Solidarity 045, 5 February 2004

Click here for the series on The Roots of Bolshevism of which this article is part John O'Mahony continues his series of articles On the eve of the abolition of Russian serfdom, in 1861, many of the jobs which in Western Europe were performed by wage labourers - by legally free women, men and children who sold their labour power for specific periods of time to those who owned the means of production, the mills, mines, quarries, factories, etc. - were in Russia performed by unfree labour. One worker in three was a serf. Of 565,000 workers in 1860, the year before the emancipation of the serfs...

Click here for the series on The Roots of Bolshevism of which this article is part What became Bolshevism - that is, the organisation and ideas which led the Russian proletariat to the conquest of state power in 1917 - was the ultimate outcome of a whole series of previous Russian versions of Marxism, of successive self-definitions by groups of revolutionaries against what had existed before. At the end of the 19th century revolutionary working-class Marxism had to define itself against the "Legal Marxism" of those like Peter Struve who took from Marxism the insistence, against the populists...

In recent issues, Solidarity has printed translations and articles from revolutionaries in France responding to the current ferment around the French government's plans for a law banning the Islamic headscarf from state schools in France by arguing "no to the veil, no to the law". Here we print a translation of the views of Lutte Ouvrière, who place much more emphasis on opposition to the veil. "Neither father nor brother nor husband, it's we who have chosen the veil"; "Veiled or unveiled, the freedom to choose". Such were among the most common slogans on Saturday 17 January at the Paris...

As a student supporter of Solidarity/Alliance for Workers' Liberty I was a little disappointed with the Solidarity headline, "Top-Up Fees: Resist the Market Principle" (3/43). That seemed to me to be inadequate on a number of levels, and was perhaps chosen for all the wrong reasons. The headline goes down exactly the same route as the NUS bureaucracy one, which lets those hacks off the hook easily. Even without top-up fees being introduced tuition fees remain. These are the market principle - resisting that principle cannot be phrased in terms of resistance to the new policy as the old one has...

By a postalworker Despite being hailed as a "watershed" agreement, the "Pay, Major Change and London Weighting" deal recommended by the CWU leadership was accepted in a ballot with a turnout of just 31%. Despite widespread disgust at the proposed 7,500 job cuts and miserly increase in London weighting, most members decided that simply voting in a ballot was an exercise in futility. What we have seen, however, is a modest revival of the localised disputes that were a familiar feature in offices across the country up to a couple of years ago. In East London, for instance, a 24-hour strike forced...

In the Hackney refuse dispute a mass meeting of refuse workers has voted to suspend the two days of strike action called for Friday 6 and Monday 9 February. But the dispute is still very much alive and very much in need of solidarity. Hackney Council suspended three Unison members and implied that another 10 may face disciplinary action after a demonstration outside the depot from which scab vehicles were run during the last four-day strike. The dispute began on 22 December last year, when Hackney Council imposed new contracts which saw 58 refuse loaders lose income - up to £3,000 - and...

By a NATFHE member NATFHE members at Leicester College, which has 42,000 students, were due to begin an all-out, indefinite strike on 2 February over management attempts to browbeat them into giving up four days of their annual holidays in return for a one-off payment of £1,800. In the ballot for action, 160 of 286 members voted, 120 of them for the strike. Having tried and failed to bring in an eight-day reduction, the college introduced the four-day cut in August 2003 without union agreement, such that it is now compulsory for new starters. They claim the extra days are needed for "staff...

TELCO, the east London community-led alliance, has won an important victory for its Living Wage campaign, which could have far-reaching implications for pay negotiations involving contracted staff in the private sector. The alliance, whose members include trade union Unison, has succeeded in persuading Barclays Bank to accept responsibility for minimum pay and conditions for contractors' staff at its new tower HQ in Canary Wharf. The agreement, which sees Barclays breaking with all the other companies in Docklands, means that staff will receive conditions in line with the socially responsible...

By a tubeworker Five London Underground maintenance workers have been sacked after empty beer and cider cans were found at their Farringdon messroom. But they are going to fight for their jobs at industrial tribunals and the RMT union has announced a strike ballot over the dismissals. Voting papers are going out now and strikes could take place next month unless the five men, who worked for the private sector contractor Metronet, are reinstated. The RMT is objecting to the men's unfair dismissal. Drug and alcohol tests on the dismissed men were negative. They were randomly selected for sacking...

By a civil servant On 29 and 30 January four small departments in the civil service took strike action in support of pay claims: the Department of Constitutional Affairs, the Prison Service, the Home Office, and the Treasury Solicitor's Department. Workers in those departments took solid action, for the most part, but were very disappointed that workers in the much larger Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), who were also due to come out, suspended their action. The strikers were left feeling isolated. On the day before the strike action was due to take place, the Executive Committee of the...