The Future of the Mass Movement Must Be Communism
“United, Change is Possible”
The French “gilets jaunes” (yellow vest) movement that started in November is still going strong. On Saturday March 9, tens of thousands of protestors across the country put on yellow safety jackets and took to the streets.
They marched in Paris, Rennes, Lyon, Toulouse, Mulhouse and many other cities. All this in the face of ongoing threats of police attacking with grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets. Hundreds of gilets jaunes have been injured and several have lost hands and eyes.
The movement started when the government imposed yet another tax, on the diesel fuel people use to get to work. This was one tax too many. Soon hundreds of thousands of workers and self-employed were protesting and occupying roundabouts. The police attacked in Paris and pictures of the fighting went round the world.
The media have tried to smear the protesters as neo-Nazis and anti-Semites. Alain Finkielkraut, a so-called “philosopher,” showed up at the edge of a gilets jaunes march on 17 February. He is a fanatical supporter of Israel and a raging Islamophobe who says that European civilization is threatened by Muslim immigration.
Naturally he attracted attention and the press said he was subject to “anti-Semitic abuse.” This is a lie. Video shows protesters calling him “racist” and a “filthy Zionist.” Which is absolutely true, he’s a hard-core Zionist – supporter of the Israeli apartheid regime. Finkielkraut’s appearance was obviously a setup. He even brought a camera crew.
The gilets jaunes have long lists of demands, most directed against austerity, but are clearly searching for an alternative.
The alternative they need is communism. Under communism there will be no money or wealth and in particular no taxes. No salaries either, so workers won’t have to struggle at the end of the month to make end meet. (Many gilets jaunes report running out of money and going hungry waiting for payday).
But so powerful is capitalism’s ideological hold that even gilets jaunes rebels rarely consider communism. Instead there is constant pressure to get involved in electoral politics. This takes the form of running candidates in the European Elections (in May) or campaigning for the RIC, a scheme for governing through referenda.
The gilets jaunes (unlike the Trade Union movement) actually won some concessions: dropping of the diesel tax and a rise in the minimum wage.
But the real question is not “how do we win concessions” but “how do we put an end to poverty and austerity for once and for all?”
Communism is the only way. We have to abolish capitalism, period, and then move on to a liberated society where workers won’t fear the end of the month.
A mass movement like the gilets jaunes will never do that, no matter how well organized. Since 1848, at least, capitalism has seen many movements, some lasting longer than others, some more successful than others. Examples are the union drives of the 1930’s, the Civil Rights and anti-imperialist movements of the 1960s, Anti-Apartheid, and Occupy Wall Street.
The more successful movements won some concessions. But either the concessions didn’t last, or in the long run the evils they were targeting (war, racism) took on new and different forms. Movements, no matter how massive or militant, cannot change capitalism permanently.
In the past communists (and others) put great faith in these movements. Communists repeatedly put huge efforts into promoting them. After the mid-1930s, the official position was not to put forward communism for fear of distracting the mass movement.
Eventually and inevitably the movements ran out of steam. The communists in the end had little to show for all their efforts. Even when these movements won concessions, they failed to advance a mass understanding of the need and possibility for communism. Either they promoted reformism or they built cynicism or both.
The ICWP is determined not to repeat this mistake. We participate in movements like the gilets jaunes with the perspective that (as Marx and Engels said in the Communist Manifesto) “in the movement of the present” we “represent and take care of the future of that movement.” That future is communism.
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