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| Proletarian issue 6 (June 2005) |
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| Editorial: Growing unrest in the imperialist heartlands |
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After the great October Revolution in Russia, and more especially after the success of the Soviet working class and peasantry in building a massive socialist superpower in only a decade, the imperialist rulers of the western world were quite ready to allow a small part of their profits to be used to benefit the working class in general, as well as bribing its leaders, so terrified were they of socialist revolution. With the collapse of the USSR and the deepening crisis of capitalism, however, this healthy respect has vanished and the bourgeoisie is cutting back these benefits as fast as it dares.
In Britain, for instance, free university education and student grants have gone and pensions are under threat. Privatisation and profiteering have led to deterioration of NHS services, the most obvious symptom being the emergence of the MRSA superbug through lack of basic hygiene. Imperialist export of capital has decimated industrial production, with massive loss of jobs in coal, steel and the motor industries. It is a similar story throughout western Europe and, needless to say, the masses of working people do not like it. In addition, most people are opposed to the wars that imperialism is unleashing in its bid to control the world's oil supplies - all the more so because the Soviet Union is no longer there to defend the countries imperialism attacks.
The bourgeoisie's answer to its crisis has been further attacks on the working class at home, through massive privatisations, monopolisation of the economy and cuts in the social wage of the working class, and on the oppressed peoples abroad, through intensification of wars for the control of their resources and domination of their economies. All this has been done against the will, and behind the backs, of the proletariat in the imperialist countries, who are contemptuously ignored at every turn.
The French and Dutch referenda on the EU Constitution and the British general election have given the electorate of these countries a chance to vent their anger at the governments they increasingly realise are doing nothing to promote electors' interests. People's understanding may be hazy: they may blame immigrants and/or Brussels bureaucrats for the deterioration they are experiencing rather than the whole system of capitalism and imperialism, but they are becoming more difficult for the imperialists to control - notwithstanding the latter's virtual monopoly over the mass media. Hence, in both France and the Netherlands, the workers overwhelmingly rejected the proposed constitution for the EU, expressing as it does so unashamedly the European bourgeoisie's neo-liberal and militaristic agenda. And in Britain, voters abandoned the Labour Party by the million, with the result that although Labour won the election, it did so with the lowest percentage of electorate support of any British government ever.
Our party welcomes this show of insubordination by the exploited and oppressed western European masses. We urge them to learn from the October Revolution and the successes of socialist construction in the Soviet Union that it is possible to overthrow imperialism, after which, under the conditions of socialism, they will - as masters of their own destiny - be able to make miraculous economic advances in a very short period of time.
Marking as we do the 60th anniversary of the victory against fascism, we are reminded of the strength of socialism and the glorious Soviet Union, whose crowning victory against fascism brought such prestige for socialism and working class rule. Only the treachery of Khrushchevite revisionism can explain the disasters suffered by the working class since then. However, learning from these victories as well as defeats, the working class can, and will, once more become the mighty force that it was not so long ago.
Down with imperialism!
Forward to communism! |
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