Solidari̇ty Forever

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by bankruptcy. These are above all in the Third World, but not entirely. Some imperialist countries are in debt up to their ears, and as soon as the recession comes they could find themselves in very grave difficulties.

Already it is clear that simply the fear of a recession has touched off a drop in the price of raw materials that is hitting some Third World countries very hard. And the onset of the recession will have a very severe effect on the exports of countries such as Brazil, where the recession has already probably begun; South Korea, which is still in full expansion; Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are still in full expansion but can fall into recession overnight. Several of these countries may find themselves unable to meet their interest payments.

A third decisive link is that a series of failures in the financial sector could extend to some big multinational industrial and mining firms. This is possible—I do not predict it, but it is a possibility. This possibility arises as an immediate consequence of the stock market crash. The financial soundness of some of these firms was shaken overnight. If their sales or their turnover drops, they could go over the brink.

These three links have not yet broken. But they could. And if they do, this crisis will be a very grave one. If they do not, it will be a repetition of the 1980-82 crisis. Let us not forget that the 1929 stock market crash did not lead to a collapse of production in the same year. It took three years to arrive at an unemployment rate of 30%-35%. Today also, the deterioration of the capitalist economy could stretch out over several years, through 10 SOCIALIST ACTION JANI Another frightening figure that few people know about is that in the imperialist countries as a whole almost half the unemployed are no longer receiving benefits. They are living off charity. There has been talk about a new poverty. But this is absurd, because there is nothing new about this poverty. It has always existed.

But what they want to designate by this term is impoverishment, the worsening of poverty in countries such as Portugal, Spain, southern Italy, and France-and also in Britain.

I think we were right to underline the fact that, as in 1929, the first effect of all this on the working class, on the workers' movement, on the capacity of the workers to fight back, is not positive. That is clear. If there is a mass of unemployed, if there is fear of unemployment, and if there is fear of impoverishment, the first reaction will be a fragmentation of resistance: everybody for themselves.

This is especially true in the absence of a well structured, conscious trade-union movement confidently organizing a fightback; a movement that has established or tries to reestablish the unity of working class forces.

As the crisis takes on more definite form, as the capitalists' political and ideological offensive is discredited, things can change. They may not change quickly. After 1929, we had to wait five years for such a change. It was only in 1934 that the workers began to fight back in Europe and the United States.

A new world situation No one can make any predictions today. But the response is going to come. That seems absolutely certain, and those who still harbor any illusions about a general revival of the capitalist economy or a soft landing to the long depression, followed by a new expansion, are wasting their time. After this grave stock market crisis it 1s clear that this is out of the question.

The capitalists' confidence in their own future, in their destiny, their own economy, may have been more shaken than the illusions of the reformists and workers. A deep and broad expansion of this economy in the coming years is totally excluded.

It would take a profound change in the situation, a very grave defeat of the working class and a radical change in the Eastern bloc countries for this confidence to revive, for the market to be able to expand, for investments to regain the rate of the 1950s and 1960s.

I will conclude with a third problem. We are in a new world situation, owing to political, economic, moral, and ideological shake-ups. But there has not yet been a social upheaval. It is clear that this may take time. But the four areas in which there have already been shocks are important enough to justify using the term: "a new world situation."

The tragic irony is that this is not fortuitous. It is the historical price that we—and above all the Soviet working class—pay for the crimes of Stalinism.

The tragic irony is that at the moment when imperialism is going into one of the deepest, if not the deepest, crises in its history, and when confidence in the market economy has been profoundly shaken in the West, not to mention Third World countries, the virtues of market mechanisms are now being extolled in the Soviet Union.

Expanding market mechanisms is presented as the only recourse and only solution to the grave systemic crisis gripping the USSR and its satellite countries. This systemic crisis is so undeniable that it is now acknowledged openly and frankly by the leaders themselves.

Effects of crisis on workers' states Two terrible statistics, cited by Gorbachev himself in his book, capture its gravity. First: One-third of working RY 1988 seen a long period of retreat of the world revolution, that ended with the fall of Mussolini in 1943. We then had a long partial rise of the social revolutioncomplicated, not clear-cut and less conscious than the period following 1917, but important all the same.

The Chinese revolution, the victory of the Cuban revolution, of the Vietnamese and Nicaraguan revolutions—all this has created a world far different from the one in 1940, that is, the period of Hitler, Mussolini, and others of the same ilk.

But this slow rise of the international workers' movement has been weighed down by a tremendous handicap: the fact that two of the biggest working classes in the world-those of the USSR and the United States-have been out of the game for 40 years. They represent more than a quarter of the world working class, and are its most concentrated contingents-135 million workers in the USSR and 115 million workers in the United States-who have been on the sidelines.

The crisis in itself won't change that. Gorbachev alone will change nothing. But the crisis sets changes in motion.

This is a fundamental change which gives us great hope for a continuation, growth, and generalization of workers' action, of the proletarian revolution, and of socialism as defined by Marx: that is, the rule of freely associated producers.

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KEEP CLEAR ATALLTIM Actio ... in the imperialist countries as a whole, over half the unemployed are no longer receiving benefits."

"Soviet and American workers will come to center stage -135 million in the USSR and 115 million in the U.S."