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OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 6/2/10

Europe's Media Warn of Global Social Unrest

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Both Calliol and Celente reject claims that agitators are behind the wave of social unrest.

"There are no organisations behind this response--it's a public response," said Celente, who also invokes Marx's monumental work. "This is a 21st century rendition of the "workers of the world unite.' The people are fully aware of the enormous bailout going to the "too big to fail's' that they are being forced to pay for. The higher the taxes go, the more jobs that are lost, the greater the levels of protest."

Such statements demonstrate how seriously Europe's rulers take the growing danger of social revolution on the continent. That is what their advisors are telling them is the inevitable product of the worsening economic crisis. But this is made all the more certain by their own efforts to place the entire burden on the backs of working people in the interests of the major banks and corporations--in the process setting out to destroy what remains of the welfare measures and working conditions previously won by workers.

The ruling classes of Europe are preparing for the emergence of mass working class struggles through the promotion of various middle-class fake-left organisations to prevent the development of socialist consciousness and block the political independence of the working class--the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France, the Left Party in Germany, Syriza in Greece, etc. They are also preparing for the use of mass state repression and the introduction of dictatorial forms of rule.

The advantage presently enjoyed by the ruling class is that the working class does not have the required socialist and revolutionary perspective and leadership to mount its own counter-offensive. Instead, those organisations falsely designated as representing the workers--above all the trade unions--act as a fifth column of big business.

Whether they organise their various one-day protest strikes, such as in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain, or do nothing at all like Britain's Trades Union Congress, the unions function as instruments for imposing austerity measures and cuts through the deliberate suppression and containment of the class struggle. They work hand-in-glove with the employers and governments, whether these are their formally social democratic counterparts or the archest of conservative administrations.

In the end, this will only ensure that the emerging class struggle will pass over these organisations like a tidal wave. The World Socialist Web Site shares the prognosis outlined so well by Trotsky in the Transitional Programme: "The orientation of the masses is determined first by the objective conditions of decaying capitalism, and second, by the treacherous politics of the old workers' organisations. Of these factors, the first, of course, is the decisive one: the laws of history are stronger than the bureaucratic apparatus."

Far from a source of complacency or fatalism, this prognosis underscores the crucial question of revolutionary leadership. The indispensable instrument for closing the gap between the revolutionary implications of the world crisis and the present level of working class consciousness is the Marxist party. Those who see the need for a socialist alternative should make the decision to join and build the Socialist Equality Party.

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Chris Marsden's work can be found on wsws.org, a website dedicated to global awareness of socialist issues & which serves as the forum for the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).
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