The urgency of unity

For all the nations involved, World War 2 was a collective enterprise. Everyone was mobilised for victory, or defeat for some. This was followed by the reconstruction of bombed out cities and industrial sites in Europe and the Far East, which also demanded general contributions and a unified purpose. The US had fought and won the war outside its borders, and had suffered no damages to its homeland. This put it in the lead for a return to the individualism of hard-core capitalism, and made it the main propagator of self-centred interests. There was opposition, however, from old industrial nations rebuilding themselves and from new post-colonial nations building their identities. Later, the support for black civil rights and resistance to the war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, brought back a sense of unity among US citizens, and between them and all other opposition to US imperialism around the world. When the US withdrew its forces and abandoned its allies, the ensuing events in South East Asia dampened Western enthusiasm. The Vietnamese boat-refugees and the Cambodian death camps opened the way for Thatcher and Reagan to bring back the tyranny of market forces. Forty years on, most humans have become isolated competing units, struggling alone for survival.

The old axiom divide and rule has reached the ultimate stage of all against all. This is the result of a long systematic undermining, outlawing and discrediting of all forms of organisation and association that were susceptible to contradict or oppose individualisation. It meant giving wide coverage to opinions in favour of individualism and obstructing those who warned against it. Much was made of personal success in sports and arts, in industry, finance, show business and politics, from middle-class (very rarely working-class) anonymity to millionaire or billionaire celebrity. These were the paradigms all should admire and try to emulate. The very notions of solidarity, community and togetherness were ridiculed, while their specific materialisations, unions, associations, cooperatives, etc., were systematically attacked by legal and financial forces. And, more than ever, people have been obliged to move in search of employment, or just subsistence, thereby losing any social networks and geographic roots they may have had. Societies are in suspension, following the current towards a forbidding future, unable to act and falling prey to dangerous demagogues.

In his famous parting diatribe, Dwight Eisenhower should have included all of capitalism, not just its military department. After all, where is the distinction between Bayer and Lockheed Martin, or General Motors and Raytheon, in their wanton destruction of life? Guns and box-office hits are equally important, and are made use of according to circumstance. Capitalism is a totalitarian construction that is driven by a unique obsession for profit. Profit at any price, be it human misery or environmental annihilation. Having convinced the world there was no alternative, that monomaniacal drive is killing the planet’s inhabitants at an accelerating pace. And, having split humanity into myriads of nomads, there is no concerted opposition to capital’s deadly project. So far the only global protest has been led by school-children demanding action on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, with some support from retired grandparents, while the adult population is chained down by work and debt. Youths are also contesting political tyranny in numerous countries, but there is no apparent coordination. Their only resemblance is the age group concerned, the fifteen to thirty who own nothing and have nothing to lose. Their street fighting is able to disrupt the system but cannot bring it down because capital’s only weakness is its absolute dependence on labour. Capital and labour are the primeval and ultimate adversaries. Race, nation, gender and religion are just used to obscure the basic reality of class warfare. They are a formidable obstacle to the unity that is needed for workers to confront capital with any chance of success.

In 1864 the International Workingmen’s Association was founded in London, with an inaugural address by Karl Marx. It brought together representatives of working-class movements from several European countries. But, after his death in 1865, Proudhon’s dispute with Marx was taken up more virulently by Bakunin and led to a scission. Then, because of police harassment, the General Council moved to New York, where it was dissolved in 1876. A 2^nd International took form with the Paris congress of 1889 composed mostly of tepid socialists. With the outbreak of war in 1914, it split between the chauvinists and the internationalists. And this latter group was split again between Kautsky and Lenin. With ups and downs, and a break between 1939 and 1951, it has survived as the Socialist International. In 1919 Lenin created the 3^rd International or Comintern. But it was completely subservient to Moscow and Stalin’s fluctuating foreign policies, dismaying revolutionaries everywhere, notably in Spain and China. Stalin dismantled it in 1943. Finally, in 1938, Trotsky’s followers formed the 4^th International in opposition to Stalin. And, as numerous sectarian groups, it still exists today. In the past, international workers’ organisations have failed dismally because of national and ideological fractures. Even in the so called European Union there are no trans-national labour unions, though there are occasional spontaneous cross-border solidarities. Nations have been constructed as independent units, against their neighbours and the wider world. The notion of being different and special is confirmed by a spoken language and historic traditions. Centuries of “them” threatening “us”, or the other way round, are deeply ingrained as a form of resistance to the unfamiliar. Financial and industrial capital has globalised its operations, while resistance is restricted to some isolated spots on the world map. When will the working-class follow the example of Extinction Rebellion and go global? Language is the barrier, as “globish” has not yet reached the factories and fields. And it is not certain that today’s school-children will have the time to spread their methods across working society before financial and climatic disruptions set in seriously.