Massive French Protests Against Pension Reform here ♦ Paris Commune: Imperialist War Created Conditions for Communist Revolution here ♦
Massive French Protests Against Pension Reform: Build ICWP to Win Struggle Against Inequality with Communist Revolution
March 23— Millions of workers and youth went on strike, marched, and protested today against an increase in the retirement age that the Macron government pushed through parliament without a vote.
Transit workers shut down most of the Paris Metro and many train lines. The main airport was partly closed. Oil workers shut down refineries. When police attacked with tear gas, demonstrators fought back in cities across France. It was the largest action so far in a two-month series of general strikes and demonstrations.
Women workers are leading many of the street protests. Pension reform hits them hardest because their wages average 22% lower than men workers. Women often take years off from paid work (or work part-time) to be the primary unpaid caretakers of their children. Their pensions already average 40% lower than men, and more older women live in poverty.
“It’s always those at the bottom of the pile, who have poorly paid or part-time jobs like nurses, health assistants and cleaners, who are made to pay,” said a woman retraining for a nursing job, “always the same people, many of them women, asked to make the sacrifices.” Two extra years at a hard job is a quality-of-life issue, not just a money issue.
Some are starting to compare the situation to the massive French worker-student rebellion of May 1968. “Don’t underestimate people’s power to mobilise,” said Amina, a student from an impoverished mainly-immigrant suburb, whose mother is a hospital worker.
French capitalists claim they must raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old and require 43 years of work for a full pension, to “make the French economy more competitive.”
“What kind of society [do] we want to live in,” said a French sociologist, “one ruled through market-orientated rationality or one which is focused on reducing inequalities.”
Communism aims to end (not “reduce”) sexism, racism, job hierarchies, and all inequalities in workers’ standard of living and our ability to help make the decisions that shape our lives.
That means building networks of collectives whose communist relationships will enable us to build a new society without money, nations, or borders. Where all work throughout our lives, as we are willing and able, to contribute to the common good while receiving what we need without worrying about wages or pensions.
Where ending wage slavery will create the conditions for ending, too, the racism, sexism, xenophobia, casteism, and all the rest of capitalism’s divisive ideologies and discriminatory practices.
Defeating inequality means organizing masses, especially industrial workers and soldiers, for armed revolution to destroy the capitalists’ stranglehold over our lives.
“Anyone looking at France right now could be forgiven for thinking the country was on the edge of a revolution,” wrote a British columnist.
But that revolution can’t happen without a revolutionary communist party, deeply rooted among the masses. That was a main lesson of the 1871 Paris Commune and of the May 1968 uprising.
The “Communist” Party of France is hopelessly reformist, with slogans like “64 years, no!” So is the new “left-wing” NUPES parliamentary coalition. Meanwhile LePen’s fascist coalition is preparing to take advantage of the disarray in Macron’s government in next year’s elections.
But workers in the streets carry banners like “300 years of capitalism – time for it to retire!” A student member of an anti-capitalist revolutionary group reported that many young people are angered by their experiences of police violence. “More are joining in since the pension changes were pushed through,” she said.
Capitalism won’t retire itself. The international working class needs to put ourselves out of its misery with revolution for communism, nothing less. Let’s not allow Macron’s flagrant defiance of the French democratic process to distract us from the fact that this “democracy” is really a class dictatorship of the rich over the masses.
Our International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) is working to become the mass revolutionary organization needed in France and everywhere around the world. Learn more about us from icwpredflag.org or from the person who gave you this paper. Talk it over with friends and family. Let us know what you think. We want you to join us!
Paris Commune of 1871: Imperialist War Created Conditions for Communist Revolution
On March 18, 152 years ago, workers in Paris, France took state power. They established the Paris Commune and set out to build a society that met the needs of the masses. Marx declared that the Parisian masses “dared to storm heaven.”
The Commune’s influence extended far beyond its brief existence. We continue to learn its lessons.
In 1871, at the end of the bitterly fought Franco-Prussian war, the French imperialists surrendered. The Prussian (German) army surrounded and laid siege to Paris. While the masses starved, the capitalists drank champagne.
Masses of soldiers in the Paris National Guard, along with workers, especially women, vowed to defend Paris. They had to fight both the German invaders and the French rulers’ government.
Communist soldiers, influenced by the First International, took the lead. They declared they would not fight for “despotism.” The masses supported them.
Women workers took leadership in every aspect of fighting for, organizing, and defending the Commune. Many were communists. They fought to abolish sexism and all exploitation.
Masses of soldiers and workers met in collectives in working-class neighborhoods. They struggled and planned how to feed and house everyone and how to run the Commune.
On March 18, when French Government troops came to Paris to seize the workers’ cannons and other weapons, Paris National Guard soldiers and workers fought them off. They killed two generals—but not all of them—and won some government soldiers to their side. They kept their cannons. The bosses’ army fled Paris.
The masses took state power—an advance for the international working class!
They set up the Commune. Its goal was to eliminate exploitation and organize society only to meet the masses’ needs for food, weapons, bandages, and comradeship. They welcomed Communards from everywhere.
But they didn’t pursue the French capitalists who had fled to Versailles. They didn’t destroy the banking system. Two months later, these capitalists regrouped and colluded with the German imperialists to smash the Commune, which represented an existential threat to global capitalism.
The German rulers freed 250,000 French soldiers from German prison camps. With German support, these troops stormed Paris. They killed thousands of communards and ended the Commune.
The Commune inspired masses worldwide. Its lessons shaped the work of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and many more. They influenced the Russian and Chinese revolutions and the Cultural Revolution in China. They are still vital today!
The communist movement learned that masses can mobilize during imperialist wars to overthrow capitalism, take power, and build a new society.
We learned that the capitalist state — the mortal enemy of workers and soldiers — must be smashed, not negotiated with or reformed.
We also learned that the masses need a communist party with a red army to lead the struggle for communism. That communists must organize soldiers in the imperialists’ armies.
The Franco-Prussian war between the continent’s main imperial powers set the stage for the world wars of the 20th century. It showed how these inevitable world wars would create opportunities for communist revolution. The Paris Commune’s victories – as well as its errors – inspired and informed the international communist movement throughout the twentieth century and it still does.
Today ICWP is building a mass international party to fight directly for communist revolution, nothing less. We are fighting to build a mass party of millions of thinkers and doers with unbreakable ties among masses worldwide. We fight to eliminate money, markets, wages, and borders from the start.
Amid the bosses’ devastation and wars, with communist leadership, the masses will fight for revolution and build a communist society. Basing production and all life on communist relations of collectivity, and not money: This is the way masses will win the struggle to eliminate racism, sexism, and nationalism.
The only wars communists organize are for communist revolution everywhere.
Read the Red Flag Series on Working Class History:
Paris Commune of 1871 here
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