Liz Truss Affair Reflects Irresolvable Crisis of Capitalism
November 1, 2022Revolution or Barbarism: Only Options for Working Class
(An Appeal to British Workers)
Editorial Comment, November 2022
Liz Truss has gone, paving way for a 5th occupant of 10 Downing Street within 6 years. But the mortal crisis of British capitalism is going nowhere. It can only lead to a further procession of jaunty but cruel figures, each more comical than the earlier, each more bloodthirsty and genocidal warmonger than the preceding one. ‘Ready to fight to the last Ukrainian’ Boris was followed by ‘ready to hit the nuclear button’ Truss. Now comes ‘cow worshipper and proud Hindu’ Rishi Sunak, a former Goldman Sachs money dealer and hedge fund speculator (who can be more adept at counting profits for finance capital from a barbaric war!), while his Nazi holocaust loving ‘spiritual brethren’ of RSS, whose fascist onslaught we face now here in India, openly talk of massacring a few million Muslims.
‘Sir’ Keir Starmer, a royal ass-licker and austerity loving ‘Labour leader’ waits in queue to offer his humble and loyal services to the deities of Finance Capital, whose thirst for profits will only be quenched by a barbaric bloodletting at a global scale. He is establishing his credential by telling the Trade Union Congress (TUC) that times are difficult and everyone has to sacrifice. The Labour Aristocracy at TUC shows its loyalty by calling for an increase in arms spending. Who better to offer the sacrifice of millions of sons of the British and global working class in the grand and bloody temple of imperialism? These historic betrayers of the working class have long experience of that.
This is happening when the British working class is facing a steep collapse in its living standards, rather a life and death struggle in the face of cost-of-living crisis with inflation at more than 10%, as the whole burden of a capitalist economic crisis is passed on to be borne by them. Millions face the dire choice between buying food and paying energy bills for remaining warm in the coming winter. Many are already dependent on food banks for filling their hungry stomachs while creation of ‘warm areas’ is being talked about so that cold freezing people can rest and sleep in some communal places able to pay enormous gas/electricity bills for heating. There are many children who can get their best meals only in school lunches. And now the interest rate rises are likely to deprive many of their homes bought at high prices lured by low mortgage rates as Bank of England created asset price bubble to enable real estate speculators to extract super profits.
But we know, whatever the vaunted and lofty talk of the ‘liberal democracy’, Rishi Sunak has not been appointed Prime Minister by the British people. All these comings and goings in the British government are a reflection of the almost unending and irresolvable terminal crisis of British capitalism, and these removals and appointments have been decided in the secret closed-door negotiations within the cabals of British finance capital. And being appointed by finance capital, Sunak is going to serve finance capital, and no one else. If he fails to fulfil his ‘sacred’ duty, the Labour party under ‘Sir’ Starmer waits in the wings to be given a chance to show its worth and faithfulness in serving the capricious deities of finance capital. The very raison d’etre of the ‘Labour’ party has been to rescue, like a White Knight, the rule of finance capital at the moment of its every crisis by misleading and continuing to suppress the working class. Labour under Blair did not repeal even a single anti-union anti-strike law enacted by the earlier Tory rule of Thatcher.
While Rishi Sunak talked of strong NHS, good schools and levelling up on reaching his new home, what he is actually going to do is a new austerity plan, i.e., asking the working class to tighten belts on their empty stomachs because ‘all countrymen’ must unite to tide over the economic difficulties. He will persist with the new strike suppression law – Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill. proposed under Truss on 20th October. The UK already has many statutory restrictions on strikes – mandatory pre-strike ballots, ban on secondary action, insistence that strike votes are held by post, turnout requirement banning strikes unless 50 percent of eligible workers vote, etc. The new law will compel transport unions, in advance of any intended strike, to enter into negotiations with the employer about minimum levels of service during that strike. If the two sides fail to conclude an agreement, they would have to apply to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), which would decide that in a rail strike, for example, 50 percent of all services would have to be provided, or 70 percent, or 90 percent. This will effectively compel the workers to break their own strike! He will also continue with many new draconian restrictions already imposed under Boris Johnson on the right to protest and speech which will effectively transform the UK into a police state.
But no, we are not here to list your woes. You know all that far better than us. We have also observed the revival of battle spirits among the British workers reflected in increasing strike actions in recent months. Neither are we here to commiserate with you. We are here to offer a frank criticism as fellow proletarians. Why has all this come about? Instead of a long tedious analysis, we just quote Walter Rodney here,
“European workers have paid a great price for the few material benefits which accrued to them as crumbs from the colonial table. The class in power controls the dissemination of information. The capitalists misinformed and miseducated workers in the metropoles to the point where they became allies in colonial exploitation. In accepting to be led like sheep, European workers were perpetuating their own enslavement to the capitalists. They ceased to seek political power and contented themselves with bargaining for small wage increases, which were usually counterbalanced by increased costs of living. They ceased to be creative and allowed bourgeois cultural decadence to overtake them all. They failed to exercise any independent judgement on the great issues of war and peace, and therefore ended up by slaughtering not only colonial peoples but also themselves.”
(How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Chapter V)
The current crisis, and the mounting hardships of the British working class, is the result of the historic betrayal of the working class by the revisionist and reformist labour aristocracy in developed capitalist countries, who became the willing shepherds for capitalists-imperialists and disarmed the working class in its great struggle to win political power, establish a workers state, abolish private property and profit based production relations, and build a socialist society free from exploitation of labour and oppression of women, races, nationalities, castes, etc. which is an inseparable feature of capitalism-imperialism. This disarming still continues as many in the working class have been misled to believe that socialism is a
totalitarian system lacking freedoms while the bourgeois ‘liberal’ democracy is the pinnacle and end of history.
We appeal to you, as fellow proletarians, to consign these betrayers of the working class to their rightful place, the rubbish bin of the history, and build a unified Leninist revolutionary party based on the proletarian ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which only can lead you to fulfil your historic task of abolishing capitalism, which is leading mankind to barbarism of war and environmental destruction. This is the common and most urgent task of the working class in all countries, including for us here in India. Without fulfilling this historic task, the heroic struggles of the workers all over the world will remain futile. Revolution, or suffering under barbarism brought by capitalism, those are the only options before the proletariat of all countries.
We recall here the call of revolt given by your great poet PB Shelley:
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.’
This is true for all of us in whichever country we are, as we all have to fight together in this great historic battle to end exploitation and save humanity from barbarism where capitalism-imperialism is leading us.
Workers of the world, unite!
Long live revolution!