Croatia: new hope for workers after elections kick out HDZ
Recent in elections January in Croatia saw the ruling HDZ driven from office. Despite the fact that the HDZ held a tight grip on all the mass media and spared no expense in getting their message across they still lost to the election bloc led by the Social Democratic Party.
By its big vote for the SDP the working class showed that the appeal to nationalism – so strong in the 1990s wars in the Balkans – has been undermined by the effect of a decade of war and capitalist restoration.
The fact is – as the rising number of strikes testifies – the Croatian workers are more conscious of their own class interests than for a long time.
The working class is going through a tough time. Half of all industrial jobs are gone, unemployment is officially at 21 per cent, but according to trade union sources is over 30 per cent.
Broad sectors of the working class have a tenuous hold on a job; many rely on the black market and family subsidies from abroad. Around 150,000 workers (about 10 per cent) have not received their wages for the last six months.
The policies of the SDP led government will improve the situation. What they have promised is to end the power of the HDZ tycoons (or "crony capitalism"). The SDP hope to finish off the process of restoring capitalism begun ten years ago by the HDZ.
They will open up the country more to international investment and allow the US, EU multinationals to more easily take-over state assets. The sell-off of Telekom through the Deutsche Telekom is just the beginning.
Most plants are destined to be closed down by the new owners, as the example of Jugoturbina shows. What will Croatia offer global capitalism apart from tourism and a cheap labour reservoir close to central Europe?
In the relatively developed parts of the capitalist world there is hardly anything worse unless you are Serbia. With this logic social democracy will drive the Croatian workers on the path of prostituting themselves. With this logic the Trade Union federations will sign a peace-treaty with government and imperialism as proposed to them already by a delegation of the Deutsche Bank.
The only alternative is a revolutionary one and in a country like Croatia can only be international one. In one aspect at least the situation has never been more favourable these last 50 years – socialist and revolutionaries are able to get their ideas across in a relatively open way. So let’s do it.
