“Why I’m striking”

Demonstration Saturday 23rd October – 1pm Arts College Belfast

“We have to accept there are difficult times ahead”, “tough decisions have to be made”, “everyone accepts cuts are necessary” - this is the mantra we are being bombarded with from all sides; from the big business media, all the main political parties and the bosses’ organisations. They say that we’re all in this together, and that we all have to make sacrifices to deal with the public deficit.

We publish below a new introduction by Peter Taaffe to Leon Trotsky’s ‘Permanent Revolution’, which the comrades of Socialist Movement Pakistan (CWI) are to translate into Urdu and publish.

Introduction to new Urdu edition of ‘Permanent Revolution’ by Leon Trotsky

What relevance does Trotsky’s Theory of the Permanent Revolution have to the problems of the workers’ cause or the peasants’ (small farmers) movement today? After all, it was formulated more than 100 years ago during the first Russian revolution of 1905-07. The same kind of question could be posed – and it is – regarding the ideas of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. But no matter how ‘old’ is an idea – a method of analysis upon which mass action is based – if it more accurately describes the situation today than ‘new’ theories, it retains all its relevance in the modern era. This is particularly the case for the masses in the neo-colonial world – and especially today in the vital country of Pakistan with more than 200 million inhabitants – confronted as they are with all the terrible problems flowing from the incomplete capitalist-democratic revolution.

The anti-trade union laws are important weapons in the bosses' armoury. Business secretary Vince Cable has threatened this week to make the laws even tougher, in the light of coordinated strike action against the cuts. These laws can be used to intimidate workers, prevent strikes and sack striking workers. They can also act as a shield for some reluctant trade union officials who are only too happy to drag out the process of organising official action until the mood for action has died down.
Alex Gordon, the president of the transport union RMT and Bill Roberts of the Socialist Party England & Wales national committee explain how these laws are being used and how they can be circumvented with effective, united organisation - especially with the development of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN)