International Socialists

"United We Stand, Divided We Fall!"

"Workers of the World Unite!"

"March Separately, Strike Together!"

"Kia Kaha!" (together we are strong)

 

 

These slogans all stress the vital importance of unity and solidarity in struggle. For example, the only way to stop a brutal and bloody imperialist war like that currently being waged against the so-called "axis of evil" by George W. Bush, with the full military might of the US state and the uncritical backing of the world's corporate media, is to build a mass anti-war movement.

 

This involves bringing together a range of groups on the left, with very different political outlooks, who can act in solidarity with each other to achieve a common aim (stopping the war) through agreed means (mass protest). Other examples of the importance of solidarity include the campaign to oppose GE for corporate gain which was led by the Greens but was supported by the wider left in New Zealand.

 

What these examples show is that, as Trotsky put it, "To fight the working class must have unity in its ranks." It is, therefore, vital to understand how we can build united struggles while also recognising why unity can be so hard to create and sustain.

 

In New Zealand currently there is an obvious lack of unity and solidarity within both the union movement and the left more generally. Whereas a high level of union solidarity was evident during the last major upturn in working class struggle from 1968 to 1977, today there are virtually no solidarity strikes where one group of workers takes industrial action in support of another group of workers who are defending themselves against attacks by their employer and/or pushing for better pay and conditions. Most unions are focusing on successfully mobilising their own members in support of pay claims and currently are not militant enough to take on the anti-solidarity provisions of the Employment Relations Act.

 

So while there are still inspiring examples of solidarity when unions take action, such as the widespread support for waterside workers early last year, the overall levels of solidarity are lower than during the last major upsurge in working class struggle.

 

 

Wider left

If you look at the state of the wider left in New Zealand today there are obvious difficulties in building united campaigns around particular concrete issues.

 

The parliamentary left is divided between the Alliance and the Greens - the Alliance remains pissed off because of the Greens' departure in 1997 and subsequent success. The socialist left is fragmented into small groups, none of whom are capable of exerting any real influence over the political situation in the country as a whole. And much of the anarchist left, which is even smaller than the socialist left, seems more interested in condemning everyone else on the left than helping to build united campaigns around important issues such as opposing the war.

 

In a very small country like New Zealand, with a tiny left, these differences often take a highly personalised form, ie Group X doesn't get on with Group Y because Person A hates Person B. But this is a very superficial and misleading view of the causes of division on our side of the struggle. Most obviously it is important to recognise that the conflicts between different personalities on the left generally reflect deeper political differences over fundamental issues - such as whether mass direct action or parliamentary reform is the best way to change things. But even more importantly it is important to understand how the capitalist system itself divides us.

 

 

Causes of division

Capitalism repeatedly divides in order to conquer. Unemployment creates competition between individual workers belonging to different ethnic groups for jobs, often fuelling racism. Sexism, racism and nationalism create divisions within the working class - between women and men; between Päkehä, Mäori, Pacific Island and Asian people; and between people who come from different nations. These forms of oppression, together with the prevalence of nationalist ideology, discourage workers from recognising the extent to which they have interests in common that are opposed to the interests of the rich.

 

During major struggles the employers, government and police often attempt to foster divisions between moderates and militants, and the media nearly always sides with capitalist employers and the government. All these sources of division make their side stronger while weakening ours.

 

In recent years divisions on the left have become more pronounced. The low level of industrial class struggle between 1997 and 2001 has been a major factor in this regard. Amongst workers strike activity fell to the lowest levels seen since the 1930s. Because it is only through actual involvement in struggle that the importance of solidarity and unity becomes clear, when the level of struggle is low it is easy to focus on those things that divide rather than unite us.

 

 

Sources of unity

This is why we in the International Socialists always argue for solidarity and unity - it is only through maintaining solidarity and unity that we can struggle and win, whether these struggles are to defend or advance the interests of workers, flax roots Mäori, students, or women. Our enemies are united and strong, we must be too if we are to defeat them.

 

This is by no means a hopeless task. Capitalism not only divides us, it also generates forces that repeatedly push workers, Mäori, women and students to engage in united collective struggle against capitalists and the governments that look after their interests while attacking ours. The exploitation that is at the core of New Zealand's capitalist economy generates massive inequalities and concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a small greedy capitalist minority. Every now and then resistance breaks out against this exploitation.

 

This resistance can take a variety of forms - from strikes to marches and occupations. This is where groups like the International Socialists have an important role to play. Despite being very small, a socialist organisation like ours brings together experienced activists who can bring their expertise and the lessons from previous struggles into the current one. For this reason the socialist left can have an impact on campaigns and struggles quite out of proportion to its size.

 

As Lenin pointed out, the socialist organisation acts as the "memory of the class" - retaining, preserving and carrying forward practical knowledge gained from involvement in earlier struggles to struggles in the present. For this reason we socialists make no apologies for the fact that when we involve ourselves in any particular campaign we do so both to build the campaign and to build our own organisation in the process.

 

 

Socialists and struggle

As socialists we recognise that we cannot place any conditions on our involvement in the everyday struggles of workers and the oppressed. But we do insist on our right to retain our political independence - particularly our freedom to criticise those who we are uniting with and to produce and sell our own propaganda and publications.

 

We also argue that it is not currently realistic to seek unity on a broad range of issues. Rather, we argue for unity in struggles that focus on specific issues and where there is a reasonable amount of agreement over the course of action to be pursued.

 

A good example of how this can work in practice is the protest movement against the 1981 Springbok Tour - there was sufficient agreement amongst the diverse range of groups involved about the aims of the movement (stopping the tour, ending Apartheid) and the course of action (mass militant protests using the tactic of non-violent civil disobedience) to build one of the largest and most successful protest movements in this country's history.

 

The recent strikes by nurses, teachers, university staff, and other groups of workers, suggest that a revival of industrial struggle is gathering momentum. The GE Free and Anti-War campaigns have also shown us that protest is not dead. If and when the level of struggle does pick up it is the duty of all those on the left to get stuck in and help to build this struggle. This will only happen if there is a concerted effort to overcome the sectarian divisions that have built up on the New Zealand left during the past decade. And this, in turn, requires that we all start to think about the real meaning of the slogan - "united we stand, divided we fall."