In the face of the rightist deployment and of the changed political situation the demonstrations and manifestations 1998 regain increased importance
In 1890 the day of 1st May started as a revolutionary innovation. Soon, however, it became a routine on which the reformists set the tone.
This 1st of May has something of an institution, always right from the start giving the advantage to the opportunists favoured by the state and even to directly state institutions. Properly speaking there have only been exceptions in few years when different forces dominated on 1st of May. This is quite natural as the established and institutionalized socialists and trade-unionists are able to fall back upon the routine and to get through their ritualized demonstrations and events whereas revolutionary forces have to always offer something new or even have to win through against the existing state power. And as we know such holidays are already not without danger for the revolutionaries. If they take to the street with minor forces there is danger of directly handing themselves over - a small provocation is sufficient to provide the pretext to load year-long problems upon an organization for the most peripheral things: trials etc. pp. As long as there are no real outbursts by the masses - and these are out of the question in this country - revolutionary groups do the better by not demonstrating as organizations or forming coalitions of several minor organizations which all take to the street, as exactly by doing so the members and the closer followers of such an organization hand themselves over.
Conversely, the existing demonstrations partly have gained such a fatuous character as to make it impossible to take part any longer. In Berlin we have really ritualized forms, every year in principle the same taking place: on the one hand the boring demonstration of the DGB (federation of trade unions) with sausage stands etc., which meanwhile stands in crass contradiction to reality and is utter mockery of the situation of many working people. Understandably there have been less and less people going there. But this is not the only component of ritual. We also have a form of ritualized violence from the so-called "scene". The term "scene" already tells what is the matter, namely a certain ghetto of alleged leftists of a strange quality: the so-called autonomists. The autonomists are forces unwilling to commit themselves by any principle or organizational form. They are groups and organizational circles of the anarchist kind which preach the independence of the individual and the independence of the group. The structures of decision-making are absolutely unclear with them. Experience, however, teaches that there is no single autonomous or anarchist group in which there do not internally exist authoritarian structures in which usually one person or few persons absolutely have the say, by some cryptic mechanisms about which it is difficult to get information. Out of structures of that kind here at several times demonstrations "cum violence" have been produced, in which, however, sometimes also infuriation about certain bureaucratisms or single corporations found its expression, with this or that just action resulting. But in taking up economic problems, such as the purposeful setting free of workers which has been going on for twenty years, such as the problems of international cooperation of the working class, these demonstrations do not take part in at all and are not able to do so. Besides, they always have been completely blurring the limits towards Soviet social-imperialism as long as it existed, and basically they always have been fighting the criticism of revisionism. All in all one can say they are Antimarxists.
These so-called "revolutionary" 1st May demonstrations which politically are completely falling back behind the knowledge since long existing about the development of socialism, provide the contrast to the absolutely "peaceful" demonstrations of the DGB. They give the impression that there is an alternative which could be taken seriously but they are not.
Such a demonstration also today takes
place again in Berlin. This time, however, in the call of the autonomists
"Out for the revolutionary 1st of May!" there are more concessions to the
international labor movement, whereas little is left of ecologist phrases
and green propaganda, giving a hint that there are certain effects upon
the left.
The third is the demonstration of a special part from this orbit which is decisively being shaped by the so-called "Revolutionäre Kommunisten (BRD)" ("Revolutionary Communists (Federal Republic of Germany").
Militancy because of what and to which end, this is the question here. We want to dwell on some statements of the latter call of the "RK(BRD)"here, because in face of the bringing up of the rightist potentials the questions gain additional gravity.
This group already formerly has come out with phrases like "Germany has to die in order to make us able to live". If fascists invented a "communist organization" for their own purposes then it would be one with phrases of this kind which rightly can only be taken as a provocation. In the new leaflet this propaganda is being continued by varied words.
They give themselves a social appearance by especially dealing with the position of the foreigners in Germany.
About the fundamental relation to the foreigners in Germany the following has to be said: It is a well-known fact that during the years from appr. 1965 until deep into the eighties workers from abroad formed the most important contingents in the hardest jobs, above all also at the assembly lines. But the situation as it reached its climax 1972 to 1973 has changed already again. Today a very large part of production has been transferred out of Germany, and the position of the foreigners in Germany has become a very differentiated one. There are still people who are strongly exploited and do the worst jobs but in the other hand there is quite a considerable part of foreigners who themselves are active as exploiters in this country and are being supported in that by the bourgeoisie. There is also quite a considerable criminal swamp which actually is not being invented by the rightists but is existing and collaborating with the German criminal swamp. It amounts to hundreds of thousands of individuals. This is also a part of the exploiters. Besides, there is no small number of Islamic fundamentalists, above all among Turkish foreigners in Germany, of open ultra-reactionary and fascist views, who partly are open racists themselves. All of these facts quite knowingly are being swept under the rug by these people in order to make the thing one-sided. Labor aristocracism, petty-bourgeoisie way of living have been existing for long in great numbers among foreigners in Germany.
The sentences here written by the "RK(BRD)"all amount to looking at the problems only from one single angle and to possibly foil the unity of the workers. Today it is more important than ever to lead the workers in the developed capitalist countries away from labor aristocracism, their position being rightly undermined by globalization, and to lead the mass of the new workers as they appear above all in the Third World towards an association, and all together towards a common front. Only in this way there can be success. If we said, for example, we want to struggle only by the forces of new proletariat in the Third World, then we would delay the struggle here for a thousand years, because the potential in the Third World is immense, enabling the imperialists to carry on the exploitation sometimes in this, sometimes in that region and then to discard the respective masses of workers. We definitely need the association between the workers in the USA, in Europe and Japan and in the rest of the developed capitalist countries, and the workers in the "Third World" if there is to be social progress. The expositions from the "RK(BRD)", however, foil these efforts.
Especially recently, to not an irrelevant degree, the workers among the Germans who are now declassés and have been pushed out of their position, and their offspring are being re-recruited into very badly paid jobs. So we come full circle, having started with their raising, continued with their dismissal and ending finally with their being pressed down and degraded.
By the way, by no means all of those in power speak of the foreigners as taking away the jobs from the Germans. This is a typical slogan of reactionary, rightist, middle-class backwoodsmen but also, regrettably, of the part of the workers who balk at any overall interrelations and want to curry favour with the bourgeoisie in the own country. The rightist tendencies appearing today above all are dangerous because imperialist bribery among the workers, labor aristocracism, is a large, comprehensive phenomenon not only of material but also of cultural dimensions, which we have to fight. But in the way of the "RK(BRD)"we cannot fight it.
The essential thing about today’s
German imperialism is that it is, under the hegemony of US-imperialism,
striving to expand its influence, but at the same time mainly still is
clinging to this hegemony of US-imperialism. The USA itself continues to
equip this German power and attributes the role of a regional hegemonial
power to it which is to keep up the "new order" in this region of Europe
- middle-east-Europe. This power apparently is making use of openly rightist
elements in order to stabilize its rule. A new concept of these bourgeois
policies is becoming clearer. Formerly, above all so-called liberalism,
ecologism and "cautious growth" were the special hobbies of this imperialism.
We shall fight this new policies as we have fought the old ones. In the
new call of the "RK(BRD)", however, the Federal Republic of Germany is
described as a superpower standing completely on its own. But it cannot
be unimportant for us, if especially this relation between the USA and
the FRG is not mentioned by a single word in the political description
from this organization, and if this happens with an organization which
is decidedly inspired by the "RIM" ("Revolutionary Internationalist Movement"
with its center of gravity in the USA) .
1.Mai 98
Editorial staff of NEUE EINHEIT
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©
1996 Verlag NEUE EINHEIT (Inh. Hartmut
Dicke)