witnesses to the pando massacre

Below are eye-witness reports from the massacre perpetrated by fascists in Pando province, northern Bolivia, on Thursday 11th September, in which thirty peasants were killed and fifty wounded. Over one hundred people are still missing. 

This video (the speech is all in Spanish but the footage can speak for itself) show fascists shooting at peasants as they swim across the river in a desperate effort to escape the violence.

review of a classic: giovanni arrighi’s ‘the long twentieth century’

by Dan Jakopovich

In The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (1994), Arrighi centres his attention on the examination of systemic capitalist cycles of accumulation: their immanent logic, the interplay between the emerging and old powers (elements of systemic continuity and discontinuity), and the factors of hegemonic consolidation.

last night’s meeting on the 1970 leeds clothing workers’ strike

by Chris Ford

Twenty-seven people attended the Uncaptive Minds forum last night for the exclusive showing of Leeds-United!, the 1974 Play for Today BBC film made by Roy Battersby, dramatising the story of the 20,000-strong Leeds clothing workers’ strike of 1970.  The vast majority of the audience were trade unionists, with members of RMT, UNISON, UCU, UNITE, CWU, NUJ and PCS present.

the cost of living: it’s time to act

a leaflet by the commune

A mere 22% of a typical household’s monthly income is left after tax and essential bills, down from 28% since 2003. The situation is getting worse.  Costs have gone up across the board:
 
Increase of    10%      for Electricity
Increase of    15%      for Gas  
Increase of    6.6%     for Food                
Increase of    20.2%   for Petrol  
Increase of    6.5%     for Water             
 
The government says wages must be kept down to stop inflation – but it’s not wages that are to blame.  In May, over 90% of workers got wage rises beneath inflation.  In fact the share of the overall economy going to wages has gone down this year, as it has every year since 1995.  Wages are nowhere near enough to meet the rising costs.  To make it worse, unemployment, which has never gone away, is rising fast.

new pamphlet on bolivia

We have produced a pamphlet on the current class struggle and social crisis in Bolivia. The pamphlet, costing £1, includes analysis of the far-right’s mounting coup attempts and the state of the workers’ movement, along with translations of documents produced by the Central Obrera Boliviana union federation and the miners’ union.

If you would like a copy of the 18 page pamphlet, email uncaptiveminds@googlemail.com or write to us at The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.

morales and the fascists prepare an agreement

Translated from the Spanish from Econoticias Bolivia

La Paz, September 15th 2008: Amidst the pain suffered by the Bolivian people and the moral condemnation they have made of the murder of almost thirty peasants in the north of Bolivia, who were attacked by the oligarchy and fascists acting with impunity, in La Paz dialogue continues between Evo Morales’ indigenous government and the fascist National Democratic Council (Conalde) which brings together the genocidal right-wing opposition governors.  

the ambiguities of “workers’ control”

The Commune has opened a discussion on the meaning of workers’ self-management and workers’ control, two concepts which are often confused with each other and given a wide range of meanings, from trade union participation on management boards to collective ownership and management of a workplace by its workers themselves. We will be having a forum on the question on 29th September, but are also looking to stimulate a broader debate in the movement. 

We will soon be publishing a review of the new Left Economics Advisory Panel pamphlet on “social ownership for the 21st century”, and have also put online two pieces from previous debates on the meaning of “workers’ control”: an exchange between the libertarian socialist ‘Solidarity’ group and the Institute for Workers’ Control as well as the piece below, also from ‘Solidarity’.

lukacs on terror

We present here to readers of The Commune a little-known article by the leading Marxist philosopher George Lukacs.  Well known for his History and Class Consciousness, it is sometimes forgotten that Lukacs was an active Hungarian communist during the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919.  Lukacs fought in the ranks of Hungarian Red Army, but the republic of which he was a leading member was suppressed by foreign intervention. The following article challenges the hypocrisy of Social-Democracy on the question of violence – the term terror having a different meaning from its current use. This first appeared in the Workers’ Dreadnought, a communist paper published by Sylvia Pankhurst, on August 21, 1920.  Chris Ford

lenin the god and lenin the revolutionary

by Sylvia Pankhurst: introduction by Chris Ford

The following article originally appeared in the Workers’ Dreadnought entitled ‘Lenin’, written by pioneer communist Sylvia Pankhurst after Lenin’s death.  Pankhurst was a sympathiser of those opposing the retreat of the Communist International from an organiser of world revolution into defender of Soviet Russia at the hands of growing bureaucracy.  She sought to create in England a Communist Workers’ Party aligned to the short-lived Fourth International founded by the KAPD and others.

morales opens negotiations with the fascists

An article on the latest developments in the crisis in Bolivia. Translated from the Spanish from econoticias bolivia

The indigenous president, who only has control over the Altiplano and part of the valleys, has opened dialogue with the fascist oligarchy who have absolute power in the other half of the country and who are massacring peasants and indigenous people without mercy.

new postal address

We have a new postal address, to which all are welcome to send letters and articles for the editors’ consideration, publications, and donations. 

The address is:

The Commune
2nd Floor 
145-157 St John Street 
London 
EC1V 4PY

morales, the bolivian oligarchy and the workers’ movement

by David Broder

The social crisis in Bolivia is deepening as the oligarchy and the far right step up their struggle to break off chunks of the country and lay their hands on its natural resources. Yesterday (Thursday 11th September) eight people were killed during a fascist attack in Cobija, at the same time as the right continued its occupation of municipal buildings, government treasury offices and natural gas regulators. They also set fire to the house of Lucio Vedia, the leading trade unionist in Santa Cruz, the country’s largest city. However, although Evo Morales has sent troops into the natural gas extraction plants and has now dismissed the United States ambassador for his role in supporting right-wing coup attempts, he still refuses to organise any effective action to stop the violence waged by the oligarchy and militias such as the fascist Union Juvenil Cruceñista. Instead, the Morales government offers talks on a “negotiated re-distribution of power” and has called on what it calls the “violent minority” on the right to “return to the negotiating table”. As he seeks the reconciliation of the “Andean” and oligarchic strata of the bourgeoisie, workers and indigenous people under attack from the UJC are having to organise against the violence themselves, once again showing that the class struggle underlies the near-civil war in Bolivia.

coup threat in bolivia

A week ago we carried a report from La Paz on the deepening crisis in Bolivia, where the oligarchy are using fascist shock troops to seize control of public buildings and attack trade unionists and indigenous people in their efforts to take back control of the country. The oligarchy already control half of Bolivia, including most of the east and south, and now they are even more openly mobilising for a coup: yet the Morales government continues to sit on its hands and offer ‘negotiations’ with the oligarchs. The article below is translated from the Spanish from www.econoticiasbolivia.com

kapd documents in ‘ideas’

Introduction by Chris Ford

The following two texts are from the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany (KAPD).  The KAPD is mostly known through the critique written by Lenin, ‘Left-Wing’ Communism – An Infantile Disorder, aimed at the KAPD amongst others.   As result the KAPD are often simply dismissed amongst the traditional left as “anarchists” and “ultra-left”.  In fact the KAPD were none of these things:  they were a mass communist party and played a key role in the German Revolution.