130228 JUST DEFIANCE The
Pure Economic Communist State Edition
by
Peter Schwarz
WSWS
28 February 2013
(reprinted in
full without the author's permission. But I thank him, in advance!)
Last weekend’s
Italian general election is a watershed event in the political
development of Europe.
The point man for
the European financial elite, Mario Monti, suffered a humiliating
defeat and could not form a workable government with his ally, Pier
Luigi Bersani of the Democratic Party. This is a major blow to the
austerity policies of the European Union and the German government.
Commentaries predict a new eruption of the euro crisis.
The problem for
the ruling class is not so much Beppe Grillo and Silvio Berlusconi,
who are now in a position to block any government decision in the
Senate. While somewhat unpredictable, both men are bourgeois
politicians who defend capitalism and are prepared to support brutal
austerity measures. The problem is the opposition of the Italian
people, who have decisively rejected a policy that brings them
nothing but poverty and unemployment, while the financial elite
enriches itself in a shameless fashion.
Italy is not the
only country where such resistance is emerging. Across Europe,
workers are exhibiting growing militancy, seeking to defend
themselves against a social counterrevolution aimed at wiping out all
of the social gains won over the previous 70 years. In Bulgaria,
demonstrations against exorbitant electricity prices have brought
down the government. In Greece and Spain, strikes and protests
against the austerity measures of the European Union are assuming
increasingly radical forms.
Over the past
fifteen years, the European financial elite has mainly relied on the
services of social democratic parties and the trade unions and their
pseudo-left defenders to slash workers’ living standards and
satisfy the financial markets’ hunger for profit.
Tony Blair in
Britain, Gerhard Schröder in Germany and Lionel Jospin in France
carried out austerity policies at the beginning of this period. After
the 2008 financial crisis, José Zapatero in Spain, José Socrates in
Portugal and George Papandreou in Greece continued and extended these
policies. They carried out attacks against workers, pensioners and
the unemployed that were unprecedented in Europe since the 1930s.
The trade unions
collaborated in these social attacks, suppressing popular resistance
and dissipating opposition by means of toothless protests.
Pseudo-left groups criticized austerity measures in words, while in
practice supporting the social democrats, and—in the case of
Communist Refoundation in Italy and the Left Party in several German
states—participating in their governments.
Social democratic
leaders responsible for the social attacks were unseated due to the
unpopularity of their policies. They handed over power to
conservative governments that continued the social counterrevolution.
When the latter faced mounting opposition, the social democrats
returned to power to continue the same right-wing policies.
This was the game
plan for the election in Italy last weekend, but it failed to come to
fruition.
Monti ruled for
thirteen months without any democratic legitimacy. Having been
installed in power without the benefit of an election, he initiated
unprecedented social attacks. He called early elections when polls
predicted a clear majority for his own list and the social democratic
camp led by Bersani. He hoped to achieve a stable parliamentary
majority for his austerity policies.
The closer the
election approached, however, the faster this majority melted away.
The disastrous consequences of Monti’s policies became clearer by
the day. The Italian economy is in a deep recession. It has become
virtually impossible for young people to find a job. Pensioners are
sinking into abject poverty. Low-income families are burdened by high
taxes.
The bankruptcy of
the official “left” enabled a right-wing demagogue such as
Berlusconi and an unscrupulous pseudo-populist such as Grillo to
profit from opposition to anti-working class austerity policies that
were supported by and identified with the social democrats. But
Berlusconi and Grillo have no answer to the social crisis. There are
few illusions that Berlusconi is anything other than a right-winger,
and time will soon dispel illusions that exist about Grillo.
The class
struggle will increasingly assume more militant and open forms.
European politicians have responded by publicly stating that they
will not accept the electorate’s will as expressed in its vote
against the austerity policies of the EU. The most blatant statement
in this regard came from European Commission President Jose Manuel
Barroso.
Commenting on the
Italian election, he declared: “The mistake now would be to cave in
to populism. We must now ask the question: Should we define our
economic policy on the basis of short-term electoral considerations
or by what is required to lead Europe on the path of sustainable
growth? For me the answer is clear. We should… not yield to
immediate party political considerations.”
In other words,
the people can vote however they choose, but it will have no impact
on state policy. We will stick to the social counterrevolution.
Similar statements were made by other politicians and media
commentators.
European ruling
circles will react to Monti’s electoral disaster by increasingly
turning to authoritarian methods of rule and the forcible suppression
of resistance to their reactionary policies.
Workers and young
people must prepare by drawing the lessons of the bankruptcy of the
social democrats, the trade unions and their pseudo-left defenders,
and organize themselves independently. The pseudo-left groups such as
Communist Refoundation in Italy, the New Anti-capitalist Party in
France, the Socialist Workers Party in Britain, SYRIZA in Greece and
the International Socialist Organization in the US represent wealthy
strata of the middle class whose income and social status are closely
connected with the capitalist state. The more militant the resistance
of the working class, the more they will move to the right.
The most urgent
task now is to build a new revolutionary leadership of the working
class to prepare for the coming struggles.
Social and
democratic rights can be defended only by reorganizing society on a
socialist basis. The major corporations and banks must be
expropriated and placed under democratic control. Production must be
organized according to the needs of society and not the greed for
profit. At the heart of this perspective is the establishment of
workers’ governments and the United Socialist States of Europe.
Peter Schwarz
My comment....,
You're right,
with your suggestions at end of piece.
But Education
from childhood must change to include the Sciences, of Economics,
Ecology, and Demographics, methinks?
Within each, and
totaled, they prove land redistribution as the underlying key to
successful Workers' Revolutionary Reforms.
But..., I see the
elite, and that really includes the upper 70% of western, 1st world
nations' populaces, far too entranced by their (temporal, plastic)
wealth, and the lure of the (false) lives they are seduced mainly by
CRAPitalist advert-&-marketing, to aspire for.
Their fanaticism
makes them, like the psychos in all upper-levels of power, impossible
to Reason with.
Especially on the
Prime Logic and Scientific Efficiency of a Truly Democratic
Communism.
By far, most of
the advanced world's top 70-to-80% have also been hexed - even the
latest generations, well after Stalin's Communism-defamation decades
- by the USA's anti-communist "McCarthyist" era, to
involuntarily react in the negative when they hear or read the word
"Communist/Communism", etc.
So, YES, your
suggestions are on-the-mark!
But people are so
mindlessly frantic now, exactly because CRAPitalism makes us so, and
are enamored to insane extents, by the endless lures of western A&M,
they've lost-it, and cannot control both their desires for MORE, and
their fears of "hexacious" words.
The "Intellect",
has as much, become their enemy.
I will die
fighting their ignorance, but hold no hope, until a, "the"
major cataclysm rocks them off their egotrips, and brings them back
down to earth, to reach only for the practical, Scientific and Wise
culture(s), of the Pure Selfless, Economic Communist State.
Unattainable, I
am certain, while western religions are let to spread their deceits.
But that's an (important) other issue!
But their
antithesis, the Freemasons, and Zionism, are also party to making
"god" and a false savior into an excuse to vent their
age-old psychic disorders into world wars.
If it takes that
to be rid of those "faith" without intellect cults, "BRING
IT ON!" I say.
Only then will
such egomania be gone, and the Wise Communists can restructure the
world to an intelligent Democratic Self-Governance.
JUST DEFIANCE
Gunai Aborigine
Outlaw
Australia.
All
Praise the Immortals!
All
Praise the Warriors who have fallen
Fighting
for a Just World!
from
the Traveling 4x4 Tent of
JUST
DEFIANCE
aka
GENERAL
BLUE MEANEE
aka
Max Earth
Anchor,
for
Outlaw Junction
GLOBAL
Advocating
Land,
Tax,
Housing,
Family,
Agricultural,
Cult,
Drug,
Work,
Education
&
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LAW
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