Various communist groups, internationally, with which we have connections, sent messages for us, for our annual conference. We invite them to also send delegations where possible. We include the messages below.
Workers' Liberty in Australia
Your work on climate action and a socialist Green New Deal is particularly vital to us, as all round the world, the link is being made between capitalism and climate change.
The specific measures needed in Australia are different, reliant as we are on coal and other mineral exports, extensive livestock and cropping in arid lands, combustion engines and aviation to cover long distances. The legacy of the movement against uranium mining in the 1970s and 80s, together with the damage done by uranium mining, particularly to indigenous lands, makes nuclear power highly unpopular. However Australia's unparalleled solar and wind resources actually make fully renewable electricity generation much simpler, and hydrogen gas and electricity cable exports potentially feasible.
The national election in May 2019 was won by the conservatives, who deny that climate change is human induced. They won despite high levels of voter concern about climate change, and Labor clearly having more ambitious climate action policies. The last several decades of structural reform to the Australian economy is one factor behind hollowed out unionism and higher rates of low paid and insecure work, and unemployment. This has left many working class communities suspicious that climate action, and closure of fossil fuel reliant industries, will leave them worse off.
There is a gulf between immediate local working class livelihoods derived from carbon intensive industry, and the urgent need of humanity for a reduction in greenhouse emissions. A Just Transition is the concept that some unions and climate activists are taking up as the political bridge over that gulf. As with a Green New Deal, a Just Transition is a container for many possible approaches to climate action. You are arming us with ideas for filling it with radical socialist demands for public ownership and independent working class action.
We stand in solidarity with you and wish you the best for your conference.
Boris Spirz, L'Etincelle
We hope your conference is doing well. You have probably a lot to discuss as Brexit is coming. Let us hope, the working class will find a way to fight on its own ground in UK. The anti-EU feeling is strong in France too, but the real struggle easily put it on the side.
In France, it is hard to tell what will happen next week. The strike is weakening, with no surprise after 45 days. However there is still a nucleus of determined workers from different industries as transports, teatchers, civil servants, culture, lawyers amongst others. There is still a large support in the population despite the length of the strike, which now exceeds many records. The collections brought in some 4 millions euros. For instance, a collection at the door of PSA Poissy car factory earned €2,900 in one hour. Unfortunately, giving money is sometimes a way to support the strike without beeing on strike oneself, when the succeed depends on an extension to new sectors. Nevertheless, some private compagnies have started strikes with their own demands, like Cargill in Lille against a redundancy plan or Renault Truck in Lyon about wages, and demonstrate side by side with rail workers.
This afternoon, the Orchestra of the Opéra de Paris will give a free open air concert in front of the Opera Garnier. This is also the strike.
After the Yellow Vests, this fight is a new episod of the class struggle that gives hope for the near futur. Alongside with the struggles in Algeria, Sudan, Hongkong, Haiti, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Iran, Irak, Lebanon and so on, we hope this is the sign of a new awakening of the working class around the World... and that UK will follow.
We wish you a fruitful conference and a fighting new year. In France, we have a slogan for this new year (that cannot be translated): "Nous 2020crons !".
For L'Etincelle, 2020/01/18.
Yvan Lemaitre, Démocratie révolutionnaire, tendency in NPA
Dear comrades: Let me send my best wishes and the best wishes of my comrades to you for both your congress and the new year 2020. I wish you success in your work, and that 2020 delivers on the promises of 2019. Everywhere in the world, social uprisings have shaken the order of global finance capitalism. Here in France the revolt of the gilets jaunes opened the way for the equally-unprecedented and ongoing movement around pensions, in which the railworkers and RATP public transport workers have been the locomotive. The Hirak movement in Algeria; the massive mobilisations in Hong Kong, in Puerto Rico, in Catalonia; the General Motors strike, the longest in 50 years, in the USA; the movements in Ecuador, in Chile, in Haiti, in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Iran, in Ethiopia, in Bolivia against the reactionary coup d'état; and strong strikes and mass demonstrations in Colombia; in India where strong demonstrations against Modi's racist amendment to the nationality law, which would disbar Muslims from three countries from Indian citizenship... The list is rich. The youth struggle around the climate and women's struggles highlight the international development of social and political contestation which is rising up in response to the offensives by the ruling class, led by Trump, Boris Johnson, Macron and others...
Revolutionaries bear heavy responsibilities in this context, which is creating the conditions for the emergence of a workers' party which is independent of bourgeois institutions, which can change society and end the domination of capital. Convinced that such a party will be born from the conjunction of the most conscious parts of the working class and the youth with a united movement of anticapitalists and revolutionaries, I wish you fruitful success in your projects and in our common struggles across borders.
Olivier Delbeke, Arguments pour la lutte sociale
I had wanted to write a long and detailed message setting out my positions. But unluckily, or rather luckily, I find myself in the maelstrom of daily mobilisations in France against the destructive pensions plans initiated by Macron and his government.
It is in this maelstrom of unrelenting action, of event after event, that one realises the importance of having an organisation. This is true at the political level as well as the trade union level. And it is also in this maelstrom that one sees what we have built up through laborious preparatory activity over the preceding months or years.
So today, in France, we have a movement that's heading towards a general strike, but we do not yet have a general strike. This is because this perspective isn't part of the national union leaders' programme. That is a result of the fact that there is no national political force with the strength and authority to consciously organise a political confrontation with the powers that be.
The existing far left organisations are involved in the movement but they don't have this perspective of a political confrontation to bring Macron to his knees or get rid of him.
Currently, the workers of France are playing for high stakes: if Macron wins, it means the demolition of living conditions for millions of workers and pensioners. If we defeat him, it will mean a world to win for the vast majority of society, the camp of the workers.
Wishing you the best of luck for your annual conference!
Long live international workers' solidarity!
Olivier Delbeke, Editorial committee, APLS (aplutsoc.org)
Roberto Luzzi, Pagine Marxiste
We are living momentous times. The working class has hugely grown in numbers, by about 700 million worldwide since 1991, from 1.0 to 1.7 billion. In the space of a single generation, our class has become the majority of humankind. In several countries from Latin America to Africa and the Middle East, India, Hong Kong workers and the youth are taking to the streets, demanding thorough social and political change.
However, they are not finding any backing or orientation among workers in developed countries. One century ago the October Revolution inspired all peoples of the Orient, which were struggling against colonialism and awakening from centuries-old pre-capitalist modes of production, and even though not yet true proletarians, they could find guidance in the Third International. Now, these mostly working class upheavals in Chile and the rest of Latin America, in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran are not finding support nor inspiration from their class fellows in metropolitan countries, while the world and regional powers are using war (Syria) and war rumblings (Iraq) to defuse, derail and crush social upheavals.
Many in the Left, following a mistaken “anti-imperialism” are taking side with the “camp” opposed to the U.S. camp, which happens to be the camp of local capitalist oppressors allied with other imperialist powers, like Russia and China, with Europe’s powers in the middle. Our reference is class, not state power. Our camp is the camp of workers, our enemies are capitalists all the world over, with our own exploiters and their government in the first place. Our internationalism consists in the motto: “Workers of the world, unite!” The aim of our struggle is overthrowing capitalism, abolishing wage labour and realising a classless society. We need a new International that unites workers and the exploited across borders for this common struggle.
We must move in this direction without delay. The present time requires it, as inter-capitalist competition is reaching its highest tension since World War 2. The fast rise of China as the world industrial powerhouse and as a capitalist superpower capable of challenging U.S. domination worldwide, is creating a new polarisation of forces and exacerbates inter-capitalist conflicts. The U.S. is reacting with protectionist tariffs and sanctions, in its attempt to rein in China’s rise. This attempt is doomed, unless the cold war becomes real war. The old and declining European imperialist powers, unable to unite because of their internal rivalries, are struggling to maintain their influence against the two global giants and the emerging capitalist powers vying for regional dominance.
In this field of rising tensions nationalism is on the rise in most countries, in the form of right-wing but also left-wing populism – from Brexit to the League and Eurostop campaign in Italy – aimed at dividing workers between countries and skin colour, and making them identify themselves with their bosses’ nation and wars, instead of their own international class. We need to create from scratch the political “camp” of the working class, opposed to all the camps in which capitalists are divided.
Working class internationalism, class vs state allegiance, is the watershed today as in 1915 at Zimmerwald. While fighting with the most combative sections of the working class to defend their conditions against increasing exploitation and repression, our small group is committed to fight a political battle against nationalism, racism and war, and to unite militants and groups that stand on this side of that divide. Let’s work internationally for a new Zimmerwald, overcoming differences born along the different paths we have trodden in the pursuit of our common goal.
My warm greetings and wishes for success to your Conference - Roberto Luzzi, for the editorial team of Pagine Marxiste and also in the name of all the comrades working at organising a Revolutionary Internationalist Tendency in Italy
Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency
Dear comrades: We wish you a very successful conference. Analysis of the Tory victory in the recent general election will no doubt lead to lessons that will help the British working class in its struggle for socialism. We hope that your discussions and decisions further develop your organisation’s tactics for maximising the ascendance of the left in the Labour Party and the trade unions in the coming struggles of the working class. We send you this message of solidarity in the hope that we may continue our co-operation in struggles and discussions that are necessary for the revival of revolutionary Marxism internationally.
Long live international workers’ solidarity! Long live the struggle for socialism!
With socialist greetings, Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency
Dashty Jamal, Workers -Communist Party of Kurdistan Abroad Organisation
Happy new year! Thank you for inviting us to the conference. Unfortunately, we only received your invitation yesterday and now have other commitments. We however send you our full solidarity and best wishes to all Workers Liberty comrades.
Any future invitations please send to myself or Noori.
Solidarity
Dashty Jamal
Workers -Communist Party of Kurdistan Abroad Organisation
