Build a Worker-Peasant Front to capture political power!
Comrade workers!
Build a Worker-Peasant Front to capture political power!
Comrade workers!
As we approach May Day, the world capitalist system is entering another period of intense crisis, triggered by recession in the US economy. Thousands of workers in the US are losing their jobs every month. Soaring food prices are driving millions deeper into poverty in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Capitalists all over the world are attacking the livelihood and rights of workers, shifting the burden of the crisis onto their backs.
The Indian bourgeoisie, headed by Tatas, Reliance and other big business houses, see in this crisis an opportunity to grow bigger by expanding and intensifying the exploitation of the workers. The central and state governments which are in the service of the big capitalists have introduced various measures to restrict the rights of workers. Not only the unskilled and daily wage workers, but also highly skilled workers employed by big companies are being deprived of job security, fixed working hours and other rights which the working class won through years of struggle. Use of contract labour by both private and public sector companies is fast becoming the norm.
The rapidly growing workforces in the IT industry, in BPOs and in media companies, to name a few, are compelled to work for 10-15 hours a day, or even longer. There is a systematic and brutal restriction on the rights of workers in these industries to form unions to protect their interests. Such workers have no time with their family and not enough time to rest and renew their energy. Women workers are facing increasing insecurity and sexual attacks, as capitalists have started employing them in night shifts. The fact that workers in these sectors are paid a relatively higher salary is used as justification for their super exploitation.
No matter whether we workers are paid less than the official minimum wages or several times that amount, what we get paid is only a part of the value we produce. The other part is pocketed by the capitalist. The issue is that what is extracted out of our labour is becoming larger in relation to what is paid to us. The degree of exploitation of labour is rising.
Alongside the intensification of our exploitation at the work place, the soaring prices of food and other essential articles are driving large sections into grinding poverty and semi starvation. Soaring rents are adding to our burden — a direct result of the so-called urban renewal scheme of the bourgeoisie. Under this scheme, massive demolitions of slum clusters wherein working people live are being organised. All in all, the result of the much trumpeted program of globalization, through liberalization and privatization, is here for all to see. The results show that it is indeed a program to further enrich the rich while making the poor poorer. It is with the ill gotten riches made from our sweat and toil that the Indian bourgeoisie is dreaming of becoming a so-called world class power.
Comrades,
We have suffered for too long now. This bourgeois offensive must end. The time has come for us to discuss and develop a plan to put an end to this program of globalization through liberalization and privatization.
There cannot be prosperity for all as long as the bourgeoisie is in power. The capitalist system is barbaric. It does not have an ounce of humanity in it. It is and will always remain a blood sucking system. The rich will grow richer and we the labouring people will become poorer by the day. This is as true as that the sun will rise in the East.
To talk of reforming the capitalist system and providing it with a human face, as some parties do, is a cruel joke on the workers and peasants. The only way all this can be ended is by burying in a deep grave the capitalist system itself. The only path open to us is to dislodge the bourgeoisie from power and become the ruling class ourselves. Only then can we have governments which will serve the interests of the toiling people.
In this situation, the positions advanced by CPI(M) are causing damage to the working class. In West Bengal, where they are in power, they say there is no alternative except to promote capitalism. In the name of development and creating more employment, they are handing out favours to Indian and foreign capitalists. The West Bengal government even says that skilled workers in IT sector do not need unions and must not be allowed to strike. In other words, the CPI(M) which calls itself communist, is singing the same tune as the capitalists and World Bank economists. We must oppose and defeat such class conciliation within the working class movement.
build a worker-peasant front!
The bourgeoisie is attacking all other sections of working people as well. It is grabbing the land and threatening the livelihood of peasants, fishing communities, small shop keepers, tribal and other communities in the forests and hills. Diverse sections of people are courageously fighting back today against the bourgeois offensive. We workers must actively strive to form a joint political front with the peasantry and other targets of the bourgeois offensive.
The Congress led UPA and the BJP led NDA are both fronts that serve the bourgeois class. Workers and peasants cannot afford to have any illusion that one of these fronts is better or less evil than the other. The Third Front of bourgeois parliamentary parties is also no alternative to bourgeois rule.
What we need is a different kind of front altogether, which is not built merely from above, by various party leaders reaching some agreement behind the backs of the masses. A worker-peasant front has to be built both from below and from above. Its backbone must be the unity of all the workers’ unions, peasants’ unions, women’s organizations, youth and others that are engaged in the struggle against privatisation, liberalisation, state terrorism including communal violence, and all forms of attacks on our livelihood and rights.
The existing democracy is dominated by the big moneyed interests and parties that serve those interests. The aim of a worker-peasant front is to replace this capitalist democracy with a socialist democracy, where those who toil will rule and make the decisions. The political process will no longer be dominated by parties, but by the people who will select the candidates for election, enjoy the right to recall those elected at any time, and the right to initiate legislation. The role of political parties in such a system will be to make the people conscious and capable of ruling themselves. Such a modern system of democracy will make it possible to completely overturn the orientation of the economy. It will become possible to replace the current orientation of maximum capitalist and imperialist plunder in the interest of a minority, with the socialist and communist orientation of constantly raising the material and cultural wellbeing of all members of society. Let us commit to build the worker-peasant front, and not tail behind any bourgeois front. It can be done, as was shown by the October revolution in Russia.
Workers of all countries unite!
Long live May Day!
Unite in defence of livelihood and rights!
Halt the bourgeois offensive and reorient the economy!
Build the worker-peasant front to capture political power!
Fight for a democracy where workers and peasants will be rulers!
Poonjivad ho barbad! Inquilab Zindabad!