Speech by Com. Ranadive at the meeting of the CITU Working Committee in Bangalore on July 23, 1982
Comrades,
The General Secretary's report has referred to the main events in our country since we last met, so I do not intend to deal with them.
Comrades, soon after the meeting of our General Council we suffered a sad loss in the death of Com. Balasubramaniam. One of the foremost leaders of our organisation and one of its founders, he played an outstanding part over the last few decades in building the trade union movement in Tamil Nadu.
Comrades, he was a member of the CITU Working Committee from its formation, and one of the foremost leaders of the CPI(M) and a member of its Polit Bureau. His death is a great loss to the working-class movement of our country.
The Dimitrov centenary
This year the vanguard sections of the world's working class are celebrating the birth centenary of Georgi Dimitrov, the great champion and leader of the working class and General Secretary of the Communist International founded by Lenin. This printing worker from Bulgaria, loyal to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, rose to the leadership of the international movement when fascism had become a world menace and was set on unleashing a world war. With the guidance of Stalin, whom reformists of every kind fear, he succeeded in leading the international movement to unity and to resistance against war and fascism. Before that he had shown extraordinary courage in facing a Nazi court. Facing the death sentence, he upheld communist principles against Nazi propaganda. He told the court that he had no interest in defending himself personally, and was interested only in defending the party and the ideas communism stands for.
The legacy Dimitrov has left us, as we face the danger of authoritarianism, is invaluable. To face such a danger, Dimitrov called for trade union unity and working-class unity and, on that basis, for the united resistance of all progressive forces to stem the tide of fascism.
At a time when the world faces the danger of a nuclear war and a war of mass slaughter organised by hated US imperialism against the Soviet Union, the legacy of proletarian internationalism takes on an importance it never had before.
US preparations for nuclear war
American imperialism, preparing for war, is spending billions of dollars on weapons to kill people en masse. It is now trying to place these weapons in space, from where it could rain them down on countries that do not bow to its will.
The steep rise in military spending gives us some idea of the enormous sums spent on these deadly weapons. In 1979 the US military budget was over 100 billion dollars. After Reagan took office it was raised to 227 billion dollars in 1982, and it is estimated that it will reach 440 billion dollars by 1986.
The danger of war grows day by day. The United States is trying to install Pershing and cruise missiles in Europe. This is nothing but an open threat to the Soviet Union. These missiles can strike targets 1,000 to 2,500 kilometres away. Placed on West German soil, they can easily attack all the Soviet Union's territory in Europe.
Because of the United States' desire to win a war against the Soviet Union and achieve world domination, and the policies that serve it, the threat of a nuclear war that would sacrifice the lives of crores of people hangs constantly over all our heads.
The entire working class and trade union movement of India must stand united and raise its voice, along with all the peoples and the working class of the world, to expose and isolate the warmongers and prevent nuclear war. That is what proletarian internationalism and the Indian people's responsibility to the peoples of the world demand of us. Huge peace demonstrations are taking place in Europe and the USA. The working class and trade unions there have held large protests with slogans that put the imperialists in the dock.
The Soviet Union's proposals
The concrete proposals put forward by the Soviet Union to halt the arms race and gradually end the production of nuclear weapons have greatly helped the forces of peace and the anti-war forces. The international working class and peace-loving peoples joyfully welcomed the USSR's unilateral declaration that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. Reagan and his administration are trying to belittle the importance of that declaration.
India's trade unions and the anti-war struggle
Where does the Indian trade union movement stand in the struggle against this move by imperialism to kill people en masse? We must admit that the Indian trade union movement, under the influence of various ideologies, plays no significant part in this international struggle. It is true that CITU unions across the country raised anti-war slogans on May Day this year, and that unions affiliated to the AITUC and some other unions did so too. But a large section of Indian workers and trade unions are unaware of this danger and do not remember their international duty. Because of a narrow outlook that concentrates only on immediate demands and forgets internationalism, working-class consciousness itself is being eroded.
There are many federations and central organisations of central government employees that are not willing to make their own ranks aware of the horrors of a global war. Mrs Gandhi's government does not recognise this danger of war and will not tolerate protests against it. The leaders of the organisations of central government employees, P&T employees and railway employees do not speak about the danger of war at all.
We must remember one more thing here. Even the CITU and the AITUC could not hold joint anti-war demonstrations on May Day, because the AITUC insisted on bracketing China with American imperialism.
This is most shameful. We have been able to do very little in this matter, and even that happened more or less by chance. So we cannot be satisfied.
It is our duty to ensure that the whole working-class movement of India moves along the path of international solidarity and the anti-war struggle.
We must be the front-line soldiers of the anti-war movement. In the coming months we must rally the working class as one in this movement against war. The World Federation of Trade Unions has called for September 1 to be observed as Anti-War Day. We must carry out this call. The CITU and its unions everywhere in India will take the lead in mobilising the widest possible sections of people and trade unions to observe the anti-war, international day fittingly. In this we must join hands with all sections of people who see imperialism as the source of war, who do not busy themselves criticising some socialist country, and who do not take refuge in the false theory of two superpowers.
September 1 must be a day of a powerful demonstration by the Indian working class against war and for peace.
Israel's savage aggression
The whole progressive world, the working-class movement and the governments of all the socialist countries have strongly condemned the aggression Israel carried out against the Palestinians at the bidding of the USA. It is an aggression of terrible cruelty and massacres, carried out to destroy the PLO and its legendary resistance. The CITU strongly condemns this aggression and protests against America's gross treachery and double game. The CITU salutes the resistance put up by the Palestine Liberation Organisation. CITU unions have held demonstrations in many places declaring support for the PLO and condemning American aggression. It is true that much more remains to be done to save the fighting Palestinian people.
CITU unions must continue to bring the working class together on this, expose Israel and the Reagan administration, and support the PLO.
It is astonishing that, against the background of this aggression by Israel at the bidding of American imperialism, India's Prime Minister did not openly condemn America. She contented herself with expressing sympathy for the Palestinians and the Lebanese and condemning the Israeli government. The sympathy the Prime Minister expressed for the Palestinian people on behalf of the Government of India is welcome. But by not uttering a single word against American imperialism, the Prime Minister has lowered her own dignity and India's.
It should be noted that there are many people in India who are ready to support America, who back Israel's aggression against Lebanon, and who do not hesitate to oppose any sympathy shown to the Palestinians. In Parliament, Jethmalani of the BJP openly opposed condemnation of Israel. That is not surprising. It was when Vajpayee was external affairs minister that secret talks were held with the Israeli foreign minister. Subramanian Swamy of the Janata Party is another who does not favour isolating Israel diplomatically.
The Israeli aggression has exposed the treacherous character of many Muslim regimes that pose as protectors of Islam. Egypt, which had already abandoned the Palestinians, has taken refuge under America's wing. Saudi Arabia, which imports the most modern weapons from the USA and prides itself on being the guardian of Islamic purity, did not lift a little finger to save the Palestinians. Many other reactionary regimes acted the same way.
Fattened on oil money, what interests them is suppressing their own people with American help, not the freedom of the Palestinian people. The rulers of Pakistan are going the same way. They too talk of Islam, but they do the housework for an America that is destroying the freedom of one Arab country after another.
By betraying the Palestinian people so openly and so cruelly, the Islamic fundamentalists are exposing themselves. They serve as weapons to split the democratic and revolutionary movements and forces in their countries, and try to entrench the reactionary class rule in their countries. These Islamic fundamentalists prop up regimes that dance to the USA's tune and use them as tools of imperialism.
Israeli workers uphold international solidarity
Against the background of the reactionary stand taken by these governments, the stand of the Israeli working class was magnificent. They openly condemned the Israeli aggression and demanded freedom and justice for the Palestinian people. The Israeli working class and progressive forces have upheld the principles of international solidarity and proletarian internationalism. Though they suffered great hardship, they showed their courage, openly denounced their own government and demanded that it withdraw its troops from Lebanon.
The treachery of the reactionary regimes of the Arab countries has made the Palestinian people's liberation struggle harder. But once the spark of freedom has flared, it cannot be blown out. Since the Vietnamese people's legendary resistance, no people has shown such noble readiness and ability to sacrifice everything for freedom, and such resistance, as the Palestinian people. What do we have to give this heroic people? We can say to them in the words of Pablo Neruda:
May the dead hands of the mighty oppressors not choke and strangle your full hope of the day that all of us across the world long for, that many of us await so eagerly, the day that ends all suffering, the days of justice we will win through hard struggle.
These pretexts are meant to deceive
The move towards authoritarianism against the people first appeared as a move against the freedoms of the working class. First came the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA). After it came three new bills to suppress the trade union movement. This followed the savage repression let loose against trade union struggles in UP and Haryana.
Behind this is a planned conspiracy to load the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers, cut their wages and drive down their future standard of living. The government is insistently spreading the propaganda that wage levels in India's organised industries are very high. To refute this, let me quote relevant passages from an article by Dr K Ramachandran Nair in the Labour Journal.
There is a widespread belief that workers in the organised industrial sector are able to win wage increases through their trade union strength, and that employers in these industries give in because they know they can maintain their profit share by using their monopoly power to pass the extra cost of production on to consumers.
An examination of the figures for the average annual earnings of factory workers (whether in money or in real terms) shows that workers have not received justice. In most Third World countries the real earnings of factory workers have been rising faster than per capita income, so that industrial workers there become a higher stratum, which even leads to political conflict. But there is one exception to this general trend, and it is India. Here the real earnings of this section of workers have in fact stagnated, not rising much above the meagre income needed to stay alive. One more thing should be noted: compared with many other countries, wage increases linked to rising prices are lowest in India. For example, in 1956-64 the average annual increase in money wages was 2.9 per cent, while consumer prices rose by an average of 4.7 per cent a year. There has been no significant change in this trend since then. That is why it is argued that wages in India are generally low, and that even in the organised sector, where wages are relatively a little higher than in other sectors of the economy, real earnings have not changed. So what the government must urgently do before formulating a national wage policy is to control the prices of all goods, ensure that they are distributed equitably through an effective public distribution network, and so avoid the need to revise wages and DA from time to time.
(Indian Labour Journal, May 1982)
Ideological propaganda
Workers are being forced to struggle to have their demands met, and in this struggle they need the wide support of the public. In such a situation we must never forget that the call to workers to raise production, and the call to the central trade union organisations about giving workers a share in management, are only part of the ideological propaganda the central government is carrying on to isolate workers and trade unions completely from the other sections of society. The government that let loose a flood of inflation through budget deficits now says that prices will come down and society will get relief only if workers are willing to work harder. This is false propaganda. And there is one thing the government is not willing to explain: why has the price of sugar not come down even though sugar production has broken all records? Why does the common man get no relief?
The trade union movement must answer this false propaganda of the government and win the people's confidence. The working class and the trade union movement do not forget the workers' duty to keep the wheels of production turning and meet the needs of society. Workers have declared again and again that they are ready to take part in management on the basis of equality: an assurance that workers will have the right to examine the balance sheet and financial transactions of the establishment, the right to check the supply and quality of raw materials, and equal power for workers' representatives to decide questions of discipline and production within the establishment. The unions are ready to discuss the terms of production and wages, and ready to achieve a fixed increase in production under a wage settlement reached through mutual discussion. They will share responsibility with the management for the workers' failings too.
But whether in the public sector or the private sector, managements are not willing to give workers a real share in running the factory or solving problems of production; they are against it. Our experience so far is that managements take vindictive action against workers who expose officers' corruption or detect the use of poor-quality raw materials that ruin the efficiency of the machines. The managements' call to raise production is only a means of exploiting workers more to increase the employers' profits. Workers are ready to serve society. But what the government and the employers demand is that workers serve the interests of the capitalists.
Strikes and lockouts
The year since the last General Council meeting has been a period of conflict between the trade unions and the employers and the government's anti-worker policies. By 1981 the influence of the Indira Gandhi government had begun to wane, and strike struggles of the working class began to grow.
More than 250 lakh man-days were lost in 1981, 40 lakh more than in 1980, though fewer than the 350 lakh of 1979. Man-days lost in public sector undertakings in 1981 nearly doubled compared with the previous year. Official reports themselves make clear that the CITU was in the forefront of these struggles and led more struggles than any other organisation.
The last part of 1981 and the first half of 1982 witnessed some of the longest and hardest struggles of recent times.
Foremost among these long struggles is the legendary strike of the Bombay textile mill workers, now more than six months old. Government employees and electricity employees in Rajasthan and UP waged long struggles. The strike of the workers of Hindustan Ferodo in Bombay also deserves mention.
These strikes, in a period of economic crisis and recession, take place against the background of the government's anti-worker policies. They drag on and on because they are often accompanied by lockouts, often undeclared lockouts! This is the employers' method of counter-attack, used as a weapon of pressure and repression. The figures for man-days lost through strikes and through official lockouts are given below; they deserve special attention.
Man-days lost (in lakhs)
Year: due to strikes / due to lockouts
1978: 124.23 / 129.17
1979: 358.04 / 80.50
1980: 120.18 / 99.07
1981: 156.58 / 108.06
In every year except 1979, at least 40 per cent of the total man-days lost were lost through lockouts. Yet the government and its spokesmen speak only of man-days lost through strikes. For the last three years the share of man-days lost through official lockouts has been rising. This is the employers' method of counter-attack to force the workers to surrender.
The trade union movement must find some new way to fight this attack on workers through lockouts. In West Bengal 17 jute mills are already closed. Using various methods, 65,000 substitute workers have been thrown out of work…