Social Movements and Class Character

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The course of development of the capitalist economy from the 1970s until today has been discussed intensively by the bourgeois ideologists and the economists. We can also mention the discussions of the world of science of the monetarists and fiscalists. In these discussions, the neo-liberalists (monetarists) defended a market system with no rules left, without the intervention of the state, where everything has turned into commodity; meanwhile the Keynesian fiscalists defended the intervention of the state, the "welfare state".

01 January 2008 / Red Dawn / Issue 12

The term "globalisation", especially since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the revisionist block until today, has been commented in very different ways and according to each comment, also different political conclusions have been drawn. In order to obscure the ideological and theoretical dimensions of the problem, the objective laws of social development were also denied. Even the fact, that the capitalist society is formed by two irreconcilable classes (proletariat and bourgeoisie) and social intermediate stratums, has been disregarded and the problem has been reduced to those, who are in favour of globalisation and those, who are against it.

According to the ideologists of the imperialist bourgeoisie, "globalisation" means democracy, freedom, and prosperity. According to the reformist and pacifist leadership of the World Social Forum (WSF) and the European Social Forum (ESF), the personification of the international mass movement, the social movements of today, and of ATTAC, which is also under their influence, it means the ruining of the "welfare state". According to some petty-bourgeois circles (the followers of Negri f. e.), "globalisation" is a new order, the expression of a new era and according to some other petty-bourgeois circles, it is a new, the last phase/level of the development of imperialism (one part of the Maoists f. e.).

"Globalisation" is one of the first topics analysed by Marx. Marx and Engels explained already in the Communist Manifesto the meaning of globalisation¹.

Globalisation is nothing else but the internationalisation of the capitalist mode of production; of the capital; capitalist production; of the movement of the capital as a whole. According to Marx, globalisation is the obligation of the capitalist mode of production to expand, it is characteristic of the building of a world market².

Keynesianism, expression of the social politics of the movement of the capital until those times, did not correspond anymore to the course of movement of the capital and therefore has been rejected and replaced with neo-liberalism.

Keynesianism began to retreat "fighting" as Neo-Keynesianism against neo-liberalism, which was beginning to predominate in the form of monetarism.

Engels had announced already in 1845, which kind of relations Neo-liberalism, which we experience with all its dimensions today, would develop and what would the basic point be.³

At that time, just as today, everything is evaluated according to its material value. All the social relations are organised according to that. On the one hand the dominance of property over all fields of social life, and on the other hand, or as control against that, the orientation of economy. To be pro or contra! To be pro or contra means here to be in favour or not of the "new" social movements⁴, the social movements of today. We do not talk about the working class or the labouring masses. We do not talk about the struggle of those being for Neo-liberalism or "welfare state". We talk about the reformist and pacifist forces, which politically and ideologically direct the social movement, which demands from the ruling politics of neo-liberalism of today's capitalism and against the "welfare state". In the beginning, the contradiction between neo-liberal capitalism (neo-liberalist bourgeoisie) and Keynesian capitalism ("welfare state") gave birth to the social movement of today, finding its expression in the WSF and the ESF, which is to say the internationalised social movement.

Within this movement, reformism and pacifism is organised, therefore the struggle against neo-liberalism (the IMF, WB, WTO, the US imperialism, international monopolies) and for a reformed capitalism, the struggle for the "welfare state" is represented in the WSF and also at the ESF. The contradiction between the WSF and neo-liberalism is the contradiction between neo-liberalism and Keynesianism. We can see this in the political, theoretical and ideological attitudes of the basic forces, which are forming the WSF.

A part of the theories of the "new" social movements is based on the theories of a "new class", which the imperialist bourgeoisie admires so much. The common point of those theses, most popularly and stimulatingly expressed in the book "Empire" by Hardt and Negri, is the assertion, that in the era of imperialist globalisation, "structural" changes occurred in the society and that therefore the working class had lost its historical mission and gave over its place to new classes, or new identity groups or, as formulated in the Empire, to the "multitude". Some people characterize this society "post-modern", "post-industrial society". According to these claims, these "structural" changes resulted into a redefinition of the civil and political areas and putting into the centre as an important element the term of the "non-governmental-organisations", outside from government and the states.

As the society is now a "post-industrial" society, as we live now in the epoch of the "Empire" and the phase of production of material values -this means industry- lost its importance, those who produce the "material" values, in other words the working class, are replaced with those, who exert "non-material labour", the ones "producing" post-material" "values", which is to say by the "multitude". Parting from these theses, these ideologists of the bourgeoisie are claiming that Marxism or "classic Marxism" as they put it, were inadequate, insufficient or out of time in order to understand and characterize the new social movements. It is claimed that the old social movements, which Marxism was able to characterize, were movements characterized economically (which means characterized on the bases of material values), movements based on classes, but that the "new" or the social movements of today were movements based on different classes, arising from "post-material" values, that they were movements based on identity, they claim that the basic axis of these movements were marked by diversity and being "the other". This means, that the transition from the "industrial society" to the "post-industrial society" corresponds to the transition from the class-based social movements to the social movements with "another" bases. According to these theses, the problem is not that the working class received any political defeat. On the contrary, the working class had lost its importance through the imperialist globalisation or the conditions arose from the imperialist globalisation; through the expanding of the "non-material labour" and the central role it had won (!). It is not a political problem, it is a structural one. Different types of wage-workers (Lohnarbeiter) arose. Exploitation can not be reduced to the pure production of surplus value (Mehrwert) (as if the Marxists ever had made such a restriction!). The service sector prevailed over the industrial production. A "new middle-class" has emerged. Marx did only characterize the middle-classes of the old deposed systems (Slavery etc.), but he did not preview this "new middle-class". For this reason, the Marxist theory is not able to understand the movement of this "new middle-class". In the face of the "new" social movements or the needs of the new era, the Marxist theory is said to be in a crisis. The political polarizations are not based on classes anymore, but on "values". The class exploitation has been replaced with the exploitation of everybody save the capitalists themselves, of the "multitude", the "others" or with the oppression based on identity. There is no privileged part or class anymore, which can be the vanguard of social transformations. The place of the revolutionary subject is now occupied by the "social actors" or the "multitude".

The theorists of the "new" social movements did bind them to programmes of "radical democracy projects", "disobedience", "abandoning" and "run-away" (Negri)! The essence of these theories is to put on the agenda again the classic discussion of the possibility that capitalism could be transformed and exploitation and oppression abolished without a social revolution, sometimes even without questioning private property, in a new way. The most radical demand of the theories of "radical" democracy is to extend the democratic rights and freedoms to the highest dimension possible. They present these outdated reformist demands as an alternative to the classic bourgeois liberalism and the Marxism-Leninism.

When we look at the components of the social movements of today, we see that this movement is in fact a "rainbow": "we are very diverse: Women and men, old and young, indigenes, peasants, people from the cities, workers, unemployed and homeless, seniors and students, people of every faith, of all colours and with different sexual orientations. This diversity is our power and the basis of our unity" (Charter of Principles of the WSF). Well, they are those who call themselves "leftwing", ecologist groups and organisations, organisations of a new type like ATTAC, trade-unions, small peasants groups, human rights organisations, initiatives for fair trade, religious (church) groups etc. As we can see, the components of this movement are very numerous, because every group, every initiative, every committee etc. considers itself as a constituent of this movement. (We would like to draw the attention to the estimated 30.000 NGOs existing worldwide).

Allegedly, this movement is open for everybody. In general, the church is the "global player" in the movement of the social forum, and therefore also of the WSF. There is a place for religious circles, but the participation of Marxists-Leninists, communists, is hindered. This is because the social movement of today considers them not as "respectable" and "to be tolerated" and does not accept them. Only for the revolutionaries and communists there is no place within this movement.

One of the foremost forces directing this movement is ATTAC ("Action for the Tobin Tax for the Citizens" or Union for the taxation of financial transactions for the citizens"). ATTAC defends the control of the movement of the capital and demands taxation of the speculative capital permanently going around the world. It is obvious, that ATTAC does not want to curb the movement of the capital with this project but ends up with the poor taking to the streets against the existing order resulting from the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The project aims at reforming the imperialist state by making it a trustful institution in the eyes of the broad masses.

Another fundamental force is the classic bourgeois liberalism becoming a symbol in the person of Lula.

The Trotskyites, whose eyes are dazzled by the huge masses of the movement, continue their work with the aim of sneaking into the movement and by that bringing it under their control and transform the WSF into a world party. The Trotskyite forces, who do not assign any revolutionary or even progressive mission to any kind of social stratum except the working class, are in a position very far away from reality explaining to their own masses their big hopes for this movement by claiming that the whole movement consists of the working class.

Outwardly they do not even defend openly Trotskyism within the movement. The attitude of Trotskyism within this movement is a policy of mass tailing, by tactics like entrism they try to follow in the wake of the movement until the end and thus open up a way for themselves.

The attitude of the anarchist and autonomous groups to be against any type of authority and state meets with the alternative of the social movement of today of "globalisation against hegemony".

If we look at question not from a point of view of numbers but in terms of the ideas defended there, we see that this movement is formed by petty-bourgeois, reformist, social-democrat, anarchist, feminist, and, also if not of a big importance, Trotskyite, circles, parties, trade-unions and mass organizations.

In a class context we can express the definition above also this way: Reformist and pacifist sectors of the working class, the peasantry, petty-bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie, and the imperialist bourgeoisie of European origin are taking place in the "new" social movement. If we look from the point of view of political orientation and the ideas defended there at the movement, we will see that reformist and pacifist ideas are dominating. But the ESF in Greece (4^th European Social Forum, 2006, Athens) has shown by means of the "Anti-imperialist Space" within the ESF as a means of struggle, that the communist and revolutionary organisations can organize a struggle against the dominance of the pacifist and reformist ideas at the ESF.

For what does the "new" (today's) social movement fight?

Porto Alegre, from the very beginning on, did not want to remain as a protest movement only. The WSF or Porto Alegre announced that their aim was to demand and realize "another world is possible". Actually, this meant to challenge politically the imperialist globalization, neo-liberalism and at the same time Marxism-Leninism. They are challenging them by saying: You are responsible against the defenders of imperialist globalisation and neo-liberalism, the "evil of today's world", of misery, unemployment etc. We will bring another world instead of this order. This world is the world of the `welfare state". They consider the communists as class enemy and they consider the relations and fights from this point of view. In this sense, the political position of the social movement is very open; there is no unknown point in the matter why they are fighting and against whom. The statement "Resistance against Neo-liberalism, militarism and war, for peace and social justice" made in the framework of the II WSF has shown sufficiently what the aim is:

"We came here to continue our struggles against neo-liberalism and war, to confirm the decisions we agreed on last year and to show once more that another world is possible. (...) Our struggles and actions of resistance are against sexism, racism and systems based on violence. The WSF is a broad unity against the system who systematically makes the capital ever more privileged against the need of the people (...) We are yet confronted with a permanent global war of the USA and its allies for their hegemonic interests (...) The opposition to the war (the Afghanistan war) is a constructing element of out movement (...) Solidarity with the Palestinian people (...) IMF, financial crisis (...), environmental problems (...) meetings of the G8 states (...) global economic crisis, neoliberal economic model (...) struggle for peace and collective security (...) cancelling the debts of the third world countries (...) to safeguard water, soil, food, seeds, culture (...) struggle against the WTO (...) safeguarding social justice and the rights of citizens and freedom, struggle for equality (...) cancelling the foreign dept (...) fight against speculation, struggle for the implementation of the Tobin tax^5.The abolition of the "tax paradises" (...) The responsibility of the governments to the peoples. Because we are fighting for participative democracy with elections all over the world. The democratization of state and society as well as the struggle against dictators is obligatory (...) Struggle for the right of information (...) The right of free education for the youth (...) the abolition of the universal compulsory military service the right of self-determination of the native peoples (...)" ⁶

The assertion is obvious: this movement is not against capitalism, imperialism or globalisation. It is merely against some consequences of the neoliberal impositions of imperialism. They are thinking that these consequences could be eliminated through some measures, through the good will of the politicians. An alternative to the imperialist globalization is presented. This alternative has two meanings: according to some circles, "another world is possible" is a new level in the world history; it is a level of the human history beyond the imperialist globalization. Some social democrat and reformist circles understand "another world is possible" as a return to the "welfare state". The example of the first meaning is supporters of Negri and some other petty-bourgeois circles, who claim that the imperialist epoch has been left behind. The example of the second meaning is ATTAC in France and Germany.

The organisers, propagandists, theoreticians and the politicians of the social movement know very well for what they are fighting. The important point is to convince millions of workers and labourers of these understandings as a "new" world outlook. This movement has extraordinary possibilities. It gets support from everywhere. People provide material and visual support, some in order to pull the movement towards their own line, others to dissolve it, but in general, in order to take the working class and the labouring masses away from socialism as alternative.

This movement tries to put the "possible other world" into practice with its press organs like Le Monde Diplomatique, its mass organisations like ATTAC, with the Trotskyites, anarchists, feminists, with the holy places like Chiapas (Mexico) and Porto Alegre (Brazil), with fathers of the idea like J. M. Keynes, J. Tobin, its leaders like I. Ramonet, its theoreticians S. George, P. Bourdieo, M. Mies, T. Negri, R. Konten, V. Forreste, its organisers like B. Cassen, its members and representatives being MPs in the German, English and French parliaments, in the European parliament and senators in the French Senate, with their foundations, with the Foreign Ministries of the developed imperialist countries (or rather the EU), neoliberalism, with terms like "social forum", "welfare state", "civil society", "Tobin tax, the central role of "immaterial labour", bio-power, with slogans like "disarmament of the finance markets", to "restrain", "democratize" capitalism and imperialism, to "restrict the power of the international monopolies" and "another world is possible", and finally with the IMF, which seems to be responsible for everything, with the World Bank and the WTO.

There is no doubt that this movement has no proletarian character. This movement is a spontaneous petty-bourgeois one and the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology prevails there. The leadership of this movement directs a broad mass directly in terms of politics and its ideological formation is deepening. Both ATTAC and the participants of the movement all over the world are, as a rule, in their majority of proletarian origin and not having anything to do with ideologies. It is a real "multitude" in the real sense of Negri. Their points of view of socialism, the leaders of the world proletariat and revolution show that. The leadership of the movement is aware of this fact and therefore carefully tries to maintain the diversity and unite them with common reformist demands and takes as bases the actions on certain fixed dates and in a political sense it protects the rainbow-character of the movement. The leadership of the movement obstructs that a revolutionary anti-imperialist consciousness is brought to the masses - let alone bringing class consciousness to the working class - and that the masses are formed in the spirit of anti-imperialist ideas. There is no place for terms like imperialism, anti-imperialism in the literature of the movement - and not at all for revolution.

What are the main characteristics of the "new" (today's) social movement?

The criticism of imperialism-neoliberalism and "globalization" made by today's social movement is a petty-bourgeois and conservative criticism. It is limited to the abolition of the exaggerations of "globalisation". For this social movement the problem is not capitalism itself. Far from opposing imperialism, let alone the capitalist system, it defends the idea that capitalism can be democratized, controlled and civilized, with the slogan "another world is possible".
For the social movement of today, the problem is speculation, profit, not maximum profit.
The social movement of today demands an "era of globalisation" being just and democratic, as the imperialist bourgeoisie imposes and the foolish petty-bourgeoisie accepts.
The social movement of today idealizes the "welfare state" and the bourgeois democracy and presents them as the only alternative for the liberation of humanity.
The social movement of today concentrates mainly in criticising the finance capital and turns against the "holy alliance" consisting of the IMF, World Bank and the WTO. It does not struggle against the dictatorship of the capital in general.
For the social movement of today, the problem is injustice, but not the bourgeois order, the bourgeois relations of property, which are the source of it.
For the social movement of today, it is never the problem that the means of production are in private property, but the division into poor and rich, which is caused and deepened by these relations of property, is a problem for it.

With this or similar fundamental ideas, the social movement of today is anti-communist and therefore reactionary, illusionist in terms of ideology, and in terms of politics it is reformist and pacifist.

By the elements, with which the social movement of today is criticising "globalisation", it reduces the problem, as if it were only the avarice of some monopolies, capitalists and speculators, as if the problem were not an absolutely wrong policy, but a true one, only poorly imposed. They advice that the important thing is to turn away from these wrong things, to reject what is wrong, but by doing this, we have to keep these wrong elements separate from the capitalist system. The system is clean. The crucial point is to act basically against some elements, some wrong policies, which are blackening this clean system.

The internationalisation and reorganisation of the capital and the production, the destruction of the "welfare state" did awake the anti-globalizer of today, the petty-bourgeois circles with their critics of globalisation and the Keynesians from their deep sleep. They started to say it does not work like that, let us turn back to the old, let us put on the brakes, let us democratize (just exploitation, just plunder).

The understanding of organising of the "new" (today's) social movement

In the "Charter of Principles", the WSF has adopted in 2001, in order to "realize another world", it explains what kind of understanding of organising it has.⁷ In order so say that they do not have an organisational structure, a hierarchy, this movement presents itself not as an organisation, but as a "connection", a network". But its relation with the state and partiality are essential.

In Seattle, the organisation was still very unclear and its political and social composition also, but it got a clearer line with every year passing. The unification of the movement against globalization with the anti-war-movement at the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq was a crucial point for these separations. The question, which arose together with the Iraqi resistance, whether the movement was against the violence of the ruling classes or against any kind of violence, inevitably got onto the agenda of this struggle and became a divisive element.

The anti-war-movement became a movement with demands having a more international character and a more concrete movement. Meanwhile the anti-globalizers continued with their understanding of organising actions against the international imperialist institutions in certain countries and on certain dates, the anti-war-movement developed in the form of actions in every country against their own government. Thus, it was more political, clearer about its goals and opponents; in its development it gave clearer answers to the questions what for, against whom.

By means of the organisation of the social forum, the reformist and pacifist forces continue to direct the movement. It became more and more obvious that the prohibitions of political parties, which were shown as the enthusiastic expressions of "diversity" and "difference" at the beginning and sanctified as the efforts of "making free the way for the NGOs", were a manoeuvre of hegemony of these forces. The participation of collaborating government parties from the type of the PT of Lula in the WSF showed openly the hypocrisy of this attitude. It is also necessary to mention that some of the anarchist-autonom petty-bourgeois elements, which are represented by Negri and its followers, are against the organisation of the working class movement (trade-unions, parties) for ideological reasons. Moreover, these elements are calling for the "building of networks" instead of organisations and by calling for "global networks". They call upon the "multitude" to rebel against the Empire within the WSF! And by rebellion they understand "to disobey", "to abandon" and "to run away". Well, that means passive resistance!

This social movement claims that it does not direct the actions of the participating organisations and movements in a central way from above but on the contrary only coordinates them. But how is it fixed? What would the social forum program be like? And who will speak on which topic? If it is so, why then every organisation or movement cannot speak on the topic of its choice? This means, there is a certain organisation, a certain hierarchy structure and those who participate in the forums have to obey fixed rules.

The proposal of the "International" of the social movement of today, the WSF, is "globalisation against hegemony": "The WSF is the first oppositional utopia of the 21^st century and aims to break with the tradition of the critical utopias of western modernity, many of which turned into conservative utopias..." The duty to create this is given to the NGOs, the principal organisation form of these "new" movements. In this sense, parties and political subjects have become history: "...the WSF rejects the concept of a historical subject and offers no priority to any specific social actor in this process of social change"

The direction of development of the "new" (today's) social movement

Does this structure have a future? According to itself it does! With its understanding of today it will not reach anything. This has been seen at the 4^th WSF in India. In spite of all efforts it could not give a human face to "globalisation", today's capitalism. The demands they had formulated were made impossible by the neoliberal measures. Therefore, there are no more objective reasons why the known demands of the WSF should be successful. These demands do not have any attractiveness anymore in order to convince millions. For this reason, the WSF is looking for a new theory. W. Bello, an outstanding organizer of the WSF in Asia, announces that with the following words: "We need now a new theory and a new criticism of imperialism. Our movement has to tackle this problem rapidly."

These words are enough to show that criticism of imperialism until today is not of any use and that it is necessary to find something new in order to influence millions of people. This movement criticizes imperialism - the imperialist globalisation - from a reformist, pacifist, and petty-bourgeois point of view. What kind of theory could a new theory be? At the most, it could be a more progressive theory. And a more progressive theory can be one based on the Leninist analysis of imperialism. Out of its class character, this movement is not able to reach such a stage as a whole. The facts that at least the Maoist radical petty-bourgeois trends appeared at the WSF 2004 (India) as an alternative, that the WSF 2006 was organised at three different continents, that H. Chavez made efforts in Venezuela to give an anti-imperialist character to that WSF, that the WSF 2007 passed without any enthusiasm, without hope and with the calls to the imperialist bourgeoisie and to the states, and that the organizers refrained from holding the WSF every year (the 8th WSF will be held in 2009) have to be considered as signs of the search of these movements for a new theory. Moreover, the innumerable kinds and theories of imperialism produced within this movement parting from the claim that the analyses of imperialism of Lenin is not sufficient to explain the current developments, show that this movement is in a feverish search for a new theory.

First of all, the WSF is a structure under the leadership of the petty-bourgeoisie and the reformism and pacifism of the European imperialist bourgeoisie. Its aim is very obvious: to defend Europe's´ "social" character of imperialism by "another world is possible", "another Europe is possible" against the US imperialism, or as they say against the neo-liberalism, the globalisation of the US imperialism. The defence of the position of the EU, above all by means of ATTAC, for example at the period of the Iraqi war, shows this obviously. To give priority to the IMF, World Bank and the WTO, to direct the arrows of attack against the USA and to protest the EU in this sense (India, 4^th WSF) are indisputable facts.

Walden Bello said the following at the 4^th WSF: "the regional markets of the 80ies and 90ies are uniting in a world market. Therefore, the interests of the global capitalist class are common... Now we are confronted with a form of globalisation marked even stronger only by the political interests of the USA and the US monopolies".

The crucial point here is not the (wrong) evaluation of the "regional markets of the "80ies and 90ies" and the world market. The essential point here is the understanding of the WSF. These words show very openly that the WSF essentially fights the US imperialism. When they speak of exploitation, plunder, imperialist war and tyranny worldwide they only see the US imperialism. In other words: actually, if there were some restrictions imposed on "globalisation", if the "Tobin tax" were applied, if neo-liberalism were forced back and capitalism were democratized, so no problem would be left. Every kind of evil is caused by the US imperialism. Therefore, the essential is to fight against the US imperialism. This is a method to clear capitalism as system. That means that certain institutions and monopolies are not supporting the WSF for nothing!

What happened to the peace and disarmament movement, which was at the agenda at the end of the 1970ies and in the 1980ies and grew on the bases of ecological problems, indicates the future of this social movement. In a situation were one has to say "there is no other way", it will be forced to clearly assume an attitude and a political position or various national components of this structure, for example organisations like ATTAC, will join the parliamentary life.

The rest the "independent" NGOs will be disillusioned and those in charge of the governments will continue to fulfil their duty as if nothing had ever happened.

To conclude:

International mass movement existed also before.

The anti-fascist peace movement in the 1930s developed under the leadership of the Comintern. The social-democrats and the trade-unions under their influence also played a certain role. The impact of revolutionary forces on this movement was reflected in all aspects, from its way of organising up to its political aims.

The peace movement in the 1950s was led by the socialist countries and the communist parties. The imperialist camp tried to divide this movement with the ideological arguments of the cold war; the "socialist countries" under slavery and the "free" Western countries and to manipulate it, but it was not successful. The alternative of socialism continued to be an aim gaining more and more power in the West, creating special interest among the socialist intellectuals and those feeling sympathy with socialism.

In contrary to that, the peace movement of the 1970ies and 1980ies was directed by circles and petty-bourgeois pacifist forces under the influence of the modern Soviet revisionists. These movements were mainly engaged with the struggle against nuclear power and linked with the ecological movement. This movement also started to be divided into its components after a certain time. Above all in Western Europe the ecological movements became important components of the bourgeois system organised as "central leftist" bourgeois system parties.

The social movements of today are forming in certain way continuity especially with the ecological, anti-war and other movements of the 70ies and 80ies. One fundamental difference of today's social movement compared with those before is that neither communist and revolutionary parties nor modern revisionists still speaking apparently of socialism are leading it.

In the second half of the 70ies and the first half of the 80ies the massive disarmament and peace movement developed. The new aspect is not, that in the 90ies, especially after the second half of the 90ies, again a massive international movement developed. The new aspect is that this time the reason for the development of the movement was the imperialist globalisation. This means, the struggle against "globalisation".

On the contrary to the claims of the "post modern" ideologists of imperialism, the complex appearance of the rising mass struggles are not caused by any structural changes in the society which made class struggle history, but because of the fact that we live in the most unorganised, ineffective and dispersed period in the history of the international communist movement and this fragmentation goes together with the ideological attacks, which developed after the collapse of the revisionist block. Those forces say that the "post industrial society" started in the 60ies of the last century. The most important quality of the period, which started in the 1960ies, had some impacts on the 1968 movement, got stronger in the 80ies and reached its point of stagnation after the 90ies, is that it had occurred when the international communist movement was suffering a dispersed situation and had received some hard strokes by the modern revisionists since 1956.

They claim eternity for the imperialist capitalist system, but the social movements of the new period are, exactly as those of the old period, developing against the disasters caused by the imperialist capitalist system itself.

There is one main difference between the social movements of today and those of the past, after the 90ies, the leadership is made up by forces, which propagate thesis like "socialism has died, end of history has come, there is no working class any more", we live in a "era beyond imperialism", in the "era of globalisation" or of the revival of the "welfare state".

These forces also distort the Marxist attitude in the field of the relations of the economic and the political struggles. They present national struggles, the struggle of national minorities for cultural demands and the women's movement as movements "based on identity". They reduce class movements to the economic struggle of the working class. There was never ever such an approach concerning the class struggle in the Marxist theory.

Every social movement is the expression of the movement of different classes and stratums, with sectional demands which differ from stratum to stratum, with different programmes, but in the same direction. "To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without the revolutionary outbursts of a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices. without the movement of non-class conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against the oppression of the landlords, the church, the monarchy, the foreign nations, etc. - to imagine this means repudiating social revolution. Only those who imagine that in one place an army will line up and say, "we are for socialism," and in another place another army will say, "we are for imperialism," and that this will be the social revolution, only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic opinion could vilify the Irish Rebellion by calling it a "putsch." Whoever expects a "pure" social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution is." (Lenin, Collected Works, vol.XIX, pp.301-302.)

Has it never been seen in the other periods of history that a class was not under its own class identity and under its own flag, but under the one of other class/classes, fighting with other ideological definitions and various identities? On the contrary, is it not the fundamental problem of all social struggles, if the classes forming them would gather under their own flags and under the leadership of their own political representatives?

The movements with cultural, sexual, moral demands, which are the topic of the differentiation of identity-based and class-based movements, have always existed. Therefore, the thesis that these movements emerged out of identity differences and are heterogenic is nothing but an empty dream. The "diversities" forming the movement are each corresponding with a certain class.

Is it a problem to respond to the question, which class interests the subjects within the "diversity" in the movement defend? Of course! Before you file away the ideologies and classes and replace them with "identity labels" you have to answer this question. The answer of the question brings us either to the ideology of the bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeoisie or the proletariat. All the trends, which characterize the movement as "diverse" are the different colours of the bourgeois ideology. Just as the same products are put on the market with different and very colourful packaging, these movements are presented to the "market" like the fan of the rainbow.

As long as the bourgeois society exists, philosophical trends, religious initiatives etc existed. All of them are components of the bourgeois ideology and they go not further than changing their colour. The theoreticians of the "new" social movement, who want to cut off the today's´ social struggles from their class basis, are taking the ideas essentially from those trends. They try to legitimate themselves also by turning back to those trends. They try to include again topics from Bernstein to Kautsky and from Luxemburg to Gramsci on the agenda of the social struggles and even of the international communist movement, which have been overcome already long ago. They repeat them with some nice phrases and present their new theories of new circumstances.

On the one hand, these movements are seen as the product of the conscious relations established through "speech" by the identity groups that form them, the correlation of them with causality and history is denied and subjectivism is made everything. On the other hand, the subjective factor is negated, the conscious role of the vanguard is denied. The movements are totally based on subjective reasons. The unavoidable consequence of this subjectivism is the negation of the subject and worship of spontaneity. The movements are characterized on the base of their "actors" or "participants"; their quality is defined by the identities of the individuals participating in them. The ideologies which direct the movement and the political subjects carrying these ideologies are left aside. The most typical example of this are the voluntarist, anarchistic-autonomist illusionist ideas, which are not linked with the facts of the real world, presented by Negri and Hardt in their "Empire".

One should not be mislead by the anti-imperialism of this movement, which is limited with being against the "holy alliance of the three" formed by the IMF, WB and WTO. The leadership of the movement and the sections it influences are satisfied with that. It is obvious that they do that out of the necessity of their class position. Our task is here to overcome this given limit. In order to be able to overcome this limit, the revolutionary and communist forces have to act together on an international scale.

If we consider this movement, we objectively see the following: On one hand the world of the exploited, plundered people and on the other hand the world of those exploiting and plundering. On one hand, those who defend and impose neo-liberalism, and on the other hand, those resisting it. On the one hand, the international political, military and economical organisations and states in the service of the international monopolies, on the other hand, millions standing up against them. On the one hand, the reorganisation of the international capital and production, on the other hand, the masses suffering from the tyranny of these organisations.

The leadership of this movement tries to reconcile the masses of workers and labourers, who believe that enough is enough, with the capitalist order, with the imperialist globalisation. This leadership is only one side. It is a Trojan horse of imperialism wrapped in the dress of reformism and pacifism. They are in charge of conquering the international front of the working class and the labourers, which is not formed yet organisationally from inside, and working in that way. The organisational form of the movement as a whole is absolutely appropriate to the role played by the leadership. With its current organisational structure, this movement serves the efforts of retreat of those defending the "welfare state" state capitalism, a part of the social democrats, the reformists, the "lefties". Apparently, they are retreating "fighting against neoliberalism"! It is an open expression of how this movement, the "unorganised labouring masses follow reformist, pacifist trends and the counterrevolutionary ideologies". The current leadership of the movement and its organisation is an obstacle in front of the revolution. In the name of progressiveness, the most up-to-date and modern defenders of the imperialist world system have nested in the movement. We have to expose this character of them, this mission of them, to expose their practical, political, theoretical, ideological, organisational inconsistency in the eyes of the masses listening to this movement, expose that they are on the side of the system in front of them and next to them before we will be able to influence the millions of working and labouring masses following them all over the world. We have to expose their character, their mission, to expose their practical, political, theoretical, ideological and organisational inconsistency in the eyes of the masses listening to this movement, confront them with the fact that they are on the side of the system before we will be able to influence working and labouring masses following them all over the world.

No, we cannot ignore this movement in any way. The grass-root-level bears in its essence an important anti-imperialist potential. It is in our hands to really anti-imperialize, to revolutionize this potential.

The reality of this movement from Seattle until today is not an anti-capitalist one, but, even if it may be poor and shallow and almost only restricted to the IMF, WB and WTO, it bears an anti-imperialist content. The important point is that we bring this content to the foreground. We have to struggle in order to give an organisational structure to this movement, even if it is in a petty-bourgeois reformist understanding, which is far away from being organised, which is organising from on action on international level to the other. We have to struggle for a structure going beyond international coordination, which aims to continuity and is able to direct. This movement is the strongest international mass movement of the last years.

Internationalism has an ideological meaning. Without answering the question, based on the ideology and policy of which class an International is rising, it cannot be said which kind of international movement it is. In whose name is it speaking, whose policy does it formulate and organise? This is the question. This movement does not speak in the name of the world working class and the labouring masses; it does not represent these classes. The act of uniting some demands does not make this fact disappear. From the point of view of the class interests of the working class and the labouring masses, this movement is not internationalist. It could only be the International of the petty-bourgeoisie, of reformism and pacifism.

We should not confuse this internationalism with the one of the working class. First of all, there is a class difference. There are classes standing against each other in antagonism. The one wants to save the capitalist order, to reform it and, therefore, tries to use the mass movement as a tool in order to create some tension. The other one wants to overthrow the system. This is the difference between them. Without being aware of this difference you cannot understand the class character of structures like the WSF, ESF or ATTAC and because the demands seem to be the same, it makes it even easier to follow the line of reformism and pacifism.

The call of this movement upon the international institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, UN) and imperialist states to "govern" more does not mean anything else but to give more power/authority to these institutions and imperialist states. It does not mean anything else than call upon those, who plunder the world and organise this plunder, to "govern" more.

The differentiation of the classes in the "new" social movements will continue: in the world of today, where the political representatives of the working class, in other words, the international communist movement, is disorganised and dispersed, the subjective conditions continue to be inconvenient, but from the point of view of the objective conditions it is very convenient for the movement of the working class.

Flexible production, the new international division of labour and similar facts really require new trade-unionist strategies, new organisation tools and forms. But, as it is understood from the names, these are only renovations of forms of struggle. The means of organisation being appropriate to the needs of this new situation are becoming visible in the spontaneous actions of the working class in the whole world. It is now the duty of the communist forces to develop these means and to give consciousness.

But at the same time, the existence of the movement defined as "new" social movements does not show that the axis of the struggle is moving outside the working class or the classes in general, but it shows that the grounds for the working class to take over the leadership of the social struggles of different social stratums is today much stronger than in the past.

The capitalist attacks of destruction, or in other words, neo-liberalism, accelerates the impoverishment of the youth, women, peasants and landless, as well as extending the ranks of the working class, those stratums become a strong component of the struggle against imperialist globalisation. Furthermore, the destiny of those stratums are bound more and more to the victory of the working class and the conditions for them to move under the hegemony of the working class are developing more and more.

Although the bourgeois ideologists understand the demands of the movement only superficially and base them on identities, objectively, every struggle is a factor giving force to the working class in the historical mission it took over in the way of the definite emancipation of humanity.

The "post-modern" theoreticians, for example, are embracing most strongly the movement of the Zapatistas, which defines itself as "movement of the others" and carries out "the other campaign". Even though this movement of the natives of Chiapas defines itself with cultural concepts and consciously stays away from the perspective of overtaking the power, it was born as a result of the destruction in agriculture, which arose from the neoliberal attacks developing in Mexico and had its most devastating effect on the natives. As natives were already nationally and culturally discriminated and oppressed throughout the history, this process of destruction has been the last spark that caused the rebellion of them. The social alliance of the coca-peasants, the natives and the workers´ unions in Bolivia are another example. The class content of the movements of the natives in Latin America, which are said to be "based on identity", is as obvious as never before in history.

One side of the struggle against globalisation in Europe are the militant actions against the imperialist summits and another side the big resistances, especially of the automobile and dockyard workers. These resistances are still spontaneous and due to the leadership of the reformist trade-unions they do not obtain important victories. However, as their development has shown, they became an important element of the worldwide resistances against the attack of capitalist destruction. According to the theoreticians of the "new" social movements, the labourers from the service sector, defined as "new middle class", that developed over the movements based on identity, or the "multitude" of Negri, are participating side by side with the industrial workers in the strikes and resistances.

The developing armed anti-imperialist resistances in the Middle-East cause a difficult situation for the reformist pacifist leadership of the WSF.

Within the social struggles as a whole, the percentage of those movements, which express themselves only with a sexual, cultural etc. attitude, is actually not very high. But be it like that or not, all those struggles are part of the resistance we talked about and in general their social masses are petty-bourgeois and they are bourgeois liberal or petty-bourgeois radical trends.

The development of the social struggles of today will result in the continuation of the class differentiation of its components. It is the principal task of the international communist movement to develop its links with the masses of the working class and the labourers in order to deepen this differentiation in favour of the dream of socialism, to give answers appropriate to the needs to the important theoretical, organisational and political problems facing the movement.

Footnotes:

1 "The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese wall, with which it forces the barbarians´ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, ie, to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier and one customs tariff. " (Marx/Engels, The Communist Manifesto, p 8-9)

2 "The capitalist mode of production is (...) a historical means of developing the material forces of production and creating an appropriate world-market and is, at the same time, a continual conflict between this its historical task and its own corresponding relations of social production."

(Marx/Engels, Capital, vol. 3, p. 250)

3 "I have never seen a class so deeply demoralised, so incurably debased by selfishness, so corroded within, so incapable of progress, as the English bourgeoisie; and I mean by this, especially the bourgeoisie proper, particularly the Liberal, Corn Law repealing bourgeoisie. For it nothing exists in this world, except for the sake of money, itself not excluded. It knows no bliss save that of rapid gain, no pain save that of losing gold. In the presence of this avarice and lust of gain, it is not possible for a single human sentiment or opinion to remain untainted. True, these English bourgeois are good husbands and family men, and have all sorts of other private virtues, and appear, in ordinary intercourse, as decent and respectable as all other bourgeois; even in business they are better to deal with than the Germans; they do not higgle and haggle so much as our own pettifogging merchants; but how does this help matters? Ultimately it is self-interest, and especially money gain, which alone determines them. I once went into Manchester with such a bourgeois, and spoke to him of the bad, unwholesome method of building, the frightful condition of the working-peoples quarters, and asserted that I had never seen so ill-built a city. The man listened quietly to the end, and said at the corner where we parted: "And yet there is a great deal of money made here, good morning, sir." It is utterly indifferent to the English bourgeois whether his working-men starve or not, if only he makes money. All the conditions of life are measured by money, and what brings no money is nonsense, unpractical, idealistic bosh. Hence, Political Economy, the Science of Wealth, is the favourite study of these bartering Jews. Every one of them is a Political Economist. The relation of the manufacturer to his operatives has nothing human in it; it is purely economic. The manufacturer is Capital, the operative Labour. And if the operative will not be forced into this abstraction, if he insists that he is not Labour, but a man, who possesses, among other things, the attribute of labour-force, if he takes it into his head that he need not allow himself to be sold and bought in the market, as the commodity "Labour", the bourgeois reason comes to a standstill. He cannot comprehend that he holds any other relation to the operatives than that of purchase and sale; he sees in them not human beings, but hands, as he constantly calls them to their faces; he insists, as Carlyle says, that "Cash Payment is the only nexus between man and man." Even the relation between himself and his wife is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, mere "Cash Payment". Money determines the worth of the man; he is "worth ten thousand pounds". He who has money is of "the better sort of people", is "influential", and what he does counts for something in his social circle. The huckstering spirit penetrates the whole language, all relations are expressed in business terms, in economic categories. Supply and demand are the formulas according to which the logic of the English bourgeois judges all human life. Hence free competition in every respect, hence the regime of laissez-faire, laissez-aller in government, in medicine, in education, and soon to be in religion, too, as the State Church collapses more and more. Free competition will suffer no limitation, no State supervision; the whole State is but a burden to it. It would reach its highest perfection in a wholly ungoverned anarchic society, where each might exploit the other to his hearts content. ..." (Frederich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, MECW Volume 2)

4 By "new" social movement or social movement of today we refer to the "anti-globalisation" movement with all its organisational, political, theoretical and ideological components and all its variety.

5 In the December 19 97 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique, Ignacio Ramonet put up very aggressively and fiercely the demand for the "disarmament of the markets", "disarmament of the finance markets" and the application of the "the tax of solidarity". Well, in order to make another world possible, one should start with the Tobin tax. Ramonet wrote that "if we want to hinder in the 21^st century definitely that the world turns into a wild forest where the bandits have the word, then it is first duty of citizens to disarm the financial markets" (See: Ruth Jung; "ATTAC: Sand im Getriebe", 2002, p., 18.).

In the context of "globalisation" and the corresponding discussion, "the proposal made by James Tobin in 1972 is gaining more and more sympathy. The Nobel Laureate (J. Tobin) proposed to impose a small tax on the money transactions. According to Tobin, temporary investments affect the finance market in a way destroying its stability and causes their continuous fluctuation at the exchange rate of currencies. 80% of the 1.5 trillion dollar turning around between the finance centres of the stock market every day are investments for less than one month or even for only two hours". (Peter Wahl; "Tobin Tax (Tobin Steuer)", "impose a tax on the fifth power (Besteuert die fünfte Gewalt!)", The newspaper "Taz", January 29,.2001, p. 11) .

6 In the WSF charter of principles it says also the following:

"From now on, in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre that "another world is possible", it becomes a permanent process of seeking and building alternatives (...)

The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition to a process of globalization commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations' interests, with the complicity of national governments. They are designed to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. (...)

democracy, peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people (...)

(...) and condemns all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another (...)"

(Approved and adopted in São Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum Organising Committee)

7 "The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism (...)

The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks only organizations and movements of civil society from all the countries in the world, but intends neither to be a body representing world civil society. (...)

As a context for interrelations, the World Social Forum seeks to strengthen and create new national and international links among organizations and movements of society (...)

The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. Noone, therefore, will be authorized, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to express positions claiming to be those of all its participants. The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it.

Nonetheless, organizations or groups of organizations that participate in the Forum's meetings must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may decide on, whether singly or in coordination with other participants. The World Social Forum undertakes to circulate such decisions widely by the means at its disposal, without directing, hierarchizing, censuring or restricting them, but as deliberations of the organizations or groups of organizations that made the decisions.

The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to build another world.

The World Social Forum will always be a forum open to pluralism and to the diversity of activities and ways of engaging of the organizations and movements that decide to participate in it, as well as the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities, providing they abide by this Charter of Principles. Neither party representations nor military organizations shall participate in the Forum. Government leaders and members of legislatures who accept the commitments of this Charter may be invited to participate in a personal capacity." (WSF charter of principles Approved and adopted in São Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum Organising Committee)

Issue 12 / January 2008