WHERE WE STAND
international socialist events
The dead-end of capitalism
TORONTO
The capitalist system is based on violence, oppression and brutal exploitation. It creates hunger beside plenty. It kills the earth itself with pollution and unsustainable extraction of natural resources. Capitalism leads to imperialism and war. Saving ourselves and the planet depends on finding an alternative.
Film screening: Bolivia in transition
Sat, Aug. 15, 4pm Speakers: Raul Burbano & Juan Valencia Cost: $7 to $20 sliding scale for film & Vegetarian BBQ Info: papedanforth@gmail.com Organized by the Pape Danforth IS
Socialism and workers’ power
Any alternative to capitalism must involve replacing the system from the bottom up through radical collective action. Central to that struggle is the workplace, where capitalism reaps its profits off our backs. Capitalist monopolies control the earth’s resources, but workers everywhere actually create the wealth. A new socialist society can only be constructed when workers collectively seize control of that wealth and plan its production and distribution to satisfy human needs, not corporate profits—to respect the environment, not pollute and destroy it.
Study group: How does change happen? Historical materialism and the dialectic
Tues, Aug 18, 7pm Call for location 416.972.6391 Organized by the Toronto District of the IS The life and times of Michael Jackson Sat, Aug 22, 6pm Speaker: Chantal Sundaram Cost: $7 to $15 sliding scale Info: 416.972.6391 Organized by the Toronto West IS
Reform and revolution
Every day, there are battles between exploited and exploiter, oppressor and oppressed, to reform the system—to improve living conditions. These struggles are crucial in the fight for a new world. To further these struggles, we work within the trade unions and orient to building a rank and file movement that strengthens workers’ unity and solidarity. But the fight for reforms will not, in itself, bring about fundamental social change. The present system cannot be fixed or reformed as NDP and many trade union leaders say. It has to be overthrown. That will require the mass action of workers themselves.
Elections and democracy
Elections can be an opportunity to give voice to the struggle for social change. But under capitalism, they can’t change the system. The structures of the present parliament, army, police and judiciary developed under capitalism and are designed to protect the ruling class against the workers. These structures cannot be simply taken over and used by the working class. The working class needs real democracy, and that requires an entirely different kind of state—a workers’ state based upon councils of workers’ delegates.
Internationalism
The struggle for socialism is part of a worldwide struggle. We campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We oppose everything which turns workers from one country against those from other countries. We support all genuine national liberation movements. The 1917 revolution in Russia was an inspiration for the oppressed everywhere. But it was defeated when workers’ revolutions elsewhere were defeated. A Stalinist counterrevolution which killed millions created a new form of capitalist exploitation based on state ownership and control. In Eastern Europe, China and other countries a similar system was later established by Stalinist, not socialist parties. We support the struggle of workers in these countries against both private and state capitalism.
Canada, Quebec, Aboriginal Peoples
Canada is not a “colony” of the United States, but an imperialist country in its own right that participates in the exploitation of much of the world. The Canadian state was founded through the repression of the Aboriginal peoples and the people of Quebec. We support the struggles for self-determination of Quebec and Aboriginal peoples up to and including the right to independence. Socialists in Quebec, and in all oppressed nations, work towards giving the struggle against national oppression an internationalist and working class content.
Oppression
Within capitalist society different groups suffer from specific forms of oppression. Attacks on oppressed groups are used to divide workers and weaken solidarity. We oppose racism and imperialism. We oppose all immigration controls. We support the right of people of colour and other oppressed groups to organize in their own defence. We are for real social, economic and political equality for women. We are for an end to all forms of discrimination and homophobia against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. We oppose discrimination on the basis of religion, ability and age.
The Revolutionary Party
To achieve socialism the leading activists in the working class have to be organized into a revolutionary socialist party. The party must be a party of action, and it must be democratic. We are an organization of activists committed to helping in the construction of such a party through ongoing activity in the mass organizations of the working class and in the daily struggles of workers and the oppressed. If these ideas make sense to you, help us in this project, and join the International Socialists. 10 Socialist Worker August 2009
Revolution in the pre-historic world
Revolutionary theatre and dance of the 1930s
Fri, Aug 28, 5:30pm Speakers: Chantal Sundaram & Pam Johnson Cost: $7 to $10 sliding scale for film & dinner Info: 647.393.3096 Organized by the Coxwell Gerrard IS
peace & justice events TORONTO
by bradley hughes
Class is like the air we breathe: it surrounds us, it is within us in everything we do, but until you stop to think about it, it is invisible. In any society, including our own, class determines your health, working conditions, how and where you live and work, the design of our cities and more. It is built into our buildings and our culture. But what is class? For Marx and Engels, society was best understood as a result of the conflict between social classes. A class is determined by its relation to the means of production. Every society has to produce food and shelter enough to continue and reproduce itself. Most societies also produce more than that bare minimum. That surplus is not usually evenly distributed to every one. In most societies, including our own, the majority of people do the work necessary to produce all the necessities and all the surplus in society. A much smaller group, the ruling class, controls how all the production is distributed. We can investigate the class divisions in earlier societies through their writing and art, if they had them, but for societies before writing—prehistoric societies—we need to look at the evidence left by the ruins of their buildings and their human remains.
Pre-historic Turkey
A recent report From Çayönü to Çatalhöyük by Bernhard Brosius summarizes the results of 50 years of research into prehistoric towns in what is now Turkey. (The report is available at www.urkommunismus. de/catalhueyuek_en.pdf) In what is now Turkey, archaeologists have been excavating the ruins of several towns that date back to 10 000 BC. One of these towns, now called Çayönü, was home to around 10 000 people starting in 8800 BC. The ruins of this town show clearly the class nature of the society that lived there. On the east end of the town was a rectangular building dug into a slope and without windows. This building was a temple and was the site of human sacrifice. Daggers and altars encrusted in human blood, and neat stacks of skulls and bones attest to the ancient use of these buildings. There was a large square outside the temple surrounded by three houses, each much larger than any other house in town. In these houses were found imported weapons, large
blocks of crystal, stone sculptures and the other wealth of society. The houses also contained large blocks of flint and obsidian, the material from which all the town’s stone-age tools were produced. But theses houses contained no evidence of tool production. So the inhabitants of the large houses not only possessed wealth but they controlled the production of tools, by controlling the stone they were made from. They were the ruling class. The rest of the town was made of much smaller, poorer housing. In these houses was found evidence of the production of stone tools. So a small number of people controlled production and a large number of people did the actual work. Like class societies always have, this one ended in revolution.
Revolution
Over 9,200 years ago, revolution exploded in Çayönü so quickly its rulers had no time to save their treasures. Their houses were burnt down, the temple torn down; even the floor was ripped up. The now free people of Çayönü turned the area of the destroyed temple and rich houses into a garbage dump. They then tore down the poor housing they had and rebuilt the town with new houses all of which were the size of the former houses of the rich. They were able to build an egalitarian, classless society, where men and women were equal and everyone shared in the production and the consumption of the wealth of society. This prehistoric communism spread across Anatolia and the Balkans and endured for 3,000 years.
Prehistoric communism
From the ruins of the towns of this time, archaeologists have determined much about the lives of these prehistoric communists. Houses were not all the same size, but the larger houses had more people and the smaller houses fewer. Everyone had the same amount of living space. The quality of the buildings was all the same, no slums and no rich side of town. From the waste piles in each home, we know that production was done in the home. People were buried beneath the floors of their home. People’s bones show how hard they worked during their life. Everyone worked hard, there was no leisure class freed from labour.
Archaeologists also discovered about half of the adults had abnormal thighbones, which they think was caused by excessive dancing. Class societies have always subordinated women. In them, women tend to be buried with jewelry and men with indications of their profession. In this society, people were buried with the tools they had used in life. Unlike most class societies that restrict women to the work of the home, there was no difference in the range of tools buried with men or women and both were buried with jewelry. The wear on bones also shows that women and men did similar work. The nature of violent death can frequently be deduced from bones. Across this region, during this time period, archaeologists have not found a single skeleton with evidence of murder or warfare. Each home was decorated with murals and not a single mural depicts warfare, fighting, ill treatment or torture. There are also no depictions of court scenes, convictions or punishments. Compare that with 10 minutes spent flipping through the channels on TV. Their health was also much better than that of people from later, more technically advanced societies. Infant mortality was 30 per cent less than in much later Bronze Age towns, which were founded after a new class society arose. Comparing the same two towns, the later town had no skeletons of individuals who live more than 60 years, yet the earlier egalitarian society had a small fraction of its individuals live up to 70 years. Our stone-age communists, back in 7000 BC or so had an average life expectancy of 32 years. In Europe, outside the ruling classes, this was only reached again around 1750 AD. This was a utopian society that required hard work from everyone, but still only required about half as much work per labourer as under the previous rulers with their mansions, slums and human sacrifice. This left plenty of time for art and ornamentation of everyday tools and objects. It also left time for enormous feasts and lots of dancing. Without a culture that needed to justify the inequalities between the ruled and the rulers, they were able to build a society of equality between the sexes. This can be our future once we end the power and the culture of our own ruling class.
No water to waste: the Toronto rally for a moratorium on Site 41
Thurs, Aug 13, 7pm University of Toronto Medical Sciences Building, Macleod Auditorium Room 2158 Info: 416.979.5554
Vigil for US Iraq War resister
Wed, Aug 19, 8am Federal Court 180 Queen St W Info: www.resisters.ca Organized by the War Resisters Support Campaign
Tracking the tar sands: a tri-city youth tour
Thurs, Aug 20 to Sat, Aug 22 Info: youthtour@polarisinstitute.org
‘Good’ war gone bad: Afghanistan, Pakistan and the ‘war on terror’ Mon, Aug 24, 6:30pm Bloor Gladstone Library 1101 Bloor St W Info: davenport4peace@ gmail.com Organized by Davenport Neighbours for Peace
Train-the-trainers workshop: Defending the right to free expression on Israel/Palestine Wed, Aug 26, 6pm Friends’ Meeting House 60 Lowther St (north of Bloor and Bedford) Info: www.freeexpressionpalestine.org
Annual Labour Day parade
Tues, Sept 1, 9:30am Queen & University march to CNE grounds Info: www.labourcouncil.ca
You can find the I.S. in: Toronto, Ottawa, Gatineau, Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal, London, St. Catharines, Mississauga, Scarborough, Halifax, Belleville & Kingston e: iscanada@on.aibn.com t: 416.972.6391 w: www.socialist.ca For more event listings, visit www.socialist.ca.