May 5, 2002

Revolutionaries of yesteryear have become reactionaries, and political and economic realities have undergone enormous change, leaving May Day as nothing more than a historical landmark

MAY 1 was declared the worker’s international day in 1887. It has been a day of resolve, of solidarity, of celebration, and, most of all, a day demonstrating the might of the working class as a movement, a state ideology and as a source of innovative authoritarianism. However, history has a tendency to move on. What is current today becomes a part of history the next day. The international working class movement has contributed its bit to human progress, and May Day has become a historical landmark.

The working class has been the most dynamic subordinate class known to history. It grasped the international nature of industrial society from day one. When the capitalists of Europe were busy in carving the Holy Roman Empire into national states, advancing the slogan of ‘my nation, right or wrong’, the organized working class opened its onslaught with the slogan: ‘workers of the world, unite’. With the advent of imperialism, it amended its slogan into ‘oppressed nations, and workers of the world, unite’. Lenin formulated his thesis on imperialism in 1910 and the Bolshevik revolution took place in 1917.

Apart from the initial years of industrialization when workers smashed machines that took away their jobs, the working class targeted the capitalist class, and not the machines. During the Chartist movement in England in the middle of the eighteenth century, the workers demanded rights for themselves which, in their perception, was desired by the capitalist class, and, thus, by the government of the day.

Industrial production is a highly complex mechanism. Every component of the industrial process over-emphasizes its own role and considers itself pivotal. The capitalist gives his own name to the industrial system, as he feels that he sets up the industry. The worker insists that it is his labour that generates new wealth, so he would call it socialism. If one asks the wholesaler, the retailer, even the advertise, they will all emphasize their own roles in completing the cycle of production and moving on to expanded reproduction.

In this age when capital in provided by the banks, they will see their own role as pivotal. Industrial process has been evolving from simple capitalist entrepreneur to globalization in which the relative importance of different factors of production has been changing, influencing the pattern of social relations.

The 1917 Russian revolution was the high watermark of the international working class movement. It was not historic in the sense that it did not generate any new means of production. It rather elevated a subordinate class in the given economic system to the status of the ruling class, making it un-natural and due to collapse in course of time.

But it was certainly historic in the sense that it led to harmonizing industrial society, which was almost savage in the mid-19th century. The Chartist movement, with its focus on the universal right to vote and right to form trade unions, right to an eight-hour working day etc, and subsequently the symbolism of May Day, restored the dignity of the labourer as a human being.

Carlyle had protested against the inhumanity of man to man, and deplored that the ‘cash nexus’ was the only nexus in society. Analysing society, Marx had said: “... (M)oney is the basic social tie; it is the tie of all ties; it is the tie that ties and unties all ties.” The climax of this effort was the October revolution.

As an effect of these events, welfarism was born. To be fair to the leaders of the industrial society, it should be mentioned that they quickly learnt that workers were more productive if treated as human beings. Marx had said that the workers were revolutionary as they had nothing to loose, but their chains. With healthcare, recreation allowance, education for themselves and their progeny, old-age benefits, housing and car allowance, the workers had much to loose, so they lost their militancy. Moreover, the unskilled worker being squeezed dry, has now, with the passage of time, become a vanishing tribe.

Imperialism was there in the post-1917 Russian revolution period, so oppressed nations were attracted by revolutionary socialism. The tide of imperialism started to recede after 1945, and by 1950, most nations won their independence. Only four countries — China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia — that were all independent before 1950, represent half the human race. The last significant outpost of imperialism was the apartheid regime of South Africa, which got rid of it under Nelson Mandela.

In 1910, Lenin formulated the thesis that capitalism has entered the new stage of imperialism, and amended the old slogan. He was writing when imperialism was at its height and did not have the perspective to see beyond imperialism. He presented the hypothesis (and not a scientific fact) that imperialism is the ‘highest’ stage of capitalism beyond which is workers’ revolution and socialism.

However, imperialism proved to be only a ‘higher stage’, and not the ‘highest stage’, of capitalism and the industrial system has evolved through a number of stages in the post-imperialist period, and is still evolving. The three basic ingredients of imperialism are: firstly, a captive region rich in cheap labour where finance capital may be absorbed; secondly, a region which is rich in raw material from where competitors may be barred, and, thirdly, a captive market for mass-scale produced industrial goods. In other words, monopolies and cartels in metropolitan countries led to the coercive carving up of the world. Has the de-colonization after 1945 made the system of imperialism to fade out, and has the revolutionary working class movement lost its relevance?

Western industrialized societies fought two World Wars for forcible re-division of the world. The end of the First World War saw the rise of an order hostile to classical capitalism. The West responded by the concept of welfarism. The end of the Second World War led to the decolonization of the globe. Imperial control was no longer viable, and the industrial system had to search for new solutions.

It has already passed two phases and one stage beyond imperialism and has entered the second stage. The two phases of the first post-imperialist stage were the phase of multinational corporations, and the second was that of trans-continental corporations. The second stage is that of globalization, which is current. It would be worthwhile to review these phases and stages in some detail.

Contrary to Lenin’s view that imperialism will be replaced by the worker-led social revolution, the industry evolved new forms of existence and development in the post-imperialist world environment. The West gave up the practice of fighting wars for hegemony as it had done twice in the past with grievous results, and formed multinational corporations on a share basis.

Competition was still there, but not in such a way that it may lead to war. All the cooperation/ competition was in the economic sphere. An important element in this re-adjustment was the danger posed by the USSR, and other so-called socialist countries. This phase was short, and lasted about a decade or so.

A major segment of the multinationals was in the oil industry. They soon realized that the royalties paid to Afro-Asian oil rich countries run into billions, which these countries were unable to absorb. They, thus, added this huge amount to their own capital and from being multinationals, they become trans-continentals.

However, the activity of trans-continentals was limited to the so-called Free World, as they were not allowed entry in the socialist bloc, which meant almost half the globe. After the collapse of the former USSR and the other countries of that bloc, they extended their activity throughout the globe. Industrial society had entered a new stage, the stage of globalization.

The IMF and the World Bank and their sister organizations like the Asian Development Bank, are reservoirs and monitors of the world economy. Globalization is opposed first and foremost by the national industries of the West, as they have lost their competitiveness. They are supported by the traditionally conservative Roman Church and the left-wing trade unions, who, having no cause of their own, take up the causes of the weaker industrial class of the developed countries. Revolutionaries of yesteryear have become reactionary.

The dynamics of globalisation is a separate subject. Here, all that is aimed at is that the revolutionary working class movement and its symbol, May Day, may be a landmark of historic value, but is irrelevant to issues posed by the economy today. Moreover, the working class is shrinking and the service class, which can hardly be called the proletariat, is growing.

The political issue most relevant to globalization is democracy, which treats all citizens as equal and not the vanguardist role of a revolutionary working class. Thus, the element of May Day still valid is its thrust against oppression and the denial of human rights.

While revolutionary trade unionism is a misnomer, trade unions, like those of press, lawyers, traders, women, etc. are vital. The bargaining position of the workers, however, depends on the dynamism of an industry. If the industry is stagnant, and an army of unemployed workers is at the factory-gate, on-job workers will hardly dare to raise demands.

In Pakistan, with Nooriabad closed, nationalized industries being sold as real estate and junk, all the working class can do is to join the rest of the society for the restoration of representative government, which will lead to industrial growth and a modicum of bargaining power for the working class.

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