Europe

The political landscape in Britain is changing before our very eyes. This morning’s prominent TV news is of the tanker drivers’ strike, showing scenes of pickets with Red Flags turning away lorries at Shell refineries. The next item is the deepening government crisis, followed by a warning from Gazprom that oil prices could reach $250 a barrel. It was like a typical news bulletin of the 1970s.

In any historical period, the dominant ideas are those of the ruling class. In 1989 the world was treated to the words of Francis Fukuyama, who published an essay with the title 'The end of history?' His argument was not that historical events had literally stopped happening but that the collapse of so-called 'communism' in the Soviet union meant that western liberal democracy had successfully established itself as the ultimate and ideal form of government. Marxism lay totally discredited he declared, gloatingly.

This is a two-part article looking at the decline in the quality of life for working people in Britain today. The first article focuses on the workplace, where there has been relative decline in wages and deterioration in the conditions of employment. The second part looks at the attack on the 'social wage'. Real wages, i.e. purchasing power has been declining and the overall infrastructure of what once was an advanced welfare state, has been crumbling.

Lal Khan was speaking in Birmingham on June 1 at a meeting organised by the local PTUDC, where he outlined the developing crisis in Pakistan and highlighted the need for socialism as the only answer to the problems of the workers and peasants.

On Monday over one hundred people crowded into the CAUM Centre in Madrid to hear Alan give a speech launching his latest book, which is an in-depth reply to the reformist ideas of Heinz Dieterich, who has been providing a theoretical back-up to the bureaucracy within the Bolivarian movement which is attempting to slow down the pace of the revolution. If listened to, these reformist ideas would lead to the derailing of the revolution.

The New Labour government is on the rocks. The wreckage of Blairism, under the leadership of Gordon Brown, was dealt a further crushing blow at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. A 7,000 Labour majority was turned into a 7,000 Tory majority in a swing of 17.6%. It was the Tories' first by-election gain in 30 years.

The Crewe by-election, with an 18% swing to the Tories, confirms that they are on target for a landslide win in the next general election. Railway workers and other working class people who have voted Labour for generations have finally had enough. The betrayals and disappointments of New Labour have caused these electors to break the habit of a lifetime. Make no mistake about it. Mass working class abstentions have done for Brown and his witless crew.

Alan Woods went to Paris in May 1968 seeking contact with revolutionary workers and youth. He describes here what he encountered, the mood, and the discussions with workers and students. He explains how the workers were looking for leadership but never found it, neither in the ultra-left groups, nor in the Stalinist leadership that betrayed them.

Over the weekend of May 2-4 a conference was held in Berlin on the theme of "1968 - We shall win the last battle", organised by the youth and students of the German Left Party (Die Linke). There were 1600 people taking part in the conference and the Marxists of Der Funke intervened in the debates, organised a stall with literature, provided international speakers from Spain and Pakistan and one of the Der Funke supporters, and member of the national council of the youth wing of the party, made one of the concluding speeches.

Although still in its early stages, there is clearly a reawakening of the Russian working class taking place with a growing number of strikes taking place. Once this picks up steam at some later stage it will cut across all the confusion and demoralisation that have been dominant features in the past.

An example of a very militant strike in Severouralsk, one of a series in the recent period. The miners were determined but the bosses were ruthless. This experience is another indication of growing working class militancy in Russia.

Up till recently, Britain’s main high street banks had not seemed to have suffered much – they were all announcing big profits and there was little talk of large ‘writedowns’ of worthless assets. But now the Royal Bank of Scotland has announced that it lost £4bn in the last three months as a result of the world’s great credit crunch and it must write off £5bn in loans and debt securities that it had on its books as worthless. The credit crunch is going to hit Britain in a big way.

"Britain has been hit by what trade unions have called the biggest wave of work stoppages since the Labour government came to power 10 years ago, with up to 400,000 public sector employees going on strike." (Reuters: Headline and opening sentence Friday, 25 April 2008)

New Labour suffered a humiliating defeat in the recent local elections, but those left groupings who were hoping to capitalise on Labour's difficulties also found themselves in a mess. As Ted Grant explained, the working class always ignore these sectarian grouplets on the fringes of the labour movement and in times of struggle always turn towards their traditional organisations.

The Tory victories in the local elections on May 1st mean that the Conservatives will almost certainly go on to win the next general election and form the next government. Theoretically the Labour leadership could turn the situation round, but they seem incapable of changing their disastrous course. New Labour is in meltdown.

May 1968 was the greatest revolutionary general strike in history. This mighty movement took place at the height of the post-war economic upswing in capitalism. Then, as now, the bourgeois and their apologists were congratulating themselves that revolutions and class struggle were things of the past. Then came the French events of 1968, which seemed to drop like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. They took most of the Left completely by surprise, because, they had all written off the European working class as a revolutionary force.

In looking back at the Good Friday Agreement, Gerry Ruddy points out that it has served to stabilise British rule in the North as Sinn Fein has been absorbed into the establishment. In this situation he stresses the need for republican socialists to focus on working class and socialist policies.

A powerful public sector strike over pay has hit Denmark. The striking workers have huge support among the population and the right-wing conservative is coming under huge pressure.