For an anticapitalist alternative!
For a Socialist United States of Europe !ve/
Participation by revolutionary forces in the elections 30,000 supporters in each of the five election districts to the European parliament to be held in June has these signatures have to be been made difficult by numerous legal and financial front of a notary, which costs a lot of money.
Nonetheless, the sections of the Fourth In- In view of the workers struggles that are being countries concerned will take the waged now against the austerity decrees of the governoccasion to wage a campaign against austerity, the mis- ment presided over by the "Socialist" Bettino Craxi and the mobilizations against the installation of the the call adopted jointly by the United Secretariat of missiles at the Comiso site, the European elections will the Fourth International and the European section: assume a major national dimension in this country.
directly concerned by the Common Market question. For this reason, since the Socialist Party is in the the financial hurdle for running government and the Communist Party is riding on the fensive, unable to put up any sort of line with this fact, we support the cam-
DOCUMENTternational in the siles and against antilabor policies.
We publish below
"validated" im
In France,
Just publishing very high.
workers mobilizations, the Lega Comunista material for a European election campaign costs 5 cionaria, Italian section of the Fourth International, million francs [about
£400,000 or 700,000 US dolhas decided to call for a working-class vote for the
This money is reimbursed only to slates that get
Democrazia Proletaria and the CP slates under the
5% of the vote.
Nonetheless, the Ligue Com-
"Strengthen the left opposition to the Craxi muniste Revolutionnaire, French section of the Fourth government and the Christian Democrats."
ternational, Is waging a campaign that wil cu inate in rally against austerity and the capitalis the Lega Comunista Rivoluzionaria will united Europe on May 26 and 27 at Le Bourget near unity in the struggle against the government. None-
In Britain, revolutionary Marxists are calling for a role in the workers mobilizations turns into open vote for Labour candidates, supporting the call of the left wing of the Labour Party for withdrawal from the
EEC and for opposition to the missiles and austerity.
In Denmark, you need to get 60,000 signatures to
So, the Socialistisk Arbeiderparti (SAP)
In Belgium, the Parti Ouvrier Socialiste/Socialishas begun discussion with the Left Socialist Party tische Arbeiders Partij has gathered the 1,000 signatures in each province needed to run a slate.
(VS) for an electoral accord on the basis of a manifesto
Communiste Revolutionnaire of Luxembourg has also against unemployment, for the 35 hour week and for
Thus, both these organizations supporting the struggles for this demand, for a Euromet the requirements.
will be directly involved in the election campaign.
pean-wide strike against the missiles and for Danish
In Italy, like France, there are very high legal and withdrawal from the BEC. If these negotiations are unsuccessful, the SAP will propose common actions barriers to running an independent slate.
For example, it is necessary to collect the signatures of with the VS in the framework of the campaign.
Appeal of the Fourth International for the European elections
The second elections for the European parliament will be held in June 1984.
The first were in 1979. Although the
European parliament is only a consultative assembly without any real powers, these elections will not fail to have an impact on the political scene.
that directly represent
The parties the bosses want to make these elections into a plebiscite in favor of the antilabor and warmongering policies they support, a plebiscite in favor of austerity and installing the intermediaterange missiles. In Britain, they are represented by Margaret Thatcher; in France by Simone Veil, Giscard d'Estaing and
Jacques Chirac; in West Germany by Helmut Kohl; in Belgium by the Martens-
Gol duo; in the Netherlands by Lubbers;
in Italy by the Christian Democrats; and in Denmark by the bourgeois coalition
As for the reformist parties of Francois Mitterrand, Bettino Craxi and George
Papandreou in power in France, Italy and
Greece, they are also applying the line of austerity and stepping up the arms race.
But they are doing it in a bit more moderate style, and are politically on the de-
4 slogan: run a slate. credible alternative against the capitalist No to the EEC, instrument of the banks and trusts
The EEC is a Europe of the bosses. The Common Market was not set up for the benefit of the workers but to bolster the power of the European trusts and multinationals. The EEC institutions act against the interests of the workers. European Commission is coordinating the attacks on steelworkers
It is promoting an austerity policy in all the member countries.
Voices are now being raised in favor of equipping this Europe of the bosses with a European army. Such a force would be just as dangerous for peace and the future of humanity as the army of American imperialism or the "national" armies of the European imperialist pow-
The Fourth International appeals to the workers of Europe to put no faith in capitalist integration of this region. European capitalism is no more progressive than that of the United States. In the missiles and austerity, for left modify its electoral call if the CP's paign of our comrades in the Spanish state and in Portugal against the entry of their countries into the Common Market. We are sympathetic to the campaign of the British Labour left and the Greek left for the withdrawal of Greece and Britain from the EEC.
However, falling back on the capitalist "sovereign national state" scarcely offers any better deal for the workers in the member countries of the Common Mar-
This would in fact only provide a policies under the pretext of defending national industry against foreign compe-
Against the two mirages of capitalist integration and bourgeois national sovereignty, the Fourth International calls for a struggle for a Socialist United States of Europe, a common fight, a common solidarity, and a common socialist objecthe workers of all countries. Austerity does not create jobs
With the support of all the existing governments, the bosses in the ten member countries of the Common Market, as
International Viewpoint 23 April 1984
the workers movement, to force interna- to the rules of the capitalist game.
well as those in Spain and Portugal, have been able to direct very wide-ranging attacks on workers, recipients of social benefits, women, immigrants, and youth. In defense of their austerity policies, the governments have invoked the demands of international competition. But the same argument has been used in every country, leading to an unceasing downward spiral in buying power and social benefits.
It is sufficient for one country lower "labor costs," and a neighboring country will justify an ever sharper cut in the name of "the national interest," that is, in fact, of class collaboration, to the sole benefit of the bosses. Indeed it is false to claim that austerity creates jobs. Since this policy started to be applied in Europe, unemployment has more than tripled, going from 4 million to 17 million. And no variants of this policy of reconversion will halt drain of jobs. To the contrary, the experts of the bourgeois institutions themselves predict that in a few years the number of jobless in West Europe will reach 18 million. For European-wide action for the 35-hour week now, without loss of pay
A different sort of economic policy, with different priorities, is perfectly possible. But it would have to be based not on the rationale of capital, of competition and profit, but on the logic of labor, of solidarity among the exploited. Priority has to be given to full employment and meeting the basic material needs of the masses.
At the time of the first European elections in June 1979, the Fourth International call said: "Almost forty million of us are organized in unions. If this power is mobilized, it can win the 35 hour workweek with no cut in pay, new hiring to make up for the lost worktime, and workers control over the rates of work to prevent a speedup." (1)
This call reflected a real need, since today the West German metal workers union IG Metall has launched a vast campaign of action, including strikes, for the 35 hour week. Many unions in other countries have come out in support of
The time has come to organize, alongside the West German metal workers, a West European-wide campaign of all categories of workers for the immediate introduction of the 35-hour week. It is
Now is the time also for all members of parliament who claim to represent the working class to introduce simultaneously in the national parliaments and the European parliament bills that would reduce the legal workweek to 35 hours. the time for the West European unions to call on the American and Japanese unions to join in this campaign. This is the only effective way to stop the drain of jobs, to avert the divisive and demoralizing effects of massive structural unemployment on International Viewpoint 23 April 1984 tional capitalism to pay the bill for the crisis for which it alone is responsible. Act now against Euromissiles
The governments of capitalist Europe are cutting social spending. coming up with more and more money to finance arms spending, to finance their imperialist military interventions in the Malvinas, Lebanon, Chad and Ireland They apply the rules of profitability and return to spending on education health, but no government assesses the "return" from its military spending.
The working masses of Europe are more and more rejecting this insane arms race, which threatens sooner or later to reduce our continent to radioactive ashes. The demonstrations against the installation of the missiles brought out unprecedented numbers of people - millions in West Germany, more than a million in Britain and Italy, more than half a mil lion in the Netherlands, and 400,000 in Belgium. In Britain, the Greenham Common women are continuing their struggle against the Nato base.
This mass opposition to the missiles is clearly oriented in the direction of anti-imperialism and unilateral disarmament. This dynamic must be stimulated, reinforced and generalized by specific action proposals more and more coordinated on the international level. Among the proposals that could be made, two are particularly opportune. One is the call for a referendum against installing the Euromissiles on the territory of each country or keeping them there. the unions to organize a general strike, on a West European-wide scale, against the For an anti-capitalist alternative, for the United Socialist States
The workers movement must organ ize its opposition to the Europe of the bosses, of the trusts and the multinationals, to the Europe of austerity and greater militarization. It must do this on an international scale. movement has not yet managed to do this, either in the case of the steelworkers fighting for jobs or in the case of the struggle for the 35-hour week.
In recent months, there have been big workers struggles, such as the public workers strikes in Belgium and the Netherlands, the exemplary mobilization of the Italian workers in defense of the sliding scale, the miners strike in Britain, the Spanish workers' resistance to austerity, and the strike of the Talbot-Poissy plant in France. But in all these cases the fighting spirit of the workers has run up against the divisions among the traditional leaderships of the workers movement, their refusal to organize the struggle and to support an anticapitalist alternative, their capitualtion to so-called international constraints and "constraints of competition," that is, their capitulation
Neither in France, nor Spain, nor Italy, nor Sweden, nor Greece, nor Portugal, 1or only yesterday in Germany, have the big Social Democratic and Communist parties in government fought back against the attacks on the workers who are strug gling against austerity and Nato's ultramilitarist policy. The reason is that these parties and trade-union leaderships refuse to attack the roots of the evil.
In order to throttle the effects of the crisis, it is necessary to break the power of the banks and the financial combines control. The goal must be to put in power workers governments backed up by the workers mobilized and organized in their means aiming for the expropriation of big capital and reorganization of the economy based on democratic planning by thr
This struggle is linked to the fight against the bureaucracy in the Eastern blor countries, which is reflected in the growtn of an independent peace movement. (And it is necessary to declare our solidarity with this movement against the repression to which it has been subjected.) This struggle will open up the way for a Socialist United States of Europe, the only real alternative to the divided Europe of today, prey to parallel crises of capitalism in the West and of bureaucratic rule in the East.
A Socialist United States of Europe will not only offer an effective solution for the working masses of this continent. It will also offer a powerful assistance to the superexploited peoples of the 'third world' in their struggle to free themselves from the morass of which imperialism and capitalism has trapped them. A socialist breakthrough in Europe would offer hope to all of humanity for a way out of the deepening shadows of hunger, unemployment, dictatorship and war, a road to progress and an
Forward to active solidarity for all workers in Europe fighting for their class objectives!
Forward toward worldwide solidarity for all exploited and oppressed, in particular those in Central America, the Near East and Southern Africa, who are the target of direct imperialist action!
Forward to the world socialist of the Fourth International ialistische Arbeiders Partij; Spanish State, Liga Comunista Revolucionaria/Liga Komunista Iraultzailea; France, Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire; Britain, British Section of the Fourth International; Greece, Organois Kommounistike Diethnistike tes Elladas; Ireland, People's Democracy; Italy, Lega Comunista Rivoluzionaria: Luxembourg, Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire; Netherlands, Socialistiese Arbeiderspartij; Portugal, Partido Socialista Revolucionario: West Germany, Gruppe Internationale Marxisten; Denmark, Socialistik Arbeiderparti.
4 April 1984 Cf. "For a Socialist United States of Europe," Intercontinental Press/Inprecor March 5, 1979.
5
EEC -
(repression) is not sufficient, save in a period of open civil war. It is necessary to get the exploited to accept the general framework of their exploitation as legitimate.
For this purpose, in normal times, the "national" tradition of the hourgeois
No