reminder: 9th february reading group meeting

The next meeting in our reading group on ‘communism from below’ takes place on Monday 9th, and the reading material is available online.

While reading the texts, we ask people to think about these questions:

– Is Parliament a neutral arbiter between classes? Does the state bureaucracy have autonomous interests of its own?
– Is state intervention in the economy in Britain today at odds with the interests of private capitalists, and is it of benefit to workers?
– To what extent is it worthwhile for the labour movement to have a parliamentary wing?

The first text is The new forms of appearance of state-capitalism by Andrew Kliman. It argues that the crisis shows that state intervention is not in contradiction to free-market ideology: pro-privatisation dogma means the state squeezes social services and yet uses huge amounts of public cash and regulation to more safely structure capitalist exploitation.

Section 18.4 of Istvan Meszaros’ Beyond Capital argues that because capital’s dominance over the working class extends throughout society, we cannot consider that capital and labour have a “level playing field” in Parliament. Rather, the parliamentary-state apparatus serves to balance the interests of competing capitalists in the interests of capitalism as a whole, and so it follows that we need to look beyond such structures in order to effect real social transformation.

The meeting is taking place from 6:30pm on Monday 9th February. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to request a printed copy of the texts, register your interest and find out more details of the central London venue. Click here to download leaflet.

defend cleaners’ rights: protests 30th january

URGENT: DEFEND LATIN AMERICAN WORKERS’ RIGHTS

The MERU [Ecuadorians’ movement in the UK] solidarises with our comrades unjustly sacked by Mitie, who include Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Portuguese workers.

This dispute started a few months ago when Mitie, without consulting the workers as it ought to have done, established new contracts with Willis Group forcing workers to work full time at night. A situation which the cleaners could not accept.

This attack was confronted by the workers, but today the struggle is still going on and needs fresh support. So MERU is putting out a call out for a protest against the Mitie company so that the workers are either allowed back to work or re-located.

These sackings are taking place in various workplaces, so we must be on the alert and fight back in unity to guarantee our rights at work.

PROTEST FOR THE DIGNITY OF THE CLEANERS, SO THAT THEY ARE ALLOWED BACK TO WORK, FOR UNITY AND SOLIDARITY WITH CLEANERS

Assemble at the Willis Building, 51 Lime Street London EC3M 7DQ (nr Liverpool St) at 1pm, Friday 30th January.

Contact Edwin Pazmino 07931464890 or Juan Carlos Piedra 07908099375

info@movimientoecuador.co.uk, williscleaners4justice@live.co.uk

A second demonstration in defense of Sodexho cleaners will take place from 2:30pm on Friday 30th outside ING Bank, 60 London Wall.

finances + standing orders

We need money! Like all revolutionary organisations, we have to finance ourselves, and producing a monthly 12-page paper, frequent pamphlets and holding two public meetings in London every three weeks isn’t cheap.

So we’re appealing to all our readers to give what they can to the cause and help keep us going. Any donation, even only a few pounds, is very useful to us: send a cheque (made out to “The Commune”) or carefully concealed cash to The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY. If you want to make a transfer, our Co-operative account’s sort code is 089299, account number 65317440.

Or, even better, take out a standing order and pay regularly so we know how much money we have coming in each month. Fill out one of these forms and post it to us or take it to your bank.

reading for 9th february reading group

The reading for the next meeting in our reading group on ‘communism from below’ is now online.

While reading the texts, we ask people to think about these questions:

– Is Parliament a neutral arbiter between classes? Does the state bureaucracy have autonomous interests of its own?
– Is state intervention in the economy in Britain today at odds with the interests of private capitalists, and is it of benefit to workers?
– To what extent is it worthwhile for the labour movement to have a parliamentary wing?

The first text is The new forms of appearance of state-capitalism by Andrew Kliman. It argues that the crisis shows that state intervention is not in contradiction to free-market ideology: pro-privatisation dogma means the state squeezes social services and yet uses huge amounts of public cash and regulation to more safely structure capitalist exploitation.

Section 18.4 of Istvan Meszaros’ Beyond Capital argues that because capital’s dominance over the working class extends throughout society, we cannot consider that capital and labour have a “level playing field” in Parliament. Rather, the parliamentary-state apparatus serves to balance the interests of competing capitalists in the interests of capitalism as a whole, and so it follows that we need to look beyond such structures in order to effect real social transformation.

The meeting is taking place from 6:30pm on Monday 9th February. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to request a printed copy of the texts, register your interest and find out more details of the central London venue. Click here to download leaflet.

new pamphlet: the meaning of communism today

We are pleased to announce the publication of our sixth pamphlet, “The meaning of communism today”.

The pamphlet, excerpted in the latest issue of The Commune, features a discussion document produced by supporters of A l’Encontre, l’Emancipation sociale, Carré rouge and A contre-courant looking at what alternative we can pose to the crisis-ridden capitalist system, including a focus on gender oppression, the coming ecological disaster and modern imperialism.

Arguing against the tried-and-failed statist and vanguardist conceptions of Stalinism and social-democracy, the piece puts forward the case for a self-managed society based on participatory democracy and collective decision making.

You can order the pamphlet for £1 + postage by writing to uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.

the commune issue 2 published

february 2009 – £1 + postage and packing, email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to order

click here for pdf or see individual articles below

barack obama is lipstick on a pig – by Ernie Haberkern

civil service pay dispute: defeat or victory? – by Steve Ryan, Wrexham PCS

class struggle on the london underground – interview with Vaughan Thomas, RMT London region chair (LUL)

occupations: the way to win? – guest editorial by Gregor Gall

the people’s charter: a charter for change? – by Chris Kane (online only)

militancy and mobilisation in the anti-war movement

the mindset of israelis in the gaza conflict – by Solomon Anker

anti-semitism and the war – by Aled Thomas

unemployment: a view from the front line – by Christine Hulme, PCS DWP

welfare ‘reform’, the brown premiership and the recession – by Chris Grover, Lancaster University

what does ‘socialism or barbarism’ mean today? – by François Chesnais

call centres: the workers’ enquiry – review by Jack Staunton

ukraine’s ‘new left’ and the russian ‘gas war’ – by Milan Lelich

the socialist movement in iran – by Sam Parsa

political platform of the commune

reminder: january 19th reading group on self-organisation and communism from below

Our series of reading groups kicks off at 6:30pm on Monday January 19th with a discussion on the subject of working class self-organisation and “communism from below”.  Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to find out more info on the central London venue. The texts for this first meeting are:

The Communist Manifesto (click here)

Arguing against different conceptions of “socialism” prevalent at the time, such as paternalistic “utopian” projects, Marx and Engels’ 1848 Manifesto argues that it is the working class must take power in order to revolutionise society. Tracing the development of Western society through the ages, Marx argues that we must get rid of capitalist ownership and the repressive social order and create a new, free and collectively organised system based on the development achieved by humanity thus far.

The Civil War in France – Engels’ 1891 introduction (click here) and chapter five (click here)

Marx’s thundering eulogy to the Communards – the Parisian workers who seized power in 1871 in the midst of France’s defeat in a war against Prussia – and the new order they established, casting aside the state bureaucracy and standing army and taking control with their democratic working-class “commune”. Introduction by Engels traces French history in the intervening decades and summarises the work.

Communism and Society (click here)

This section of British communist William Paul’s 1922 work argues against conceptions of introducting socialism through Parliament, and like Marx in The Civil War in France denies that the working class can take over the existing state machinery. Paul’s piece focuses on the self-organisation of the class and the manner in which the organisation of struggles against capitalism prefigures the society which will replace it.

Socialism and self-management (click here)

Yugoslav Marxist Mihailo Markovic’s piece looks at different aspects of workers’ self-management, with particular reference to post-war Yugoslavia where organs expressing elements of workers’ democracy were in conflict with the state bureaucracy under Marshal Tito. He argues that the state and party should be replaced by organs of workers’ self management whereby the mass of the population make economic, political and social decisions for themselves.

bulletin for january 10th rmt conference on “the crisis in working-class political representation”

On January 10th the RMT is holding a conference on “the crisis in working class political representation”. Three years after staging a similar conference – and after three years in which no progress has been made – the union leadership is carrying out some of ‘the letter’ of its conference policy to set up workers’ representation committees, although the event on Saturday will have no motions, votes or powers to make decisions. Nevertheless it should provide a forum for discussing the question of where left electoral initiatives have gone wrong and what we can do next.

We will be distributing a bulletin arguing that saying  “shall the unions stay in the Labour Party or set up a new party [a Labour Party Mk II]?” is asking the wrong question. We do not want either, but a wholesale reorganisation of the trade unions and an end to the rigid separation between workplace activism and Parliamentary/electoral politics which characterises so much of the history of the British labour movement. Click here for a pdf of the bulletin.

The event takes place from 11am to 3pm at Friends’ Meeting House near Euston Station. Speakers include Bob Crow, Mark Serwotka and John McDonnell – register at www.rmt.org.uk

leaflet for 26th january forum on “resisting the recession”

Click on the picture to see a pdf file of the leaflet (two to an A4 page)

january-july 2009: reading group on communism from below

Through the first half of 2009 we are holding reading group meetings every three weeks, with the texts focussing on different conceptions of communism and the organisational forms needed to get there. Click here to see the full list of dates, subjects and texts.

The next meeting is on January 19th, on the subject of “Self organisation and communism from below”.

All meetings start on Mondays at 7pm, and the venue is in central London. We aim to have inclusive and undogmatic discussions, and all are welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to register your interest.

The series will run parallel to a series of forums on “capitalism and the working class today”, starting on January 26th: more details to follow.

greek embassy demo 18th december

There will be a demonstration outside the Greek Embassy in London on Thursday 18th December showing solidarity with workers and students in Greece, after the murder of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by the police and a series of strikes and protests against the government.

The solidarity protest will take place 4-6pm on the 18th. The Embassy is located at 1A Holland Park, London W11 3TP. The nearest Tube stop is Holland Park: see map below.

changes to line-up for monday’s forum

PCS activist Christine Hulme has been added to the platform for Monday‘s ‘uncaptive minds’ forum on the 1970s class struggle. She will be leading off the discussion alongside John McDonnell MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP and RMT activist Steve Hedley.

Unfortunately, Joe Marino will now be unable to attend, for health reasons.

The meeting begins at 6:30pm on Monday 8th December. The venue is in central London – email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or phone 07595 245494 to find out more details.

the 1970s class struggle – where did it all go? forum, 8th december

The final meeting in our ‘uncaptive minds’ series on 1970s class struggle will be a forum on the lessons of the decade, what has changed in capitalism and where the workers’ movement has gone wrong. Drawing on the discussions at our previous six meetings, we will also look to tease out how we can apply this experience in our struggles today.

We have a panel of four speakers leading off the debate:

– John McDonnell MP

– Jeremy Corbyn MP

– Joe Marino, general secretary of the Bakers’, Foods and Allied Workers’ Union

– Steve Hedley, RMT London Underground regional secretary

There will be plenty of time for discussion and debate at the meeting, which kicks off at 6:30pm on Monday 8th December. The venue is in central London – email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or phone 07595 245494 to find out more details.

the origins of the movement for workers’ councils in germany

Ninety years ago the German working class unseated the Kaiser and the military establishment with a series of strikes and mutinies which brought World War I to a close.

Conscripted sailors and soldiers created strike committees, and then joined with industrial workers to create workers’ councils akin to the soviets which existed during the Russian revolution. These enjoyed extensive working class participation and in some cities held power: but over the subsequent five year revolutionary wave the working class was time and again crushed by the Social Democrats and the right-wing troops it could call upon to defend capital.

For our latest pamphlet we have reprinted a seventy-year old pamphlet on the workers’ council movement produced by the Dutch GIK (Group of International Communists) accompanied by the autobiography of leading GIK member Jan Appel (a participant in the revolution and the commandeering of a ship) along with a chronology of the German revolution.

Printed copies cost £1 each – email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or write to The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.

click here for pdf