The true cost of fish - remembering fishers lost at work

I recently started a new archive The True Cost of Fish dedicated to the memory of lives lost in subsistance and commercial fishing.  I am collecting photos and information about existing memorials and publicising campaigns to create new memorials to lost fishers, anywhere in the world. Please get in touch if you have information to add to it.

Same storm, different boats - Britain's fishing crisis after Brexit

I recently wrote an article for International Socialism Journal, Britain's fishing crisis after Brexit which looks at the problems faced by commercial fishers based in Britain. Many of the issues described will be familiar to anyone interested in fishing communities in Iceland, across the European Union and further afield.

"Today, the British fishing industry faces a perfect storm of capitalist crisis, compounded by the effects of the pandemic and Brexit, overfishing and climate change. To understand how the industry got to this state, this article looks at what has happened to fishing, fishers and fishing communities in Britain since the Second World War, tracing the development of capitalist property relations, food production and retail. I focus on the development of the EU and its Common Fisheries Policy, because it has shaped the state of the industry today. I also consider why fishing still carries such political weight and what the real solutions are to ensuring that fishing has a sustainable future, providing both food and jobs that are safe and well paid."

Read the full article here

Capitalism and the Sea ─ a review

                                                                            

I reviewed Capitalism and the Sea, the Maritime Factor in the Making of the Modern World by Liam Campling and Alex Colás in the latest edition of International Socialism Journal 171. 

Capitalism and the Sea is an engaging new study of capitalism’s transformation of the human relationship to the sea. It uses a Marxist approach to understand how capitalism constantly reinvents itself to maximise profit and, in the process, intensifies exploitation, privatises vast areas of the sea and commodifies the species that inhabit them.      

My full review can be read here.

Byltingin í Rússlandi eftir Stefán Pjetursson - Part 3 continued - Brest-Litovsk

This is latest installment (part four of the third chapter) of my translation of Byltingin í Rússlandi - The Revolution in Russia by Stefán Pjetursson. This little book was published in 1921 by young Icelandic socialists who identified with the 1917 Russian Revolution and wanted to defend and explain it to the wider left and trade unionists in Iceland. I am posting it in mini-chapters because it is so long.

The earlier chapters are available below ending with the second part of chapter three where the author explains bolshevism's relationship to Marxism particularly as it was summarised in the Communist Manifesto.

My introduction to Byltingin í Rússlandi

The Sources, Preface and Introduction contain more about their reasons for writing.

Part One: Reaction and Progress

Part Two: The Revolution

Part Three: Bolshevism, a portrait of Lenin

Part Three: Bolshevism and Marxism

Reminder: Byltingin í Rússlandi uses the New Style Russian calendar - the Gregorian calendar - introduced in Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1918 which added thirteen days to the Old Style Julian calendar. However the author still refers to the revolutions in March and November (Old Style) not February and October and in the spirit of translating what the author wrote I have kept his dates in my translation.

Brest-Litovsk

It worked well that it was Trotsky’s job to defend the Bolsheviks’ honour against other countries after the November revolution. One of the most important immediate matters before them was the peace treaty with the Central powers. Trotsky was there on behalf of Russia and everyone who attended the negotiations agreed that he displayed the greatest political talent. Admittedly, he could not prevent the Bolshevik leadership from having to sign bitter peace terms, but he did something else which caused the German leadership far more damage. Trotsky is a brilliantly eloquent man and he used the opportunity to strengthen Bolshevism in the German army. “While I was at the peace conference in Brest-Litovsk”, Trotsky once said, “I never forgot for a moment that I was with those who reviled the revolution and so I directed what I said to the international proletariat.”

And the negotiators from the Central Powers agreed that he had spread revolutionary ideas so effectively among their armies in the east that they were then too unreliable to send to the front in France.

It was, as we would expect, one of the Bolshevik leadership's first tasks to try to get a ceasefire between Russia and the Central Powers. This was managed some months after the November Revolution and negotiations began soon after in Brest-Litovsk. Immediately, Bolshevik delegates argued that the basic conditions for peace should be; no demands for annexation of land, no demands for the payment of war reparations—except inasmuch as small countries such as Serbia and Belgium should be paid compensation from international funds for the damage they had sustained. And last but not least, that subjugated nations had the absolute right to decide by voting, what state they wanted to belong to or whether they wanted to be completely independent and that such voting must be completely free. 

The Central Powers’ representatives, Czernin and Kühlmann said that they would be willing to agree to the Bolshevik leadership’s main terms as the basis for peace, provided the Allies agreed.

At this point Trotsky sent a message to the Allied leadership, which has since become famous. He explained the basic conditions the delegates at Brest-Litovsk had agreed to construct international peace. The Central Powers had at least agreed to drop claims to land they had conquered in the war.

"It is no longer possible to say that the war continues to liberate Belgium, Northern France and Serbia,” because Germany has expressed a willingness to release these countries so the general peace can be agreed. Now the Allies have to disclose their peace terms. If they demand that the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine, Galicia, Bosnia, Bohemia and the southern Slavic provinces of Austria get to decide their own future, then they must give the same rights to the inhabitants of Ireland, India, Indochina, Madagascar and many other countries, just as the Russian revolutionaries have granted that right to Finland, Ukraine and so forth. “Because it is obvious that to demand these rights for peoples within the borders of enemy states but not provide them to peoples within the limits of your own states, is the most despicable violent policy imaginable.” Trotsky finished the broadcast by demanding an answer within ten days, otherwise Russia would make peace with the Central powers.

As might be expected from the Allied leadership, these reasonable demands were in vain, so the Bolsheviks had to negotiate with the Central Powers alone. Then the German and Austrian representatives took this as an opportunity to refuse to negotiate on the previously discussed basis. 

Military service ends

There was now a heated debate in Brest-Litovsk between Trotsky on the one hand and Czernin and Kühlmann on the other. The main disagreement was that the Central Powers refused to call the army home from the provinces they had annexed before peace was established. It was clear to Trotsky that this meant that neither Poland, Lithuania nor Courland [now part of Latvia] would be free to decide their own futures and they would be nothing but German vassals. After the parties argued over this through all of January 1918, Trotsky made an extraordinary bold move. On 10 February, he announced that he considered the war between Russia and the Central Powers over without any peace agreements being signed and ordered that the release of Russian soldiers from military service should begin.

The Germans responded to this remarkable event by resuming the war against Russia and as expected the Russian army was not able to resist. There was simply no choice for the Bolshevik government here; it had to accept the Central Powers' peace terms. The committee was sent back to Brest-Litovsk where it had to sign even tougher peace terms than the Central Powers had previously wanted. This was 3 March 2018.

 

It was hard on the Russian revolutionaries to have to accept terms set by the advocates of the German and Austrian rich. Just before they signed the treaties they issued a speech protesting the terms of the peace. "We publicly declare, they said, "before German and Russian workers, before the international proletariat that we are forced to sign these terms by those who are stronger at this moment. That's why we sign this coercive peace and not because we agree to it at all.”

Trotsky himself took this very personally and left the leadership of foreign affairs.

The Allied governments took the terms of peace between Russia and the Central Powers very badly but could do little about it. They were still threatened on the battlefields in France and had to keep all their troops there. But immediately after the November revolution in Russia, the capitalists there gathered their side and began uprisings in many places. They started the cruelest civil war between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in Russia and kept it going unceasingly for three years. 

Civil War

In Siberia and east Russia, a large army assembled under the leadership of a naval commander named Koltschak. His headquarters were in Omsk, in western Siberia and set up a regime there which he considered to be the only legitimate power in Russia. Another extremely powerful army formed in southern Russia. Its leaders for the first months were Kornilov and the Cossack leader Kaledin, but later they got another officer named Denikin who became particularly difficult for the Bolsheviks. Finally, in the Baltic countries there was a third rebel officer, Judenitsch [Yudenich].

When the Allies heard that civil war was burning in Russia, they saw a chance to turn the tables. They did all they could to arm the rebel army with weapons, supplies, funds and “good advice”. And to add even more to the Bolshevik government's troubles, they imposed a blockade on Russia’s ports, blaming the uprising in the Caucasus and beyond on the country’s borders. Finally, a British army landed on the Murmansk coast from the Arctic Ocean and was ordered inland. This was not enough for the Allies but they were given yet another opportunity to heap coals on the head of the Bolshevik government when Germany collapsed and the new states on the western border of Russia - Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Finland sought protection from the victors. It wasn’t long before they came under the Allies' protection until they got caught up in the war with the Bolshevik government.

All these enemies who had encircled Russia were now set on overthrowing the proletarian government and it probably wasn’t said that its prospects looked good when capitalism’s troops invaded in the summer of 1918. It is worth mentioning here that this was the summer that the former emperor Nicholas and his family were killed by the local government in Yekaterinburg. They feared that he would fall into the hands of the rebels close to the city and later be used to unite the opposition against the proletarian government. Such was the fate of the last emperor of the Romanov clan.

The Red Army

In 1919, the rebel armies advanced from all directions and it appeared likely that this tremendous organization, backed by the strongest capitalist powers in the world would quickly bring down the Bolshevik government. Yet its power grew with the danger.

Trotsky seized the challenge to come up with an army to defend the revolution and it went well. The "Red Army" which he mostly created and is mainly made up of workers, defeated one rebel commander after another. First Judenitsch [Yudenich] and Denikin then Koltschak and after that the other warring parties weren't able to deal with the Bolshevik government. It took the opportunity and made peace with each of the Baltic countries and by the summer of 1920 Poland was their only enemy in that direction. The British army in northern Russia had hardly covered themselves in glory and was taken home some time later. But in Southern Russia, it was Wrangel, a general of great reputation that collected the remnants of Denikin’s army at the behest of the Allies, particularly France and made the only serious attempt yet to overthrow the proletarian government.

Here however, the tables turned because when it came to it, Wrangel's troops could not withstand the Red Army. After a month of fighting in the autumn of 1920 they were completely scattered, ending the Russian Civil War. Some time before this war with the Poles had mostly stalled. The Allies were preparing incitement of people in eastern Europe to go to war against the Bolsheviks. Now they themselves lifted the embargo and prepared to trade with Russia and urged the Poles to seek peace with the Bolshevik government. In March 1921, the peace treaties between the Poles and Russia were concluded and it could finally be said that the Bolsheviks were free from attacks by foreign enemies. 

It is almost incomprehensible to people here what the Russian proletarian government has done to defend the cause of the revolution from this astonishing association of domestic and foreign capitalists. The new policy must have given Russia a great deal of power. It is obvious to everyone and that power can only be explained by the sense that the Red Army and the Russian people have that they are defending something worth the effort. Only enthusiasm for the cause of revolution has been able to give the Red Army its recent superiority over the “white army” that capitalism sent from all directions to annihilate the Russian government - the guardian of world revolution.

Yes, the Russian Bolsheviks view themselves as the guardian of the world revolution. "What is happening in eastern Europe," said Zinoviev, president of the Communist International’s Executive Committee, "is just the beginning. That's where the world revolution begins."

And from Russia it will spread, they say. Even if capitalism exerts all its power it won’t be able to suppress the communist movement. It was precisely in those years, when the workers' republic of Russia was surrounded on all sides by a hostile band of capitalists, that the Communist parties around the world grew rapidly. But one of the main conditions for the working class to be able to take power is that the revolution must be carried out in at least all developed countries.

This is what Marx said and this is what the communists in our day have fully understood. In Moscow on 4 March 1919 they formed the “Third International", so that communists around the world would have common leadership in the struggle against capitalism.

The "Third International'' has set itself the goal of overthrowing capitalism around the world with international revolution and build on the ruins an international republic of workers’ councils. The president of the executive committee of the organisation is Zinoviev, one of the most energetic men among Russian Bolsheviks.

He burns with zeal for international revolution. He has declared holy war against capitalist oppression and he calls down righteous punishment over the heads of the slow-moving social democrats and their union the “Second International", which completely failed the cause of the people in the world war - just when it mattered most.

In one speech from, "Third International", Zinoviev says: Proletarians! Look back! Behind you are the bodies of your brothers fallen in the bloodiest and most criminal war ever. And then look into the future!

Grigory Zinoviev speaking in 1918

“What can you expect from the bourgeois dictators, as long as they hold power? What else but new wars, new taxes, famine, and boundless slavery? Proletarians must defend themselves from this at all costs. The Third International calls on the proletariat in all countries to make the final decision and cut away their weapons and power.”

Byltingin í Rússlandi - The Revolution in Russia, part three (continued) Bolshevism and a portrait of Trotsky

This is latest installment (part three of the third chapter) of my translation of Byltingin í Rússlandi - The Revolution in Russia by Stefán Pjetursson. This little book was published in 1921 by young Icelandic socialists who identified with the 1917 Russian Revolution and wanted to defend and explain it to the wider left and trade unionists in Iceland. I am posting it in mini-chapters because it is so long. 

The earlier chapters are available below ending with the first part of chapter three, which describes Lenin and what the author knew and understood about Lenin's character and politics.

My introduction to Byltingin í Rússlandi

The Sources, Preface and Introduction contain more about their reasons for writing.

Part One: Reaction and Progress

Part Two: The Revolution

Part Three: Bolshevism, a portrait of Lenin

Part Three: Bolshevism and Marxism

Reminder: Byltingin í Rússlandi uses the New Style Russian calendar - the Gregorian calendar - introduced in Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1918 which added thirteen days to the Old Style Julian calendar. This is why the author refers to the revolutions in February and October as the March Revolution and the November Revolution. I have kept the author's dates in my translation.


Part Three: Bolshevism and Marxism finishes;

“The manifesto ends with these words: Communists disdain to hide their views. They declare publicly that their goal will only be achieved by tearing down the old system. Above you—who now hold power—looms the Communist Revolution. The Proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains. But they have a whole world to win.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Part three continued: Bolshevism and a portrait of Trotsky

This is the basis of the entire program laid out by Marx, on which the Russian Communists—the Bolsheviks—and all other Communists in the world stand. They are all revolutionaries. They say that the working class—the proletarian class, will never get their rights other than by revolution.

How could anyone possibly think, asks Lenin, that the capitalists now at the height of their militarism, that recently set off six years of universal slaughter to strengthen capitalist oppression, when theft of land and all the various violence of the bourgeoisie has reached its high water mark in the peace of Versailles—how can anyone think, if he looks at all that has happened, that the rich would fulfil the demands of the working class?

It is simply betraying workers to tell them it’s true and getting them to trust it enslaves them. How can anyone believe that it is possible to get rid of capitalist oppression peacefully?

Who believes it now, when it everyone knows that the capitalists of the most educated countries of the world have not hesitated to allow the killing of millions of people—workers and peasants—just to satisfy their greed for money and addiction to power. Who will believe it now when he has seen Russian, Hungarian and Finnish capitalists didn’t hesitate to send thousands, or rather millions to their death to win back individual property rights over land and means of production, which the proletariat had taken off them so that ordinary people needn’t starve without the barest necessities? Are people to lack even enough food to survive?

Now what if people ask “Isn’t it better for the working class to use legal methods to try to improve society peacefully?” This is impossible, says Lenin.

The rich have always had ways to keep the working class under the yoke though some laws have been passed to improve its conditions. They have replaced old forms of oppression with new ones which are masked but still cruel. No, for all the slow improvements, what exists are individual property rights over land and production—the source of wealth. It is what underlies the oppressive power that the rich have vastly increased. Capitalist oppression—wealth in the hands of individuals—is the greatest evil that we have to be rid of.

But what happens when we start to move against it? The rich grab weapons to beat the proletariat down. No, it is unthinkable, argues Lenin, that the working class will be able to rid itself of the capitalist yoke other than by revolution.

The proletariat—the working class—has to take power into its own hands. For a long time the capitalist system has shown its unwillingness to protect mankind from the evils of poverty. The dictatorship of the proletariat will have to solve the humanitarian crisis itself. It cannot be avoided. The proletarian government must establish iron-hard discipline; it will have to smash class differences, deprive the rich of individual rights over land and production and operate all industry for the benefit of ordinary people. It will have to dismantle the old bourgeoisie at all costs so that it cannot fight against nor wreck the new order.

The only way to achieve all of its plans is to reorganise production for people’s needs and to teach people to work together. But the dictatorship of the proletariat won’t last long, it is only the preparation for the future order. When ordinary people have taken control of industry and it has been made impossible for the old capitalists to return to be a ruling class served by the masses, then state power becomes unnecessary.

The state dies a natural death when there is no political power but control over production. Then Communism will rise up—the future order. There will no longer be any classes, no grinding poverty, no idlers. There will be no oppressors and no oppressed. Everyone will own everything and work together. The causes of strife between individuals, classes or nations will disappear. In the same way that classes merge into each other, nations will be working as one. Borders will be ripped up. Blind competition and fighting will cease and in its place will be empathy and co-operation.

This is the apex of the vision of the Bolshevik program. 

Trotsky

After these few words about Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ program, we must mention Trotsky, who with the single exception of Lenin has become the most famous of all the Bolshevik leadership.

His real name is Leiba Bronstein, but he took the pseudonym Trotsky during his years of exile. He was born in 1877 of a Jewish family in the ghetto in the district of Kherson. Jews hadn’t had a moment’s peace in Russia under the emperors as Trotsky learned in his youth. He soon suffered the hardships of the persecution of Jews and because he was so ambitious took it hard that he should be made to pay for his ethnicity. He arrived at Odessa University as a precocious 22 year old but was never just studying. Soon he was involved in student protests and came a cropper like many others in Russia when he came to the attention of the authorities and in 1902 was sentenced to four years exile in Siberia.

Well Trotsky didn’t think much of imprisonment so after a while he escaped. It wasn’t part of his plan to be kept from working in Russia, quite the contrary. Now he focused his energies on the revolutionary movement and was important in the Petrograd uprising in January 1905. It was for this that the authorities seized him again and sent him back to Siberia. But this time Trotsky didn’t reach the intended destination. Halfway there he tricked his way out, escaped and got out of Russia. He then lived as a refugee in very difficult circumstances.

He travelled widely in the war years but wasn’t well received everywhere because he never missed any opportunity to oppose the war. Eventually he went to America and was there in March 1917[1] when the revolution began in Russia and all Russian exiles were allowed home. He was so poor that he could not have got home, if his friends hadn’t come to the rescue and given him the money for the journey. When he got home, he joined the Bolsheviks and quickly became one of their most influential leaders. The part he played in the preparation of the revolution has already been described and can be referred to above. 

Don’t be thinking that Trotsky is anything special to look at, or more than the average man. He is described as a little yellow in the face, high nose, twinkling dark eyes, short moustache and goatee beard, a high forehead with the hair often falling over it. He is of average height and moves very rapidly but his character is most important.

Trotsky has great character but he is also quick-tempered and decisive and hasn’t spared himself any hardships to become part of the team ending with one of the most difficult tasks of the Bolshevik government—the military. Trotsky created the “Red Amy”—the defensive militia from the revolutionary Russian proletariat that has brought all its domestic attackers and foreign enemies to a standstill. Trotsky has become the Bolshevik man of many troubles because the man is very talented and was formed to be where the battle is fiercest. 

Trotsky - photo used in original

Some have accused him of being consumed by ambition and that he enjoys being in charge but such an allegation is unfounded. Others have said that he has never been a team player and has worked tirelessly for the accomplishment of his own ends. But it will become clear in future that Trotsky and the other Bolshevik leaders bear equal responsibility for their policies. They will never beg capitalism for mercy and it should not expect mercy from them. “If we are forced in the end to go”, said Trotsky, “we shall at least slam the door so hard behind us that the whole world takes notice.” 

Trotsky also says that there is little risk of Bolshevism in Russia being suppressed, “the world war has so accelerated the collapse of capitalism that we Bolsheviks are invincible (but) the enemies that have encircled us must be broken up by proletarian revolution.”

---

[1] Old Style calendar, February 1917 New Style.

Byltingin í Rússlandi - The Revolution in Russia, part three (continued) Bolshevism and Marxism

This is the continuation of part three of my translation of Byltingin í Rússlandi - The Revolution in Russia by Stefán Pjetursson. This little book was published in 1921 by young Icelandic socialists who identified with the 1917 Russian Revolution and wanted to defend and explain it to the wider left and trade unionists in Iceland. I am posting it in mini-chapters because it is so long. 

The earlier chapters are available below ending with the first part of chapter three, which describes Lenin and what the author knew and understood about Lenin's character and politics.
My introduction to Byltingin í Rússlandi

The Sources, Preface and Introduction contain more about their reasons for writing.

Part One: Reaction and Progress

Part Two: The Revolution

Part Three: Bolshevism, a portrait of Lenin

Reminder: Bylting í Rússlandi uses the New Style Russian calendar - the Gregorian calendar - introduced in Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1918 which added thirteen days to the Old Style Julian calendar. This is why the author refers to the revolutions in February and October as the March Revolution and the November Revolution. I have kept the author's dates in my translation.

Part Three: Bolshevism and Marxism

Lenin and the other Bolsheviks follow the essentials of socialism as laid out in the teachings of Karl Marx. Let’s say a few words about those here. Nowadays, states throughout the developed world suffer intolerable capitalist oppression. This system is built on a relatively small group of of rich people that has control over land and the means of production and takes the working class—which is called free—to serve itself.

What the working class gets paid for its work is generally no more than is strictly necessary to live and work. All the other dividends of production are taken by the rich. Vast accumulation is achieved by taking more and more of the value of the working class’s work into their own pockets. Working people don’t own anything—they are proletarians; they have nothing but their ability to work for capitalists and so they have to work for the bourgeoisie, the employers.

In reality, isn’t this just the old slavery masked?

As long as the bourgeoisie hold the means of production, workers will be subject to whatever conditions, or disadvantages that this group of people inflict on them. Otherwise they and their family will starve. Mankind is increasingly being divided into two classes - bourgeoisie and proletarians - oppressors and the oppressed.

But the bourgeoisie who control the means of production, also have to compete for the control of the world market. So they also have to compete with each other. This stupid battle uses all kinds of shameful weapons—treachery, deceit, all sorts of underhand behaviour and worse. It is true that competition pushed people to find continually newer ways to produce cheaper goods than before. But who profits because they have taken up new and better machines? Not the working class, not ordinary people, just the bourgeoisie.

The development of production has meant better machines that usually make workers redundant, because as machines improved they need fewer and fewer workers to control them. Workers have to struggle with unemployment and all kinds of poverty and distress. Their conditions and their welfare are of little concern to employers and the bourgeoisie on easy street.

But when the majority of people get so little for their work, hardly enough to get by on, it is no wonder that they cannot buy much. The result is the majority of manufactured goods in the world don’t sell. It causes a deep crisis in the markets, even large companies go bankrupt and unemployment and hunger follow. There is nothing to be done about this, no matter how large the company is.

The bourgeoisie cannot control recessions. Time passes, production grows and they become obscenely rich. In reality, employment and production grows over their heads. They don’t have control over it. For the majority, the workers this situation is intolerable and finally the workers—the proletariat—rose against the bourgeoisie and overthrew their power with revolution. The revolution now happening in Russia will soon spread worldwide, say the Bolsheviks. 

Communist Manifesto

There is probably no clearer way to explain the teachings of Karl Marx, theoretical father of the Russian communists—the Bolsheviks—and the entire world’s communists than by reproducing here extracts from the Communist Manifesto, which was published in 1848 and written by Marx himself with his comrade Engels.

“The history of all past ages is the history of class struggle[1]. The oppressed and the oppressors have continually fought each other, in secret and openly. Each time the fight has ended, either in society being transformed by revolution or with both sides being ruined.

The Bourgeoisie

Bourgeois society that rose from the ruins of the feudal order has not wiped out class differences. It has created new classes in place of the old ones, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle. But there is something special about the modern age of money. It has simplified class divisions. All human society kind is being divided into just two opposing classes—the rich and the proletariat.

Of course the bourgeoisie has created a revolution in production methods and transport but as soon as it rose a new social structure formed. Great industry and trade has put power in the hands of the money men. Governments now are nothing but committees of people that exist to look after the common interests of the rich.

The bourgeoisie has wrought great changes. Human dignity has been turned into cash values, it has established a ruthless free trade. The need for ever larger markets because of growing production has driven it to conquer the whole world. But by creating a world market, human consumption and production have become international. In place of the old needs, satisfied by each country’s own production, rose new wants that for satisfaction require the products of the most distant lands and regions.

Instead of the limited area which each nation satisfied before, there are now global business connections meaning that nations become more or less dependent on one another. Meanwhile spiritual values are becoming the same in every country. All of which leads to the national divisions between people gradually disappearing.

Over the last century dominated by the bourgeoisie, they have created forces of production greater than all the preceding generations managed. But the bourgeoisie is like a magician who can no longer control the demons he has conjured up. For decades, the history of industry and commerce has been nothing but the history of the rebellion of productive forces against production, against property rights, which in their which modern form is the basis for the existence of the bourgeoisie and their rule. In this respect, it is enough to point to the trade crises, which repeatedly threaten to ruin our entire society.

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie defeated feudalism are now turned on them. But they haven’t simply made the weapons by which they will eventually be destroyed, they have also created the army to wield them—the workers, the modern proletariat.

The Proletariat

The workers get barely enough from their work to eke out a living and remain human. They are not just the slaves of the bourgeoisie; with each passing day they are enslaved to the machines, the foremen and particularly to individual capitalists. And what makes this oppression all the more vile is that its goal is merely the gratification of the avaricious.

As soon as the proletariat was formed, it began to struggle against the bourgeoisie. At first individual workers fought them, then all the workers in the same factory, then all those in the same kind of work in one area. At this stage, the workers are spread out through the country, unorganised and in competition with each other. But with the development of industry, the proletariat multiplies and it becomes more and more concentrated. As its strength grows so it feels that strength more. The struggle between individual workers and employers gradually becomes class struggle. 

The workers create associations against the bourgeoisie. They band together to win acceptable wages, they even create societies for rebellion and riots erupt. But although the workers in these battles sometimes get their specific demands met, this is not the greatest gain they win. No, their organisation, strengthened after each bout is the most valuable fruit of struggle at this stage. And finally improved communications strengthen their union so that small, local battles become almighty class struggle.

The proletarian owns nothing. His family life is nothing like the family life of the bourgeoisie. Every country is oppressed by capitalism, no one country is better for him than another. He does not know the sense of national pride. The Law, traditions, religion—are all in his eyes, cloaks of the bourgeoisie. They use them for their own ends, to strengthen their own financial interests.

All classes that took power in past centuries have tried to maintain their position by imposing their system on the masses. The proletariat cannot just take power unless they abolish the existing system. They have nothing themselves that they need to secure; they have to tear down all the old privileges. All previous systems have served the minority or at least its interests, but the proletarian movement fights for the common interest and serves the overwhelming majority of people.

The proletariat cannot get its rights; it cannot gain a freedom separate from the whole system that weighs down on it, without that system exploding.

What is the relationship now between communists and the proletariat?

Their goal is the same as all other proletarian parties: To gather the proletariat together in one class, overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and take control on behalf of the proletariat.

The capitalists are terrified that the communists will abolish individual property rights. But let’s be clear, in our societies’ individual property rights do not exist for nine tenths of the population. And the remaining property rights of the few only exist because the majority have nothing. 

You accuse us of wanting to abolish individual property rights that are inextricably linked to the majority of people having nothing at all. You accuse us of interfering in your right to own. Well that is what we are going to do.

Communism does not strip anyone of their right to personal property. But it does strip from people the ability to use such assets to crush others. It has been claimed that all desire to work will disappear and everything will be ruined when individual property rights are abolished. If that were true, society would have collapsed long ago from human sloth, because nowadays those that work own nothing, while those that do own something are precisely the people who don’t work.

It is claimed that Communists desperately want to destroy the fatherland and eliminate patriotism. But workers do not have a fatherland. It is not possible to take from them something that they do not have. Division of human beings into countries will gradually disappear when capitalism is overthrown. In all likelihood divisions will disappear completely when the proletariat has taken power. International proletarian revolution, at least in developed countries is one of the necessary conditions for gaining its freedom.

When individuals stop oppressing and impoverishing each others, so will states. When all hostility is over between classes, there cannot be any hostility between countries. When the proletariat has taken power, it will focus first on taking capital away from bourgeoisie and will nationalise the means of production, to make them assets for everyone. So when the class distinctions have gone and all production is in the hands of ordinary people, then the state will cease to be a political power. 

Political power in reality is nothing but the power of one class to oppress others. But when the proletariat gathers together in one class to fight the bourgeoisie, when by revolution they take power into their own hands and end the old systems of production, then they will immediately lose all the conditions for class distinctions as well as the particular attributes that make them a special class.

The old system of classes and class distinctions will be replaced by a human society where the free development of each individual is the condition for the free development of all.

The manifesto ends with these words:

Communists disdain to hide their views. They declare publicly that their goal will only be achieved by tearing down the old system. Above you, who now hold power, looms the Communist Revolution. The Proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains. But they have a whole world to win.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

---

[1] The author(s) summarises the Communist Manifesto.

Iceland, circumcision and the evolution of racism

The bill that proposes to ban male circumcision in Iceland is a racist attack on Jews and Muslims and needs to be understood in the wider development of racism across Europe. It is also part of the “rise of racist discourse” in Iceland, criticised by the United Nations last year.

Progressive Party MP Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir, who headed up the bill claimed the bill is intended to protect children and has nothing to do with religion. There has also been a lot of talk about mutilation as though female genital mutilation (FGM) and male circumcision are in anyway similar. Since the bill was laid before the Icelandic parliament in January this year, 400 doctors in Iceland have signed a statement supporting the proposed ban and according to one poll 50 percent of people in Iceland support it.

Male circumcision has nothing to do with the horrors of Female Genital Mutilation. For Jews and Muslims it is a practice integral to their faith and identity and every year millions of boys around the world are circumcised without it causing health problems. If the bill is passed it will become a crime to circumcise a boy under 18 years old for religious reasons with a maximum of six years in jail.

Politicians and people with power or influence in the country are using racism to protect and enhance their position and have been doing so for at least the last five years.

Cultural centre

Back in the summer of 2013, Reykjavik City Council promised to provide a plot of land for Muslims in Iceland to build a cultural centre with space to hold prayers, provide education and foster community support. The land was to be free but the community itself would have to raise money for the building.

Four days later, Reykjavik’s former mayor Ólafur F. Magnússon wrote an opinion piece in Morgunblaðið newspaper equating Islam with terrorism. He urged Icelanders to oppose the mosque that would threaten, “Our national culture and security”. The Progressive Party wasn’t likely to win seats in the City elections at the time, but the Party’s leader, Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörnsdóttir also criticised the City Council’s plan and her Party’s Facebook page became a focus for opposition to a mosque and race hate.

The Party then won two seats on the city council in the elections. Its Chair, the then Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, kept quiet even though one of Party’s deputy MPs, Þorsteinn Magnússon, resigned because he and Sveinbjörg Birna appeared happy to use racism to gain votes.

Racist attack

Later that year racists left a nasty pile of severed pigs heads and torn pages of the Muslim holy book, The Koran daubed with red paint at the site of the proposed mosque. Óskar Bjarnason who was photographed and interviewed by Icelandic newspaper Visir admitted that he and about 20 other people had done this to stop the mosque. He added that next time they would use blood not paint. Despite this admission and the obvious threat of violence, shamefully Benedikt Lund of Reykjavik City Police said there was no evidence to investigate the hate crime because the City Council had cleaned the heads away.

We have seen this process of developing racism and Islamophobia all over Europe since the financial crash in 2008 and we know where it leads. There are far-right and fascist members of parliament in Greece, France, Hungary and last year 94 members of the far-right The Alternative for Germany (AfD) were elected to the German parliament. Of these, “at least half are Nazis or have links to the Nazi scene like the Identitarian Movement.”

Victor Orban has been elected Prime Minister for the third time in Hungary this week with a vicious anti-immigration and Islamophobia campaign. The Nazis in Jobbik came second.

The slogan of anti-fascists across Europe is Never Again because we understand that the Nazis and fascism were not an aberration. And the murderous machine they built that perpetrated the Holocaust was the result of concrete situations and their ideology. We understand that if we don’t fight racism and fascism, it can happen again.

War, poverty and political crises in the Middle East and Africa have driven hundreds of thousands of migrants to search for a better life in Europe. Some people have made it as far as Iceland, in some cases believing that they would face less racism than in Southern Europe or Scandinavia.

Anti-racist activists, advocacy groups and growing public support in 2014 in Iceland supported the refugees and asylum seekers. But then a story broke that linked a prominent asylum seeker to violent crime. Campaigners smelt a rat and after protests and an inquiry we learned that a Minister’s aide confessed to the leak. Reykjavík District Court said that, “ the sole purpose for leaking the memo was ‘to impugn the reputation’ of the asylum seekers in the face of growing public protest over their treatment.”

Since then websites set up to support Syrians refugees have been inundated with race hate. Just the month before 70 asylum seekers were deported last year, the national broadcaster RÚV reported that conditions in the Víðines asylum centre as dirty and damp with too little food that was barely-heated. To reach the Immigration Service in Reykjavik the refugees have to walk for almost an hour to the nearest bus stop. And all this despite articles saying Iceland needs more immigrants.

But refugees resettled in small towns have been welcomed with overwhelming solidarity and ordinary Icelanders have tried to protect immigrants from the abuses of the state, including dawn raids and people being dragged out of churches. 

A victory

Today they have scored a victory. Protests saved an Afghan father Abrahim and his 11 year old daughter Haniye from deportation and today the little family were finally granted asylum.

This shows strong campaigns can push back racism in Iceland but there also needs to be more understanding of anti-Semitism and its effects, including this bill to ban circumcision. It is great to see Iceland’s Catholic Bishop speak up to defend Jews and Muslims but the greatest social weight in Iceland is its trade unions and its time they stood up to this bigotry.