by COSATU at a time when many factories were closed. The bourgeois press COSATU also called off the one day strike on the 16th January because they believed that the state had conceded the need for more discussions. The state however has made it publicly known that they haven't conceded anything to inc union movement Q. What do you feel are the priorities for the South African working class in the coming years! SV: I think the main issue is the right to work. Every time workers demand higher wages or a living wage or the right to strike (which has been severely curtailed since the Labour Relations Act was passed last year, workers can no longer strike around they are always sold should be job at all given the to tighten our belts. This was mentioned quite vociferously by the leaders of the ANe durine the recent nurses strike, who condemned the nurses in The large numbers of unemployed in this country are used as a battering ram against the organised workers to threaten them and also to keep wages low. So we have an ongoing campaige Q. WOSA stood in the 1994 elections as part orche Workers List Party. There was a lot of criticism of that around the world. How successful do you feel you were? SV: We have had a number of post mortems since the national elections and we feel that the tactics have been very fne tful, not only for WOSA but We did not agree with the negotiated sellement. we also knew that ine cards would be stacked against us but nevertheless we felt quite strongly that would be a platform from which we We have no illusions in parliamentary democracy and so it was a purely We were opposed to the "guiding principles" which included the right to hold private property-these were non-negotiable principles-all of which basicaly malained the power couthbrium between those who neid power throughout Apartheid and the masses who didn't.
We were at pains to stress that none of the nationalist parties will be able to octver ine goods oespite tne promises: Volly: our position has been vindicated that the Apartheid Debt would militate against any real intervention by the State to address peoples everyday framework of capitalism as long as the conglomerates maintained control of the economy.
We didn't get a lot of votes, a few thousand, but nonetheless we were heard across the country and our post tion has heen vindicated. We were involveo in the process in order to put across our political message and we succeeded.
The ANC leadership breathed a sigh or cares wake tae cinct o thirds majority.
They wanted to share power with the Generals, the National Party and the Inkatha freedom Front in this so-called Government of National Unity.
March for Lond and Dignity' from La Cumbre to Lo Paz, Balvia. More than 400 members of indigenous groups protested ot oner-explaitation of rain forests by big business. JOHN LISTER reviews the new Notebook for Study and Research double issue: IMF/World Bank/WTO: The Free Market Fiasco, edited by Eric Toussaint and Peter Drucker RUMOURS of imperialism's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Far from dying away with the granting of formal independence to many of the ex-colonial countries, imperialism has found new and devastating mechanisms to promote its exploitation of the raw materials, cheap labour and captive markets of the so-called Third World.
Three of these devices—-the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (formed from the GATT agreement of 1994)-are explored in this new booklet in the series of Notebooks for Study and Research, edited by Eric Toussaint and Peter Drucker.
Although some of the contributors are Marxists, the notebook, subtitled The Free Market Fiasco, does not confine itself to a Marxist framework of analysis As the foreword explains, it combines the work of the Fourth InternaRescarch and Development with those of the Brussels-based Committee for the Cancellation of the Third World Debt (COCAD).
As such, it is intended as a tool in the hands of a broad international network of movements that have come together around the theme WB/IMF/WTO: Enough!
It also serves to link up the work of leading academies, journalists and Oxfam's senior policy advisor with that of some of the FT's leading campaigners.
The result of this collaboration is an impressive array of remarkably up to date empirical information, facts and figures which lift the lid in particular on the real activities and impact of the terrible Twins of the 1945 post-war Bretton Woods economic settlementthe IMF and the World Bank.
While both organisations have masqueraded-with some success-as bringers of aid to the world's poorest pnict reintessty ples up the evidence to prove that they have in fact acted as £6.00 post free in Britain and Ireland.
Send cheque or postal order payable to Pierre Rousset to :
Y Biwch Coch - The Red Box, PO Box 431, Cardiff, CF1 9YA. the brutal bootboys of imperialist banks and multinationals.
The debts and borrowings of Financrally Dependent countries nave proved hugely profitable for the bankers in the imperialist centres. Accord. ing to the OECD, debts from FDCs amounting to just 5900 billion in 1982 resulted in debt service payments of SI.S trillion over the following ten years, including the repayment of al. most a on cora deaD Butby 1991, despite these enormous payments siphoning wealth from the poorest nations to the richest. the FDCs' total debt had increased by 64 per cent to $1.478 billion.
The Bank and the Fund exploit this growing indebtedness of Third World countries to impose stringent monetarist policies which devastate their natinal conomics opening up w Countries which reject the demands and preconditions of the Bank and the IMF find themselves cut off from private creditors and government loans.
In July 1992, over 50 countries were subject to IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) under which they are required completely to subordinate their economy and social policy to paying off the outstanding debts.
Domestic consumption is forced down. and production for comestic Edited by Eric Toussaint and Peter Drucker markets cut back in order to prioritise production for export. A typical pack. age includes:
• a forcible devaluation of the currency, pushing up prices of food, fuel. medicines and other valuable commodities • a cut in wages with the "aberalisation" of the labour market and scrap. ping of any minimum wage • massive cuts in state spending. cutting back the civil services and closing down or imposing charges for health and education • blocking state spending on infrastructure and investment projects. opening the way for multinational construction firms • climinating subsidies and price often triggers a crisis in agriculture • scrapping protective import quotas and tariffs, prompting the collapse of domestic manufacturing industry and creating profitable openings for imported goods and even heavily subsidised food imported from the EU.
• privatisation of profitable enter. prises. handing over new opportunities for profitable investment by imperialist banks and corporations at bargain prices, while any cash realised is chan• far-reaching reforms of taxation— to tax the poorest while granting lavish tax breaks for foreign capital-along with deregulation of banking, and literalisation of capital movements While the IMF restructures the economies of FDCs, the better to funnel profits out to banks in the northern metropolis, the World Bank has established a squalid record of promoting investment projects which rape and destroy the natural resources and environment, causing huge misery.
In April 1994 the Bank admitted that 192 projects it had funded had resulted in the "involuntary relocation" of 2.5 million people, two-thirds of them in Asia, with another million to be displaced by further schemes in 1995-96. Bank-sponsored dams and other pro. jects have done untold additional damage.
The Bank itself helped precipitate the disastrous African famines of the 1980s by its forcible deregulation of the grain market, opening the way for dumping of US grain surpluses. squeezing traditional food crops out of the best agricultural land in advance of the drought which followed.
Zimbabwe, the bread basket of southern Africa, saw a 90 per cent drop in its maize crop in 1992, while tobacco crops destined for export, on the best land, registered a bumper harvest. The World Bank exploits growing Third World indebtedness to impose monetarist policies which devastate their national economies This 120-page pamphlet-—with extended studies of the impact on Latin America. Africa and the Russian Fedcration-rehearses in detail and with many examples the ways in which the grip of imperialisin has tightened on the windpipe of Third World and dependch couns But it is at this level that the Note. book stops short. The analysis goes no further than explaining how these various arms of capitalist and imperialist exploaton work on a day to day level The solutions proposed, though some are radical. fall short of any outfisht call tor, or discussion of. social. ism or social revolution.
Some are straightforward reformist demands, such as "regulatory policies that carefully monitor the activities of the Bretton Woods institutions and democratise the structures of the central banks. Others are more bold.
Of course. it is possible in some ways to view ine conta policy proposa-the cancelabon of the acol d Socialist Outlook 97 • February 17, 1996. in some sense a transitional demand. Icading trom toodys probicms and needs of the masses, towards the need for socialist revolution.
it is hard to imagine imperialists being peacefully pressured into such policies by force of intellectual arguICHS However, this also raises the question of who must lead and carry through the fight for such far-reaching policies, and here the political limitations of this volume are most obvious.
The widening inequalities between rich and poor in the Third World, rich and poor in imperialist countries, and between wealthy creditor countries and Financially Dependent Countries are repeatedly discussed, but not in terms of social class; nor litical conclusions drawn out on the type of programme and policies which logically arise.
Indeed the names Marx and Lenin. and the very term imperialism, are signally lacking from the pamphlet, despite the vivid way in which it implicitly demonstrates the presentLenin's conclusion from his analy. sis of the nature and role of imperialism in 1916 was to redouble the fight for a conscious revolutionary party based on Ine working class.
That task remains to be carried through today, both in the imperialist countries and in the Financially Dominated Countries where 1.3 billion people currently eke out an existence on 80 cents a dav, and billions languish in absolute poverty.
This valuable pamphlet must therefore be read in conjuncion with olners in the IIRE series . and with the writines of Lenin and Trotsky and the na.
of the Feart International which are fighting both for the cancellation of the debr and for socialism and internationalism.
RS Socialist C HAVING READ Peter Taffe's book "The Rise of Militant" I found Nigel Danby's review (SO 95) incredulous.
On Vietnam Militant's slogans were clear: "for the withdrawal of US imperialism and all imperialist forces" (p.26). However. "while Militant supported the struggle of the workers and peasants for national and social liberation, it did not uncritically support the Stalinist leaders in North Vi"because of the social forces involved. predominantly peasant masses, any suc cessful regime to emerge would be basco on model of China or the Soviet With a planned economy, but ruled by a one party totalitarian regime"
On Northern Ireland the September 1969 Militant declared "For a United Workers Defence Force • withoraw Brush troops Disband B Spocials and po. lice thugs - for jobs, schools . cle other nonopolies - Catholic and Proe. estane Workers Fight for a United Socialist Ireland."
in the unions Mintant na been at the forefront of rebuilding CPSA's "Left Unity" following the Communist Party's splitting of Try 17,1996.
The writer seems unable to make up his mind whether or not we should welcome nist Party of the Russian Federation in the recent parhameblary elections. He are capitalist states in that moses, builds, and defends makes late capitalism's triprivate property at the exsomewhat premature" umphalism begin to look pense of the still massive state section, which it is atHowever, elsewhere he tempting to sell off. The imstates (correctly) that the mediate task in Russia is the vote was not in lavour of defence of the remaining socialism "as such" and that gains of 1917. The Commuine commonist s pro nist's victory may give the gramme was for a "more Russian workers breathing gradualist introduction of space in this task, but the capitalism". The writer also CPRF cannot usefully assist states that the CPRF has in, let alone lead it. been pubilly against the war in Chechnya, and yet he HOse voted for the Communists also points to the strong and against the anarchy of Russian nationalist element the market must be won to in the Communist's vote.
the task of building a new In an apparent reference revolutionary leadership. to the Communist Party the Only then can we talk again writer says that "classes do about the East being red. organisations without testing them to the full". Is the CP an organisation of the working class? The CPSU was part or the burcaucral Socialist Outlook welcomes readers' letters. Address them to 'Feedback', PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU. Letters over 300 words are edited for brevity and concision. "Militant" drew comparison between Moo's regime and Vietnam Support Groups, and Birmingham TC is now setting one up. In Scotland Militant have organised support. In England where Trades Councils are weak(er) Militant and the SWP have attempted to raise support the SWP's efforts have been half-hearted and in some cases almost counter-proThis year's Annual Conference of Trades Councils in May will prioritise the workers who dockers and call upon all Trades Councils to set up Support Groups. Last year we made several successful interventions not least around the Welfare State Nefwork (WSN). Nick Davies, In Oxford we have been Swansea discussing the Socialist Labour Party. We all have resbut Oxford rations UP AGAINST mass unemployment, rampant employers with savage anti-union laws, and a war on hard-won public services, the working class in Britain faces a real crisis - an avoidable crisis created by the historic failure of its official leadership. ship, based on class struggle and revolutionary socialism. by its need to maximise profits at the expense of the workers, has had determined, vanguard leadership by a brutal Tory high comany pretence of being a socialist alternative. Every retreat encour. aged the offensive against jobs, wages, conditions and union rights. conditions within capitalism. environment, peace and democracy, can never be achieved under Nor, as we argued long before the collapse of Stalinism, could these demands ever be achleved under the bureaucratically deformed workers states and degenerated USSR, whose regimes sur. vived only by repressing the working class. dies of state marxism, nor on the tame, toothless version of 'marx. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. Illusions of peaceful legislative change. copple the corrupt and reactionary rule of capital and establish its own class rule. sioners, of the black communities, of lesbians and gay men, of stu. dents, of youth - and of those fighting imperialism in Ireland and mass revolutionary party can be bulle simply by proclaiming our. selves to be one. This degenerates into sectarian posturing and abin struggle, must be taken into the unions, the Labour Party and every campaign and struggle in which workers and the oppressed 1 l Socialist Outlook exists to build a new type of working class leader.
The capitalist class, driven by its own crisis, and politically united The Tory strategy has been to shackle the unlons, and to fragment and weaken the resistance, allowing them to pick off isolated sections In response, most TUC and Labour leaders have embraced the defeatist politics of 'new realism', effectively total surrender, while ditching New realism is the latest form of reformism, secking only improved We reject reformism, not because we are against reforms, but because we know that full employment, decent living standards, a clean We are a marxist current, based not on the brutish totalitarian paroIsm' beloved by armchair academics, but the revolutionary tradition of Our socialist alternative is not based on parliamentary elections or We fight to mobilise and unleash the power of the working class to We struggle against fragmentation by building solidarity, to unite the various struggles of workers, the unemployed, of women, of penSocialise Outlook is above all an internationalist current, in solidar. Ity with the Trotskyist Fourth International, which organises in over Unlike some other groups on the British left, we do not believe a stention from struggles in the labour movement, playing into right Nor do we belleve that the demands of women, black people, lesbians and gays or the national demands of people in Scotland, Ireland and Wales should be left to await revolution. The oppressed must or. ganise themselves and fight now for their demands, which are a part But propaganda alone, however good, will not bring socialism. The fight for policies which can mobilise and politically educate workers
says that "reaction is on the state apparatus pro-