WIN’s recent conference was attended both physically and online by a total of 60 comrades from 20 countries.
WIN CONFERENCE 2023 – SESSION 1 – Near War and Class war – the United States and China – YouTube
WIN CONFERENCE 2023 – SESSION 4 – Building the International (1/2) – YouTube
WIN CONFERENCE 2023 SESSION 5 Building the International (2/2) – YouTube
WIN CONFERENCE 2023 – SESSION 6 – BUILDING THE INTERNATIONAL ( 3/3) – YouTube
Solidarity Greetings were received from comrades around the world….
From Steve Zeltzer, United Front Committee for a Labor Party, USA
Dear Comrades,
The United Front Committee For A Labor Party sends solidarity greetings to your 2023 international conference. The need of the world working class for united international solidarity and collective action is a decisive question for the future of the world. We support such working class united fronts in every country of the world.
We look forward to join with you in joint actions for workers such as our brothers and sisters in Namibia and other countries around the world. We also support the formation of a mass democratic labor party in the USA that can provide a political alternative to workers. We are also on the same weekend having a national conference and rally on the 50th anniversary of the US AFL-CIO supported Chilean coup. We are working to get this history out to the US working class and unions and hold the AFL-CIO accountable.
If members of your network would join in our endeavor by presenting information and evidence about the role of AFL-CIO labour imperialism in your country, that would be useful in our struggle. As we know the AFL-CIO through the CIA provided over $1 million to Chief Buthelezi and the Inkatha Freedom Party in South Africa, which was used to murder a large number of trade unionists and their families in South Africa.
Let’s continue the international struggle for the unity and victory of the working class.
From Joerg Wuttke, Germany
Thank you for the invitation to the WIN conference. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend. As a self-employed engineer, I myself am now no longer actively on the front line of the class struggle. Therefore, I cannot contribute too much in terms of content to the current developments in the German trade union movement. I hope that precisely those comrades who are currently playing an active role in the worldwide class struggle will dominate the discussions at the conference and be able to make a significant contribution to clarifying contentious issues.
Current worldwide developments show that capitalism seems to be suffocating more and more from its internal contradictions, and there is a danger that it will drag the whole of humanity with it into the abyss. And if this perspective opens up, the bourgeois democracies will inevitably turn into authoritarian/fascist dictatorships on the way to the downfall. Rosa Luxemburg’s thesis of “socialism or barbarism” more than 100 years ago is still true, and the global working class is now at a crossroads. It still has it in its hands to steer world history in the right direction. I believe that WIN can make an important contribution here in setting the right course. I will continue to be closely connected to WIN politically and would be happy if WIN creates the possibility to support especially comrades who work under difficult and dangerous conditions worldwide.
Otherwise, like our comrade Thomas, I would like to thank you. I also appreciate very much your political contributions and the passionate work which you have done in building WIN. Best regards to all comrades. I wish you continued success in the coming year.
From Akhil, Kerala, India
Dear comrades, first of all I offer my congratulations to you. I am a low-paid wage-slave worker in India employed by a multinational corporation in a sweatshop factory which I call “the gulag”. All of you who are fighting for the emancipation of the working class are my brothers and sisters.
Comrades, as you know, the Soviet Union was a decaying proletarian state, but its collapse caused unrest in the proletariat around the world. All that was spread in the world in the name of communism was Stalinism, and it has collapsed. Bourgeois thinkers sang that capitalism is the only ideal system. But no matter how hard they think, they cannot hide the decadence of capitalism from the public. The inevitable crises of capitalism and the radical decay of the left are preparing all the conditions for the growth of a revolutionary front movement. What is needed is action for it. It is time to build a revolutionary proletarian movement. No one can stop the flow of workers into the movement, which is constantly advancing revolutionary working-class politics. In events happening in the world today we have missed many good opportunities due to the lack of a vanguard party, for instance in Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, etc. Trotsky has taught us the need for world leadership. We have a long way to go, and we know that no power in the world can stop us, because we are the greatest working power in the world. When there are class-conscious workers, there will be revolution. I express my solidarity to you who are fighting for human liberation. Red salute, comrades!
From Mahindra, Mumbai, India
Dear comrades, It is my honour to bring my greetings to you all, supporters of workers’ struggles throughout the world. I am a comrade of yours in Mumbai. I have seen over the years how the working class is being exploited by the filthy rich owners, by reducing the work force and making them work like machines, sucking the blood of their labour and paying them peanuts. Now that they have brought automation, that is even worse for those working in the factories and the construction sites. I have seen tribal people brought in from rural areas and given twelve hours continual work in the furnaces of fire in the mills. There is no proper food for their babies, and their kids get not a single day of education. If you look at their kids’ faces, they make no complaint, but you can see signs of their malnutrition: their hair becomes orange.
But this is the same everywhere. Everywhere in the world, the rich are getting richer and the poor victims of these glorified swine are getting poorer. I have heard that in the UK the system is getting very similar. It is becoming just like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka.
I send you all very best wishes. Keep up your good work. There are rays of hope at the end of the tunnel. Have a very successful conference.
From P.D. Saranapala, Sri Lanka
Dear comrades, I am happy to send my greetings to the WIN conference after 50 years working with Trotskyists in Sri Lanka and internationally. As you comrades know, Sri Lanka was one of the earliest countries in the colonial world to launch a left party. In 1935 the young comrades NM Pereira, Colvin R da Silva, Philip Gunawardene and others founded the LSSP. They called themselves Trotskyists and talked about the unity of the working class, they led strikes and fought against the rulers; but actually they did not interact politically with the working class and had no proper political programme for taking power. They led one significant event: the hartal in 1953; but they had no programme or perspective to continue the strike, and called it off within one day, while the masses wanted to continue it. The LSSP had split in 1943 and a pro-Moscow Communist Party was formed. The dispute was about the Second World War: the majority position was not to take part in the war. Later they worked together as the only working-class leaders of the country, but they failed to form a working-class centre and used the working class for their reformist policies. They moved to coalition politics in 1964 and abandoned the working class and the youth and the minority population in the country. After 1964, the Sinhala youth and the Tamil minority mobilised separately under rival new communal organizations: the JVP the LTTE. When the left parties formed a coalition government in 1970 with the SLFP, that destroyed the left, and their role as leaders of the radical working class vanished. Then parliamentary politics was overthrown in 1977. This is a brief history. There is a need to form a new party for the working class based on the power of the working class. However, since the defeat of the working class and youth movement by the JVP and LTTE they are now moving to reformist politics.
We were previously working in a new left party called the NSSP, affiliated to the CWI, but it collapsed in 1985 and they joined the so-called United Secretariat of the Fourth International. They betrayed working-class politics and moved to reformist instead of revolutionary politics. Now today the strength of the working class is very weak, and we are trying to build it up with political vision nationally and internationally. We are working in Sri Lanka. WIN understands the issues facing the world movement. Comrade Roger knows a lot about Sri Lanka because he worked with the NSSP since 1977.
To the comrades attending the WIN conference: keep your confidence and courage for the international organisation of the world working class. Keep discussing, working, sacrificing for the future. Thank you to all the comrades, wishing you international solidarity. I am sorry I will not be able to participate in the conference. I appreciate and thank the WIN comrades who are and will be in future part of the struggle in Sri Lanka. I consciously started my work as a trade unionist 50 years ago, and I am still playing a prominent part in the struggle today. We Marxists and Trotskyists have a long and rich tradition, but we still have a long road to travel for the revolution. Therefore I wish all courage to WIN comrades to stand firm and go forward with the theory and practice of Marxism. Long live Trotskyism! Long live the revolution! My heartiest congratulations to the WIN conference. Go forward!
From Nadie Kammallaweera, Australia
Dear Comrades, Across the oceans I am sending my best wishes to the WIN Conference. It is such a great joy to see comrades from all over the world gathering for this conference showing solidarity with the fight against the exploitative destructive capitalist system. More than any other time in history, it is now clearly evident that our planet cannot be sustained if we allow capitalism to persist with all its brutal inequalities, endless greed, violence and deliberate blindness. Fighting against capitalism means nothing other than fighting for our own human kind’s sake. I come from Sri Lanka, an unfortunate bankrupt country that has become a prey to vulturous capitalistic powers. The International Monetary Fund in collaboration with our extremely corrupt government have put all the resources of my country on fire sale, and the working class is being attacked on a scale that has never been seen in the past. Workers’ retirement funds are being used to let the rich moneylenders yield profits, and a massive privatisation of publicly funded ventures is under way. New laws are being drafted to suppress the people’s voice and workers’ rights. We Sri Lankans are experiencing the inhumanity and brutality of capitalism on a grand scale.
But Sri Lanka is also a country that has provided for the world an inspiring example of people’s power! Last year the world witnessed how the mass people’s movement called the “Aragalaya” ousted the corrupt President and Prime minister from power! It was an unprecedented people’s uprising that emerged in the face of extreme suppression and exploitation. We the workers of Sri Lanka will soon rise up again against the local and global capitalist vultures. Groundwork for the fight is being prepared. It is just a matter of time! Best wishes for the WIN Conference, comrades! Let us keep fighting together against this monster.
From Aman Kafa, Iran, Hekmatist Party (Official Line)
Dear comrades, I would like to send you our greeting and apologies for not being able to attend the September 2023 WIN conference. Undoubtedly, this year too there are several important issues that need to be addressed by the conference. Accordingly, we welcome the agenda points of the conference, particularly for not shying away but including as many agenda items as possible despite the rather short time that we have at the conference. This was hardly unexpected, given WIN’s tradition of open debate and discussion. I would, however, suggest that the conference agrees to anther agenda point; one that not only express thanks but formally approve the actions of the OC for all their efforts, namely weekly meetings, publications, organizing the conference, etc., to get us to this September since the last conference.
Finally, I hope that the video recording be appropriate in these circumstances. although I would have really liked to give you a face-to-face update of the events in Iran and the gains and achievements that we have seen across the country. Our experience is that WIN has been and is an important anchor in standing in solidarity with and promoting advancement in working class objectives.
Once again with best wishes for another successful conference, with fraternal greetings. Also see video.
From the Unemployed Graduate Union of South Africa
Revolutionary Greetings! My name is Molahlehi Thato Alfred. I’m a founder and President of Unemployed Graduate Union of South Africa. We are a group of young graduates of higher institution from all corners of South Africa, who are being excluded from employment institutions by both private and public sectors. It is evident that our Government hasn’t done enough and it’s not interested in creating a system and laws which can easily make every graduates employable. Other Countries have managed to take care of it’s future Leaders, that simply means it’s doable and we are not lazy as some people may perceive us. For the reason that unemployment rate increase every year and this year it’s on its highest it simply means our government it’s solely to be blamed by being ignorant and not taking its youth seriously.
When we graduate we are already in debt and yet expected to complete 2 years internship with the stipent of R2500 per month, and at 35 years old we are already old for Government posts yet pensioners are sitting in parliament and some air-conditioned office deciding our future.
We are young, creative and full of energy. We just need opportunity to apply our skills and knowledge. We are really tired of being the begging and desperate generation. We are tired of burying our brothers and sisters who couldn’t take humiliation anymore and decided to end their life’s. We are tired of being the most depressed generation. We don’t want any lawyer and Doctors working at checkers as cashier’s or at BP Garage as petrol attendants. We can’t sit back and watch us turning into alcoholics and drug addicts due to depression. We are qualified graduates. We are lawyers, doctors, accounts, engineers and Artisans who got failed by its own Government and its system. ALUTA CONTINUA COMRADES, MATLA, AMANDLA!!!!!!
From the Revolutionary Transport Union of South Africa, representing the Durban dockers
We warmly accept to be part of global activity especially towards the working class. We wish the Workers International Network (WIN) a successful international conference which will be held London in the coming weekend, 9th-10th September. As RETUSA we call up on unity in the working class around the globe. Capitalism is not just a small animal but a big animal that needs the unity of the working class to fight against it. We anticipate to meet you in South Africa during November 2023. Amandla!! Amandla!!
From Hewat Beukes, Namibia, compiled after consultations with a number of organizations and individuals
A message from Namibia to the Workers’ International Network, on behalf of the workers’ international, the workers’ advice centre, and the fishermen, miners, and homeless of Namibia…
Dear comrades, your untiring efforts to support the Namibian working class is warmly embraced and the clear direction of building an international fighting and defensive organ is recognised and accepted. The theoretical work of comrades Steve and David is crucial in developing a clear conception regarding the BRICS and the Eastern bureaucracies and dictatorships. Kindly consider critically the outline of our position on a matter of central importance to our tasks directed by a clear conception.
For us, the first question is whether Nixon and Reagan introduced qualitatively different relations of production in China and the East. The second question is how did it affect the social and property relations of the ruling classes internationally. In particular, what are the interconnections and the inter-reliance of the propertied classes in the West and the East? Are these relations including their market dissolvable without the demise of these classes themselves?
While these questions pose a full study some determinants are clear. The bureaucracies and dictatorships in the East are maintaining the same control, constriction, and shackling of the working masses. The relative improvement in the material existence of 800 million workers in China and many millions in general in the East temporarily is not the issue. The issue is the freeing of the productive forces for the progressive development of society. Nixon and Reagan were not the emancipators of workers from bureaucratic dictatorship and tyranny.
Capitalism initially freed human society from the fetters of feudalism and pre-capitalist systems of production. These fetters were in essence the tying of serfs and peasants to the Lords of the Manor. Capitalism broke them asunder. Conjunctural factors such as periods of abundance did not remove the issue.
We know today that the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism, merges with bureaucratic dictatorship and rekindles moribund tribal systems to optimise the exploitation of the working classes of the world as the last phase of wringing surplus value from their emaciated bodies. They were forced to manipulate the world disparity to temporarily stem the spectre of the working class. This is the inevitable course in which the falling rate of profit drives imperialism.
The times when the workers were organised with a fighting leadership they established and protected rights. In the times of disarray and confusion the capitalists drove back the gains. The tasks are clear: rebuilding the working-class organisations on the basis of the transitional program adjusted to present conditions.
Appeal from Namibia, on behalf of Hewat and Erica Beukes and Workers Advice Centre, Windhoek, Namibia
We have been involved in the struggle for liberation and workers’ rights since the 1970s. The Workers Advice Centre was set up, in their home, in 1991. They have endured attacks by the state and the SWAPO regime for the past 30 years. In the recent period these attacks have intensified. The supply of water and pre-paid electricity to the house has been cut off. The attack on Hewat, Erica and the WAC is part and parcel of the attack on Namibian workers and their organisations. To take one example: the Rossing Uranium mine branch executive committee were sacked, in 2020, after the company was taken over by the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation. The new owners wanted to dismantle hard-won wage rates and conditions at the mine. This is one of several groups of workers whose fight was supported by the WAC. The management, using the SWAPO controlled labour courts, are now trying to victimise Hewat Beukes with fines and threats of jail. The regime is aiming to close-down the WAC and put Hewat and Erica out of their home.
We aim to raise £5,000. The money is needed to cover several items: legal fees, repairs to their vehicle, a trailer and tank to get vital water supplies to the house and repairs and upgrades to office equipment.
Please send contributions to: Solidarity Namibia, Sort: 60-83-01, Acc no: 20308517
From Dave Putson, Britain, UNITE activist and ex-Labour independent councillor, Convenor, Socialist Sunday
Many many thanks for this invitation to your WIN conference. Under normal circumstances I would be keen to attend but, unfortunately a clash of diarised commitments means that I will not be able to attend on either day. This is a great shame as your recent excellent paper on the Ukraine conflict and its well documented background information would have been interesting to take part in on the afternoon of the 9th. Sadly, also we have already organised another of our Socialist Sunday events for the 10th so am unavailable for that date too. My apologies, but please let the conference know that I send our support and solidarity, from Socialist Sunday comrades.
From Felicity Dowling, Left Unity, formerly one of the Liverpool councillors that waged a five-year resistance to Thatcher’s programme of cuts
Hi Comrades, I wish I could have been with you in person at this weekend’s conference. We are engaged in a campaign to save whats left of the NHS and to Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital and thereby engaging in a conflict with our Integrated Care Board..Across England NHS privatisation and cuts are risking life and limb of the poor. The only way we can win is by building a mass movement.
I am also running a stall at the Eigan Diggers whose festival commemorated Gerald Winstanley of the Diggers fronm the English Civil War. “The earth was made,” he said “a common treasury for all“. We learn from Gerald and Susan Winstanley both early ideas of eco-socialism and methods of campaigning.
I will miss the internationalist work of WIN comrades, especially as we come up to the 50th anniversary of the neo-liberal assault on Chile, the revolutions in Portugal and Angola and the struggle in South Africa. Today’s struggles in Ukraine, Palestine, Africa and Latin America are also crucial.
The planet has burnt this year, and I send especial greetings to Greek comrades. I know the area of northern Greece around Alexandropolis which has burnt so badly. But the rise of the right across Europe is a major concern.
Solidarity in all your deliberations. Another world is possible. In solidarity.
Video contributions to the conference discussions came from Aman Kafa, Iran, and a comrade in China.
