WORKERS SOLIDARITY Paper of the Irish anarchist group, Workers Solidarity Movement No 43 Autumn 1994 (electronic addition) Part 1 (Intro & Shorts) 19K Socialism & freedom 10 years of the WSM Thats Capitalism World Unemployment Revolutionaries letter from Serbia ******************* SOCIALISM _AND_ FREEDOM WHAT IS IT that most ordinary people want in life? Is it something unreal or utopian? No. The goals which most people have are quite modest. A good standard of living and freedom to live our lives the way we want to. Instead we have to put with unemployment, low pay, insecure employment, drudgery. We are pushed around, bullied or dominated by bosses and faceless bureaucrats. All of this to make a small group of people, the ruling class, wealthy beyond most peoples' wildest dreams. Most of us want equality with our fellows in the decision making and control that affects our lives, and those of our families. We want the security of knowing that the necessities of life will always be there for ourselves and our loved ones, and that we will not have our world pulled from under us by being thrown on the dole. We want to enjoy the good things that go make life both human and pleasant. We do not want to denied this type of life because lack of money makes it available only to the wealthy. The working class creates all wealth, we should be able to enjoy its benefits. In a world which can put people onto the moon, cure most diseases, speak to people thousands of miles away, and the thousands of other scientific achievements this century has produced, our goal is no fantasy or utopia. It is achievable but only if we are clear about what we are against and what we are in favour of. The "communist" world was not communist. It was state capitalist and dictatorial. A small elite controlled everything. The "free" world is not free. In their lust for power and profit the ruling class have given us a planet where millionaires can have whatever they want while the rest of us have to make do with what's left over. Whilst poverty, hunger, oppression and wars continue to plague the people of this planet there will always be people seeking an alternative way to run society. Whilst the division of people into bosses and workers, rulers and ruled, continues there will be no meaningful change. Anarchists want to abolish, once and for all, the root cause of such human suffering. The alternative we work for is a world where production is to satisfy human needs and desires, not to make profits for a small parasitic minority. A world where we can all have a direct say in the decisions that will affect us, where participatory democracy is found everywhere. A world where freedom is the rule and not the exception. *************** For Starters TEN YEARS OF THE WSM IN LATE September 1984 five anarchists, three from Dublin and two from Cork decided to launch the Workers Solidarity Movement. This was certainly a major undertaking for such a small number of people. Workers Solidarity began publication five weeks later. The first editorial introduced the new organisation: "Are there not enough organisations trying to change society? What makes the Workers Solidarity Society so different? "We are different, very different. Unlike so many others we do not believe the end justifies the means. We say the means you use will shape the society you create. We want a free and socialist society, and we have to organise in a like manner. "We are anarchists. We are socialists. You can't have one without the other because they are one and the same thing. Socialism is not a collection of reforms and minor changes. It means a lot more than that. It means building something completely new. And you build everything from the bottom up - socialism is no exception. "We won't be trying to take over the state structures. Government, the existing civil service, police, army and so on are there to meet the needs of a capitalist society. They cannot be turned round to serve socialism, they were not designed for that. The state is only necessary when a minority wants to rule. "Workers will create their own structures to bring a new society into being. Structures that are efficient and geared towards mass involvement and democratic decision making. All of this is not just around the corner. But unless we know what we want and how to get it we will be stuck with the chaos and inequality of the present system with its continual series of crises." Over the last decade the WSM has grown and developed policies based on its anti- authoritarian and socialist views. A lot of time went into discussing and debating the sort of society we want and how to achieve it. We certainly did not want to copy the "shepherd & sheep" model used by so many Leninist groups. We were determined that there would be no reliance of one or two leaders for ideas, that every member would be genuinely able to influence the course of the WSM. Our goal was to to popularise anarchism and fight for the creation of a society based on its principles: individual freedom, collective management of society by its workers, participatory democracy. Those aims remains the same. Producing Workers Solidarity, publishing pamphlets and hosting public meetings is part of our activity. But we are not mere advocates of a better world, we are involved in the struggles to make things better right now. That is why WSM members have supported strikers at Pat the Baker, UCD, Dunnes Stores, the ESB and many others. That is why we helped to form the Dublin Abortion Information Campaign which brought enough people onto the streets in 1992 to defeat the government's injunction against "X" and led to the successful referenda against restrictions on abortion information and womens right to travel. We have been involved in many struggles, many more than there is_space to list here. Anarchism is the only realistic alternative to capitalism. What passed for alternatives in the past have lost most of their appeal. Stalinism is terminally ill, only hanging on by its finger nails in North Korea and Cuba. It is finished as a movement. Leninism and Trotskyism are being swept along with it into the dustbin of history. Social democracy and its Labour Parties are disgraced throughout much of the world. Within Ireland republicanism has retreated from the verbal 'socialism' it adopted in the 1980s. While opposing the presence of the British Army and the continuing partition of the country, we have always said that the politics and methods of nationalism are wrong. We have to oppose imperialism and, at the same time, oppose the clerical nationalist laws in the South which ban divorce and abortion. We have to oppose Orange bigotry while at the same time campaigning for the complete separation of Church and State. We do not fight for a united capitalist Ireland, neither as a 'step in the right direction' or as an end in itself. Joining the six to the twenty six counties offers nothing to working class people in either state. We have no interest in re-dividing poverty on a more 'equitable' basis. The only Ireland worth fighting for is a Workers Republic where every working class person stands to gain. The way towards such a new Ireland is the way of class struggle and mass action, taking control of our own struggles and doing it in our own class interests. This is the road to freedom. Liberty, workers control, anti- authoritarianism... if these are the sort of aims you have, then you should find out more about anarchism and the Workers Solidarity Movement. ***************** THATS CAPITALISM In 1977 part-time women workers in Britain earned 83% of the full-time hourly rate for women. By 1992 they earned only 73% of the hourly rate. ***** In the Indonesian archipelago only 7% of land has a clear owner. Most is communally owned and administered by villages and families. That's no good for capitalism says the World Bank. they are working with the Indonesian Government to change things by compiling a register of land owners. In the next 25 years they hope to register 54 million parcels of land. ***** If you are 17 or under in the U.S.A. you cannot go out at night alter 11pm. (midnight at the weekends). Those are the curfew regulations being adopted by a growing number of American cities in order to "fight" crime. So far Baltimore, Santa Monica, Phoenix, Dallas and Atlanta have adopted the idea. New Orleans and Washington are considering. ***** When Mary Robinson went to India last year she hailed the economic changes there. Speaking on our behalf she praised the move "to liberalise and globalise its economy" declaring it to be one of the "most auspicious development of recent years." The changes she said would release "the energies and skills of its people". What these new economic changes are all about was underlined by India's budget in February. The Corporate tax rate was cut from 58% to 44% and the top individual tax band was also from 45% to 40%. The IMF applauded the budget. ***** A survey of earnings in Los Angles in 1993 showed that the average wage for an actor was just $12,500. A far cry from money commanded by the likes of Julia Roberts or Robert DeNiro. But there was an even bigger difference. The head of Disney, Michael Eisner, earned $203,950,000 in the same year. That's 16,316 times the wage of the average actor. ***** Costa Rican plantation workers have filed suits in the USA against Shell Oil, Dow Chemicals, Standard Fruit and the owners of Chiquita brand bananas on foot of sterility problems encountered by workers picking bananas sprayed with a pesticide banned in the US in 1979. Over 16,000 workers are affected not just in Costa Rica but also Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and the Philippines. The workers have proof that the chemicals in question, marketed as Nemagon or Fumazone, were shipped for use outside the US after the ban there in 1979. No health hazard warnings were ever included with the shipments despite the ban in the US. The workers were never warned of the dangers. ***** The Drug Enforcement Agency in the USA netted a ring of cocaine money launders in Florida earlier this year. Among those arrested were the vice-president of Merril Lynch in Panama and another senior executive from the same company. ***** Russian bosses are catching on fast. The independent miners union in Vorkuta, on the Arctic circle, recently highlighted some novel ways of doing business. The coal being mined by the workers was sold to a local company, owned by the mine director, for just $3 a tonne. The mine director sold it abroad for $30 a tonne. All legal and above board. ***** The number of empty homes in Britain has risen by 30% in ten years, reports the Empty Homes Agency, a charity. The number of homeless families has more than doubled over the same period. ***** According to the Roman Catholic development agency, Trocaire, 16,442 Brazilian workers were actually in slavery in 1992. *************************** If you think the system is working ...ask someone who isn't NEARLY ONE out of three workers in the world's labour force either has no job or is earning too little to live decently, the International Labour Organisation reports. The United Nations organisation calls the situation "the worst global employment criosis since the Great Depression of the 1930s". The ILO said 120 million people are registered as unemployed around the world and millions more are either tired of looking for work or never bothered to register. "Practically half of the 35 million unemployed workers in Western Europe have been off the employment rolls for a year or more", said ILO Director General, Michael Hansenne. His report estimates another 700 million are underemployed, earning less than needed to support a minimum standard of living. According to UN figures, the average income of the world's 5.5 billion people may have fallen slightly in 1993 - for the fourth year in a row. Source: Industrial Worker ********************* Thinking about anarchism REVOLUTIONARIES I may not have any chains around my feet, but still, I am not free. In modern society - capitalism - our bosses and leaders have invented new methods to chain us. According to the propaganda we are supposed to live in a free, democratic society, yet all of us experience limitations in our lives. Everyday more of us are being flung on the dole, families are being thrown out on the streets, our pay packets are shrinking and prices keep going up. Politicians care about little else except their popularity. In truth, we all know that this free, democratic society doesn't exist on the streets where we live. We must change the system which forces us to live under it's heel. The only way to take the power back from the bosses and place it in the hands of the people is via Revolution. Capitalism now operates globally. If you are serious about fighting them then there is a glaring need to organise and co-ordinate. It is in answer to this need that revolutionary organisations spring. To be led is to be DEAD. Anarchists have an acknowledged respect for individual freedom. We believe that anarchist ideas and principles are those which will bring about a successful revolution. We are not interested in changing our leaders. We wish to change the system so that there is no leaders just real democracy. We therefore believe in the need to develop individually. Socialism doesn't exist without freedom. What we want is a society where we are free to exercise control over our own lives. Ideas are our lifeblood Just as there are major differences between Marxists and Anarchists in politics so there is in the way we organise. We do not have leaders and led. Anarchists believe that ideas are the lifeblood of a revolutionary movement. We wish to be the educators and instigators of our class but not the leaders. The working class has been led down enough 'cul de sacs' to not be bothered with the journey. The WSM The WSM, as our organisation, must reflect the type of society we wish to create. All our members are active in the work and decision making of the organisation. Each member carries out the tasks of writing, paper selling, and preparing educational talks. We are all involved in campaign work and in our trade unions. Here we address the issues and try and win people to our politics in both heat and mind. Party Versus You There are no power positions within the WSM. Any position held within the organisation is electable, recallable and entails administrative work. The Leninists demonstrated that power when wielded in the name of the working class means the precedence of the party over the people. There will always come a time when there is a clash between the party and the people. This is because it is the party making the decisions on behalf of the people and not the people making and exercising their own decisions.. We say that Anarchism has no place for power unless it is in the hands of the workers themselves. The need for efficient co-ordination and decision making in a post revolutionary period shall be dealt with by the workers' own organisations. The history of struggle is also the history of self-organisation. >From the Paris Commune through the original Russian Soviets to the workers' self- management in 1930's Spain, people have automatically sought to organise themselves and create their own decision-making organs. Democracy either involves decisions being taken by the people being effected or it is not democracy. Such self-organisation will provide the structure for our future free society to be built on. "Only the Truth is Revolutionary" The WSM are not players in a game called politics. For us politics is the fight forward for a better future. Anarchism will either be the creation of a free and politically aware working class.....or it will not be anarchism. It is the role of a revolutionary organisation is to get our class to a stage where we take on the might of the state, destroy it and replace it with workers' councils. There is no room for leaders or parties doing it on our behalf. There is only room for the working class being in control and in power. When the working class are in charge of society then it will only be run in our interests. Dermot Sreenan **************** LETTERS Dear comrades, We have received your magazine Workers Solidarity so we've decided to write to you and inform you about the growth of anarchism in new Yugoslavia [ed. Serbia, Kosovo etc.]. The Anarchist movement started to grow at the end of 1993. Before that there were only anarchist zines and groups of people who did not function as anarchist/political groups but only carried out direct actions against war, fascism and government. Now there are three organising groups and some sections in several towns all over Serbia. Unfortunately, we could not do much until now because of the very bad economic situation but hopefully we are starting some good work. In February this year, together with comrades from Croatia and with financial support of comrades from the anarchist group 'Germinal' from Trieste, Italy we've published a bulletin called "Over the walls of nationalism and war". 8,000 copies were printed. It was a big success in our anti-war and anti-nationalism projects and it was reviewed in some big official newspapers and even on TV. Name & address with editor * the letter has been edited to reduce its length and clarify the language. ************************ Part 2 (Ireland & Imperialism) It was always time to go..Troops out now! When British army chiefs refused to obey orders Nationalism...No Thanks When the Falls & the Shankill fought together Part 3 (Drugs) In this section Legalise it The heroin menace Part 4 (Campaigns & Struggle in Ireland) TEAM workers told not to expect a decent job Lets get together Anti-Water charges campaign gets off ground Reasons to bin the bill Part 5 (A rotten world) Interview with Italian anarchist Ireland..The land of a 1000 welcomes? Hicksons chemical spill 37% illegally underpaid *********************** Workers Solidarity currently comes out four times a year. For subscription details write to WSM, PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland. Also appearing in the near future will be a theoretical magazine called Red and Black Revolution. ***************** +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland or by anonymous e-mail to an64739@anon.penet.fi Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18 or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu") or WWW at http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/spunk/Spunk_Home.html in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM