Search
Close this search box.

After the violent police assaults on the mass demonstration one thing is clear: they cannot break our resistance!

The events of recent days during the mass protests against the G8 summit in North Germany are of extraordinary importance. Rostock became a microcosm not only of imperialist “democracy” but also of the resistance against capitalist globalisation.

On June 2nd, 80,000 people demonstrated against the G8 summit in the North German town. They expressed the broad rejection of capitalist globalisation by the working class and youth. The reaction of the ruling class is instructive. They used every means at their disposal to defend a meeting of the most powerful terrorists in the world. The police attacked the protesters with extraordinary brutality; water cannon, teargas, physical assaults, more than 100 arrests. Nothing was too much for the state’s well-paid fighters in their attempts to silence the protest. The scandalous result of this orgy of state violence was 1000 wounded. The police even tried to disrupt the demonstration for the rights of migrants with arrests and a blockade of the previously agreed route. Police helicopters hovered over the protesters’ camp sites without a break.

At the same time, recognising the unpopularity of the G8 summit amongst the general population, the ruling class launched an ideological offensive in its attempt to weaken the resistance to capitalist globalisation, to divide it and to prepare for increased repression. The Bild newspaper, a reactionary hatemonger, ran the headline “Do you hooligans want deaths?", suggesting the demonstrators were trying to provoke a situation in which someone would be killed. It then demanded the intervention of the anti-terrorist units against the demonstrations. The supposedly left liberal media such as the “Tageszeitung” joined the campaign against militant resistance with the headline “Rostock, never again!"

By these means the bourgeoisie is trying to justify the expansion of its repressive apparatus. Reactionary politicians and police representatives, including the police trade union, are demanding even more brutal attacks on the demonstrations, the use of rubber bullets, the sharpening of the so-called gagging orders and the wider use of the provisions of emergency powers. The ruling class is trying to create the climate for a second Genoa!

That is what their “democracy” looks like! Of course, every few years we can put our vote in the ballot box. But this doesn’t have the slightest influence on the power and the policies of the capitalist class whose interests the various governments serve. In order to preserve their interests against resistance, the capitalist class maintains a state apparatus which it can use against the protests of the working class, the youth and migrants, violently if necessary. Their “democracy” is the hidden dictatorship of the capitalist class!

Despite this, the plans of the counterrevolution have for some time not been achieving the success they wanted. Instead, they have actually strengthened the activists against capitalist globalisation. On June 2, there was a massive and fully justify resistance by many demonstrators against the brutal police attacks. It was clear that the police were taken by surprise by the scale of this resistance which left them with 480 wounded. On June 4 , even according to police estimates, there were more than 10,000 on the demonstration for the rights of migrants and that is despite the remoteness of the site, the fact that it was a work day and the numerous attempts by the police to prevent people reaching the demonstration. Among the activists there is a broad solidarity against the batons of the ruling class.

We demand the immediate release of all those arrested! No deportations of those being held! Stop the repression and the suppression of democratic rights! The camp against the G8 summit in Rostock deserves the solidarity and support of the labour movement and all the oppressed of the whole world through mass demonstrations, mass meetings and protests.

That is not how the official representatives of the movement see things. They can’t move fast enough to give in to the demands of the bourgeoisie. ATTAC’s speaker, Peter Wahl, associated himself with the police position by laying the blame on the radical sections of the demonstrators, demanding their exclusion from the demonstrations ("we don’t want you here!") and calling for their denunciation. In a similar vein, the leading PDS politician, Monty Shaedel, a speaker for the demonstration organisers, argued on television that in future they would need to work more closely with the police and help them to identify lawbreakers.

The real face of any political force doesn’t show itself in Sunday speeches and empty party conference decisions but in the real class struggle. In Rostock, the reformist ATTAC leaders showed that when it comes to the crunch they will stand on the side of the capitalist state and not on the side of the anticapitalist workers and youth. They act as strike breakers and agents of the bourgeoisie within the ranks of the movement.

That doesn’t alter the fact that there are many activists who want to fight capitalist globalisation. Rostock shows that a whole new generation of fighters has grown up in recent years. These activists understand ever more clearly that the root cause of the evils of war and poverty are not simply this or that bad leader but the capitalist system itself. This shows itself in the politicisation of the protests. The left critic of globalisation, Walden Bello, drew attention to this in his speech to the demonstration on June 2 when he pointed to the difference between the G8 protests today and those in Scotland two years ago, where the scene was dominated by pop stars such as Bono and an NGO elite. At that time the motto was “make poverty history” today it is “make capitalism history".

All this confirms the analysis of the world situation and the perspectives of the League for the Fifth International. The crisis of the capitalist system is leading to an increased sharpening of political and social contradictions and of class struggles. However, at the same time, the world situation is also characterised by a dramatic crisis of leadership of the working class. Under fire from the capitalist offensive, all the reformist leaders seek to defend the interests of the ruling class and are therefore more and more prepared to make compromises at the cost of the workers and youth. As we have seen, they go so far as to offer themselves to the capitalist class as strike breakers and informers. With such representatives we certainly cannot win.

We have to replace these traitors at the top of the movement who are prepared to sell out to secure their own place within the capitalist system. This is the task facing everyone who wants to see the victory of this resistance against the offensive of the ruling classes, imperialism and capitalism. The League therefore calls on all organisations and activists of the anticapitalist left to work together to coordinate their activities. Such an anti-imperialist and anticapitalist coordination could more effectively intervene not only in common actions and campaigns against the capitalist offensive but also within the mass organisations of the class, in the trade unions and in the social movements such as the European Social Forum and the World Social Forum.

In all these struggles, we must fight for the self organisation of the class; for the building of new organisations based on, and controlled by, the rank-and-file members – action committees, strike committees, self defence organisations for demonstrations against the attacks of the state or the fascists. The experience of Rostock shows that the creation of organised self defence against police provocation and repression is vital if our struggle against the politics of the G8, against imperialist war, torture, plunder of the world and exploitation of the working class, is to be led successfully.

Coordination of the struggles and of the fighting organisations, however, will not be enough. We also need a discussion over the perspectives for the movement and its political direction.

The struggle of the working class and youth needs a revolutionary perspective, a perspective of determined struggle against all the attacks of the bourgeoisie with the objective not of reforming the system but of destroying it and replacing it with a socialist society. We need an organisational force which can put this perspective into practice, a revolutionary party. Such a party is necessary not only in each individual country but internationally. We need a world party for the socialist revolution, a new, Fifth International.

In Rostock we were able to demonstrate the progress that has already been made. On June 2, we marched together with the comrades of the Italian trade union, COBAS, in one demonstration block and on the next day organised a meeting with their leading representative, Piero Bernocchi. For some time, we have been working together closely with numerous organisations in the “Anti-G8 Alliance for a Revolutionary Perspective” and the “Anti-imperialist and Antifascist Action Alliance against the G8” which included organisations such as, ATIK, the New Democratic Youth, ILPS, AGIF and Young Struggle. Together with these comrades, and thousands of others, we have defended the demonstrations on the second and fourth of June, and organised action against police attacks. Everybody who lived through these days in Rostock knows that something quite out of the ordinary has happened. We have experienced days not only of capitalist attack but also of determined resistance, days of solidarity and collaboration among the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist forces. They can’t break our resistance! We will go forward together in the struggle for another world. It is now more clear than ever: no future without socialism! No socialism without revolution! No revolution without a party! Forward in struggle for the Fifth International!

Content

You should also read
Share this Article
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Print
Reddit
Telegram
Share this Article
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Print
Reddit
Telegram