DEM VOLKE DIENEN

On February 11, Europe's largest Nazi march, the so-called "Day of Honor", once again took place in Budapest. Last year, there were attacks on participating fascists. There was repression in several countries against allegedly participating anti-fascists. Let's take a look at the current situation.

January 30:
In the Indian state of Chattisgarh, during an anti-Maoist search operation by the Central Police Reserve Force with the involvement of CoBRA elite units, there was a gun battle with Maoists of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army in which three members of the reactionary paramilitaries were killed and another 15 injured. Two of the paramilitaries killed in the firefight were members of the CoBRA elite units, which are specially trained for warfare in the jungle. The incident took place on the border between Suka and Bijapur districts in Chhattisgarh. Just a few days earlier, these units had opened a new police camp in Tekalgudem - which is generally described as a Maoist stronghold - and started terrorizing the population in the area in order to deprive the people's war of ground. This plan was apparently quickly rebuffed by the Maoist fighters.

The FDP-led Federal Ministry of Justice has proposed a new law to regulate the use of so-called V-Leuten (informers). The planned draft law will primarily deal with documentation and reporting obligations to be applied by the executive authorities in the event of the use of informers. In future, judges should also be granted the right to express reservations about the use of informers. For example, if the money received from the bourgeois state is the primary source of income for these informers. A public and internal debate is now developing against these changes within the executive apparatus of the bourgeois state, in which police officers from NRW in particular are " storming against it", as Westdeutscher Rundfunk describes the situation.

The consequences of the economic crisis are being shouldered by the people. Even essential things are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain for fewer and fewer people. In Baden Württemberg, we can see this in the issue of housing. Local welfare organizations are reporting an increase in the housing shortage and are warning that homelessness is becoming a permanent condition.

On January 16, the democratic and revolutionary news website Solrojista published a Political Declaration of the General Assembly of the Popular Current Red Sun of January 13, 2024. The declaration begins with an analysis of the international and national situation in which the class struggle is developing.

This Friday, the trade union Ver.di has called for an almost nationwide warning strike in local public transport, which will also affect North Rhine-Westphalia. Negotiations will take place individually in each federal state, but according to Ver.di, similar topics such as reducing working hours with full pay compensation or shorter shifts will be negotiated in all federal states.

Following the five-day strike by the GDL at Deutsche Bahn last week, this is the third strike in the so-called critical infrastructure sector, in addition to the strike by aviation security at airports taking place today. The echo among middle-class politicians and the media is correspondingly great. As with the recent GDL strike, it is noticeable that parts of the German bourgeoisie and their media mouthpieces are vehemently demanding a tightening of the right to strike. At the forefront of these demands is currently the CDU with its internal party association "Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsunion", which wants to push ahead with the legal regulation of strikes. What is remarkable here is not only how aggressively the right to strike is to be undermined, but also how certain sections of the bourgeoisie consider it necessary to act as preventively and repressively as possible as soon as there is even the slightest hint of a combative mood in the air among sections of the working class.

Although gangster Chancellor Scholz has publicly rejected a legal regulation of the right to strike for the time being - not without nevertheless calling for the principle of social partnership and moderate action - parts of the ruling class do not feel represented by the traffic light and their chancellor, especially in these times of crisis. For example, the Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsunion and its chairwoman Connemann are calling for industrial action in critical infrastructure to only be possible after arbitration in future. This means that Deutsche Bahn workers or airport staff currently on strike would only be allowed to strike if union leaders and company bosses do not reach an agreement beforehand with the help of state arbitrators. In addition, Connemann wants a statutory emergency service and a ban on strikes on public holidays. These demands, which have the backing of both Jens Spahn and Friedrich Merz, are now being taken up in almost all major liberal-conservative newspapers and public sector media. In NRW, it is CDU Minister President Hendrik Wüst who is the state chairman of the Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsunion.

What these demands essentially express is a fundamental interest of the German bourgeoisie, which Connemann deputy Schimke summarizes well on Deutschlandfunk radio when she says: "We want peace in this country, we want social peace. And what we are finding (...) is that there is an incredible potential for conflict, an incredible dissatisfaction." As these demands are suitable for creating "peace" in the sense of the bourgeoisie and preventing any strike in critical infrastructure, i.e., infrastructure that is strategic for the bourgeoisie, in advance or reducing it to absurdity. Critical infrastructure here means above all railways and airports, which are essential for the transportation of goods and are particularly vulnerable to economic damage as a result of strikes.

That is why Westdeutscher Rundfunk also asks:"Have the German trade unions really lost their sense of proportion? Are they ruthlessly fighting for the interests of their members in the middle of the recession - at the expense of the general public?" Whereby the talk of "the general public", just like that of social partnership, is again only intended to conceal the class antagonisms between workers and capitalists. Because "at the expense of the general public" here means the economic damage to capital. A labor dispute led by a combative trade union is nothing other than a collective means of struggle through which improvements are extorted from the exploiters with economic damage.

Source of the cover image: https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/streik-deutschland-eu-vergleich-100.html

In November last year, doctors at Freiburg's Josefs Hospital organized a warning strike. A short time later, a young doctor who was involved in organizing the action was terminate without notice. The case of this termination is now being heard before the labor court in Freiburg.

We would like to share with you here a summary of various events and statements from Turkey.

At the end of December, there was an attack by armed lumpen on a reader of Partizan.The target of the lumpen gang attack in the Gazi district of Istanbul was "Munzur's Breakfast Cafe", a restaurant run by Partizan reader Asker Akkoç, in which Asker Akkoç was injured by gunshots. In the attack, the bullets injured Akkoç in the hip, arms and legs. Partizan and the democratic and revolutionary newspaper "Yeni demokrasi" informed in the aftermath of the events that Akkoç was the target of the attack due to his activism against fundamentalist groups and sects in the neighborhood.