Communist Workers Group (CWG-USA)

Zimbabwe: Statement of Revolutionary Workers Group On MDC & ZANU(PF)

WORKERS BREAK WITH MDC AND ZANU (PF), FORWARD TO A WORKERS PARTY AND SOCIALISM!

Coming from a decade of deep economic and political crisis caused by a combination of imperialist siege and ZANU dictatorship the economy of the Zimbabwe is yet to fully recover even on a capitalist basis. Unemployment is still high at over 90% with those lucky to be in employment earning way below the poverty datum line, itself way below the living wage. Working conditions have deteriorated with the capitalists and the state taking advantage of the situation to force a drop in the income of the workers who have sustained the crisis through slavery wages: We demand a sliding scale of wages and prices and employment for all who can work, working conditions should improve for all workers!

The majority of workers where sacked as a result of the adoption of austerity measures in the early 90’s and during the early years of the last decade as the ruling ZANU government was forced to attack white owned farms and companies in a life and death battle for political survival. This threw a lot of workers into informal employment which today accounts for the survival of many ordinary poor despite lack of support and attacks from the state as it tries to appease the local and foreign capitalists. So in Zimbabwe, as in many semi colonial countries, we have witnessed the emergency of small traders and vendors who are still inclined to look for jobs in an economy that is under siege from both the US led and Chinese led imperialism which in Zimbabwe has taken the form of the Government of National Unity (GNU): We demand the introduction of state projects to employ all the unemployed, the government must stop the attack on the vendors!

The poor peasants, who constitute about two thirds of the total population, have borne the brunt of the crisis through political and economic manipulation by ZANU. The land reform programme of the last decade only benefited a small minority of the peasants with the ZANU aligned petty bourgeoisie and labour aristocracy being the major beneficiaries and a key sector of the sustenance of the regime through its economic interests. The peasants still suffer from lack of land and means of subsistence which has grossly exposed them to the whims of the market and ruling parties battling for control of the national body politic: Land must be distributed to all poor peasants together with a state bank to provide inputs to all small farmers!

Added to this are the urban poor who comprise of the unemployed majority hovering on the margins of existence who constitute the ever growing mass of the lumpen elements depending on the populist politics of the state for survival. In this group, women, youth and the sick make up the majority and extreme cases whose survival depends on the creation of jobs through the abolition of the capitalist relations which subordinate people’s livelihoods to the whims of the market. The wonton and brutal attack on the small vendors by the local authorities and police has made it even more difficult for the unemployed to sustain themselves. High customs duties on goods at the borders coupled with stringent conditions has also made it difficult if not impossible for small cross border traders to earn a living. It is clear that the government serves the interests of the big local and foreign capitalists making it difficult for the majority of unemployed to live and fend for their families. Jobs for all with a reduction in working hours until all who want to work can find a job!

Recently Copac (the parliamentary committee drafting the new national constitution) produced the final version of the national constitution which has drawn a lot of interest and comments from a broad range of society each expressing its interests either directly or otherwise. The charter is to all intents a capitalist licence for aggressive plunder with differences on how best each of the major parties intends to serve its capitalist imperialist masters and also the best way for acquisition of power. We are told that the draft has been taken to the principals (leaders of the parties in question) to resolve the political clauses of the charter which some have likened to the South African one which is a classic capitalist document. Workers and the ordinary poor cannot support such a document which intends to form the legal basis for an attack on the poor through providing the framework for draconian labour legislation that is already being demanded by the employers, imperialism and the state: We call on the workers and the oppressed groups to convene a congress of delegates from the working people, peasants, urban poor, youth and soldiers to come up with a constitution that guarantees a good life for all!

The MDC which aroused and squandered the hopes of a lot of workers and poor people still acts as a brake to the development of the struggle for a better life through its rhetoric of championing the plight of the ordinary poor when in fact they are the agents of US led imperialism as exposed by their recent economic blueprint which is an attack on the lives and future of the workers and the poor, as well as their record in government. The main trade unions are controlled by one or other of the major parties in government and this has led to a deterioration of the living conditions of the workers as the agenda of workers is made subordinate to the interests of capital, forced to attack further the already terrible conditions of the ordinary poor and oppressed as it struggles to survive the current recession in all the leading capitalist centres: Workers break with the MDC and ZANU(PF)and  form a workers party that truly champions the interests of the workers and the poor masses, form rank and file unions to lead action in all unions and break with the reformist trade union leadership!

Today as we speak the parties of the GNU at the behest of their foreign handlers and local capitalists are fighting over a new constitution or in fact over the mere political clauses of a new constitution because they have agreed or are agreed on the basic capitalist nature of our society and therefore their mutual duty to exploit the masses. The so called fight is nothing short of a political strategic fight ahead of an election that must decide which imperialist power will dominate the capitalist plunder and exploitation of the working poor through austerity measures and direct oppression of the ordinary populace as well as determine the local petty bourgeoisie to benefit from the crumbs of that domination: For a workers state that defends workers and peasants against the local and foreign capitalists!

Many have put their faith in the so called mediation efforts of SA through its leaders and on behalf of the regional bloc SADC without appreciating the interests of SA in the current national crisis. South Africa as a member of BRICS dominated by China makes it more pliable to Chinese interests whose objective is to safeguard its business interests here as well as guarantee the continued exploitation of natural and human resources. Added to this is the fact that China is SA’s biggest trading partner and one can discern that the objective of the so called mediation is to ensure a managed revival of ZANU in the wake of opposition by the US funded MDC and the weakening of the MDC through exposing it to the populace and thus lowering the level of the protest vote: No to US and Chinese imperialism fronted by the parties of the GNU! No to SA mediation meant to hoodwink the workers and poor!

The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) like its sister organisation in Egypt is committed to the protection of the capitalist system by acting as the left leg of the regime through offering a stagiest approach to social revolution and thereby subordinating the question of workers power to a social democracy agenda that has been exposed in Greece and several countries. For its part the FLTI aligned Workers Internationalist League (WIL) fails to appreciate the crisis and therefore a correct program through its insistence that China is a colony of the US that is being used by the latter to amass resources on behalf of US imperialism. We on our part, basing on the theory of permanent revolution and characterising China as an emerging imperialist power, offer a program whose central tenets are the organisation of the workers and the ordinary masses to take power and resolve the question of hunger and deprivation in alliance with workers of the world: No to reformism and fake Trotskyism, build a fighting socialist party!

All this must be seen in the context of a global crisis of capitalism whose latest episode started around 2008 with the credit crunch and whose current manifestation is seen more clearly in countries like Greece, Spain and Italy whilst the rest of the semi colonial world suffer immense hardships as the costs of paying for the crisis is put on the shoulders of the weaker countries and ultimately on the workers through attacks on wages and living conditions. The emergence of China as an imperialist nation in the age of capitalist decline has sharpened the antagonism between the workers and capital as the struggle for productivity intensifies fuelled by the rise of Chinese capital on the back of cheap labour and slave capitalist conditions: For a workers and peasants’ government on the basis of the armed people to implement decisions that benefit the workers and the poor.

The crisis has seen the emergence of struggles across the world of which the most spectacular are the revolts in the Arab world whose outcomes are still to be decided; the occupy wall street movement which hit the major capitalist centre; the fights against austerity in the European nations which today have expressed its undying zeal in France, Greece, Italy, Nigeria, South Africa and Spain among others. We also witnessed the revolts by the poor youths and workers in the UK and the recent strike by the students in Canada. All this is testimony to the growing antagonism between the vicious nature of capitalism in its death throes and the anger of the masses that are forced every day to shoulder the pain of a crumbling system that threatens to send humanity to extinctionTherefore the choice of socialism or barbarism is posed more blankly and in urgent terms: Workers form action committees to lead the resistance to the growing attacks on the wages and working conditions of the poor and the livelihood of the majority poor!

Within the region we have also witnessed several struggles by the ordinary poor in countries like Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Malawi which have amply proved the transnational nature of the capitalist crisis in its degenerating and predatory phase. The revolts of the poor in Nigeria and the several North African nations have posed the question of power more bluntly now putting the imperialists into over drive in a desperate attempt to weaken, hijack, attack and even annihilate the struggles of the masses around the globe. We salute the workers and poor masses who have taken it upon themselves the cudgels of the struggle for a decent life free of exploitation and oppression of the majority by the minority. Here in Zimbabwe there is a rich tradition of resistance and struggle against exploitation and oppression with the latest examples being the 2008 revolts by the workers and the poor following a disputed election but which was betrayed by the MDC and its allies in the civil community: For an African socialist revolution as part of the international revolution that alone can guarantee a better life for all!

For a new world party of socialist revolution based on the Transitional Program of 1938 to lead the revolution to end capitalism and open the road to socialism!