http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/bosnian-revolution/
Workers and Youth: Form Popular Councils and Take the Power! Spread the
Revolution to the whole Balkan! For a Socialist Federation of the Balkan
People!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT),
9.2.2014, www.thecommunists.net
1. The
worldwide wave of popular uprisings and revolutions has reached Bosnia since
February 5. The protesters themselves call it the “Bosnian Spring” referring to
the “Arab Spring”. We send our warmest greetings of solidarity to the heroic
Bosnian workers and youth who are fighting on the streets against the greedy
capitalists and corrupt politicians! Bosnia has been plundered for nearly two
decades by imperialist corporations and sleazy native entrepreneurs. They have
been assisted by the corrupt caste of politicians which dominate all parties of
the Bosniak, Serbian and Croatian communities. The country is occupied by
Western imperialists who treat it like a colony. The task is now to transform
the spontaneous uprising into an organized revolution. This means that the
workers and peasants should overthrow the ruling class and take the power in
their own hands. To avoid a derail of the revolution it is urgent that the
political advanced workers and youth form a workers’ party based on a
revolutionary program.
A brief Overview of the Historical Background
2. In
the 1980s the Stalinist system in Yugoslavia entered a terminal crisis. Against
this background, the ruling bureaucratic castes of the different republics like
Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia were striving to transform themselves into ruling
capitalist classes. To keep popular support for this goal, the camouflaged
their policy with nationalism. In this, the Serbian bourgeois regime of
Slobodan Milošević was the driving force and by the late 1980s it controlled
the Yugoslavian federal institutions. It intensified the oppression of the
Kosovar Albanians (which were always suppressed by Serbia since their
annexation in 1913). It started to oppress also other people of the Yugoslav
republic. The Croatian bourgeois regime of Franjo Tuđman copied Milošević’s
reactionary chauvinism. Beside the Kosovar Albanians, the Bosnians were the
most effected victims of the Serbian (and Croatian) chauvinism.
3. The
RCIT (respectively our predecessor organization) always defended the Bosnian
people against the genocidal war which was started by the Serbian (and
Croatian) nationalist forces in 1992. This war brought unspeakable suffering
for the Bosnian Muslims and those Serbs and Croats who resisted the nationalist
partition of Bosnia by the Serbian and Croatian chauvinists. According to a
report about the war 1992-95 by the head of the Bosnian Delegation to the
United Nations in 2008, 200,000 people were killed, 12,000 of them children, up
to 50,000 women were raped, and 2.2 million were forced to flee their homes (in
a country of about 4 million people)! We denounced the reactionary Bosnian
government of Alija Izetbegović which – like the bureaucracies of the other
republics – was striving to restore capitalism and which failed to defend the
Bosnian people against the chauvinist aggressors. We called for international
support for the national liberation war of the Bosnian people and combined this
with the perspective of a multi-national workers republic in Bosnia as part of
a socialist Balkan federation. We denounced the US and EU imperialists who
strangled the Bosnian resistance with an arms embargo and whose UN troops
collaborated with the Serbian chauvinists when the butcher General Mladić
organized the mass murder of 8.000 Muslim men in Srebrenica in July 1995. We
were part of the International Workers Aid campaign delivering
medicine, clothes, etc. for the workers in Tuzla and other places. We called
for arms and international volunteer brigades for the Bosnian resistance and
denounced the NATO bombing campaign in summer 1995 which stopped the Bosnian
national liberation forces when they were starting to advance and to take back
the areas which they had lost in the first war years. In short, the RCIT stood
– in contrast to many pseudo-Marxist groups – for the victory of the Bosnian
people and the defeat of reactionary Serbian chauvinists and combined this with
the perspective of a socialist Balkan federation.
4. The
US and EU imperialists enforced the reactionary Dayton Accord in 1995 on the
Bosnians. This accord installed the so-called High Representative and
the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and
Herzegovina which transformed Bosnia into a colony of the US and the
EU. It left 49% of the country under the control of Serbian chauvinist forces.
Today the Western imperialists have stationed 900 soldiers (European Union
Force Althea) amongst which Austrian imperialism provides the biggest
contingent of 300 troops. The RCIT opposed the imperialist interference in
Bosnia from the beginning. We call for the expulsion of all imperialist troops
and the immediate dissolution of the so-called High Representative and
all other foreign institutions which restrict Bosnian’s sovereignty.
5. The
colonialization of Bosnia by the imperialist powers is also obvious in the
so-called International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Great Powers enforce
Bosnia since years to extradite war criminals or alleged war criminals. The
RCIT denounces this imperialist colonialism and calls for workers and peasant
tribunals in Bosnia – composed of the families and friends of the victims in
the genocidal war – to judge over the war criminals.
The Capitalists plundered Bosnia with the help of corrupt Politicians
6. Since
then the country has been plundered and impoverished by native and foreign
capitalists who were actively helped by corrupt politicians. Today more than
44% of the Bosnians are without a job. About 100,000 old people don’t receive
their pensions – including for war veterans who risked their life in the
liberation war. The average income for Bosnian workers is 420 Euro per month
which is the level of Albania or Namibia. Many live below the official poverty
line and suffer from hunger. In many factories, which are the heart of the
present uprising, workers have not received their wages for many months or even
years. Factories have closed and their owners left the country with full
pockets after their workers spent their savings to buy a significant share of
“their” enterprise. At the same time many privatizations of state enterprises
turn out to be criminal schemas for quick enrichment of greedy capitalists. In
this they are helped by the politicians of all parties who enrich themselves in
manifold ways. In addition the people are suffering from the “petty corruption”
like the policemen or the little bureaucrats who hold out their hand at every
opportunity.
7. Unsurprisingly
anger and unrest have simmered for long amongst the Bosnian people. For many
years they were hold back to take mass actions because their rulers asked them
for more time given the devastating effects of the war. But people have seen
now that the more time they give their rulers, the worse the situation becomes.
The latest wave of privatizations of state enterprises was the trigger for the
revolution. The mass strikes and demonstrations started from the Tuzla
enterprises Polihem (acid and alkali), DITA (washing powder), Konjuh (wood
processor) and Resod-Guming (chemical product makers). The workers there have
not received their wages for more than one year and had no health insurance.
After these enterprises have been privatized, the owners want to close them now
and sack 10.000 workers. The government plans further privatizations of many
other state enterprises like Energopetrol, tabacco enterprise FDS in
Sarajevo, Bosnalijek, Sarajevo-Insurance, Alumnij in
Mostar, Energoinvest and the Steel Factory Zenica.
After the workers gave so many sacrifices for years in the hope for a better
future, they are now forced to recognize that the bosses and their government
destroy the future for the workers and only fill their own pockets. This was
the final straw which triggered the uprising. In other words, this is a popular
revolution against the effects of the restoration of capitalism in the 1990s.
The Character of Popular Uprising
8. The
Bosnian Revolution started in Tuzla. This city of 120,000 people has always
been the industrial heart of Bosnia and is the center of the Bosnian working
class. It has a multi-ethnical composition. It has a long and proud tradition
of class struggle and internationalism. During the Great Miner Strike in
Britain in 1984/85 the miners of Tuzla collected money and sent it to their
brothers and sisters. British miners returned this favor by initiating the International
Workers Aid campaign in 1993. Tuzla was also the heart of the
multi-ethnical Bosnian working class resistance against the Serbian chauvinist
forces during the liberation war in 1992-95.
9. The
Bosnian popular uprising is multi-national, working class, youth and militant.
It is multi-national because it encompasses Bosnian Muslim, Serbian and
Croatian workers and youth. True, the majority of the workers are Bosnian
Muslims. But this is hardly surprising since this community is the biggest in
Bosnia (officially 48%) as well as the most urban and proletarian. (The Serbian
and Croatian communities have a more rural character.) While its main leader is
the Bosnian Muslim worker Aldin Siranovic, the movement has also a Serbian
spokeswoman, the economist Svetlana Cenic. The Revolution has already reached
Serbian towns like Prijedor. The youth plays a central role in the uprising –
similar to all other authentic revolutions. Like in Egypt Revolution and the
Turkish Gezi park movement, football fan clubs play an important role in the
protests. The movement has also a very militant character as one can see from
numerous reports and Youtube videos. The workers and youth have stormed the
governmental buildings in many towns and burned them, as well as numerous
police cars, down. In Zenica they pushed the cars of the bureaucrats into the
river.
10. The
movement raises a number of progressive social and democratic demands. They
call for the halt of all privatizations and the renationalization of the
enterprises which have been already privatized. They call for the payment of
their outstanding wages. They demand the punishment of criminal entrepreneurs and
corrupt politicians. They call for a limitation of politician’s salaries to
1250 Euro and an end to their parliamentary immunity. They call for the
abolishment of the cantonal system.
11. However,
as a result of lack of experience and deep hatred against all political
parties, they also wrongly call for a “government of experts without
party-affiliation” and for “independent courts”. The RCIT draws the attention
of the Bosnian workers and youth to the experience of other countries. In Italy
for example we saw a “government of experts without party-affiliation” just
recently. Such a government might not be dependent of parties but it is deeply
in the pocket of the big corporations and the powerful circles of the ruling
class. In Italy such a government was the driving force in massive cuts in the
social system. Similarly, courts can only be independent of the ruling class
and the bourgeois state which pays their salary if they are elected and controlled
by the people.
12. The
Bosnian Revolution faces the danger of an imperialist intervention. Valentin
Inzko, an Austrian diplomat, who is currently serving as the “High
Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina”, already threatened to send the EU
occupation troops against the workers in case the protests turn violent and
threaten foreign property. This makes it urgent that the European and
international workers movement supports the Bosnian workers and youth and call
for the immediate withdrawal of the imperialist occupation forces from Bosnia.
It is in this spirit that the RCIT calls for solidarity actions in European
cities.
A Program for the Bosnian Revolution
13. The
Bosnian Revolution faces several dangers. It is highly spontaneous and lacks
the formation of mass organizations to ensure a sustainable character of the
movement. Hence there is the danger that the movement might lose steam and
retreat soon. Secondly there exists the danger that reactionary politicians
might try to divide the movement via inciting nationalist feelings. This is a
real danger given the fact that there nearly all Bosnian families have a living
memory of the genocidal war. Thirdly it lacks a clear program for power and an
authentic communist party prepared for the revolution. The Bosnian masses
already saw the terrible effects of such a lack of program and revolutionary
leadership in early April 1992: then, hundreds of thousands people of all
ethnic origins demonstrated in Sarajevo and stormed the parliament to protest
against the threat of a chauvinist war. They had the power in their hands but
didn’t know what to do with it. Several days later, the Serbian chauvinists
started the genocidal war.
14. The RCIT
suggests the following program to the Bosnian workers and youth. It is urgent
to form popular councils in the factories and neighborhoods which
meet daily. These councils should decide on the urgent issues of the struggle
and elect delegates. These delegates should meet for a national congress to
decide about the perspective of the uprising. The movement must call for an indefinite
general strike to prepare taking the power. The workers should occupy
the factories and governmental buildings and take over the production
and administration. The factory and neighborhood councils – with the youth in
the forefront – should form self-defense units which can later
be transformed into popular militias in order to defend the
masses against the repressive state apparatus and a possible intervention of
the EU occupation troops. It is urgent to stress the multi-national character
of the movement and to organize multi-ethnic leadership committees and
self-defense units on the basis of open and explicit anti-chauvinism and
equality of all Balkan people.
15. Naturally
most democratic and social demands deserve the full support of socialists. But
the program of the Bosnian Revolution must go further because otherwise the
workers and youth will not succeed in their goals. The RCIT proposes that the
movement fights for the nationalization of all bigger enterprises –
both native and foreign – and banks under the control of the workers in order
to avoid any influence by the corrupt politicians. It should demand a public
employment and infrastructure program to abolish unemployment and to
rebuild the country. In order to finance the rebuilding of the country the
masses have to expropriate the small elite of rich capitalists. To
counter the politician’s plans for a new constitution, the movement should call
for a sovereign Constituent Assembly whose delegates are under control of the
electorate. The goal of the uprising should be the overthrow of the capitalist
ruling class and the formation of a government of the workers and
peasants, based on councils and popular militias of armed masses. Such a
government could open the door to a Bosnian Workers and Peasant
Republic which could rebuild the country on the basis of a
democratically elaborated economic plan.
16. It is
urgent to spread the revolution to Bosnia’s neighboring countries and the whole
Balkan. In Serbia there have been already calls to join the protests. In Greece
the masses are fighting against the capitalist austerity policy since years. In
Romania and Bulgaria the masses have also fought on the streets in the recent
years. The widespread poverty – a result of the historic crisis of world
capitalism – forms the objective basis to unite the struggles of the exploited
and oppressed and to fight for a joint future free of imperialist banks and
corporations, native capitalists and genocidal generals. This is why the RCIT
raises the call for a Socialist Federation of the Balkan People.
17. It is
equally important to link the struggle in Bosnia with the world-wide mass
protests and revolutions against the imperialist exploiters and reactionary
dictators. Bosnia is another link in the chain of just struggles and
revolutionary uprisings like the Egyptian masses fighting against the
dictatorship of General Sisi, the Palestinian people resisting against the
continuous Zionist aggression, the Syrian workers and peasants fighting against
the butcher Assad, the South African black workers who launched mass strikes
for a living wage or the Brazilian workers and youth fighting against the
greedy capitalists and corrupt politicians.
18. Such a
program can only be achieved by the organized struggle of the working class,
led by a revolutionary workers party in the tradition of Lenin and Trotsky.
From the very start, creating such a party must be done in conjunction with the
efforts to establish a new World Party of Socialist Revolution. In our opinion,
such a new party will be the Fifth Workers’ International. The RCIT
calls revolutionaries in Bosnia to unite in an authentic revolutionary
organization based on an internationalist and communist program. We look
forward to discussing these issues and collaborating with revolutionaries in
Bosnia and the whole Balkan, in order to advance the formation of such a
revolutionary organization.
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