Archive for the ‘Socialism’ Category

Socialists Believe in Workers Democratically Liberating Themselves – Jacobin magazine

In the last two months, thousands of American workers walked off the job, sometimes without official permission from their union leaderships. Thats the big story of 2021 not just what didnt happen in the halls of power in Washington, DC, but what happened in workplaces in Iowa and Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

These strikes should hearten socialists. After all, a militant working class is at the heart of our theory of social change. But they should also make us think about how we can better connect the socialist movement to these kinds of working-class fights.

Todays socialist movement is still getting its sea legs. Our ideas about socialist strategy are hazy at best. Our leaders and politicians struggle to articulate a full explanation of how we get from capitalism to socialism, or even what socialism is. All of that is understandable after decades of dormancy, were just getting started. But if we want to link up the nascent American socialist movement with the brewing movement of the working class, we need to get our act together.

Without being dogmatic, we would do well to revisit our foundations. And two old theorists of socialism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, are the place to start. They were among the first to identify the unique interest working-class people have in socialism, and the first to recognize that workers have the potential power to win it. And they set down the principle of working-class self-emancipation that socialists should embrace today.

The working class is at the center of Marx and Engelss theory of socialist transformation. Workers will form the core of the movement to overcome capitalism, Marx and Engels argued, for three reasons.

First, after carefully studying the past, they observed that one class one group of people who share a similar role in the economy has always exploited another. The exploiter class lives off the labor of the exploited, taking from them the fruits of their work. That exploitation has led to resistance by the exploited and then, from time to time, class struggles.

The class struggles between masters and slaves shaped the ancient world, while those between lords and peasants shaped the feudal world. The struggles between capitalists (the bourgeoisie) and workers (the proletariat) similarly shape the capitalist world and will eventually lead to its transformation. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote: Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat.

But that only explains why Marx and Engels expected workers to come into conflict with capitalists. They also expected this conflict to move humanity forward toward a better, freer, and more humane way of organizing society.

This is the second reason Marx and Engels were confident workers would play the decisive role in social transformation. Workers, they reasoned, share similar interests, and those interests will lead them to struggles that will strengthen their own forces and transform the world for the better. Exploited by the capitalist class, workers are constantly being driven to fight back. Through conflict, they can win better working and living conditions for themselves and their families, but their victories are often precarious and unsatisfactory, and the basic fact of exploitation remains unchanged.

In the course of their struggles, workers can come to realize that they have an interest in changing the economy itself, for everyones benefit. (Though the realization will not happen automatically and socialists have an important role to play in bringing it about.)

History and interests alone, though, arent enough to change the world. Marx and Engelss third reason for believing the working class would be the ultimate agent of social change was that workers also have potential power. That power comes from workers strength in numbers and their concentration and function at the heart of capitalism: the workplace. In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote, With the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more.

As the vast majority of society, workers can potentially overwhelm the small capitalist class. And more importantly, workers can control the flow of profits. By striking or slowing down production, they can force the capitalist class the ruling class in our society today to negotiate. That power gives workers enormous leverage, which they can use to force capitalists to make changes in society. Eventually, they can also use their strength to throw the capitalist class out of power entirely.

In summary, Marx and Engels reasoned that workers 1) are destined to clash with societys ruling class, 2) have a compelling interest in transforming society, and 3) have the power needed to do so. That is why Marx and Engels believed workers could change the world.

They never rejected the need for alliances, of course. They saw middle-class people shopkeepers, intellectuals, farmers, and others as potential allies of the workers movement. In fact, they were quite concerned about winning sections of other classes over to socialism. But they recognized that the socialist project couldnt get anywhere without a base in the working class.

Marx and Engels were not interested in elite plots or coups, as many radicals had been before them. They insisted that a transition to socialism can only be carried out by the vast majority of society, a coalition of the working class and its allies with the former playing the leading role. This was their theory of how society can emancipate itself from the domination of a ruthless capitalist class.

Marx made this point most famously in the Rules of the First International: The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. Its a critically important principle, and it points to the democratic nature of the socialist project. But what did Marx really mean by the self-emancipation of the working class?

Marxs principle of working-class self-emancipation was a call for a participatory and democratic movement. The fight for socialism must involve the participation, in some form, of the vast majority of society.

That may not sound like a shocking insight to us today. But its so important and its a principle that in practice most socialist movements, from the social democrats in Western Europe to authoritarian communists all over the world, have been quick to flout.

Rather than building up the leadership and participation of regular people, social democrats and authoritarian communists have all too often tried to lead exclusively from the top. Theyve built undemocratic parties and relied on state violence to try to transform society. In doing so, theyve fallen far short of their initial objectives, and all too often have been corrupted by their power.

An effective socialist movement must call on regular working-class people to be leaders in struggles, and it must ensure democratic control of the movement and party members. From the very beginning, that will require building parties, unions, and social movements that include millions of working people and are led by workers.

If our movement is to succeed, our organizations cannot remain the preserve of middle-class activists who fight on behalf of workers but not alongside them. Not for moral reasons if a better society could be won that way, so be it! but for strategic reasons.

Nowhere in the world has a small middle-class movement been able to fundamentally transform a society for the better. It takes mass working-class movements to win transformational changes. Workers alone have the numbers, the interest, and the power that is needed to force ruling classes to make concessions and eventually depose them.

Bringing in millions of working-class people is no easy feat. It requires a strong commitment to democracy. Thats why democratic socialists are so committed to transforming the labor movement through the rank-and-file strategy both so we can include more people in the movement and so we can start to democratize the workplace, while in the process training a new generation of worker leaders.

Its also why were so committed to building democratic political parties and social movements. Training a new generation of worker leaders involves bringing many people into struggle not just as foot-soldiers, but as strategists and decision-makers with bosses, employers, racist cops, and the state. Its through struggle (plus debate and discussion with comrades) that people learn about the limits of capitalism and the need to go beyond it. Its how peoples consciousness is shaped and developed in a socialist direction.

Our commitment to self-emancipation also determines the kind of democratic reforms we fight for. As socialists, were committed to transforming the state through reforms like proportional representation, the public financing of elections, and rewriting constitutions changes that empower regular people to exercise more control over the state. This commitment to democratic reform is based on the same theory that more democratic participation will only yield a greater desire for self-governance and a greater capacity to achieve it.

Eventually, we will need the vast majority of working-class people workers in the tens of millions in the United States and in the billions globally to be involved in the process of actually building socialism.

In a complicated and protracted transition out of capitalism, there will be hundreds of thousands of conflicts both small and large. In every city and town and in every workplace, the conflict between the capitalist class and the working class will break out into the open. It will rest on the shoulders of individual workers to occupy shop floors, lead mass demonstrations, plan strikes, capture city councils, win elections, negotiate alliances, decide on tactics, and so on.

Only a movement that is alive at the base, and that has adequately trained a generation of working-class leaders, will have the power needed to uproot the old order and build a new one on democratic lines. Nor does the process of self-emancipation end with the death of capitalism. A socialist world will be one in which everyone is empowered in some way to help shape society. In winning socialism, the working class will win the right to determine its own fate.

The principle of working-class self-emancipation is one of the few real rules for socialist organizing that Marx and Engels ever laid down. And they were insistent on it from the start. As Engels wrote in a preface to the Communist Manifesto: Our notion, from the very beginning, was that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself. Hard coding that commitment into the DNA of our movement remains an essential task.

The strikes of 2021 remind us that working-class struggle is really possible. If tens of thousands of workers can risk everything by walking off the job when the labor movement is practically on its knees, imagine whats possible when we really get organized.

Ultimately, it wont be enough to win wage increases and better benefits. Those are essential demands, but the bosses and the ruling class wont let us keep them for long without a fight. Theyll be back sooner rather than later demanding new cuts to contracts. We dont want to have to keep fighting these battles over and over again and all while we live through a climate catastrophe.

Thats why we still need democratic socialism. We need a society where the owners and bosses have lost their power, where regular people rule in politics and the workplace, where we have the right to remake the world.

To prepare ourselves for this monumental undertaking, we need to drill down deep into questions about democracy, responsibility, and leadership. We need to flesh out our demands. We need a real conception of what democratic socialism might look like and what the transition to that better world might take.

But most of all, the socialist movement needs power. The strikes of last year show us where that power is already located, latent and waiting to be organized: in the working class. They remind us of what the best strategists and theorists of the socialist movement once said: The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself. Workers will win a better world. No one else can do it.

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Socialists Believe in Workers Democratically Liberating Themselves - Jacobin magazine

Nowa Huta: The city that went from communism to capitalism – BBC News

Ten years ago, a visitor would have had little to do in the city, but Nowa Huta has learned to capitalise on its communist heritage. The city offers foreigners and Poles alike a snapshot of communism as it once was. "Young [Poles] nowadays have no idea what it was like," said Marchocki. Stepping into parts of Nowa Huta is like stepping into the worlds of their parents and grandparents: from the fully renovated People's Theatre with its Egyptian-inspired Socialist Realist style and bright neon sign, to the monuments to the Solidarity movement, which would bring down communism across Poland in 1989, and some 250 nuclear bunkers that lie beneath the city, relics of a time when people worried about nuclear apocalypse.

Besides its history, which can be explored at the Museum of Nowa Huta, opened in 2019 at the site of the old movie theatre, the main draw for tourists today is Nowa Huta's remaining Socialist Realist architecture. As one of only two planned and built Socialist Realist settlements in the world, besides Magnitogorsk deep in Russia's interior, Nowa Huta is something different from the bland modernism and grey brutalism usually associated with Eastern European socialism. Exemplified by the buildings on Central Square ironically renamed in Ronald Reagan's honour in 2004 the Socialist Realist style can also be seen inside Nowa Huta's few original shops. For example, the highly decorative interior of the folk-art shop Cepelix, located on the city's north-east side, designed by the top Polish interior designers of the time.

You may also be interested in: The secrets hiding in Warsaw What can Poland teach us about freedom? Why Polish people hate rules

But the jewel of Nowa Huta's Socialist Realist architecture is in the former Administrative Building of the Steelworks, whose faux Renaissance exterior and luxurious interior still display the style's ideal. Though technically closed to the public, the Promotion of Nowa Huta Foundation offers tours of the building, with Marchocki describing it as "the most iconic building in Nowa Huta." With all its pomp, it's a testament to the utopian ambitions that birthed the city ambitions that the workers themselves would challenge.

In 1980, when the country was rocked by strikes called by the Solidarity trade union, the Vladimir Lenin Steelworks of Nowa Huta would boast the largest workplace chapter of the union, with a membership rate of 97%. The Catholic church resolutely supported the union and the protests, forcing the ruling communists into the incredibly awkward position of standing in opposition to the workers they were meant to represent.

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Nowa Huta: The city that went from communism to capitalism - BBC News

A New Year’s appeal from the World Socialist Web Site – World Socialist Web Site – WSWS

New Year 2022 marks the beginning of the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Humanity is in the midst of the greatest crisis since the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century. The death toll stands, officially, at approximately 5.5 million. But if the calculation of fatalities is measured by excess deathsan increase in expected mortality that is, in all probability, caused by circumstances associated with the pandemicthe total number of COVID-19 victims is approximately 19 million. Within the United States, close to 850,000 people have died. This number includes one out of every 100 Americans over the age of 65.

The horrific death toll cannot be understood only in terms of the biological transmission of a viral pathogen. The science underlying the pandemic is understood very well by biologists, epidemiologists, and virologists. Experts in the sphere of public health, drawing on more than a century of experience, know what must be done to end a pandemic and save lives.

But the application of scientific knowledge and the efforts of conscientious public health experts have been sabotaged by the ruthless prioritization of the economic and political interests that have determined the response of capitalist governments throughout the world to the pandemic.

Within weeks of the discovery of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, scientists and public health officials understood that the world confronted a threat of potentially catastrophic dimensions. In a complex and intensely interconnected global community, the coronavirus would spread rapidly throughout the world, infect billions, and make seriously ill and even kill tens of millions of people unless emergency measures were taken to stop viral transmission. It was necessary to implement a Zero-COVID strategy directed toward the elimination and ultimate eradication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

In China, New Zealand, and a few other primarily Asian-Pacific countries, effective health measures were put in place. The number of infections quickly plunged, and the number of deaths were held to low double-digit or even single-digit figures.

But the most powerful capitalist governments, first and foremost those in the US and Western Europe, rejected this scientifically rational and humane course of action.

For two years, that which should be the fundamental aim of public health policiesthe protection of human lifehas been consciously and criminally subordinated to corporate profit and personal wealth accumulation by mega-millionaires and billionaires. Government policies have been focused not on driving the death toll down but on driving share prices on the stock exchange higher.

Malignant self-interest has interacted with national chauvinism. The fight against the pandemic requires a global strategy. But a toxic alliance of imperialist and corporate interests opposed a scientifically guided global response. Safe and effective vaccines should be made quickly and freely available to every person on the planet. Yet, the giant pharmaceutical companies defense of their profits stands in the way.

Nearly 70 years ago, the virologist Jonas Salkwho played a central role in the development of the polio vaccine in the early 1950swas asked on nationwide television if he owned the patent. Salk replied, There is no patent. Can you patent the sun?

The pharmaceutical industry has long since made impossible such expressions of public health altruism. Everything has a priceespecially the right to medical care. Having converted urgently required medications and vaccinations into private property, it holds billions of lives for ransom.

The global pandemic has exposed, as no other event in modern history, the failure of the capitalist system and the irreconcilable conflict between the grotesquely rich ruling elite and the overwhelming mass of the worlds population.

The pandemic will not be stopped only through medical measures. The struggle to end the pandemic has assumed the form of a struggle between classes.

The capitalist class has viewed the pandemic, first and foremost, as an opportunity to increase its wealth. Share values on Wall Street stand at record levels. The policies that the ruling class has implemented during the last two years have resulted in the colossal enrichment of an infinitesimal fraction of the worlds population. Those same policies have led to millions of deaths.

Having gorged themselves for the past two years, the corporate-financial elite and the governments they control are determined that the feasting will continue. Despite the emergence of the more infectious Omicron variant, governments are demanding that children be sent into schools and workers stay on their jobs.

Sending kids into infected classrooms is not about education. It is about providing corporations with a workforce, without which corporate revenues and profits cannot be generated. But in demanding that teachers report to schools and workers remain on the job, the capitalists are acknowledging that the working class is indispensable to the functioning of society.

All pretense of stopping the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been abandoned. A chasm has opened between media propaganda and observable reality. The Omicron variant is blessed by the corporate media with the words mild and less severe. The schools are declared to be the safest places to be, where children are, as if by magic, protected against infections. But on January 10, it was reported that 141,000 Americans are in the hospital with COVID-19 and that more than 580,000 children under 18 were infected with the virus last week alone. Record numbers of children are being hospitalized due to the supposedly mild Omicron variant. Over 1,000 children have already been killed by COVID-19 in the US, a figure that will rise dramatically in the coming weeks due to the Omicron surge.

But the slogan of the day, repeated endlessly by the media, is that society must learn to live with COVID. What does this mean? Since Christmas Day, little more than two weeks ago, more than 20,000 Americans died of the virus. These victims could not live with the virus. But the government and media continue to normalize death and suffering, to elevate what the recently inaugurated New York City Mayor Eric Adams calls the financial ecosystem over the wellbeing of humanity.

This is the outlook of a social class that is hurtling toward barbarism. There is no limit on the number of deaths that capitalist governments are prepared to tolerate. Committed to the policy of herd immunitythe uncontrolled spread of the virus throughout the populationgovernments are carrying out a ghoulish experiment on the working people of their countries. As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson infamously stated, Let the bodies pile high.

The working class is now beginning to take up the fight against this inhuman indifference to human life. This is the significance of the struggle of teachers, who are refusing to conduct classes under conditions that place the lives of children and their families at risk. Broader sections of the working class and student youth are joining this fight.

But the development of a powerful mass movement against the pandemic requires a political, social and historical perspective: that is, a clear understanding among workers of who they are fighting against and what they are fighting for.

The World Socialist Web Site published by the International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality parties throughout the worldis the indispensable and decisive weapon in the fight for this perspective.

2022 marks the beginning of the twenty-fifth year of daily publication of the WSWS. It has, during these many years, established itself as the authoritative and uncompromising voice of socialism and international working-class solidarity.

For the past two years, the World Socialist Web Site has reported on and analyzed the nature and significance of the pandemic. It has explained both the science and the politics of the pandemic. Since it posted its first article reporting the emergence of the new coronavirus on January 24, 2020, the World Socialist Web Site has posted more than 4,000 articles on the pandemic.

From the earliest stages of the crisis, the WSWS insisted that the pandemic could be stopped only through the implementation of a global strategy. On March 6, 2020, when the global death toll was less than 3,500 and total deaths in the United States were still under 20, the WSWS warned:

Without emergency intervention, there is a danger that this pandemic will spread uncontrollably throughout the population and cause a staggering loss of life.

This social catastrophe must be prevented. All sections of the working class, youth and students must demand that governments take emergency action to stop the spread of the virus and provide the necessary care for all those who are infected by the disease. This requires a massive reallocation of social resources.

The principle that must guide the response is that the needs of society overrule the interests of profit. Capitalist calculations of share values and profits must not be allowed to limit, undermine, or prevent the combatting of the disease.

There is no political party or publication whose record compares to that of the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site. The warnings of the WSWS, as well as the policies it advances, have been vindicated.

But the work of the WSWS has not been limited to reporting and warning. All our efforts have been directed toward laying the foundation for action by the working class to bring about the end of the pandemic.

During the past year, the WSWS has made significant advances in the organization and political direction of the struggles of the working class.

The call issued on May 1, 2021 for the establishment of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees vastly strengthened the struggle of workers in a series of major industrial strikes that developed in the months that followed.

The international webinars organized by the WSWS in August and October 2021 made a major contribution toward the building of a global movement of the working class, allied with the most principled scientists and public health professionals, for the elimination and eradication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The WSWSs Global Workers Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic, launched in November, is gathering evidence to expose the criminal responsibility of the capitalist system for the massive scale of deaths.

The World Socialist Web Site is determined to continue and expand its work in the New Year.

The growing movement of the working class presents us with both opportunities and challenges. Among those challenges is the raising of resources.

This is why I urge you to make the largest possible donation to the World Socialist Web Site today. Your ongoing financial support is critically necessary not only to continue the work of the WSWS, but to vastly expand our reach to the millions of workers and young people throughout the world who are searching for an alternative to this inhuman, grotesquely unequal, militaristic and morally bankrupt society.

But in addition to asking for funds, I urge you to draw the necessary conclusion from the experience of the past two years: make the conscious decision to fight for a socialist future, to put an end to the pandemic, to capitalist exploitation and inequality, to war and fascism. Make the decision to join and build the Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Get involved in the fight for socialism

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A New Year's appeal from the World Socialist Web Site - World Socialist Web Site - WSWS

Glenn Beck: I Was Wrong That COVID Pandemic Was About Socialism, It Is About Total Control And Fascism – RealClearPolitics

Glenn Beck warns the West will go away by 2030 in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Tuesday.GLENN BECK: This is the most important topic of my career, and I think this is the most important topic in the world today.

The Great Reset is not a conspiracy theory, it is something that the Davos people have put together along with the World Economic Forum, and it is running rampant through every Western capital and every Western country. It is, I just read this, tomorrow morning at 9:30 A.M., the Washington state COVID detainment emergency, they are going to have a state board of health discussing from 9:30 to 3:30 tomorrow, 'allowing local health officers to use law enforcement to force an emergency order in involuntarily detaining a person or group of persons, families to be isolated in a quarantine facility following their refusal to comply with request medical examinations, treatment, counseling, and vaccination.'

This is an internment camp. Washington state has done it before, they haven't obviously learned their lesson from World War II. This again is all about total and complete control. I was wrong. For a long time, I thought this was about socialism. It is not. It is a brand of fascism. In socialism and communism, the state and the people own everything, that's not what's coming. If you want to understand why our corporations are saying that they have to have these teach white people how bad they are, why they're condemning the United States, but not China because China is the new global model, and all of it is in here with 50 pages of fine print footnotes.

Do not go online and just search unless it's an original source because there is a lot of bad information out. This must get out to every person I believe in the Western world. This is not an American problem, this is the entire West going away by 2030, and I think the next, they just war-gamed -- the World Economic Forum just war-gamed that next economic collapse. I think that's coming in the next couple of years, I could be wrong, I usually am on timing, but when that happens, it is lights out. It is over. They will control your food, your water, your work, your education, your banking, your money, gasoline. France is just now paying a rate increase for their electricity of 45 percent because of the Great Reset. They are shutting down their nuclear power plants, and it's going to cost 45% increase in energy.

They are going to bankrupt the entire West and only the elites are going to be able to have money, the food they want, the jobs they want, et cetera, et cetera. We will be left in the dust. We must educate ourselves right now.

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Glenn Beck: I Was Wrong That COVID Pandemic Was About Socialism, It Is About Total Control And Fascism - RealClearPolitics

Interview: after the Hong Kong rebellion International Socialism – International Socialism Journal

Hong Kong hit the headlines in 2019 when a wave of struggles erupted, trigged by new extradition laws proposed by the Hong Kong government. Lam Chi Leung, a socialist activist based in the region, spoke to International Socialism about the struggle, its roots in earlier social movements and what has happened since.

At the moment, the coverage of Hong Kong in the West emphasises the repression of the democracy movement. It seems as if the movement that erupted in 2019, triggered by attempts by China to impose a new extradition law on Hong Kong, has been contained. How accurate is this perception?

We do have to admit that the anti-extradition movement has been contained. As of October 2021, 10,265 people have been arrested; 2,684 people have been charged with criminal offenses, and 720 of these have been charged with rioting. Nine activists have committed suicide, and some protesters are suspected of having been murdered.

The movement began when small numbers participated in sit-ins and marches in March and April 2019, but it evolved into widespread mass protest on the eve of the attempt by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government to pass the legislation on 9 June. The wave of protests included two marches of over two million people in June and August, in which one in four Hong Kong residents took part. There was also a successful occupation of the SAR Legislative Council on 1 July and a relatively successful political strike on 5 August. A large number of secondary school students demonstrated in September by forming human chains, and the Polytechnic University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong were occupied by students and protesters.

Violent clashes broke out with police in November, but the movement reached its climax and started to go downhill after this. Planned protests were halted or scaled down when Covid-19 emerged in Hong Kong in late January 2020, and then the Chinese state bypassed the SAR Legislative Council to force through a deeply reactionary Hong Kong National Security Law on 30 June. Although there were still sporadic demonstrations after the passage of this law, such as the spontaneous lighting of candles in various districts across Hong Kong on 4 June, the mass movement had largely ended.

Can you say more about how Covid-19 and other factors changed the pattern of protests? And what kind of situation has resulted since the protests ebbed?

Building on the momentum of the anti-extradition movement, a series of new unions were set up at the end of 2019. These include the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance (HAEA), which was established by frontline public health workers and recruited some 20,000 members. From 3 February 2020, these workers took five days of strike action, calling on the Hong Kong Hospital Authority to provide adequate personal protective gear to doctors, nurses and other staff. As the novel coronavirus spread from Wuhan to the rest of China, the HAEA also demanded the immediate closure of Hong Kongs border with mainland China. So the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in Hong Kong caused the prestige of the SAR to tumble, while simultaneously accelerating the growth of the new trade union movement. People saw that an organised working class was better able to advance the movement than unorganised street actions.

Covid-19 was at its most serious in Hong Kong from February to April 2020; since May 2020 the situation has gradually been improving. However, despite the easing of the pandemic, the Hong Kong government has not lifted its directives restricting public gatherings and has prohibited a workers May Day march. The SAR government uses these directives to stop mass rallies on sensitive dates: commemorations of the Tiananmen Square protests on 4 June, the anniversary of the movement against the extradition bill on 9 June and the anniversary of Hong Kongs return to China on 1 July.

The implementation of the National Security Law in June 2020 will be a strong deterrent to mass resistance, just as it was designed to be. The law is very stringent; its prohibition on the subversion of state power covers a wide range of activities, including openly calling for the independence of Hong Kong. Raising slogans calling for the downfall of the SAR government or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)including displaying banners with these demandsare likely to be illegal.

Collusion between the people of Hong Kong and foreign political forces is also forbidden by the National Security Law, but there is no clear definition of this crime. Moreover, the law provides for the establishment of a special Hong Kong enforcement agency made up of the national security authorities tied to the CCP government. This force can delete online content, enter and search homes, and request any information from an individualthere is no right to remain silent. Its officers can even freeze personal assets without court approval. Essentially, this special agency is unbound by the local laws of Hong Kong and can do whatever it likes.

Secondary schools and libraries have started to remove books that advocate Hong Kongs independence or promote militant resistance by the democratic opposition. The CCP plans to implement a so-called patriotic ideology, leading to attempts at brainwashing in the education system.

Since the implementation of the National Security Law, things have been grim in Hong Kong. Around 100 people have been arrested under the law, including 47 opposition figures who participated in the 2020 pro-democracy primaries, which selected a list of candidates for elections to the Legislative Council. Jimmy Lai, the founder of Hong Kongs pro-movement Apple Daily newspaper, and some of his senior staff were also arrested. Some 40 oppositional political and civil society organisations have announced their disbandment. Among them are the Civil Human Rights Front, the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (HKAS), and student unions at institutions such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong. There have been big debates about whether to surrender without a fight like this. Some of those in favour of early dissolution of opposition groups insisted that disbanding would mean leniency from the authorities, which is largely untrue; others contended that if they failed to dissolve early, they might be physically harmed, which is likely true. However, still others argued against dissolution, including Tonyee Chow Hang-tung, vice-chair of HKAS: The bigger the danger we face, the more we need to calmly assess the pros and cons of each choice The regime has unsheathed its sword: cooperating with its operations at this stage will definitely not get us any advantages.

Along with Apple Daily, which was forced to cease publication in June 2021, Hong Kongs alternative media has also come under serious political pressure; the website Stand News, for instance, has deleted all of its old articles. Public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong, which is editorially independent in principle, has been subject to strict government censorship over the past year. Certain programmes have been suspended, and some hosts have been replaced. Hong Kong citizens have become more cautious when posting online and raising political slogans, fearing they may be detected by, or reported to, national security authorities.

The National Security Law stipulates that not only acts, but even speech considered separatist, subversive or in collusion with foreign forces can be criminally punished. The definitions of these three legal categories are extremely vague. By deliberately refusing to clarify precisely where its political red line lies, the Chinese authorities aim to intimidate Hong Kong citizens in order to extend central government control. Some pro-Beijing figures have already argued that the National Security Law should not just be used to attack open oppositionists, but should also be the catalyst for a political purge lasting at least two years. The aim would be to effect a wholesale transformation of Hong Kongs judicial, social, cultural, ideological, educational and media institutions.

In order to strengthen the control of the Chinese state, the Hong Kong SAR government is now preparing to restart the legislative process related to Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law. This process would mean Hong Kong establishing its own legislation to protect the national security of the Chinese government. The Chinese authorities have wanted to create such laws for a long time; in 2003, a march of 500,000 city residents led to the shelving of similar legislation.

Can you describe the nature and composition of the movement in 2019? What sort of social groups were involved? How did the movement organise? What were the central demands and slogans?

The anti-extradition movement was one of the largest and most violent mass struggles since Hong Kong was returned to China by Britain in 1997. It showed that the people of Hong Kong are deeply dissatisfied with the status quo since the handover of power and are extremely distrustful of the central government in Beijing.

The mass movement mainly involved young and middle aged people, but also older and retired people. Along with university and secondary school students, trade unionists, nurses, social workers, teachers and civil servants, there were even pro-movement rallies organised by the elderly. The marches and blockades were mainly launched through social media, and the strikes were in response to calls from trade unions. Nonetheless, neither the marches nor the blockades nor the strikes were primarily the result of mobilisation by social movement groups and trade union organisations. Instead, they were essentially spontaneous. This is why the movement was described as decentralised and unorganised.

The mass movement spontaneously came up with its own central slogan: Five Demands, Not One Less! These five demands were: full withdrawal of the extradition bill; a commission of inquiry into police brutality; retraction of the classification of protesters as rioters; amnesty for arrested protesters; and dual universal suffrage, meaning elections for both the Legislative Council and Hong Kongs Chief Executive. Other prominent slogans included Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our Times, Fight for Freedom and Stand with Hong Kong. With increasing state violence, some voices within the movement have even called for the abolition of the police force.

Although none of the five demands had a socio-economic dimension, the breadth of mass participation reflected public dissatisfaction with the serious exploitation and social inequality in Hong Kong. The free market capitalism of Hong Kong has further increased poverty and economic inequality. One in five Hong Kong citizens, some 1.65 million people, live below the poverty line. Its Gini coefficient, which measures wealth inequality, is higher than the United States and Singapore. As the father of Marco Leung Ling-kit, the first young man in the anti-extradition movement to commit suicide, told reporters: The government has tailor-made the extradition bill for the rich, but has no protection for the rest of Hong Kong people. The government is ignorantly pursuing wealth, making young people work for the rich and become slaves, and the lower class and ordinary people have no right to ask questions about the policy.

Who provided the leadership in the movement? And were more mainstream political forces involved?

This can be explained in terms of both organisational and political-ideological leadership. From an organisational point of view, the peaceful marches were mainly initiated by the Civil Human Rights Front, but the storming of government buildings and the occupation of universities were mobilised through social networks. The movement adopted the idea of no big stageneither opposition political parties nor social movement groups took over leadership, not daring to do so. Even the Civil Human Rights Front, which initiated many marches, lacked the authority and ability to lead all aspects of the movement, instead merely providing a platform for public participation.

Ideologically, the movement mainly reflected the ideas of bourgeois democracy. Both pro-US and anti-Chinese far-right forms of Hong Kong localism, which resists integration into China from a right-wing perspective, have attempted to dominate the movement, but without success. Unfortunately, the left was also too weak and fragmented to have any real influence on the movement.

The notion of no big stage is partially a result of disaffection, especially among young activists, with the weaknesses and compromises of the moderate democrats of the Democratic Party. These activists distrust any party that tries to dominate the movement. However, the far-right localists also constantly push the idea, and they even claim to be tearing down the big stage, attempting to seize leadership of the movement by vilifying the progressive social movement. One of the movements slogans, Do Not Split!, ostensibly emphasises peaceful demonstrations and the unity of action without mutual recrimination; however, the objective effect is to allow the far-right localists to organise with impunity.

We on the left do not simply face a choice between two unpalatable optionsbureaucratic, top-down organisation or unorganised forms of protest. There is a third option: the creation of forms of organisation from the bottom up, in which participants are mutually accountable. Once established, this could provide a platform for debate on the direction of the movement and, more importantly, a collective force to counteract the actions of individuals who undermine it. This would be an important step towards mass self-organisation. However, the 2019 movement failed to work towards this goal. This was a major weakness of the movement.

There were a number of large protest movements across the world in 2019. Did people in Hong Kong identify with any of these wider movements?

Solidarity rallies in sympathy with Catalan independence activists were launched during the mass movement in Hong Kong, but this does not equate to the masses identifying with Catalonia or other struggles around the world. Although Hong Kong is known as a cosmopolitan city, the general population is not very internationally minded, and most are still influenced heavily by British and US mainstream media. Nevertheless, the anti-extradition movement was never an isolated phenomenon. In 2019, mass movements erupted in Iran, Iraq, Ecuador and Chile. Some even compared these developments to the Arab Spring in 2011, dubbing them the Spring of the Global South, although there were also serious movements in the Global North, including France and Catalonia. Despite their differing catalysts and methods of struggle, these uprisings were united in their anger against social inequality and political repression.

Even the ruling class in Hong Kong and China understand that the gulf between the rich and poor is driving deep disappointment with the status quo, especially among young people. The inability to see a way out of this situation fuelled the movement for over half a year, and mainstream public opinion continues to support the protesters. The extradition bill was only a spark for the protests; the more deep-seated causes lie in the states neoliberal policies, the exploitative behaviour of financial and real estate capitalists, and the servile relationship of the government towards the rich.

The struggles in Hong Kong and elsewhere since 2019 all exhibit a certain crisis of the notion of leadership, and this has been particularly acute in Hong Kong, where the movement has advocated decentralisation and no leadership. This stands in contrast to the Sudanese Revolutions resistance committees and the assembly of assemblies created by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France.

What were the continuities and changes between the movement that emerged in 2019 and earlier movements such as the 2014 Umbrella Movement?

From 2009 to 2019, Hong Kong witnessed a long wave of rising struggle. This included the fights against the Hong Kong Express Rail Link in 2009 and against the implementation of the National Education curriculum in 2012. Underlying these protests were a radicalisation of ordinary people, particularly the youth, who are dissatisfied with the SAR governments favouritism towards large consortiums in urban planning policies and attempts to introduce ideologically biased content into secondary schools. The so-called Umbrella Movement of 2014 and the 2019 anti-extradition movement are part of this long series of popular struggle. What all of these instances have in common is an impulse towards radical action to secure political democracy, albeit without a thought through plan.

Despite this lineage, the 2019 movement displayed characteristics different from its predecessors. First, unlike the Umbrella Movement, which fought to extend democratic rights to a general election and the election of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, the anti-extradition movement sought to defend existing personal freedoms and basic human rights from further encroachment. In this sense, it was a defensive rather than offensive struggle.

Second, the Umbrella Movement pursued tactics such as long-term road occupations, stressing the need for a valiant struggle with no retreats. In contrast, the anti-extradition movement adopted more flexible tactics in its early stages. Protesters did not just stubbornly defend their ground in the face of police repression; instead, they advocated a repertoire of protest tactics described as smart struggle.

Third, during the Umbrella Movement, many far-right localists were able to highjack the movement with demagogic slogans, such as Hong Kong First, which often targeted new mainland Chinese immigrants and tourists. The far-right localists influence in the anti-extradition movement was still evident, but also weakened. The majority of participants in 2019 were citizens who were inclined towards peaceful demonstrations and strikes. They criticised the far-right localists for advocating independence for Hong Kong, and they hoped, quite pragmatically, to gain support from mainland Chinese residents. To take one example, a protest took place in Kowloon district on 7 July 2019, where some organisers themselves tended towards xenophobic localism. Despite this, rank and file activists distributed flyers in simplified Chinese to tourists, sung the Internationale and chanted the slogan Democracy is a Good Thingthe title of a well known book by Yu Keping, a CCP official at the University of Beijing. Clearly not all protesters tended towards far-right localist ideas.

To what extent were workers, particularly organised groups of workers, involved in the movements of the past few years?

Since Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, the working-class struggle has made some steps forward. For instance, there was a public sector strike against privatisation in 2000, a construction workers strike in 2007 and a dockworkers strike in 2013. However, generally speaking, the level of activity and class consciousness among workers cannot be described as high.

The 2019 movement, for the first time since the Hong Kong riots of 1967, put the question of the political strike on the agenda. On 5 August 2019, some 350,000 airline and airport staff, social workers, and teachers struck. Perhaps a third of all air traffic control employees took part in the action, and a section of Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines cabin crew also joined, leading to the cancellation of over 200 flights. Subway lines were also suspended for half a day. Strictly speaking, though, this was not a full-blown strike; in order to avoid retribution from their employers, some workers (including teachers and social workers) used their annual leave entitlements to participate in the action. Some employers simply let their employees take leave for the day. Yet, although it was only a symbolic one-day strike, this was still a breakthrough. During the 2014 mass movement, only dockers participated in the occupation of the central business district, and only 2,000 social workers went on strike in support of the movement. The scale of mobilisation among workers in 2019 was much higher.

Some on the left see the recent movements in Hong Kong as pro-imperialist movements, influenced by the British and US governments, who wish to use them against China. What do you say in response to this?

From the establishment in China and Hong Kong to post-Stalinists internationally, there have been accusations that our popular movements are controlled and backed by Western forces, and that the movement is ultimately in favour of Hong Kong independence. This is false. The movement was initiated by citizens themselves, and its primary driving force has been young protestorsforeign governments have had no power to intervene. Some pro-democracy members of parliament, and prominent activists such as Joshua Wong, have favorable views of the West and a degree of faith in the US government. These people often appeared in the media, but only because they are relatively well known public figures. They also have no power to lead the movement, and they have very clearly disavowed leadership.

Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have said that they oppose the repression in Hong Kong, but there is a long history of exchanges between US law enforcement and Hong Kong police. Weapons and riot control technology used by the Hong Kong police have been supplied by US companies for many years. Many of the same technologies have been used on black protesters and their allies in the US.

Some on the left still hold a campist view, believing that some anti-US regimes still represent a progressive force against Western imperialism. Some even think along the lines of the old, false adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Those left wingers who support the Chinese regime as anti-imperialist and refuse to criticise it misunderstand the nature of this state. It is a bureaucratic, capitalist regime directed against the working class.

To what extent is there an organised left in the movement in Hong Kongeither broad formations or narrower revolutionary socialist groups? What kind of politics exist on the left?

The left in Hong Kong is small and divided, and encompasses social-democratic and broad left organisations, plus a minority of anarchist-style networks and revolutionary socialists. The socialist left has only a limited influence. Nevertheless, there were some positive developments between 2009 to 2014particularly the formation of Left 21, a board left platform, founded in 2010, that has about 80-100 young members. It played an active role in solidarity with the 2013 dockers strike. Subsequently, however, amid the rise of far-right localist ideology, the broad left fell into political confusion, and some people were even won over to the far right.

Unfortunately, the left was unable to intervene effectively in the 2019 movement. Today, in the new political environment, the socialist left needs to work with the new generation of youth, organising around the issues that most concern the public, and clarifying its ideas at the same time. Only in this way can it gradually strengthen its influence.

In recent years, there have been big workers struggles in China over issues such as wages and factory closures. Yet, these seem very different in character to the movements in Hong Kong, which focused more on political questions rather than economic ones. Is there any prospect of bridging the gap between these two movements?

During the past decade of mass struggles in Hong Kong, the battle for democracy, universal suffrage and political freedoms has been the main theme, but it has also included economic struggles among workers. Conversely, the level of workers struggle in mainland China has been relatively high over this period. This has been complemented by a variety of civic currents, from the feminist movement to residents campaigns against polluting enterprises.

Since the 1990s, Hong Kong activists have consistently supported labour, human rights, gender rights, LGBT+ and environmental activists in China, contributing to the development of Chinese social movements and civil society. The relative civil freedom in Hong Kong enables activists to spread social movement literature into China, promote intellectual exchanges among mainland Chinese and Hong Kong activists, and organise solidarity with resistance in the mainland. Many books that could only be published in Hong Kong have been brought into mainland China, including writings by mainland Chinese authors. However, discussions about social movements have also been increasingly suppressed in Hong Kong. With growing central government control over Hong Kong and the disbanding of numerous labour NGOs, this role has been seriously undermined. It is unlikely to recover in the next few years, and may get even worse.

Nevertheless, there is still some room for activists from both sides to take stock of the experiences of the past decade and to build networks for the exchange of information and analysis. This would ensure that the movement could re-emerge in the future and develop healthily. The socialist left needs to work to facilitate this process.

What should revolutionary socialists be arguing for in Hong Kong?

As a city that is already part of China and highly integrated into the Chinese economy, Hong Kongs future is closely linked to that of China as a whole. The greatest obstacle to democracy in Hong Kong comes from Beijing. Thus, democratic self-governance for Hong Kong can only be achieved if we do our best to work closely with the working people of all China, fighting for full democratic freedoms and working-class power.

This is why revolutionary socialists never saw Hong Kongs independence as an objective. Only by promoting workers struggles and progressive social movements, such as the feminist movement within China, can we transform the bureaucratic capitalist system that dominates mainland China as well as Hong Kong. Realistically, advocating independence will fail to garner the support of the working people in mainland China, instead facilitating groups that seek to divide the residents of Hong Kong from those of China and to distort the democratic demands of Hong Kong residents. Therefore, calling for Hong Kongs independence is an unreasonable and unwise choice.

Revolutionary socialists advocate the general slogan of establishing a Hong Kong residents representative assembly by universal suffrage, but we have no illusions about capitalist democracy. It is only the working masses, not the capitalists, who have the strength and determination to convene such an assembly. When mass struggles arise in the future, working people should set up a representative assembly to implement their own class will and move towards an anti-capitalist transformation of society and the economy.

What are the prospects for the movement in Hong Kong, and in China, in the years ahead?

The defeat of movements always leaves scars. After the failure of the Prague Spring in 1968 and the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in China in 1989, there were many years of downturn. Nevertheless, Hong Kong is different from, say, China back in 1989, because we still retain many freedoms. There is not total censorship of books and the internet, and we can still communicate with one another. National security surveillance is not as severe as it was in mainland Chinaor in Taiwan during the Kuomintangs period of martial law between 1949 and 1987.

Some argue that failed mass movements leave little memory and that future movements will find it difficult to learn from earlier experiences. This is an overly pessimistic assessment. Even in mainland China, it is common for young people to break through the restrictions on the internet and seek valuable information.

When will the current downturn come to an end? Looking at previous historical developments, it is unlikely that it will last long. China has lacked a strong mass movement since 1989, but there was a resurgence of workers and peasants struggles from the mid-90s onwards. After the Prague Spring in 1968 came the Charter 77 movement in Czechoslovakia in 1977.

To a great extent, the future of democracy in Hong Kong depends on whether there is an economic and social crisis in mainland China. If the CCPs bureaucratic rule remains strong, Hong Kong will face a period even more difficult than at present. However, the global capitalism system currently faces deep problems, and Chinas crisis is brewing.

China has become an imperialist state, according to the classical Marxist definition, based on the rule of monopoly capital. The class nature of the Chinese state is not fundamentally different from Western imperialist states. Chinas distinctive feature is its bureaucratic capitalism. This is a model of state capitalism that we could also refer to as party-state capitalism. This state form facilitates corruption and appropriation of state property by the bureaucracy, but it also allows for greater control of the economy than is typical under neoliberalism. Nevertheless, this model only benefits the bureaucrats and capitalists, and it is exploitative and oppressive towards working people. Internationally, China no longer represents anti-imperialism, instead becoming a late-developing but powerful international competitor. China is now turning into a regional hegemon in Asia through its capital exports, its Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure project and its military expansion.

All the horrors of capitalist society are felt particularly acutely in China. Labours share of income in China substantially declined from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s. In 2020, Chinas premier, Li Keqiang, remarked that China has 600 million people with a monthly income of just 1,000 renminbi (US$156). That is more than 40 percent of the Chinese population. Both economic and social crises are accelerating. The appeal for social justice is gathering strength.

With the passage of the National Security Law, Hong Kongs rights and freedoms in relation to mainland China are disappearing. In this sense, the people of Hong Kong and China have become a single community of destiny. The struggle against the authoritarian capitalism in Hong Kong is an integral part of the opposition to Chinese party-state capitalism. Our allies should be the people of every country, especially the people of mainland China.

Lam Chi Leung is a socialist based in Hong Kong and the editor of Selected Writings of Chen Duxiu in his Later Years (Cosmos Books, 2012).

Link:
Interview: after the Hong Kong rebellion International Socialism - International Socialism Journal