class struggle

The following text was written by Marlowe for discussion at the internationalist meeting in Brussels 2023 where “the periodisation of capitalism’ was the theoretical subject on the agenda. It is followed by a shorter text that addresses the periodisation question specifically.

The main text has two parts. In the first, Marlowe traces out the trajectory of capitalism over the past couple of hundred years and describes how capitalism has got to where it is today, emphasizing the interaction between economic, technological, social and political developments. In the second, he sketches the history of the working class struggle in the same period. He points out that there has now been over a century of onslaught on the working class without a revolutionary response. There is no organic continuity with the past revolutionary wave, the working class has to relearn everything from scratch. On today’s social protest movements he states that they contain many workers but are not led by the working class. It is imperative that the proletariat should see itself as a class and not be drowned in the wider population.

In the discussion, some comrades criticized the text for not focusing the analysis more on the impact of the deep penetration of the value form, not only in the production process but in the whole of society, transforming the conditions of capital accumulation and eroding class consciousness.  

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WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST (1)

After more than a decade of bloody conflict in which more than 600.000 people were killed and more than 14 million were forced to flee their homes, the Syrian ‘civil’ war seemed to have settled in a stalemate and a de facto partition of the country. And yet, only a little push was needed to topple Assad.

The government forces refused to fight. Everywhere the rebels came, there was little or no resistance, everywhere they were greeted by jubilant masses cheering the downfall of the hated regime.

But the rapid collapse of the Assad regime was not the result of a mass strike or popular revolt. The push came from outside, which underscores the interimperialist nature of the current wars in the Middle East. The conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria are all connected. While the trigger was pulled by the weaker side (as it often is), it’s now clear that the string of conflicts has considerably strengthened the grip of the US and its allies on this strategically essential region. Whether that was the US’ plan all along or whether it exploited conflicts that others set in motion, we cannot tell but in essence, it makes no difference.  

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We recently published a leaflet denouncing the war in Gaza. The intention was to distribute it at demonstrations as a means of engaging participants in discussion. After it was published on our website, it was criticized by some of our members and by others in the milieu for not being clear enough about the fact that the inter-imperialist nature of the war in Gaza is paramount, and that only proletarian class struggle can impede and break the inter-imperialist conflicts and wars endemic to capitalism.

Whereas we agree on these last points, a revision of our leaflet has led to a disagreement centered on the role played by the increasing number of proletariats who have become superfluous to capital, in the unfolding of capitalist crisis and war; and this war in particular.

We believe that it is important to have political debates in the open and the reader may expect more articles on these subjects forthcoming.

In the meantime we publish a string of texts that were produced in the immediate wake of the leaflet. Our hope is that by making available our discussion and openly showing the nature of our debate, others will be encouraged to contribute.

IP

The Gazan Inferno

For revolutionaries, the two most important statements to be made about this butchery are: that this is but the latest murderous eruption of global inter-imperialist antagonisms, and that the only solution for the proletariat is through class struggle.  

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No War in Gaza! Fight the Nightmare Which Haunts Us All!

War is the climax of the nightmare in Gaza. We hear the numbers rise every day, but the losses are immeasurable. Like many of the past 50 years, it is an asymmetric war, which in this case means that one side’s troops first enter a home to kill an entire family, while the other can rain down bombs to the same end. Asymmetry means that many more Gazans have been murdered than Israelis, as they are the collateral damage whose lives each army has written off as an acceptable cost. We call for an immediate end to the war, the release of hostages and prisoners, an end to the blockade. We call to build international solidarity against warmongers and nation-builders.

We refuse the language of right to the land, of border legitimacy, and of national security. The rallying cries and waving flags hide the truth: we are being tricked, bribed, or forced into the wars of our masters. We refuse to excuse mass murder in the name of “justice”, “resistance”, or “defense”. War can never bring peace or freedom beyond the peace of a graveyard and the freedom to pillage the dead.  

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