Weekly Worker issue 913 - May 10 2012
Electors in France and Greece strike a blow against austerity
But, writes Eddie Ford, the call must be to resist the temptation of office. The working class ought to constitute itself as a party of extreme opposition until it is ready to carry out its full programme
It is no exaggeration to say that May 6 turned out to be Black Sunday for the architects of austerity. Parliamentary and presidential elections in Greece and France - even to some extent the local elections in Italy - saw a decisive rejection of deficit reduction, ‘fiscal consolidation’, ‘book-balancing’ and all the rest of the crap we have endlessly heard from the capitalist automatons. Any idea of a popular consensus or mandate for the cuts assault has been blown away and now the bourgeoisie will find it a lot harder to rule over us in the old way.
Letters
Denigration; Get serious; Small rooms; Liquidationist?; Fantasy thesis; Caffeine rush;
Same old failings
With the Tory-Lib Dem coalition on the ropes and Labour proposing no positive alternative, the left seems incapable of taking advantage. Peter Manson reports
Round one to Miliband
Labour is obviously pleased with the outcome of last week's local elections - but the government is not as weak as it looks, writes Paul Demarty
Scandals, austerity and comic diversion
While rightwing parties were the big losers, there is no sign of a move to the left, writes Toby Abse
A dead end and dishonest initiative
James Turley and Ben Lewis argue that there can be no short cuts to building the mass, Marxist student movement we need
A weapon for the movement
Comrades in London are beginning their collective study of Marx's Capital. Jack Conrad introduces what is still an unequalled work
Convergence and questions
What did Lenin expect to arise from the 1912 Prague conference? Paul Le Blanc responds to Lars T Lih on Bolshevism and party-building
Imperialism finds new pretext for threats
As Iranian workers went out in remarkable numbers for May Day, a new dispute over some small islands in the Gulf shows that despite apparent progress on the nuclear question a new source of tension has been found. Yassamine Mather reports.
Vital function
Fiscal solidarity, why not give it a try? Robbie Rix asks.
