ICC online meeting on 13 May: We have to go further than in May 68!

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Enough is enough!” – Britain. “Not a year more, not a euro less” – France. “Indignation runs deep” –
Spain. “For all of us” – Germany. All these slogans, chanted during the strikes around the world in recent
months, show how much the current workers’ struggle expresses the rejection of the general deterioration of our living and working conditions. In France, workers also raised the slogan “You give us 64, we
give you May 68” – faced with the increase in years of wage labour from 62 to 64, we are returning to
the massive struggles of May 1968.

But we must also go further. The wave of international struggle that began in May 1968 was a reaction
to the first signs of the world economic crisis. Today, the situation is much more serious. The disastrous
state of capitalism puts the survival of humanity at stake.

The momentum of May ‘68 was broken by a double lie of the bourgeoisie. When the USSR collapsed
in 1990, it claimed that the collapse of Stalinism meant the death of communism and that a new era of
peace and prosperity was dawning. Three decades later, we know from experience that instead of peace
and prosperity, we got war and misery. We have yet to understand that Stalinism was the antithesis of
communism, that it was a barbaric capitalist regime that emerged from the counter-revolution of the
1920s. By falsifying history, by presenting Stalinism as communism, the bourgeoisie succeeded in making the working class believe that its project of revolutionary emancipation could only end in disaster.

But in the struggle, we will gradually develop our collective strength, unity and self-organisation. In
the struggle, we will gradually realise that we, the working class, are capable of offering a perspective
other than the nightmare promised by a decaying capitalist system.

Come and discuss the lessons of May 68 for the struggles of today!3pm (UK time) Saturday 13 May
If you want to take part, write to us at uk@internationalism.org, and we’ll send you the details.

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