The lessons of Prague

Prague was a historic event - the first truly pan-European, militant, anti-capitalist demonstration. It disorganised and cut short the meeting of the 14,000 bankers and bureaucrats from 182 countries.

It sent a powerful signal to all the workers and peasants around the world struggling against IMF austerity measures and privatisation - you have comrades in Europe, just as Seattle showed you have comrades in North America.

Let us use the new media and communications which globalisation has given us against their masters. Let us unite the oppressed and exploited of the "three worlds" and co-ordinate our struggles against the our common enemy, global capitalism and imperialism.

In Prague the discussions, the networking, the unity in action, the comradeship experienced by workers and youth from many different countries was inspiring. Everyone could feel it. It was written on people's faces.

The spread of knowledge of conditions facing workers and the rural and urban poor in Africa, Asia, the former Soviet union, China and Latin America is now greater than at any time since the 1970s. Moreover it is not limited to viewing them as victims but as fighters, as teachers, as allies for workers and youth in Europe and North America.

In Prague thousand strong delegations came from Greece, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia Britain and hundreds from France, Spain and the USA. Smaller numbers from Russia, Poland and other Eastern European countries made it through the enormous obstacles of travel costs, visas and state harassment.

Of course there were serious failures too. The most important of these was the failure to draw in the forces of workers organised in the trade unions - with the exception of Greece. Declarations of support and small delegations did come from significant unions in Turkey (Disk), Russia (Zaschita), the USA (Longshoremen), Canada, South Africa, Bangladesh, etc.

But the most striking thing was the total lack of active support from the major unions of Western Europe, though groups of rank and file activists and local and workplace banners were present in significant numbers.

We also failed to draw in the Czech trade unions and workers' parties. Again individuals and small groups were in evidence and Czech youth clearly rallied to the S26 demonstration. The mere fact that two thirds of those arrested on 26 and 27 September were Czech citizens testifies to this.

But without the support of major trade unions the sheer scale of Seattle - 40,000 - proved unachievable. And unless we draw the mass of trade unionised workers into the anti-globalisation movement it will fall victim to its internal differences and to state repression.
Other defects lay in the weakness of the organising model of INPEG. This centred on the model developed by US radicals in Seattle.

It draws its inspiration from anarchist notions of autonomy and consensus as well as from the campaigns launched by radical NGOs and trade union activists. This model sees the individual activist as the basis of everything. These activists can combine freely into affinity groups of around five to ten individuals. And these in turn can combine their forces into clusters.

The tactics which this type of organisation centres on is non-violent direct action (NVDA). Basically this amounts to unlawful blockading and obstruction, occupation of property etc. The dominant forces in INPEG were, anarchists, American NGO radicals and British RTS eco-warriors.

What they could agree on was Ghandi-style mass civil disobedience, organised by affinity groups and decided on in meetings of their representatives. These meetings could reach agreement only by consensus, not by majority voting because the majority has no right to bind or oppress the minority.

Clearly INPEG hoped that most demonstrators would turn up days in advance and be drawn into the formation of affinity groups, would learn NVDA tactics and ideology and adopt non-violence . This proved a utopia.

Its petit-bourgeois character hits one in the eye from the start. Individualistic, moralistic, utopian. Most demonstrators - even those who considered themselves anarchists - came in groups, whether recently formed campaigns to mobilise for Prague or pre-existing political or trade union organisations. NVDA broke down the moment it became clear that police lines could or had to be broken, that the violent attacks of the robo-cops could only be resisted by force.

All INPEG's preaching about non-violence did was to prevent some demonstrators being adequately prepared for the inevitable violence. All the "non-leadership" structures meant was that the actions were badly co-ordinated or unco-ordinated.

This entire method was shown to be vastly inferior to the methods of the united front, developed in the early twentieth century by the revolutionary workers' movement.

This is based on the principle: "march separately, strike together"; no confusion of banners (programmes or principles) but clear agreement about "who to strike, when to strike, how to strike" (Trotsky's words).

Communists and anarchists, reformist workers and trade unions do not have to agree with each other's slogans. They simply have to agree to unite their actions for the given objective - in this case stopping the IMF/WB meeting.

At the centre of such proposals for common action is the need for organised self-defence units, capable of defending a mass demonstration against police attack and in the right conditions taking the offensive against the obstacles placed in our way by the state.

Only if the revolutionary left vigorously advocates this and puts it into practice on a preliminary basis can the disorganising and disruptive influence of anarchism (and police provocateurs) be combated. Those "revolutionaries" who refuse to do this because it is too advanced will only hand the movement over to the Black Bloc anarchists or to the pacifists.

Where now?
Prague was part of a movement against capitalist globalisation and its international institutions which was launched on J18 in the City of London, reached global significance in Seattle and has seen major events in Washington and Melbourne.

Its parallel in the so-called south is the wave of anti-IMF general strikes and mass mobilisations across Latin America, Africa and Asia. Prague shows that this movement is still moving forwards, moving into new areas and continents.

We have to put all our efforts into keeping this movement growing and spreading. Wherever the vultures of global capitalism - political and military - gather they should be met by huge and militant protests exposing them and running them out of town. Let's harry and harass them so that no country offers to host their gatherings.

The task now is to build up a mass movement. We need to take the message of Seattle, Melbourne and Prague into the schools, colleges, workplaces and trade union branches. In October and November we should organise teach-ins, actions, conferences, to draw in larger and larger numbers.

Locally and nationally we need to build organising committees - united fronts of political organisations, trade union branches, anti-debt and ecological campaigns - to develop the movement. We should target symbols or institutions of the power of the mega-corporations, NATO etc. We should campaign against the sweatshop conditions imposed by the big brand name companies .

We need to mobilise support for the struggles of workers, peasants and youth around the world. Alongside organising action we need to discuss - democratically and with out bans and exclusions - the different strategies and alternatives within the movement.

The anti globalisation movement's key task, as the LRCI has emphasised from the beginning, is to help direct the masses of radicalised young people to the only class in society which can really stop capitalism in its tracks and destroy it - the working class. But equally this movement must erupt within the old, bureaucratic workers' movement itself, helping to restore its historic anti-capitalist character.

One way to do this is to fight for a global day of anti-capitalist action on May Day 2001. In countries where Mayday is not a public holiday this will mean a one day general strike. Where it is a public holiday it will mean transcending the normal May Day parades of the bureaucrats - drawing in the youth, undertaking militant mass actions against the institutions of corporate greed and profit.

In the first instance we can organise revolutionary youth across the continents to take up this challenge. That's why in Prague the LRCI and REVOLUTION issued an appeal to organised youth movements, to groups of young people wanting to do so now, to sign this appeal, to contact us, to combine our actions.

We also need to organise militant, anti-bureaucratic, internationalist elements in the trade unions. For this reason the LRCI has launched an initiative, with other working class forces, to combat merger mania, privatisation and other attacks.

The lesson of Prague, as of Seattle, is not to be daunted by the power of the corporations, of the international financial institutions, of the military alliances grouped around the single superpower. The lesson is to think big, think boldly and to act with real determination to put these ideas into effect. There is a world to save, a world to win and millions of people are ready and waiting for the word to do it.

Why the Working Class?
The importance of the working class to the anti globalisation movement is clear in the semi- colonies, those countries which suffer directly the IMF and World Bank's dictates.

In Argentina the newly elected centre-left Government introduced anti-labour laws suggested by the IMF. When these laws were passed by congress on 27 April 2000 thousands of demonstrators picketed it leading to violent clashes with the police in which more than 30 people were injured and about 50 arrested.

In May IMF-prescribed cuts in the social security system led to violent demonstrations in the Salta region. The protesters set fire to public offices before being subdued by armed riot police, leaving dozens injured and many arrested. Rural communities blocked roads and organised protests.

On 31 May protests against the IMF austerity plan to raise taxes, reduce social spending and cut salaries, culminated with 80,000 people taking to the streets.

In June, a 24-hour general strike was supported by more than 7.2 million workers. On 29 August teachers and scientists went on a one-day strike to protest against a 12 per cent cut in wages in line with IMF austerity measures.

In Nigeria the IMF has demanded an "acceleration of the implementation of structural reforms” by which it means the deregulation of the oil sector and the raising of petrol prices. The newly elected president Obasanjo has obediently carried out the IMF’s diktats.

In June 2000, when the Government pressed ahead with the IMF-advised fuel price rise, workers responded with a massive general strike. Oil workers were joined by public sector and transport workers and Lagos port and highways were blockaded and domestic flights disrupted.

The government was forced to slash the price rises and apologise to the people.
In Bolivia IMF structural adjustment reforms led to water prices in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third largest city, rising by as much as 200 per cent.

This provoked widespread mass protests. President, Hugo Banzer, had to declare a state of emergency and mass arrests of the leaders but only by revoking the concession to the multinational controlling the city's water supply was the movement brought to an end.

Similar mass struggles erupted twice this year in Ecuador. Mass strikes and protests have rocked India and Bangladesh.

All of this proves that the workers, the poor peasants and the urban poor of the Asia, African and Latin America are waging real and militant struggles against the IMF. They are not simply the victims of global capitalism but its gravedigger.

The global anti-capitalist movement—especially in North America and Europe must form the strongest possible bonds with these forces, support their struggles, defend their leaders and militants against repression, raise material aid for them, mobilise here against the multinationals that exploit them.

But as well they must learn a striking lesson from each of these countries - the social power of the working class, its general strikes and protests, its defiant militancy, is the key to hurling back the plans of the capitalist overlords. That is why we say, turn to the working class in every country, and win the workers to a renewed struggle against global capitalism.

S26: World Revo PragueS26 special!

Dossier on Prague 2000

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