Party of Labour of Austria

Party of Labour of Austria (PdA)

Capitalist disease, socialist cure

The year 2020 is widely perceived by the public as being marked by the Sars-CoV-2 or CoViD-19 pandemic. It will have a significant impact on people’s lives, work and social conditions worldwide, and is also accompanied by the most massive capitalist crisis since the Second World War. The crisis phenomena clearly show the inability of capitalism to ensure the needs and survival of humanity, which is underlined by the policies of bourgeois governments. The Party of Labour of Austria as the Marxist-Leninist party of the Austrian working class has the task of analysing the situation, educating the working people about it and the mechanisms of the capitalist economic system and the bourgeois system of rule, mobilising and organising them for the revolutionary class struggle in order to overthrow the system and build the new society of socialism and communism.

Crisis of the health system

The corona virus may be of natural origin and a zoonosis is nothing unusual, but the handling of the pandemic situation is man-made. In this respect, it is also evident in Austria that the bourgeois government consisting of conservative People’s Party and the Greens is neither able nor willing to effectively protect the health of the people. It shifts responsibility to the private sphere of people’s lives and neglects appropriate and effective measures at the workplace for economic reasons: production must continue, while workers remain exposed to the full risk. Moreover, it is a payback for the fact that all governments of the last decades - whether conservative or social democratic led - have ruined the health system in many areas, even though the situation in Austria is still relatively better than in many other countries. There have been staff cuts, wards and entire hospitals have been closed, the number of beds has been reduced again and again, the state health insurance has been starved of funds. All this was done in order to consolidate the state budget on the one hand and to open up the health sector to profiteering on the other: private capitalist companies were given access to the public health system, private supplementary insurance and deductibles became necessary, so that medicine also revealed itself as a class system. The rich can afford expensive treatments, the working class and the poorer social classes are only second-class patients. The ruling parties apparently believe that a hospital must function like a capitalist enterprise that must make a profit - but people’s health is not a commodity. The Party of Labour demands a universal, free and efficient health care system for all, with sufficient state

funding, enough doctors and nurses, with material resources such as medicines, equipment and hospital beds available at all times - especially during the Corona pandemic it is becoming clear that this is an absolute necessity. But capitalism will never guarantee this. Health and illness, life and death are class issues under capitalism.

Capitalist eConomiC Crisis

The corona pandemic has accelerated and exacerbated the already inevitable capitalist economic crisis. However, neither CoViD-19 nor the epidemic-related interim lockdown are responsible for the crisis, but the basic laws of capitalism itself, the contradiction between social production and private capitalist appropriation of products. The erroneous cycle of capitalism regularly leads to cyclical crises, and now we are facing the biggest crisis since 1945. The bourgeoisie and its ruling parties use the crisis to prepare new profits: They clean up the market through takeovers, they restructure and rationalise through site closures and mass redundancies, they push down wages. Companies are subsidised with huge sums of money through state aid so that they implement a short-time working model that cannot and will not stop the waves of redundancies. These subsidies come from the purses of the working class, since it pays the bulk of taxes through payroll and mass taxes, while monopoly capital receives tax breaks. The losses of the crisis are being socialised so that future profits can be re-privatised and monopolised. The monopoly capital and its government are doing everything possible to ensure that the burden of the crisis is placed on the working class. For them, all this means loss of income, unemployment, financial and social insecurity, the risk of poverty and actual poverty. Many people can no longer pay their rents and electricity bills, some cannot even buy food. And after the crisis, the working class should pay a second time: Then the government will introduce rigid austerity measures, in the social system, in education and pensions - and of course again in the health system. And of course there will be no wage increases again, so as not to “endanger the recovery”. On the whole, this will merely prepare the ground for the next crisis.

Crisis of demoCraCy and the ruling system

There is nothing to be said against sensible safety measures against the risk of infection, which of course also entail restrictions. But the Austrian government has taken measures, issued decrees and, through the parliament it dominates, passed laws that are incompatible with fundamental civil rights, with rights of freedom, assembly and organisation, with human rights. The Austrian Constitutional Court has repealed government decrees and laws which have been found to be unlawful and unconstitutional. Some measures threaten privacy, the legal professional privilege of lawyers or the freedom of the media, not to mention freedom of movement, as bans on entry and temporary domestic detentions are possible without a court order. Some amendments to the law even allow state authorities unrestricted access to premises and to internal documents of political organisations, which opens the door to espionage and repression. In any case, bourgeois democracy is only a camouflaged dictatorship of capital, but at present there is a danger of an increasingly authoritarian development. At the same time, the recent elections in Vienna, for example, have shown that the democratic bourgeois system has long since reached its limits: A good third of the population of Vienna was excluded from the elections, the existing hurdles for smaller parties such as the Party of Labour to stand as candidates and gain access to the electoral process were further aggravated by the pandemic situation, and voter turnout is falling significantly. The elected parties now have only marginal democratic legitimacy, and there can no longer be any question of majorities. This is also a response to the prevailing demagogic, working-class divisive political staging of the ruling class, which makes people feel the illusion of participation. And in this respect, the system is moving in circles: the less support the political rulers receive, who additionally expose themselves through corruption and enrichment, the more the system will move in an authoritarian direction. It is maintained with the donations of the corporations and the rich, with the disinformation campaigns of the servile state and monopoly media, and with the social and administrative pressure on the population. It is rotten and rotten to the foundations, but dangerous in its struggle for existence.

imperialism, militarism and war

Imperialism also poses a comprehensive threat in the international context. Of course, the Corona pandemic has not frozen existing conflicts. On the contrary: the crisis has intensified the warmongering of the USA, NATO and the EU towards Russia and China, the drive for intervention and aggression in the struggle for spheres of influence, raw materials and transport routes, including proxy wars and staged “civil wars”. In the eastern Mediterranean the situation is coming to a head, and in the southern

6 Caucasus there is a new war. The arms industry has hardly suffered any crisis losses, because weapons are a special commodity. The Austrian Armed Forces are also increasingly buying new war material, most recently combat helicopters, and despite the tight budget situation, the type decision regarding the new Air Force fighter jets is imminent. Armaments are being upgraded, but alliances are also being strengthened strategically: In recent months, Austria has concluded new military agreements with the

USA. This backing, together with the vehicle of the militarised EU, is the opportunity for limited Austrian imperialism to play an important role at least in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, especially in the plundering of the Balkans, where the Austrian

Armed Forces also provide a relevant part of the EU/

NATO occupying army. Economically, Austrian big business has long since penetrated the region anyway and brought it under control to a certain extent, which in turn implies political influence. As a free rider of the global hegemonic power USA as well as of the continental European, Germany, Austria will inevitably participate in the imperialist struggle for the redivision of the world and be drawn into potential conflicts of great powers. The war remains a central crisis strategy of imperialism, which is why the Party of Labour is counting on consistent anti-militarism and anti-imperialism, on the struggle against the EU and NATO affiliation, for the Austrian neutrality and sovereignty of the people, for internationalism and the right of self-determination of the nations.

party work under pandemiC and Crisis Conditions

The Corona pandemic and its consequences forced the Party of Labour to adapt its working methods, internal and external communication, activities, events and forms of struggle. At the party conference in December 2019, the PdA had ambitious plans for the following term of office, but some things could no longer be implemented in the planned form: The central event for International Women’s Day on 8 March in Vienna was our last event that could still be carried out in the usual manner. After that we first had to cancel all further public activities, inside and outside, because they were partly covered by the government’s bans, partly we decided ourselves that even organised gatherings of people do not represent a responsible way of dealing with the pandemic situation. Most painful for us was the necessary decision not to hold any demonstrations and celebrations this year on May 1st, the International Day of Workers’ Struggle, especially as these are the biggest events of the year for our part - we tried to compensate for this with an online campaign, which is of course only possible to a limited extent. Soon afterwards the exit restrictions were relaxed, and on 8 May we were able - with a limited number of participants, safety distances and mouthnose protection masks - to hold a rally for the 75th anniversary of the Great Anti-Fascist Victory of the Peoples at the Heroes’ Monument of the Red Army in Vienna. The same was true of similar and other current public rallies in the capital and other federal states. In general, the period of the lockdown meant that a lot of things shifted to the internet, and electronic media and their use inevitably had to gain in importance. Just at the right time, we succeeded in optimising our online media and social media channels and professionalising our appearances. Our central party website was relaunched, we made increased use of video recordings and online events and, most importantly, in April we began using a new digital platform, namely our online newspaper, which quickly gained considerable reach thanks to dedicated work and multiple daily updates. Our print media - the central organ ZdA and the theory journal E&W - also gained additional importance in their distribution. All in all it must be said that restricting direct contacts in real life, on the street, in companies and educational institutions is of course not a viable course of action for a workers’ party, because it is dependent on interaction. This was also evident in our participation in the elections in Vienna in October: It is difficult to conduct a street election campaign with social distancing, but nevertheless we succeeded in getting a good part of the people in our electoral district acquainted with the party through a striking and pithy campaign. - Even within the party, its governing bodies and basic organisations, work had to be adapted to the new circumstances in recent months, and naturally video and telephone conferences were increasingly used. In terms of content, our priorities were self-explanatory: the PdA called for comprehensive health protection measures for workers in the companies and improvements in the health system in general. We also placed the capitalist crisis, its causes and effects at the centre of our further educational and agitation work.

Class struggle and soCialism

The Party of Labour stands for the consistent protection of the people’s health, which the governments of capital are deliberately neglecting, both because of their inefficient and wrongly weighted pandemic measures and because of the long-stand-

ing ruinous saving of the Austrian health system. The PdA intervenes in favour of the working class, which is supposed to bear the burdens of the capitalist crisis and is threatened by severe social dislocation, mass unemployment and deterioration of labour laws. The PdA defends the democratic and liberty rights of the people in Austria, both citizens and migrant colleagues, regardless of origin or language. It opposes attempts at division on the basis of xenophobia and racism, authoritarian and repressive policies, and fascist activities. We stand up for the right of peoples to peace and secure existence. However, capitalism and imperialism are opposed to all the interests and needs of the Austrian working class and popular strata. There will be no concessions without decisive resistance and struggle. The empty promises and diversionary tactics of the Social Democracy and the trade unions dominated by it only serve the immobilisation of the working class and the stabilisation of the bourgeois-capitalist system, while the reformist and opportunist EU “Left” does not want to and cannot be more than the left wing of the capitalism and imperialism administration. From this point of view, the Party of Labour considers it as its task to enlighten the working class about the system of exploitation, oppression and deception, to mobilise and support it in independent activity, to train and organise it - to make it physically and mentally fit for struggle against the crisis policies, against the attacks of capital as well as against the illusions of social democracy and “left” opportunism, against the monopolies and against capitalism and imperialism in general. The insights of Marxism-Leninism imply that only with its strong revolutionary party of struggle can the working class overthrow the system of capitalist exploitation, oppression, economic crises and wars and build socialism and communism on the basis of its own class rule. The task of the PdA is to build and provide this party so that the disease of capitalism can be eradicated. Socialism will not be immune to infection pandemics, but it will be immune to exploitation, oppression and war - and it will have a health and social system that for the first time puts the human being, his needs and his life at the centre.