Issue 27

This statement was issued by a meeting of the European Anti-Capitalist Left on December 5, 2004.

European Union governments are trying to impose a constitution designed behind closed doors on 450 million people. This socalled constitutional treaty has taken the place of a constituent process based on a mandate coming out of open democratic debates and sovereignty of the peoples of Europe.

This constitution is dangerous.

It consecrates the absolute primacy of the "free market". It legally forbids any infringement of private property and market relations. It refuses to give any legal status to social gains won on a national level through a century and a half of workers' struggles.

By Aleksandr Buzgalin

The tent city on Independence Square

The context

Malik Miah is an area representative for Local 9, the largest local of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which has 4000 members, at the United Airlines maintenance base in San Francisco. He is editor of Local 9's bimonthly newsletter Way Points (www.amfa9.org/waypoints) and a member of the editorial board of Links. Caroline Lund is a trustee and member of the executive board of United Auto Workers Local 2244, a local of 5000 members at the New United Motor Manufacturing plant in Fremont, California. She edits a plant newsletter, The Barking Dog (www.geocities.com/abarkingdog/), and is a contributing editor of Links.

CONTENTS

Proposal for new course

How the unions changed

Demoralised and defeated

In December, Caracas was the setting for two significant gatherings. It is no surprise that the capital of Venezuela was the location for these two meetings. Venezuela today is not only witnessing a deepening class polarisation but is also the scene of a powerful movement of the poor fighting to reclaim their dignity and sovereignty. It was here, the birthplace of the Bolivarian revolution, that the World Forum of Intellectuals and Artists in Defence of Humanity and the Second Bolivarian Congress of the Peoples (CBP) took place, each in its own way a reflection of the process unfolding today in Venezuela.

By Cleto A. Sojo

This article was first published at Venezuelanalysis.com.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was warmly received at the 2005 edition of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he held several meetings with local leaders, intellectuals and activists, and gave the closing speech in Gigantinho Stadium. Chávez generated great interest among forum participants, many of whom see him and his project of political transformations being implemented in Venezuela as an inspiration in the struggle for a better world.

The Venezuelan president visited the Lagoa do Junco agrarian settlement in Tapes set up by Brazil's Landless Movement (MST) and later held a press conference with more than 120 media organisations, where he criticised the US government for claiming to lead a fight against terrorism while undermining democracy in Venezuela.

By Stuart Munckton

Stuart Munckton is the national coordinator of the Australian socialist youth organisation Resistance. This the text of a talk presented to a Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) educational conference in January 2005.

Contents

From anti-imperialism to anti-capitalism

Anti-capitalist trajectory

Is the leadership revolutionary?

The struggle for state power

Cuba

By S. Kumarswamy

S. Kumarswamy is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and working president of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions.

Contents

The new mindset and the high sales pitch

Beneath the gloss and shine

Excerpts: manifesto of All India Agricultural Labour Association

Indian work force: an overview

Unorganised sector workers

Onslaughts on labour

Restructuring: where, how and why?

• Textiles
• Automobiles
• Sunrise Sectors
• Power
• Telecoms and BPO
• Public sector undertakings

Proletarian response

A letter to General Secretary Hu [Jintao] from a group of veteran CCP members, veteran cadres, veteran military personnel and intellectuals. October 2004
Translated for Links with an introductory explanation by Eva Cheng.

CONTENTS

A great opportunity to adjust the line

Not a question of 'ruling capability' but a question of the line

Our opinion on what sort of adjustment is needed on certain issues

Notes

By Eva Cheng

By Nguyen The Phiet

By Michael Karadjis

This article first appeared in Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, No. 27, January-April 2005.

Changes of economic policies in China and Vietnam did not begin with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they are inevitably viewed in a post-Soviet context. Are both countries going through a capitalist restoration that is in some sense "inevitable" in the current world situation? In our lead article, Michael Karadjis examines the evidence. A careful reading of the changes introduced since the late 1970s leads to the conclusion that capitalist restoration in China is more a matter