very system of wage labour and capital rule."
The communist parties take advantage of all struggles and debates in the trade unions to put the question of the choice of society on the agenda.
8. The trade union forces that are based on class struggle must unite on the national, regional and sectoral levels, and on the international level within the World Federation of Trade Unions, because the emergence of a class pole in the international trade union movement is indispensable in the struggle against capitalism. For many parties, the work in trade unions that are led by reformist or even reactionary forces remains a priority, because the masses of their countries belong to them.
It is the duty of the communist parties to help trade unionists organise themselves on an international scale and develop active solidarity during important struggles. That is the only way to build a genuine front of the international working class in its fight to push back the attacks of international capital.
9. In the socialist countries, the trade unions are essential for the building of socialism, not only because they serve to transmit the Party's orientation to the entire masses, but also because they must likewise serve to transmit the sentiments, concerns and initiatives of the entire masses to the Party. The communist parties present give their full support to the emancipating work they undertake, thus contributing to the preservation and strengthening of the socialist nature of the system.