When The Reformists Call Deceitful 'Strike', Our Revolutionaries' Stumble!
The CPIML — Liberation proudly announced in the January 07 issue of Liberation, "AICCTU participated in the December 14 General Strike, opposing not only the Central Government's policies but also the anti-people policies of various state governments" and gave success reports. They must have been pleased very much; after all they were also co-conveners of that strike — their name was there in CPIM's People's Democracy, dated July 30, 2007: ORGANISED on July 25 by the Sponsoring Committee of Trade Unions, a united platform of struggle against the neo-liberal economic policies, the National Convention of Workers has chalked out a series of action programs that would be culminating in an All-India General Strike on December 14 coming. Representatives of seven central trade union organizations, viz. the AICCTU, AITUC, CITU, HMS, TUCC, UTUC-LS and UTUC ...... A year before too they had the same issue of self-praise; that year the annual strike was on 29th September, and in the Nov 05 issue of their journal they wrote more profusely the almost same success story like: "The strike was total in all important states, as well as all industrial establishments and financial institutions. Jharkhand , Assam , West Bengal , Maharashtra , Kerala, Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and many other states observed a total bandh. The strike also received huge response from Central and State govt. employees... ..."!
But working class of India had more surprise left last December; from the opposite end of the CPIML spectrum they heard another firm voice: "Under the leadership of the CPIM's appendage CITU, various TU and mass organisations have called for an All India Industrial Strike against the industrial policy of the central government. ...The working class want to snatch demands including that of repealing the new labour laws to establish rights of workers and employees, want to turn around and face challenges, want to display its boldness to fulfil its future dream. And so, to mislead the wrath of the workers-employees to astray the token industrial strike of 14 Dec was called by the leadership of CITU, which is begotten by the valiant agent of monopoly capital CPIM. // ... [We are to] spread the peasants'-resistance — mass-resistance of Singur. These very resistance struggles will intensify the struggle of building new democratic India. // Concurrently, even though the 14th Dec Industrial strike's call raisers are the different coloured trade unions who are begotten by imperialism, feudalism and big-capitalists, we believe that those demands [as raised by the callers of the strike] are demands for establishing rights of workers-employees. So make success this All India Industrial Strike and dissociate the revisionist leadership. We also call the conscious struggling people to observe Bangla Bandh on that same day against the Left Front's anti-people industrial policy, agricultural policy and land policy for the interest of native and foreign big capitalists. " (Emphasis ours) Guess who wrote such lines! The Gana Protirodh Mancha, WB state unit of the R.D.F. issued such a call by a handbill published on 3 Dec 06, and we literally translated here few starting and end lines of that.
The 14th December 2006 strike called by central trade unions of the parliamentary left parties CITU, AITUC etc... was a great success. So says Red Star (Jan 2007 issue) the theoretical organ of the CPIML (led by com. Kanu Sanyal). In Red Star's words "The general strike to protest against privatisation, the contract labour system, changes being made in various labour and banking laws under the regime of liberalization, the price rise and various other polices of the government under globalisation was a resounding success (emphasis ours). States like West Bengal , Kerala and Tripura were almost totally shut with normal life coming to a halt'. At another place in the same short article we see ' The massive response for the strike shows that the working class is ready to fight... ' So with such encouraging words like 'resounding success' and 'massive response for the strike' Red Star has hailed the 14th December strike in no uncertain terms. Up to this the analysis of the strike explained in a way Red Star's viewpoint, and it did not depart much from Liberation's success-story, whether that viewpoint substantiates the reality at the grassroot level or not is another question. But the puzzle starts after this. At the end of the article Red Star suddenly adds ' Such strikes are becoming mere rituals and seem to be more for the purpose of offering a release valve for the working class to let off steam '!!!
In the Red Star article we find a complete turn around from the position expressed earlier in their article. At one point they hailed the strike, terming it to be a 'resounding success' with 'massive response' while later they said that it was a 'mere ritual', 'safety valve'. Can both exist simultaneously? Success means active participation of workers, awakening of the mass of them from passivity into action, rising of workers of different regions and industrial areas in unison to take their movements to a higher pitch; there cannot be any place of ritualism in it. Naturally the surging workers movement challenges and breaks away any ritualism that may exist in such a struggle. Further a successful strike pushes and compels the leadership to move ahead for higher forms of struggle. On the other hand, if it is ritualism that dominates such a strike then it is a strike imposed from above, among, may be dissenting but yet passive workers; that does not raise the level of struggle and consciousness of the working class, particularly if it is a 1 day strike. In that case the motivating force is not the struggles of the workers but their passive dependence on the leadership. The workers are then mere onlookers participating in leadership's chalked-out programmes. A communist revolutionary organization cannot call this latter kind a real strike, which is actually a form of struggle, while these kinds of ritual strikes can be nowhere near to being anything resoundingly successful. The two extremely opposite labels put by Red Star characterizing the 14th Dec strike cannot exist at the same time.
Naturally the question that crops up is which of these two, the 'resounding success' or 'such strike are becoming mere rituals'— is the dominant feature of the 14th strike? By uttering such statements as 'strikes are becoming rituals' and 'more for the purpose of offering a release valve for the working class to let off steam' it obviously means that ritualism and more and more smothering away of the working class movement are gripping such strikes. But on the other hand citing facts in support of resounding success of the strike they have also said 'States like West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura were almost totally shut with normal life coming to a halt. Employees and workers in sectors like banking, insurance, docks, coalmine and Govt. services were fully on strike.' They have even concluded that this strike struggle have evoked so massive a response and that it has revealed the nature of working class' readiness to fight up to such a level that the workers are looking at it, not as partial, fragmented struggles but as a class struggle waiting for the right opportunity to target the ruling class. According to Red Star this 14th Dec. strike had shown that working class struggle has matured to this extent. Even to this extent that the aspiration of workers for a revolutionary change has to come to the forefront. Specifically in Red Star own words it is 'The massive response for the strike shows that the working class is ready to fight for their rights and is spoiling for an opportunity to take the fight into the ruling class camp. The aspiration of the workers is that there should be a sustained movement against globalisation and against its effects and that there must be a radical change in the system so that the whole protest trend of moving society into a direction where the lives of workers become more miserable with each passing day is put an end to.' [We beg pardon — we couldn't understand the use of the word 'spoiling' here in this context.]
If this is the consciousness prevailing in the working class movement against globalisation, liberalisation etc... with its 'class consciousness', urgency for 'radical change of the system' and 'spoiling ... to take the fighting the ruling class camp' then the recent strike ought to be a dominantly workers strike marked by wide spread working class actions, spontaneous struggle and class conscious leadership, resulting in panic and reaction among the ruling class and their Governments. Then no question arises of a leaders' strike called and chalked out for the participants from CITU, AITUC headquarters and restricted within one-day passive work stoppages or holidays. No question of becoming 'mere rituals' and more and more acting as 'a release valve for the working class to let off steam'. Rather, it is to be understood that the steam of the working class movement must have been accumulated to such a great extent that it could shove away any ritualistic restrictions that stands in its way to surge ahead. Demands for immediate programmes at a still higher level would automatically rise from the mass of workers struggles.
But at the end as we have seen Red Star thinks just the opposite. Such strikes, according to them are 'becoming mere rituals' and it is more and more for the purpose of draining out the working class initiative acting as a release valve. They are also correct in noting this undeniable fact that these 'present leadership of the working class is only calling sporadic actions like one day token strike with large gaps in between, sometimes years'. This is a fact and this is a fact too that these leaders are still able to get away with it without much questioning or large-scale revolt from the working class .
Naturally, this brings the assessments and conclusions drawn by Red Star regarding the present level of working class movements into question: For there are strikes and strikes, one differing widely from the other in character, and also aims. These are strikes called by parliamentary, reformist parties imposed on the masses with the strength of their organizations, to thwart further development of any struggle and bargain for same petty reforms. Then there is also another kind of strikes where it is the culmination of continuing mass struggle at one point. In these cases the masses are the motivating force, and the strikes are more open, unified actions of these struggling masses marked with their spontaneity and vigour. These latter kind of emerging strikes, based on struggles from below, are quite different in character from the reformist led passive strikes and gives expression to the continuing struggles of the mass, paving the way towards further higher planes of class struggle. The revolutionaries utilize such struggles as a form of struggle to lift the ongoing movements and activity of masses further, the ruling classes become apprehensive of the lurking threat behind it and the emerging challenge to its rule.
Did we notice any such expression of a real working class strike on the 14th of December? Red Star talks of total shut down in West Bengal, Kerala & Tripura. Is it true? Over the last three decades of rule of left parties in these states for umpteenth of times such strikes and bandhs have been amply clearly revealed to be the ruling party Govt sponsored and imposed holidays followed by some very routine, token programmes. It does not signify anything for the revolutionary class struggle. Rather it has a negative impact of blunting the idea of strikes as a means of struggle before the masses, confusing and dumping further the initiative and consciousness of working class into social democratic politics.
On the other hand looking further into it there was neither any reaction of harm or threat from the capitalist and their governments. They allowed the countrywide strike to pass over and the Govt. continued unabated with all their polices of globalisation and liberalisation. Nor is the working class seen to prepare with greater vigour and steam for continuing the countrywide struggle further ahead. There remains only the routine lull and only few and fragmented bursts of struggle here and there, this goes on until these leaders call another parliament-rally or another such strike. This is the essence of these reformist and revisionist led strike.
Quite unfortunately, Red Star is still now unable to recognize these fake, revisionist strikes, distinguishing it from the real working class led strikes which and only which can spread panic and alarm among the ruling classes. Rather they seem to be still in confusion about the actual politics and ultimate aims of these reformist leaders as borne out in their words in the article: "The present leadership of the working class is only calling sporadic actions... They are not moving towards and do not seem to have any wish to move toward a lasting movement for radical change". Why such dilemma like 'do not seem to have any wish'? Does Red Star still nurture illusions that these parties and their leaders may still have some wish for radical change? About 40 years ago these CPI, CPM have dumped decisively whatever revolutionary potential they possessed to enter into parliamentary, reformist politics. Over three decades of rule in states like W.B., Kerala, Tripura they have, embraced more and more the ruling class policies moving against the struggle of workers, and other toiling masses. After all this is Red Star still expectant of these parties' ability to contribute in development of revolutionary class struggle? Then surely it puts the politics of revolutionaries in question and no more. It leads to such conflicting conclusions and confusions of "resounding successes" of a strike declaring at the same time "such strikes are becoming mere rituals". This position is no doubt harmful to the development of real proletarian consciousness and the independent development of its struggle. What this will teach the upcoming workers?
In our website we posted our view on that strike in end Nov, and we would not like to reproduce that in full to avoid wastage of space. We are quoting only about a page and half from that: "Within this year 2006, we saw two farcical strike-episodes led indirectly by these parties. [1] A railway strike that never happened — after a fanfare of strike-ballots — only with the govt saying that it will consider formation of a new Pay Commission; and everybody knows what a Pay Commission really does particularly after the last notorious Pay Commission report for the railways — it wring out more form workers than it give out. [2] And then there was the drama of Airport strike keeping the air-traffic-control out of the strike — they actually started the strike with the very intention of withdrawing that with slightest pretext! ...
"In 2005, we had an All India Strike on 29th September; in 2004, the All India Strike was observed on 24th February; in 2003, there was the 21st May strike.... On 24/2/04, Tapan Sen wrote proudly in CPIM organ Peoples Democracy " ON February 24, 2004, the country is going to witness the 9th all India general strike since the onset of the disastrous liberalised economic policy regime. " Therefore, we are now going to have the Eleventh All India Strike in some 13-14 years or so! Well, "unrelenting fight" it is indeed that did not help generate spontaneous upsurge of workers' fights, never created enthusiasm to fight implementation of those policies in their work-places, in their shop-floors, their factories; neither these strikes made any impact on policy making of the ruling class — which has become more and more ruthless with their reforms , nor these strikes paved way for furthering class struggle — rather the workers are pushed back more and more by assaults of the capitalists. All these happened because each of such All India Strikes was not a centralisation cum culmination of scattered workers' struggles in factories or industries, as a development to a higher level of a country wide working class struggle, which in turn would have provided further impetus and strength for struggles below.... All such strikes came as a planned move from above to contain the simmering discontent among the workers within the boundary of 'law and order' permissible by a bourgeois state — in an organised manner. Correctly speaking, these routine strikes are only to hoodwink the working class and to conceal naked betrayal of these parties and their trade unions in plant level actual resistance struggle. It has been the experience that these TU organisations blocked any chance of workers fight against implementation of those policies in their work place, in their shop floors, their factories; thus making their annual 1 day All India Strikes more farcical, and what is more dangerous, cunning deception of the workers.
" The Other Kind of Workers' Actions beyond the Control of 'Lefts' & Their Significance
"Since early nineties, i.e., within a few years of the implementation of the New Economic Policy, India is witnessing the slow germination of other kind of struggles, also organisations, of the workers beyond the control of these degenerated renegade organisations. There are broadly two types of such struggles: [A] workers struggles exploded and new fighting TU organisations formed, e.g., in Garden Reach Shipbuilders in 1992... ...Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation in 2006, and in some cases without creating any organisations whatsoever, like in the Jute Industry, till now; and [B] workers took actions and burst into struggles in such way that are not confined within the lakshman rekha [border line] drawn by those 'old' established Trade Unions, they built up their fights almost independently, though they carried the 'old' banners, e.g., in Honda, Toyota, etc. The workers rebelled against the passivity and underhand collaborationist role of the established TU organisations and in not a few cases their rebellion was first directed against those organisations and leaders.
"The readers can see that we deliberately did not include in the aforementioned fights and organisations developing from below [a] the unions and struggles of workers developed via a prolonged effort of the advanced workers along with revolutionary communist activists, in many cases through 'fractional' activities, prior to the 1990s, and of course [b] those paper-unions created by many CR organisations with poor minority of workers, sometimes a few dozens in a factory of few thousands, just to show that more number of unions were under them, and in most cases those unions are tailing the major established bigger unions. We are concerned here mainly the concrete trend of development of workers' struggles and organisations from below in the condition of [1] defeat of the first offensive of the international communist movement, [2] a low ebb of workers struggle that set in roughly from the mid 1980s, and [3] party-less-ness, i.e., absence of a real all-India proletarian party and a central TU that could have helped the development of workers' struggles and organisations from below . ..." ['14 Dec — A Strike Again' in http://www.foraproletarianparty.net]
If Red Star notes the different types of working class movements emerging even at the factory level of economic struggles, it will not miss that there are gradually emerging instances of the a different type of workers struggles, based on their own initiative and organization outside the sphere of influence of the established parties, including the so-called left. These independent initiatives of workers at the preliminary level are seen to be cautious in many ways, learning in somewhat rudimentary form from the past mistakes and betrayals of the old unions and left leaders. May be some of them are even being seen to come in contact with communist revolutionary organizations, yet some are remaining independent or some are ultimately failing and landing in the clutches of some opposition parliamentary parties. But the embryo of real independent class struggles , independent from the reactionaries, and independent from social democrats and reformist lie in these struggles . Then there must be also other scattered advanced elements of working class who are emerging as new product of this society and its conflicts. Among such different sections of working class and within the new struggles lie the true aspirations for sustained movement and radical change of the system at the moment. But these aspiration, which make the proletariat the potentially foremost revolutionary class are under present conditions deep-seated beneath the politics of betrayal of reformism and opportunism now dominating. Neither the reformist-opportunist are capable of transforming that potential to reality, nor the working class as it is can by themselves reach that arena of a real revolutionary class struggle.
For that, the working class needs its country wide revolutionary organization, its own revolutionary party, made up from the advanced conscious elements of working class among others. In the path towards achieving the goals of a really vanguard proletarian party it is highly important now that we must focus our attention to this isolated but potential new type of working class struggles involved in smaller scale in different industrial pockets of the country fighting unequal battles against powerful class enemies including the parliamentary left parties. It is these smaller fragmented struggles that need to be connected to the revolutionary class struggles drawing demarcation with reformist revisionist practices and resurrecting its advanced elements on the basis of revolutionary proletarian consciousness. For this it is all the more essential now to expose the hollowness and deception of the revisionists led 'strikes'; also the same is necessary for the future fighters who are now being duped and confused by the revisionists by all the latter's activities including such strikes. Without this the process of development of the upcoming workers into advanced class elements of the real proletarian party will be impaired. Without the unification of the advanced class elements of the workers, without unification of such smaller struggles in a countrywide basis, there cannot be resoundingly successful strike or any such real class movements in future, where the working class as a whole asserts itself in society with its own revolutionary politics challenge the ruling class and its policies. And after all, Red Star surely has no hesitation in admitting that the fight against globalisation and liberalisation is a class war that can only come about with a fusion of a fighting asserting working class in class struggle and the revolutionary proletarian consciousness. Anyway, we must acknowledge true spirit of communists — trying to make concrete objective analysis, looking introspectively and self-critically — in Red Star, and believe comrades will develop their stand further from this hesitant self-contradictory wavering towards more and more correct class position.
But what about the resolute stands of seemingly opposite sides/ends of the CPIML spectrum, about what the CPIML — Liberation/AICCTU and the RDF said and did! They neither tried to judge the objective nature of these revisionists sponsored strikes vis-?-vis the real class movement, nor they seem to have any notion about the new trend of workers movement, its nature, constraints, consequences, etc.
What can be the rationale [sic!] behind Liberation's active, enthusiastic participation in the last 14th Dec strike? And they have not only participated, they were the co-sponsor of the strike; and that too not only for the last strike, they had been in the so-called 'movement' by some 56 or 65 'mass organisations' [sic] since so many years which gave us those annual ritual 'strikes' and many other such programmes. Why they are doing so? If we leave aside for a moment the subjectivism in their assessment of present stage of class movement and India political scenario, they may claim to have two ' reasons ': either [1] they still believe their CPI-CPIM 'comrades' and these parties are curable. Joint activities, perhaps 'joint fights' etc with them that can put mass-movement's pressure on them, along with reasoning, dialogues, polemics with them will curb their revisionist 'tilts' to some extent at least; so that in future there will emerge the big camp of anti-establishment 'true left forces' ...or [2] through these joint movements a mass awakening is taking place; and if those CPI-CPIM etc risk to contain it within some limit, the momentum, forward pull of the workers-peasants' struggles will wash them out or push them along, with CPIML becoming the leading force, the masses getting united under Liberation's banner... ...!!! Silly absurd dreams these are, and what is more, either of those reasons contains dangerous self-deception.
When will those highflying friends touch the soil to assess objective reality, down to earth realities! They have been practicing with these lines, as mentioned in those reasons almost single-track since almost or more than a decade and half: But to what end, and what is the result? Spreading organisation in newer areas, getting perhaps some hundred thousands votes more, getting enough media-exposure in bourgeois media... such 'gains' these lines may provide, but towards the development of class struggle and class organisation these lines contributed not even a farthing . Rather those lines along with the 'results' they begot blocked their vision — they could not distinguish between the real upcoming still-embryonic fights of the class and deceptive tools to lead the class to astray. But 'facts are stubborn things' — as an old proverb says, 'Reality' knocked their door too — if only they analysed what made them isolated from, say, the new fights of the workers.
It may be argued that the RDF had not spared the CPIM camp; rather they exposed the deception of these revisionists, etc, and called upon the masses to fight against them. But then, why call a Bangla Bandh on the same date? Just want to rejoice 'success' afterwards!? Is it not a ridiculously opportunist 'game plan'! Is it not playing with Bandh — a form of movement that the revisionists have made blunt considerably by their consistent effort of misusing that form, 'ritualising' it, etc? Besides, there is another pertinent point: Are they not following the same practice as some other revisionist parties and some CPIML groups who call Bandh etc 'from above' without any consideration of development of struggle of the masses of toiling classes from below towards higher forms, and who by this kind of activities have shown their inner un-communist concept that as if 'mass movements' can be created by party — a sheer un-communist notion that, in the final analysis, look at the masses of the working class and peasantry as 'objects' of history!! They made their stand further comical by separating the 'demands' raised by the revisionists from the game plan of the revisionists, and then declaring that they sided with the Strike as those 'demands' are OK, these are ' demands for establishing rights of workers-employees '!! " ... and dissociate the revisionist leadership "! This 'splendid quality' of separation of theirs is visible in another quoted line too: "[We are to] spread the peasants'-resistance — mass-resistance of Singur. These very resistance struggles will intensify the struggle of building new democratic India ." They failed to see the contradictions present in the Singur movement and their interconnections [though this is not a place to analyse the Singur movement, we are discussing that separately in this same issue of this journal] — they just issued what may be called a 'blank check' without bothering to think who will en-cash that, who are 'for' the development of struggles and leadership from below and who are working in such a manner so as to asphyxiate the future potentials. Comrades, what you are doing are not concomitant to the revolutionary politics upon which you put faith. !! "... dissociate the revisionist leadership " will just be an empty talk if dissociation from revisionist-reformist-opportunist notions and practices is neglected.
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