In all the countries of capitalist Europe, the bourgeoisie has reacted to the generalized recession of 1974-75 by launching an austerity offensive against the workers. The basic aim of this offensive is to make the workers shoulder the burden of the crisis and pay the cost of restructuring the capitalist economy. The main avenues of attack are the following:
• A clear effort to block any increase in real wages, to reduce them in fact, under the pretext of fighting inflation. Considering the rapid increase in productivity in most of the imperialist countries, the abrupt halt in the rise of real wages and even their decline is being translated into a considerable increase in the rate of surplus value. All else remaining equal, this means a significant rise in the rate of profit. That is the main goal of the austerity drive.
• A no less brutal assault against the gains of the workers movement in terms of social security and public expenditure for social services. In all the imperialist coun tries, especially in capitalist Europe, these benefits and services represent an impor tant portion of workers' wages, in the basic meaning of the word (as "the costs of the reproduction of the labor force"). The term "indirect wage" (or portion of social wage) captures this meaning.
All cuts in these expenditures, whether they are carried out under the guise of reducing the budget deficit, of "improving public finances," or even at times of "fighting inflation," result in a lowering of the standard of living of the working class as a whole. This especially affects certain strata of the proletariat, such as the ill, the retired, apprentices, and the youth in general. One roundabout method of lowering indirect wages consists of displacing part of the costs of financing social expenditures from the shoulders of the bosses and the state onto those of the wage-earners themselves.
• A systematic reduction of employment in all industrial branches particularly hard hit by the crisis. This includes shutting down entire sectors or subsectors of industry (with especially painful conse quences for those areas or regions where these sectors are located).
Steel, naval construction, textile, and footwear are typical examples. Regional developments exacerbated by this explain in part the reappearance or growth of some regionalist ferment, even the rediscovery of regionalist "national identities" in various European countries.
This capitalist restructuring is intended to eliminate those companies that are working at a loss and at the same time to raise the average rate of profit. The goal is a coordinated reorientation of some industrial activity toward the world market, that is, to improve the competitive position of "national" industry in a situation in which the crisis has sharpened interimperialist competition.
This restructuring at the expense of workers and jobs (massive layoffs, plant closings, a halt to hiring, early retirements, and so on) is intended to permit each imperialist economy to concentrate on "advanced" industrial activities at the expense of "backward" sectors. It is supported by a policy of state subsidies to benefit the "advanced" sectors, subsidies paid for through the relative reduction in social expenditures.
• A drive to erode trade-union rights and the ability of the workers movement and the working class to vigorously respond to this generalized antilabor offensive. Within this category fall such measures as the lengthening of contract periods (Denmark), attacks against militant strike pickets (Britain), the first threats of restrictions on the right to demonstrate (France), attempts to reduce the rights of factory delegates, including their right to modify the results of national negotiations in terms of wages and working conditions (Italy, Spain, Britain, and others).
This generalized antilabor offensive takes specific forms according to the coun try. Among the most striking examples are the policy of the Wilson and Callaghan governments to limit the rate of increase of nominal wages in Britain, the austerity plans of the Andreotti government in Italy and the successive governments in Portugal; and the Barre Plan in France.
Capitulation by Reformist Leaders
Surprised and unnerved by the economic crisis and its consequences, bogged down general of classin their strategy collaboration, refusing to envisage any global anticapitalist alternative (a break with the logic of profit), the reformist leaders of the Communist and Socialist parties and of the big trade-union organizations have in general capitulated to big capital's offensive.
In a number of countries, above all in Britain, West Germany, and Denmark, but also to an extent in Belgium (under the second Tindeman government and under the Van den Boeynants government), Portugal (under Soares), and Finland, they have even played the role of the main initiators of austerity. They have provided capitalism with "crisis management."
In other countries, their position in favor of "social pacts" has given cover to the austerity policies launched by the bourgeois parties, allowing those policies to be carried through at an early stage.
That was the case, for example, with the policy followed by the Italian Communist Party (aided as well by the Italian Socialist Party) under the Andreotti government.
That was the case of the Moncloa Pact in Spain.
That was also the case in Finland, where the CP completely covered up the austerity plan initiated by a government led by the Social Democracy and the bourgeoisie.
The French Communist Party still verbally opposes the austerity measures of the Barre government, but the CGT,' which it leads, is completely immersed in its "policy of negotiation." As for the Maire leadership of the CFDT, which is linked to a wing of the Socialist Party, it has in fact accepted the capitalists'
austerity plan under the guise of "returning to the center." The reformist leaderships have used various arguments to justify their capitulation to the antilabor offensive.
Some plead economic fatalism. In an "open economy" (read: within the framework of the world capitalist market), no government can avoid the "rules of the game," often imposed by the International Monetary Fund (especially in Portugal and Britain, but also to an extent in Italy and Spain), without leading to a halt in international credit, severe import restrictions, and even to a total paralysis of economic life.
Others maintain that the choice is between a moderate austerity policy implemented by the reformist leaders and a more severe and aggressive policy implemented by the bourgeois parties. Therefore, it would be better to choose the lesser evil.
Yet others cynically proclaim that ausarity can be use workers movement, if in exchange for
Contederation Generale du Traval (Gener onfederation of Labol
Confédération Française Democratique d raval Chrench Democratic Confederation 0 Labor).
NUPE -CAL NUPE
NOW
LOW
NU
Lutte de Classe
Militant strikes have won wage concessions in Britain and West Germany.
The Common Program of the Union of the Left in France was based on the hypothesis of a regular annual rate of economic growth of 5 percent.
Those who warned the workers that under any capitalist regime economic crises were inevitable and that a series of recessions would come were laughed at as incurable "dogmatists" who have not understood the changes that have taken place since World War Il in the functioning of the "mixed" economy (the word "capitalist"
increasingly itself was dropped from usage).
The workers were thus taken by surprise by the crisis, thrown off balance by the growth of unemployment, and disoriented by the reformists, especially in those countries where the reformist leaders themselves squarely took charge of implementing austerity measures. It took time to figure out which way things were going and how to react to the new conditions.
It must be added that in several European countries, especially those of southwest Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, France), the turn in the economic situation came either during a full political crisis, as in the prerevolutionary or revolutionary crises in Spain and Portugal, or during a developing crisis, as in Italy and France. The workers focused their attention on those problems and on an overall political solution, without immediately realizing the need to promptly respond to the economic offensive of the employers and the bourgeois state (that was especially the case in Portugal in 1976 and in France in 1977).
The fact must also be taken into account that at first, at least in certain countries, the bourgeoisie initiated a policy of partial or technical unemployment, which had the effect of dividing the workers. When the capitalists were compelled by their need to restructure the economy to begin massive restructure the economy to begin massive layoffs and factory closures, this objectively helped pave the way for a united response by the working class.
After a period of hesitancy, the broad outlines of the workers' response have begun to emerge, especially during 1978 and the beginning of 1979 (again, with significant differences from country to country in terms of the timing and breadth of the response). In general, that response has taken three forms:
• Determined wage struggles aimed at breaking through the limits imposed on increases in nominal wages. These struggles have been aided to an extent by conditions of moderate economic recovery in a number of imperialist countries and by the spectacular jump in capitalist profits. They have met with clear success in West Germany and Britain, and to a lesser extent in Spain, where they were militant and broad. The present explosion of workers struggles in Ireland is in the same category.
• Considerable pressure even within the workers movement to break with the policy sacrifices in the present consumption of some of the workers, the workers movement can wrest important concessions, such as a "broadening of democracy" and "structural reforms." Such arguments have been put forward in an especially clear way by the Italian and Spanish Communist parties.
Finally, there are some who argue that wage concessions have to be made in order to fight unemployment.
An initial balance sheet of the first two years of austerity (in general the years 1976 and 1977, but with important variations by country) has shown the illusory, even deceptive, character of these justifications.
Real wages have been eroded, especially in Portugal, Britain, and West Germany. Unemployment has not fallen anywhere. It has even tended to increase. The famous "structural reforms" are nonexistent, or are nothing but vulgar measures to "rationalize" the capitalist economy.
As for the "broadening of democracy," that has occurred only in the imaginations of the Eurocommunist leaderships. In reality there has been an increase in marginal attempts at repression (with the obvious exception of the winning of key democratic rights by the workers movement in Spain during the transition from the Francoist regime to the regime of Juan Carlos, won thanks to a significant rise in the mass movement that the bourgeoisie feared would grow into a truly revolutionary explosion).
The Workers' Response
The working class, in its majority, did not respond rapidly to the generalized capitalist offensive.
The workers had emerged from a prolonged period of relative "full employ ment" and of relative increases in their standard of living. The propaganda of the bourgeoisie, strongly reinforced by the leaderships of the Socialist and Communist parties within the workers movement, had led them to believe that things would continue that way for an indefinite period.
of "social pacts" that has allowed the implementation of austerity. It was such pressure that capped the victory in Spain, where the Moncloa Pact has not been revived. It has begun to be felt in Italy. In Demark, it resulted in a general strike in 1978.
• Partial, but very explosive, struggles against layoffs and factory closures. The struggle of the steelworkers in Nord and Lorraine in France is typical of these.
If a balance sheet is to be drawn of the three years since the beginning of the austerity offensive, then one can state that with the exception of Portugal the gains of the bourgeoisie have been modest. In a number of countries, the workers' response has completely neutralized the loss in real wages the employers had previously been able to wrest from them. Trade-union militancy remains very high. The possibility of locking the workers movement into a straitjacket of restrictive rules is almost nil.
The bourgeoisie cannot impose its solutions and the proletariat does not yet have an adequate leadership for imposing its own. The crisis will thus be a long one, marked by many abrupt turns.
No important change in the overall class relationship of forces has taken place. Even the bourgeoisie's success in throwing 7 to 8 million workers out of their jobs in capitalist Europe has not been able to modify the relationship of forces.
The reason is that unemployment has not yet touched the "heavy battalions" of the organized workers movement (except in steel). Its effects have focused on the weakest and most vulnerable sectors of the working class-immigrant workers, women, and youth.
However, precisely because these strata are less organized than the "heavy battalions" (which in part explains their vulnerability), the blows they have suffered have not yet undercut the potential for combativity of the organized workers movement. But it goes without saying that over the longer term, this evolution carries the seeds of division and other dangers for the working class, if the organized workers movement fails to strongly defend the weakest strata of the class.
Limitations of Semispontaneous Struggles
Although we can note a clear change in climate in 1978 or 1979 in various coun tries and the evident beginnings of a response by the working class of capitalist Europe to the generalized austerity offensive, we must nevertheless be aware of the limitations of this response.
Above all, it has been a semispontane.
"led" by factory or local ous response, trade-union militants and by the broad workers vanguard, and supported by the left and far-left political tendencies within the workers movement. But nowhere is it yet based on an organized left-wing trade union tendency on a national level that could have any real effectiveness against the bureaucracies, much less based on revolutionary parties beginning to acquire some mass influence.
Under such conditions, the response has by its nature been disjointed. The workers have launched some determined strikes (like the Ford strike or those by some public workers in Britain, like the steelworkers actions in Nord and Lorraine in France), but they are scattered and do not automatically extend to other sectors or other regions, even though they have obviously encouraged other strata of the working class to fight back as well.
These actions are useful and should be supported enthusiastically and energetically by all revolutionaries and all vanguard workers. They have not been.
These struggles clearly show that the working class retains a high level of combativity, that it is capable of reacting with vigor, and that it is fed up with austerity and the compromises of the reformists. They show the rising anger of many sectors of the European working class, involving, as in the case of France, a large part of the entire proletariat. These partial explosions thus prepare the way for a united response and improve the conditions for its launching.
When the trade-union leaderships are compelled to take these struggles into account, if only to maintain some control over them, the results can be spectacular. Witness the recent mobilization of 60,000 Walloon workers at Namur in Belgium (out of a total population of less than a quarter million). Witness the unexpected and spectacular tenacity with which the Ruhr steelworkers fought in late 1978 and early 1979 for a thirty-five-hour workweek, the first effective strike for that demand by any workers in capitalist Europe.
It is one thing, however, to stress the importance and scope of these semispontaneous explosions. It is another to exaggerate their "automatic" dynamic. Here another factor enters, one that will grow increasingly important as the capitalist crisis drags on.
The workers realize instinctively that they are not confronted with a passing "mishap" of the capitalist economy but with a deep structural crisis. They also realize instinctively that neither the bosses of a failing company nor the bosses of an entire branch of industry can reestablish full employment, even under the pressure of a very determined and prolonged strike. It is only on the level of the economy as a whole that effective solutions can be found.
However, to speak of the "economy as a whole" is in reality to speak of the "government," the
"state," and "political power." The search for overall anticapitalist solutions to the crisis must lead in the direction of political solutions.
In this regard, while the classcollaborationist "solutions" of the reform ists are becoming increasingly unsatisfactory in the eyes of many layers of workers, credible alternative political solutions remain to be presented, largely owing to the relative weakness of the revolutionary forces. At the same time, the leaderships of the Socialist and Communist parties frequently follow a deliberate policy of fragmentation and divisionincluding sectarian political divisionsthat make alternative political solutions appear even less credible.
All these factors tend to place limits on the potential of these semispontaneous struggles of the masses.
The answer of revolutionary Marxists to the austerity drive of capital and the bourgeois state comprises five essential elements, which are simply the application to a concrete situation of the general strategy of transitional demands.
1. As immediate goals of struggle, we raise specific demands that provide solutions to the worst aspects of the offensive:
To counter unemployment, a thirty-fivehour workweek with no reduction in pay, with proportional hiring, and with workers control over the pace of work.
To counter factory closures, nationalization without payment or compensation, and under workers control.
To counter layoffs, workers' veto power; no layoffs without the prior placement of workers in other jobs at the same pay and in the same region.
To counter the erosion of standards of living, a sliding scale of wages and social benefits based on a cost-of-living index determined by the trade unions.
To counter the prolonged economic crisis, an economic development plan based on the complete nationalization of finance, key industries, and the big corporations without compensation (except for the smallest shareholders); a democratically determined plan directed toward the priority of satisfying the needs of the working masses and the "Third World" peoples. International coordination-at the level of factory, local, and industrial trade-union delegates-of working-class action in all the affiliates of the same multinational companies. International unity through trade-union action in those branches worst hit by the crisis (steel!).
2. United struggles to attain these objectives through extraparliamentary action: ever larger demonstrations; general strikes in branches of industry and in those local and regional areas hardest hit by the crisis; systematic propaganda and agita tion for a general strike to end the austerity measures; propaganda (in words and in practice) to establish democratic structures for the self-organization of the masses (democratically elected strike committees, central strike committees, a congress of strike committees, and so on).
3. Systematic defense of overall political solutions, including at the level of the government, which can only be unifying solutions. Propaganda, and at times syste matic agitation, in favor of a workers government, governments of the workers' organizations (lahor SP.CP SP.OP.trode organizations (labor, SP-CP, SP-CP-trade union governments, depending on the country and the concrete circumstances) to be placed in power to satisfy the main demands of the working masses.
Systematic propaganda in favor of unity of the working class and its allies, a united front of all the organizations that claim to be part of the workers movement, and the organization of such a united front by unified committees, from the ranks to the top, that can control the activity of the projected government. No illusions in the capacity of the reformist leaders to really break with capitalism.
4. Systematic action to build broad alternative leaderships within the mass organizations. A struggle for trade-union unity and democracy, for militant trade unionism, and for the construction of left-wing union tendencies that seek to win the control of the unions away from the bureaucracies, especially during and after big struggles. Fraternal discussion and unity in action with the left-wing tendencies that are slowly crystallizing within the Communist and Socialist parties.
5. Systematic work to build and strengthen the nucleus of the revolutionary party, the growth of which is key, not only to encourage the emergence of an alternative leadership within the unions and the factories, but also to orient the mass struggles in a clearly united and anticapitalist direction.
The relationship of forces is such that there is nothing that blocks the transformation of the semispontaneous actions of the working masses into a generalized assault against the capitalist regime. But nor is there anything that can yet guarantee such an outcome.
For this transformation—the only possibility for a positive outcome to the crisisto be realized, the whole program of action that we have outlined must be taken up in struggle, both nationally and internationally.
Don't miss a single issue Press/Inprecor! Send for your subscription now!
Enclosed is $24 for a one-year subscription.
Enclosed is $12 for a six-month subscription
Enclosed is $6 for a three-month subscription. • Please send information about first-class and airmail rates.
Name Address City/State/Zip Country Make checks payable to Intercontinental Press P.O. Box 116, Village Station New York, N.Y. 10014 U.S.A.