It’s right and necessary "to fight and to organise social dissent" against this government and the extremely grave economic and social consequences of the policies of the governments that preceded it. Policies ranging from the reform of pensions and the labour market – passed with the silence / approval of the big three trade unions – to the cuts to health care and the welfare state, to aggression towards the regions and health. It is right and necessary to stand against the types of intervention that have emanated from the major centres of international capitalism (the European Union, ECB , IMF) in accordance with the national bourgeoisies, they are throwing us into misery by denying any future for us and our children.

It is right and necessary to fight to counter all this, to oppose such organisations and the consequences of their decisions, organisations representing the interests of the ruling class of a capitalist system that thrives on profit extorted from the hides of millions of human beings exploited, relegated to being mere labour-power. But it is not enough to simply be in opposition.

It is now time that on the steets, in the struggles, in the pamphlets, speeches and newspapers, we don't limit our demands to the fulfilment of particular and immediate needs (wages, employment, stability, care, services, environment ...), on the contrary it is now that, wherever possible and with all available means, we say loud and clear what no one is yet saying; this system has failed, the workers must take power.

Against all imperialist fronts

The interest of each worker in the world is common to every other: all are victims of a state of exploitation that it is their interest to overthrow. In war, fronts linked to opposing imperialist interests (and imperialism is not only made ​​in the USA!) come into conflict whilst on the ground remain the bodies of thousands of proletarians, of civilians. The proletariat, the exploited, has no interest in supporting this or that war front, its interest is international class solidarity, opposing bourgeois war with proletarian struggle.

Power to the workers

But in all countries of the world workers are still the exploited class, subject to the power of employers, be they private or state. There is a way out of the crisis of this system, but only one: by overthrowing bourgeois political power. This confirms new bodies of power: the territorial councils composed of workers. This means excluding from all political rights the bourgeois class who live off the surplus value sucked from living labour, the class socially responsible for the current economic, social, environmental disaster... and its evolution.

All work, but work less

Those who speak of a guaranteed wage have failed to understand two things: As long as capitalism exists, no such measure will be carried out; the struggle must start from the immediate objectives but we must indicate the only general resolution lies in socialism.

When power goes to the workers the problem is not to ensure wages at all, but rather to extend the obligation to work: who does not work shall not eat (except for those unable to work, of course).

All of the available labour force will have to participate in collectively agreed production of everything society needs. It will thus be possible to realise the gradual liberation of life from work. This is the necessary condition for every individual to freely express themselves and develop.

Superseding wage labour

Only the power of workers - through the socialisation of the means of production, for their use in order to meet their collective and the individual needs - will be able to put a stop to the continued dispossession of the weaker countries (including Italy) for the benefit of the bourgeoisie of the richest countries. The socialisation of the entire apparatus of production and distribution is the only way to ensure employment and prosperity for the entire population. While companies remain in the hands of private individuals they will continue to be used for the sole purpose of profit, workers will continue to be only numbers to be sacrificed on the altar of corporate accounting. In socialised activities wages will be replaced by good work through which workers can access the social fund of consumption: the extinction of money and bourgeois property is the condition for the final overcoming of capitalism.

Producing in harmony with nature, to meet human needs

Socialised production does not respond to the logic of profit, but to the need to produce to meet human needs. For this reason, not only will the priority of production totally change, but the very mode of production and exchange. Selfish consumerism will give way to a conscious and social use of products and spaces. The housing problems, mobility and environmental issues will be resolved through rational and shared management of all the resources available. Socialism, because this is what we are talking about, sets the stage for the final overcoming of the antagonism between town and country and then for a harmonious relationship between humanity, finally found, and the environment.

Proletarian internationalism

The real outcome of individual battles is not only achievement of the immediate demand itself, because every time the ruling class will take with one hand what it was forced to give with the other, the real result is the growth of organisation and the unity of all the workers, the growing awareness of the necessity of the conquest of political power by the working class. The unity of revolutionary proletarians on the ground is the necessary condition to start fighting all forms of oppression that characterise current class society and to affirm, in the revolutionary process, the total emancipation of women, the end of disadvantage and oppression of proletarian immigrants and, in general, the proletarians of the South and of ethnic minorities. The unity of the proletarians of all countries necessarily entails rejection of the logic of imperialist war, for the brotherhood of the proletarians of all countries of the world, starting from those in war zones: proletarians of all countries unite ! The enemy is primarily at home, so the first imperative is to do away with subservience to the bourgeoisie and its ideology, whether of the right or left. The power of workers, an indispensable premise to proceed to the task of socialisation, probably will emerge first in a limited area, but only on condition that it spreads quickly on an international scale can it really triumph, thus relegating to the history books the system of oppression and exploitation: capitalism.

Towards a World Proletarian Party

To carry out this programme, the programme of the emancipation of humanity from the chains of exploitation, the most conscious workers must unite in the political instrument of the class struggle. This political instrument is the international party of the proletariat.

Just as each worker must explain to their colleagues who struggle that every immediate struggle is bound, in the long run, to end in defeat if it is not clear that the workers' problems will be solved exclusively through the conquest of power by the working class as a whole and likewise these workers must face the problem of their growth and political organisation, in other words, the problem of joining the internationalists of Battaglia Comunista because, as an organisation, we set ourselves, without ambiguity or opportunism of any sort, the enormous problems we have here briefly exposed. Let us be clear, there are also other political organisations, but the point is that when they leave room for ambiguity, opportunism, reformism or, conversely, to sectarianism or schematics, they allow a space for ideological recuperation by the dominant ideology, that of the bosses, and then, ultimately, undermine the only objective that really counts today: the construction of the class party for the conquest of socialism.

Translated from the original version

leftcom.org

Saturday , October 12, 2013