We lay out what we think that we, as ordinary people, can do to make our lives, our communities, our jobs and our planet better.
In our ideas here we have not made any suggestions about what the government should do, or how we would run things if we were elected like political parties do. This is because we believe that political parties and governments are part of the problem, not part of any solution to the world’s problems.
It is about how we can act in our everyday lives to try to improve our conditions, our local areas and our planet.
Libcom note 2012: This was a project we started, intending to expand upon but in the end we didn't do more than a few articles. To some extent it has been superseded by our introductory guides, but we could go back and update and expand this at some point. If you would like to write additional content for it please let us know in the comments below.
We outline why we believe that political parties and governments cannot be used to improve our lives, and why we think that the only way meaningful change can occur is if we as ordinary people get together at the grassroots and make them happen.
In practical terms this means that instead of appealing to our leaders for change, or forming political parties to take state power, we make the changes we want – ourselves – and from the bottom up.
We call this direct action, and we think that this is the best way for us to win better, more fulfilling existences. Direct action is a oft-misused term – in our Glossary it is defined as “action taken directly by people themselves to make changes they want in the world, without appealing to the government, political parties or bosses. Most mass direct action is in the form of strikes, non-payment of unjust taxes, and blockades.”
Direct action has won countless gains for working people the world over. We used to have to work 14-hour days, seven days a week until workers came together and organised in trade unions and other associations, faced up to savage repression and successfully won the much better (but still totally inadequate) conditions and wages we have today.
Mass direct action in this country only a little over ten years ago defeated Maggie Thatcher’s Poll Tax, while electoral efforts were fruitless [1].
While electoral ("political") activity ensures that we all become accustomed to following leaders and letting them act on our behalf, we support direct action as the best available means for preparing ourselves to manage their own personal and collective interests.
Libertarian communists therefore argue that we need to reclaim the power which has been concentrated into the hands of the state. That is why we stress direct action. Through direct action, the people dominate their own struggles, it is we who conduct it, organise it, manage it. We do not hand over to others the task of self-liberation. That way, we become accustomed to managing our own affairs, creating alternative, libertarian, forms of social organisation which can become a force to resist the state, win reforms and, ultimately, become the framework of a free society. Such organisations often appear in times of struggle as community assemblies, factory committees, workers' councils, and so on. These organs of direct-democracy have been the most important element of revolutions over the past 250 years, although they were often usurped into representative institutions or crushed militarily.
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The embryo of a new society - community assembly in the Argentine uprising of 2001. One third of the population participated in the assemblies. |
We are in favour of collective, mass action. There is nothing more isolated, atomised and individualistic than voting in elections. It is the act of one person in a box by themselves, the total opposite of collective struggle. The individual is alone before, during and after the act of voting. Indeed, unlike direct action, which, by its very nature, throws up new forms of organisation in order to manage and co-ordinate the struggle, voting creates no alternative organs of workers’ self-management; nor can it, as it is not based on nor does it create collective action or organisation. It simply empowers an individual (the elected representative) to act on behalf of a collection of other individuals (the voters). This will hinder collective organisation and action as the voters expect their representative to act and fight for them - as if they did not, they would not vote for them in the first place!
In other words, the idea that socialists standing for elections somehow prepares working class people for a new world is simply wrong. Utilising the state, standing in elections, only prepares people for following leaders - it does not encourage the self-activity, self-organisation, direct action and mass struggle required to build a better society. Moreover, use of elections has a corrupting effect on those who use it. The history of radicals using elections has been a long one of betrayal and the transformation of revolutionary parties into reformist ones. Thus using the existing state ensures that the division at the heart of existing society (namely a few who govern and the many who obey) is reproduced in the movements trying to abolish it. It boils down to handing effective leadership to special people, to "leaders," just when the situation requires working people to solve their own problems and take matters into their own hands. Only the struggle for freedom can be the school for freedom, and by placing power into the hands of leaders, utilising the existing state ensures that socialism is postponed rather than prepared for.
On a more practical level, electoral activity is stacked towards the rich and powerful. To even register on the public radar requires multi-million pound advertising, and coverage in the corporate media. Trying to get an independent candidate elected into office is massively time-consuming and expensive – time which could be used building up a working class counter-power, in the forum of organisations based on solidarity between people, where we can stick together and force the state to give in to our demands.
Governments only grant demands to the people when their very power is threatened – for example the introduction of social housing following the mass workers’ and ex-soldiers’ squatting movement after World War 2, or nationalisation of the coal industry following massive strikes. In Latin America today, left-wing governments in countries such as Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil are granting large-scale land and social reform. This is not due to their benevolence, however – it is due to the massive social movements which have been using direct action for years to make the changes themselves. Landless and homeless movements have been occupying land and buildings, workers have taken over bankrupt factories, and communities have blockaded roads to stop privatisation and sell-offs of natural resources. If the governments had not granted these reforms, they would have been overthrown! In fact, many governments only ratify changes which workers have already made, such as in Argentina legalising already-occupied factories and in the Spanish and Russian revolutions giving official sanction to land collectivisations already undertaken.
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Chile 1973 - Soldiers round up dissident workers in the National Stadium following the coup against the democratically-elected left-wing government. |
In many countries the two-party system making
it almost impossible for progressive parties to get elected, since
if you vote for the most radical you will split the progressive
vote and maybe let the conservative or reactionary government in.
In the rare instances where radical parties who claim to want to
make improvements for the majority (for example by taxing or taking
into public ownership large corporations, or introducing strict
environmental or workers’ rights laws) become large, one of
the following always happens:
▫ They sell out their
principles in order to receive backing from corporations or the
mass media - also owned by huge corporations – which is necessary
in most countries to even get elected. Good examples of this would
be New Labour, and Green Parties in power in Germany and Belgium.
▫They get in power,
try to implement progressive policies and find themselves at the
mercy of larger economic forces. For example if one country introduces
a good minimum wage, or high taxes corporate profits there will
be capital flight – businesses will just shift overseas. This
was demonstrated very strongly by the capital flight during the
1974-79 Labour government which tried to carry out a pro-worker
program [2].
▫ They get in power, try to implement progressive policies
and are overthrown by force by domestic or foreign forces backed
by business interests. The CIA-backed coup against the left-wing
Chilean President Allende in 1973 (see picture above) being
a case in point; another example almost occurred in Italy after
World War 2, where the right-wing secret army, Gladio
was to launch a coup if the Communist Party entered government.
We want a world where we are all in control our own lives, our own
communities, and our own destinies, and where we are free to live
out our dreams and desires. We recognise that many people who are
members of political parties share our goals, but we sincerely believe
that electoral activity is a massively costly (in both time and
money) exercise which ultimately is counter-productive.
Politics is a game set up by the rich and powerful, without a level playing field, and as ordinary people we are best off using our energy to organise ourselves and build solidarity amongst all workers to fight for our own interests. Of course we welcome all progressive government reforms, but none our ever handed down – we must fight for them, all the while continuing to build the new world within the shell of the old.
For libertarian communists, while we would like to live in a classless, stateless, free society whether we get there or not in our lifetimes does not matter. We believe that our ideas and tactics are the best for winning better lives for ourselves in the here and now as well. Apart from direct action and solidarity being the most effective methods of winning improvements to our communities, our environment and our work, they are even beneficial to the individual participant’s mental health, and the bonds which are formed between people in such activity [3] can never be forgotten.
libcom.org
Footnotes
1 - For more information on Militant's electoral
opposition to the Poll Tax see here
2 - More
information here
3 – Sussex University Study, 2002.
Press
release here
A summary and examination of the environmental crisis and its causes, and how we think that the problems can be solved.
The Earth is facing an environmental crisis on a scale unprecedented in human history. This environmental crisis is already responsible for high levels of human suffering. If the crisis continues to develop at its current rate, the ultimate result will be the extinction of human life on the planet.
We call for action to end the environmental crisis because of the threat it poses to humankind, and because we recognise that nature and the environment have value in their own terms.
The main environmental problems include:
Air pollution: creates global warming (or climate change): a general increase in planetary temperatures that will severely disrupt weather patterns causing mass floods, droughts, chaotic climate fluctuations and disease killing millions; destroys the ozone layer that filters out dangerous cancer-causing rays from the sun; turns rain water into acid that destroys plant and animal life. It also causes respiratory and other diseases amongst humans which kills over 30,000 people a year in the UK1.
Solid waste: the sea and the land environments are poisoned by the dumping of dangerous industrial wastes (such as mercury and nuclear waste); the use of materials that nature cannot break down in packaging and in other products, particularly disposable products, have turned many parts of the world into large rubbish dumps. This is also a waste of finite resources and it poisons and injures people.
Soil erosion: this takes place in both the West and the so-called “developing” world, and is the result of factors such the (mis-)use of chemical fertilisers, dangerous pesticides etc., as well as inappropriate land use, land overuse, and the felling of trees. For these reasons, soil is eroded at a rate faster than that at which it is being produced which contributes to rural poverty2/
Extinction: plants and animals are being made extinct at a faster rate than any time since the dinosaurs died out, 60 million years ago. This results in the loss of many species, and undermines the eco-sphere on which all life depends.
What’s behind the environmental crisis?
There is nothing inherently environmentally destructive about modern industrial technologies3. However as they are (mis-)used today, industry – particularly the burning of fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas for energy, which releases carbon Dioxide (CO2) which causes global warming - is catapulting the planet towards disaster. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.
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The effect of global warming: Argentina's Upsala Glacier was once the biggest in South America. This image and more on bbc.co.uk |
Many dangerous technologies and substances can be replaced. For example, instead of burning fossil fuels, renewable sources of energy can be used, such as wind, solar or geothermal power. Petrochemical based plastics, which are not biodegradable, can be replaced by starch-based plastics (which safely disintegrate if left outside in a couple of weeks); palm oil can be used to replace diesel, etc.. Dangerous technologies must be replaced with sustainable ones. Wasteful practices must be ended such as the use of disposable containers as opposed to recyclable ones, and importantly the production of far more goods than can actually be used. Living in harmony with the Earth does not mean that we in the West will have to accept a lower standard of living, although the excesses of the ultra-rich are unsustainable.
Rather than on ordinary people in relatively wealthy countries, the real blame for the environmental crisis must be laid at the door of capitalism and the State, and the society that these forces have created.
Capitalism
Capitalism is an enormously wasteful system of production, which is geared towards competition in the market, and to making profits. Under capitalism, the needs of the working class are not met, a false sort of "over- production" takes place, and pollution is endemic.4
Huge amounts of goods are built to break as soon as possible in order to keep sales up (built-in obsolescence) and a large number of useless or inefficient goods are promoted and sold by means of high pressure advertising, and often with the aid of government policy (such as private cars in place of large-scale public transport). Furthermore, this advertising pressures us to dispose of useful items which are no longer “cool” and purchase new ones.
We must not make the mistake of assuming that all goods produced under capitalism are actually consumed by ordinary people. Often the bosses produce more of a given product than can be sold on the market, and this can lead to a price collapse and a recession. The bosses' solution is to destroy or stockpile the "extra" goods, rather than distribute them to those who need them (which would cut into profits). In 1991 there were 200 million tons of grain worldwide which were hoarded to preserve price levels. Three million tons could have eliminated famine in Africa that year – and now the situation is still no different.
It also costs money and cuts into potential profits to install safety equipment and monitor the use of dangerous materials. It is more profitable for the capitalists to shift these costs (sometimes called "externalities") onto the consumer in the form of pollution.
We noted above that there are many environmentally-friendly technologies that can replace environmentally destructive ones. Many of these technologies and patents have been bought up and suppressed by vested capitalist interests – particularly big oil companies and renewable energies - that do not want technological changes that will threaten their profits.5
The state
The state, props up the capitalist system, and while it is largely powerless to alleviate environmental destruction it in itself is also a major cause of ecological degradation, funding huge environmentally destructive projects such as dam buildings or weapons manufacture and testing.
The state is a structure created to allow the minority of bosses and rulers to dominate and exploit us, the workers. The state will not willingly enforce strong environmental protection laws against the bosses because it does not want to cut into the profits of the bosses and into its own tax revenue.
In addition, the rulers of the state are afraid that strong environmental laws will chase away investors (e.g. in 1992, capitalists in Holland were able to block a proposed tax on carbon pollution by threatening to relocate to other countries).6
We reject the idea that the environment can be saved by means of the state, or by electing a Green Party. Green Parties always talk radical when in opposition, such as in the UK, but act the same as other parties when in power, as can be seen in Belgium, and also Germany where the government of which the Greens were a part backed nuclear waste transports and mobilised 20,000 police against protesting residents. See our manifesto's introduction for more reasons we believe the government can not help solve these problems, and also our criticism of the UK Green Party.
Class
At a general level, it is clear that the environmental crisis affects everybody, and threatens the survival of the human race as a whole.
However, even though the environmental crisis is a global threat, it is the urban and rural working class that is most severely affected by the various environmental problems.7 It is the working class that has to take the dangerous jobs that cause environmental degradation.
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Profitable - reducing pollution is a pricey business, not in the interests of corporations in competition |
While in the long-term a global environmental crisis would obviously affect everyone, it is not true that everybody shares an immediate interest in fighting against the environmental crisis: the bosses and the State benefit from the processes that harm the environment.8 Only workers and the poor have a direct interest right now in fighting for a clean environment.
Corporations engage in practices which destroy the environment as they need to make the maximum profit possible. Apart from the legal obligation to do so on many companies, the capitalist system enforces perpetual destruction by the imperative it creates – that corporations must grow or die. If a chemical company, say, instead of cheaply dumping waste at sea began to filter and purify all its waste – thus protecting the environment – it would lose valuable profit and thus would be either go bust or be bought up by a more ruthless competitor. Thus the institutional nature of capital makes individual corporations powerless to help, even if they wanted to (which of course they rarely do).
How can the problem be solved?
Mass action and a new society based on co-operation rather than profit are ultimately the only real ways to stop the environmental crisis.
The environmental crisis was generated by capitalism and the State, and can only be dealt with by challenging the power of these forces. We believe that only mass organising and mass grassroots action, as opposed to elections and lobbying, are effective methods of struggle. Read more on why we support grassroots action...
Because of the manner in which capitalism and the State by their very nature generate environmental destruction it is necessary in the long term to overthrow these structures and create a society based on real freedom and production and distribution on the basis of need, not profit. It is this kind of society that we would call "libertarian communist”, or “anarchist".
In addition, the working class is the source of all social wealth and is thus able, by action at the point of production, to wield a powerful weapon against the bosses and the rulers. We believe that our power as workers must be brought to bear in the struggle to halt the environmental crisis.
Because a large proportion of environmental damage takes place at the point of production and because the workers and our communities are the main victims of this pollution , "[t]rade union struggles for health and safety constitute the first line of defence for an embattled environment".9
The working class, organised in workplace resistance groups (such as syndicalist unions or rank-and-file groups), allied with communities struggling against environmental abuses can go a long way in stopping the State/capitalist onslaught against the planet. This sort of mass organising by the productive working class will do far more to stop the bosses than the small-scale guerrilla and obstruction tactics favoured by groups such as Earth First!, such as sabotaging bulldozers.10
A libertarian communist society will help the environment in three ways. First, the capitalist/state system that was the main cause of environmental problems, a system oriented to profit and power, will be replaced by a society based on need-satisfaction and grassroots democracy. Secondly, the excessive levels of consumption by the ultra-rich will be eliminated altogether, as will the idea that happiness can only be gained by buying more and more useless commodities.11 Finally, the workers will be able to install (and further develop) the ecologically sustainable technologies that the bosses currently suppress.12
Practical activity
General
Our role as libertarian communists is first and foremost to spread the ideas of workers’ self-organisation as far and wide as possible. We are in favour of helping people organise ourselves, and increase our confidence in our own decision-making capacity.
A crucial part of our work is to link a criticism of the present society with a vision of how society could be organised to benefit everyone. We support all progressive struggles, for their aims, for the confidence that campaigning gives people, and because it is in struggle that ideas are spread.
We always try to relate our ideas to the day-to-day needs and struggles of our class. We are opposed to an abstract form of environmentalism that does not link itself to the class struggle.
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A solution? Workers in environmentally destructive industries have to be organised, to force the introduction of green practices. |
Everyday
Libcom summary
1. The Earth is facing a serious environmental crisis with potentially catastrophic results.
2. The environmental crisis has been created by the twin institutions of capitalism and the State.
3. The working class has a direct interest in fighting to halt the environmental crisis as it the main victim of this crisis. By contrast the capitalist class profits from the crisis, and capitalist businesses are forced to continually expand and destroy the environment since if they did not, profits would fall and they would be bought up or go bust.
4. Mass action against the capitalists and the State is the only effective way to fight the environmental crisis in the short-term.
5. The only effective long-term solution to the crisis is the replacement of capitalism and the State by a society where production is organised not for profit, but democratically in the interests of all people and the planet – by a libertarian communist or anarchist society.
6. General workplace and community organisation will play a central role in fighting and winning the battle to end the environmental crisis, and its causes.
Edited and altered by libcom from an article by Zabalaza Books and the Bikisha Media Collective, 2005. Last reviewed/updated October 2006.
Footnotes
This article outlines what fascism is, how it is growing in the 21st Century United Kingdom, how it has nothing to offer working people and how we can combat it.
Where does it come from?
Fascism is a very right wing, fiercely nationalist,
totalitarian ideology which originated in Italy in the early 20th
Century to crush the powerful workers’
movement which was pushing up wages and threatening revolution.
Led by Benito Mussolini, they were funded by various big businesses,
such as Fiat and Pirelli, to smash picket lines and attack left-wing
organisers.
Italian fascism’s counterpart in
Germany – Nazism – like most fascists today used racism
to further its aims. Again to combat a powerful working class movement
the Nazis attempted to direct public anger at the problems caused
by capitalism (mass unemployment, poverty, etc.) onto a racial group
– the Jews. To undercut the widespread support for the communists,
socialists and anarchists the Nazis used anti-capitalist rhetoric
against Jews, portraying them as money-grubbing capitalists, when
in fact the vast majority of Jews were working class. Like many
fascist groups today, they claimed they would initiate a left-wing
economic programme with good welfare and high wages – the
“socialism” in national socialism. The Nazi leadership
had no intention of putting this propoganda into practice though.
As soon as the Nazi Party came into power it violently destroyed
all progressive working class organisations. The left-wing of the
Party - always unacceptable to German business leaders - was then
disposed of in the Night of the Long Knives, having served its purpose
of aiding in the destruction of the unions and other working class
groups. The first to be sent to the concentration camps were not
the Jews who they had blamed for all Germany’s problems, but
communists and trade unionists. Read
about the Nazis' crushing of the anarchist trade union...
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Never again. Fascism doesn't begin with the gas chambers, but that's where it ends. |
That they are racist, therefore, is beyond question, and that they are bigoted in other ways – for example against gays and lesbians whom they denounce as “perverts” or “creatures” – in indisputable. However the BNP are adamant that they are not fascist, and in fact often denounce the “fascist left” for opposing them.
Of course, politicians are always economical with the truth, and none more so than fascist politicians. Like the left-wing pretences of the German Nazis – who called themselves the National Socialist German Workers' Party - the BNP is attempting to build a respectable image of itself as a normal political party and cover up its genocidal and fascist aims in order to win widespread support. It is, quite simply, lying to everyone about its true nature.
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BNP leader Nick Griffin - Cambridge graduate, rich immigrant to Wales, and fascist. Says the Holocaust "tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter-day witch-hysteria." (Carlisle Two Defence Fund Bulletin) |
How do we know that this really is the case,
that they really haven’t changed? Quite simply because the
Party leadership has not changed significantly since the BNP was
the radical ultra-fascist offshoot of the more “moderate”
National Front. The BNP leadership is replete with hardcore Nazi
sympathisers, and convicted white supremacist terrorists –
its leader Nick Griffin, for example, has been a member of most
pro-Nazi groups in the UK, and BNP number two, Tony Lecomber was
imprisoned for three years in 1986 for a nail bomb attack on a South
London office. He was also convicted of making grenades, detonators
and bombs and later for assaulting a Jewish teacher.
The BNP were forced to abandon the traditional fascist strategy
of “controlling the streets” - a tactic based on marching,
looking intimidating and carrying out violent attacks within strongholds
on working class, left wing or other progressive organisations,
ethnic minorities and gays. They were prevented from doing this
largely by Anti-Fascist Action, a militant anti-fascist organisation
which confronted the far right whenever they took to the streets.
Since then, they have attempted to present themselves as a respectable,
non-violent political party which will stand up for the “decent,
silent majority”.
Over most of the UK this strategy has had very little success – people still know of them as a bunch of Nazi thugs – but in certain areas where they have devoted their efforts to long-term community organising they have developed solid bases of support. Bradford, Keighley and Burnley all have BNP councillors and in these towns the BNP is the third largest party. They have achieved this by appearing to attempt to deal with real problems felt by poor working class people in these communities who are ignored by the traditional parties. The BNP has also been given a massive boost by the anti-immigrant hysteria generated by the mainstream media, particularly The Daily Mail , The Sun and The Express. These media enterprises are owned by huge corporations and opportunistic politicians who happily use the small number of asylum seekers as a scapegoat for all the problems caused by capitalism – particularly housing, unemployment, poverty and poor healthcare.
Newscorp, Rupert Murdoch’s company which runs The Sun, The Times, Sky and much of the rest of the British media dodged £89million in UK corporation tax in 1998, after making £1.4bn worldwide profits – so it’s no wonder its media outlets try to blame scrounging asylum seekers on £39 a week benefits for draining public money.[1]
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Homelessness - landlords and profit-driven government policy, not asylum seekers, are to blame for the housing crisis. |
While significant numbers of working class people are turning to the BNP in some areas, the BNP offers working people nothing. Indeed, the BNP leadership even believe the working class to be genetically inferior to the rich[2]. They oppose workers organising to win better wages and conditions, claiming trade unions to be Soviet-paedophile plots[3], and refuse to blame capitalism and the rich for any problems, instead blaming the poorest and most marginalised in society. For the problem of 100,000 homeless households[4] in Britain, they do not blame the wealthy landlords who leave 790,000 properties empty – instead they blame the 60,000 or so asylum seekers a year who mostly live in squalor in cramped conditions. Instead of blaming the corporations who throw thousands out of work they denounce those left jobless and poor as naturally inferior to their bosses[5]. Instead of blaming the disintegrating health service on years of privatisation and under-finding, they blame immigrants – without whom the NHS would collapse. In London, for example, people born overseas make up 47% of nurses and 23% of all doctors.[6]
Previously in Britain many workers turned to the trade union movement and the Left to try to improve their lot as a class, irrespective of race and nationality. By sticking together, and practicing solidarity and direct action – particularly in the form of strikes and sympathy strikes, workers up to the late 1970s won big increases in pay and quality of life together. However, bosses and the Thatcher government in the 1980s led an all-out assault on working class power, and crushed the trade union movement in Britain in the Miners’ strike and Wapping printers’ strike in 1984-5. Meanwhile workers were betrayed by the official Left - in the centre by Labour and the TUC and in on the extremes by Arthur Scargill and the Leninists. Labour refused to back the workers in these crucial times, and when in power bowed to the bosses’ pressure[7] and then later abandoned any pretence of standing up for workers. The Trades Union Congress – the central trade union body in the UK – refused to call a general strike or back serious action during either strike, dooming them to failure. Scargill was the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers during the great Strike, during which he falsely led miners to believe they could win by going it alone at a time when the government were determined to smash the miners, whose only real hope was that other workers would support them.
This destruction of the possibility of collective class advancement has led many workers to turn instead against each other in an effort to get ahead. From an explosion in crime and unemployment, drug abuse and racism, an atmosphere conducive to the growth of the far-right was created. With the trade union movement in ruins, and the Left abandoning the working class for moralising student-based campaigning on third world issues, many workers saw the BNP fill the vacuum as the only viable political force with was attempting to address their concerns – on housing, crime and public services.
If the BNP ever did reach power its fascist leadership could drop their mask of respectability and use state power the way ever fascist regime does – enslaving the population, destroying independent workers’ organisation and driving down wages and conditions to make huge profits for “The Nation” (read – the ultra-rich of the nation). With a little ethnic cleansing on the side of course.
Even short of seizing state power the dangers of the success of the BNP, or any other fascist party, are as follows. Firstly, success breeds success – the more votes and councillors the BNP gets the more it looks like an effective alternative to the mainstream political parties and the more socially acceptable far-right and racist views become. Secondly, success of fascist parties presses the mainstream parties to adopt the tone, rhetoric and policies of the far right as the political agenda shifts to the right. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party decimated the large National Front in the late 70s and early 80s by stealing its thunder and shifting further right. Thirdly, in areas with elected BNP officials or strong far-right votes, hardcore fascists feel powerful and escalate physical attacks on groups like ethnic minorities, gays, trade unionists and human rights campaigners. In Tower Hamlets, East London when a BNP councillor was elected in 1993, racist attacks surged 300% [8]. Fourthly of course if enough fascists are elected into positions of power they can begin passing damaging regressive legislation aimed against workers, civil liberties, minority groups and in favour of big business and greater state power.
How can we oppose it?
All mainstream “anti-racists” from the government to groups like Unite Against Fascism[9] say is to vote against the BNP. This means telling people to vote for the very parties which cause and perpetuate the problems which drive people into the arms of the far right in the first place. Read more about why social change via political parties is ineffective...
Instead, we propose a three-pronged strategy
to combat the growth of fascism in Britain: organisational, political
and physical
Organisational opposition
This is the first and by far the most important way of stopping
the growth of the BNP. As explained above the growth of the far-right
is due to problems related to poverty, caused by capitalism. These
are predominantly unemployment, poor housing and public services,
and low wages. They have been filling the space left by the destruction
of the unions 1980s stopping collective advancement of workers,
and the Left abandoning the domestic working class in favour of
moral crusades about faraway places.
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Racism doesn't help us. Organising as a class does - as striking Gate Gourmet workers show us in 2005. |
Instead of being dragged into the dead-end road of nationalist and racialist politics, we need to re-develop ways of improving our lives together, as a united working class. We need to recognise that our problems are not caused by our fellow workers of another skin tone but by the bosses who exploit us and exploit poor illegal immigrants, the landlords who leave properties empty, then rake huge profits from housing asylum seekers and other homeless people in appalling temporary accommodation, and the governments who sell off our public services, and waste our money and lives on wars to benefit huge corporations.
We need to come together to form re-build workplace organisation based on solidarity, and direct action to win better wages and conditions, and stop the super-exploitation of foreign workers which keeps all of our wages down[10]. Workers in the public sector, with outside support can help combat the privatisation of our services which slashes jobs and service quality. Read more about workplace organising...
In our communities we need to try to begin to stick together against anti-social criminals which is ignored by the police, while fighting for provision of better services for our youth[11]. Council tenants can oppose the sell-off of their homes into the private sector[12], and others can build tenants’ unions to take action such as rent strikes against bad landlords[13]. Homeless people can occupy building left derelict or empty by absentee landlords and turn them into homes[14]. Read more about community organising or housing...
Political opposition
A growing number of white working class people have been tricked
by the BNP into believing that they have something to offer them.
In fact for working people and our families the only thing fascists
have to offer is tyranny and “freedom through work”
– which is good for our bosses, but not for us.
It is important to explain how they have nothing to offer us, and to combat the lies they spread in order to win support. These lies include their left-wing pretences in their policy documents, and statements in their propaganda and party political broadcasts on subjects such as trade unions, ethnic minorities, crime, Aids and even the BBC!
Their strict law-and-order stance needs to be compared and contrasted with their leadership’s violent terrorist and criminal pasts (and present![15]), and their claims to no longer be fascist must be countered by exposing the leaderships’ hidden politics.
Physical opposition
Finally, fascism as an ideology is based on violence. The violent
destruction of all those individuals and organisations who do not
give their all to the “fatherland”. These include people
who don’t wish to work incredibly long hours for very little
pay, those who believe in democracy, or human rights, or equality,
and can include any other perceived “inferior” people,
such as the disabled, mentally ill, homosexuals or ethnic minorities.
With fascists, there is no question as to whether they will be violent or not. They will begin acts of violence as soon as they feel powerful enough to do so. In Britain in the 1970s they were powerful, and carried out violence across the country, even including attacking old people in small human rights meetings[16]. To know they still have the same aims now, all you have to do is look at Redwatch, a UK fascist hitlist site with pictures, names and addresses of “traitors”: trade unionists, anti-racists and left-wingers, including children. As shown in Italy, Spain and Germany once they have conquered state power, it is too late to physically oppose them, since with the might of the armed forces, the police and the prison system they are practically invincible.
So how can they be fought? Adolph Hitler, while
in power, explained:
“Only one thing could have stopped our movement. If our
adversaries had understood its principle, and from the first day
had smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement.
"
At the moment the far right in Britain is in this nucleus stage. The fascists in the 1970s and 80s were physically smashed off the streets by militant organisation Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), with the once-might National Front reduced from 20,000 members to the pathetic 30-60 it is today.
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Thousands of pounds of damage inflicted on BNP leaders' cars, smashed outside an organising meeting in 2005 |
Fascism can only grow while fascists are free to organise – to have a website, to have meetings and demonstrations, and to produce and distribute propaganda. Without this they cannot be heard, and so cannot grow. Preventing them speaking is not nice, but it must be done if they are to be prevented from gaining support by their deception.[17]
Fascists use public demonstrations to look and feel powerful. Some young people join fascist groups because of their gang-like “hard man” image, but this quickly evaporates if they are attacked. Many fascists are simply petty bullies, who will not keep attending fascist events if anyone stands up to them. This is born out by the rapidly dwindling numbers of active fascists in areas where they were targeted by AFA in the 80s and 90s[18]. Websites can also be hacked[19], and fascist meetings can be trashed[20]. The activities of AFA largely drove the far right underground, and it is thanks to them that fascists still can rarely have public meetings anywhere in the UK. We need to make sure this remain so. Workers can – and have - refuse to produce, or distribute their propaganda[21].
Some people argue that now the BNP have temporarily abandoned the “controlling the streets” strategy that physically targeting them is now useless. While it is true that attacking an elected BNP official in an area where they have some public support might be counter-productive, we believe that elsewhere they are even more vulnerable to physical pressure due to their need for respectability. The BNP leadership knows it must lose its association with violence and thuggery if it is to ever become widely popular. It must, therefore, avoid any involvement in street fights. Some people have worried that attacking BNP organisers might win them more public sympathy, but the BNP is so embarrassed by involvement in violence that it has covered up any news of being attacked[22], and the fact remains that your average fascist organiser will only take so much before they give up the fight – or ponder as to why the very people they are supposed to represent (the white working class) hate them so much as to fight them wherever they go that they change their minds[23].
It must be stressed again at this stage that by far the most important way of fighting the far
right is by dealing with the problems they thrive off on a class
basis rather than a racial one. Physically confronting fascists
is an activity only a minority of people can do due to its dangerous
nature, and of course all violence is horrible, and even though
necessary sometimes it should kept to the minimum possible.
Libcom Summary
1. Fascism is an ideology based on the
destruction of organisations of the working class, which is often
highly racist
2. The BNP is Britain’s main far-right party, which has
a secret fascist leadership with a façade of respectability
3. The BNP is growing due to four main factors:
...a. The destruction of the trade
unions
...b. The Left abandoning the domestic
working class
...c. Problems caused by capitalism
in Britain continue to worsen and mainstream parties are unable
and unwilling to help, and the BNP claim that they will
...d. The corporate media have made
a scapegoat of asylum seekers and immigrants for these problems
4. The growth of the BNP is dangerous because then they reach
a critical strength they will begin physical (and eventual legislative
if in government) attacks on ethnic minorities, homosexuals, trade
unionists and any left-wing or anti-racist campaigners. If they
gain state power they will enslave the population and enact ethnic
cleansing
5. To stop the growth of fascism we need to
...a. Fill the vacuum left by the
destruction of the unions, and organise to begin to solve our
problems collectively as a class, sticking together regardless
of race or nationality.
...b. Combat the BNP’s lies
that they have anything to offer British working people, and expose
their fascist core
...c. Physically confront them and
prevent them organising on the ground or spreading their message.
libcom, 2005
Footnotes
1. BBC
E-cyclopedia, The
Economist
2. www.red-star-research.org.uk/rpm/AF/AF.html
3. BNP “news” on website, 2004 (NB we
do not link directly to any far-right websites)
4. Shelter
5. See 2
6. Refugee
Action
7. See An
Anarchist FAQ for more information about capital flight
8. BLINK
9 uaf.org.uk
10. For example, the Dahl
Jenson strike of 2004, or the Italian
workers' movement in the 1970s. The Industrial Workers of the
World also had much success in immigrant organising in the early
20th Century US.
11. See Blackbird
Leys Independent Working Class Association
12. See Defend
Council Housing; also the victorious anti-sell-off
campaign in Camden
13. See the Italian
tenants’ movement in the 1970s.
14. See squatters.org.uk or our Housing section for more information
15. Some recent BNP crime headlines on libcom.org: BNP
member caught smuggling illegal immigrants, BNP
candidate guilty of dealing crack and heroin, BNP
Member Jailed For Racist Attacks
16. See No Retreat, by Dave Hann and Steve Tilzey,
Milo Books
17. To get involved in militant anti-fascism, contact Antifa
18. See No Retreat, above
19. The BNP site was taken down for weeks by hackers
in 2005.
20. Recent examples include: Nationalist
Alliance meeting trashed, September 2005, BNP
organising meeting bricked, March 2005
21. In the 2004 Elections, postal workers refused
to deliver BNP materials, BBC.
In 2002 German television workers refused to broadcast fascist party
the NPD’s election broadcasts.
22. The BNP has covered up all recent examples
of this occurring, such as the incident in footnote 20.
23. See No Retreat, ibid. for examples.
Our analysis of what is wrong with the UK health system and National Health Service, the reasons behind it, and what we as ordinary people can do about it.
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Dirty hospitals - the result of putting profit before people. |
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Spare NHS beds - a rare site in an over-stretched, top-heavy service with two managers for every bed. |
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Taking action - NHS workers in Dudley on strike against their transfer to a Private Finance Initiative involving the loss of 70 beds and 160 jobs. |
Articles on the following areas are planned for the manifesto. If you can help write any of these articles please contact us
▫ Work and the economy
▫ Wars and defence
▫ Public services
-- Education
-- Housing
-- Fire service
-- Welfare state, pensions etc.
▫ Crime, policing and anti-social behaviour
▫ Immigration, race and multiculturalism
▫ Women, men and sexism
▫ Advertising and the media