Coronavirus

covid 19 map Image PixabayThe COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has plunged the capitalist system into a deep crisis. The stock markets are plummeting, a recession seems inevitable, and the ineptitude of the ruling class’ political leaders is being ruthlessly exposed everywhere.

Rather than a concerted, global response to the outbreak, protectionist tendencies in the world market have been accelerated, as governments rush to throw up borders to horde medical supplies and scramble for exclusive rights to vaccines.

The bosses and bourgeois governments have attempted to force the working class to shoulder the burden of this emergency, banning mass gatherings at the same time as sending people to work without adequate safety measures. This has been met with a backlash, with a wave of strikes in badly affected countries like Italy forcing the bosses to backtrack. This is despite the woeful response of the leaders of the workers’ mass organisations, who have mostly fallen in line with their governments rather than fight back.

While this pandemic was the catalyst, it was not the cause of the current social, political and economic crisis. This was already prepared in the last period of capitalist crisis and austerity, which savagely cut health services, brought increasingly degenerate leadership to the fore, and caused huge resentment to accumulate in the fabric of society. COVID-19 was accidental, but the calamity it has provoked was inevitable.

This virus marks the beginning of a new, tumultuous period in world history, one in which the consciousness of the masses will rapidly advance as the totally rotten state of the capitalist system and its leaders are laid bare.

 

The media, bourgeois and reformist leaders have all been whipping up a “wartime” spirit of national unity against the threat of COVID-19. Recently elected leader of the British Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, has even made overtures about joining a government of national unity with the Conservatives. But the coronavirus pandemic is exposing the class lines in society more than ever. National unity is a reactionary fiction. What is needed is workers’ unity in the face of this crisis, and against the rotten system responsible.

In the last week, over 20,000 workers took to the streets of Bangladesh to demand their wages after clothes factories stopped paying their staff due to a lack of orders. With the global coronavirus pandemic causing fashion retailers such as H&M, Walmart and Tesco to cancel their orders, many workers in Bangladeshi factories have gone up to two months without receiving any income. Now, in defiance of the nationwide lockdown, workers have organised massive protests demanding their money and risking infection to fight the bosses.

After this article was written, the Procavi has stepped up its anti-trade union harassment. Comrade Nadia Garcia, the SAT shop steward at Procavi, has received a formal complaint from management which threatens her with disciplinary action for the distribution of leaflets as the company alleges this could potentially “spread the coronavirus”!

The COVID-19 pandemic has created one disaster after another in Latin America, exposing the naked contempt of the ruling class for the workers of the region. But with the memory of Red October still fresh, this explosive new development is preparing revolutionary upheaval in the near future.

The 73 years that have passed since the transfer of power from British India to the native ruling classes of the Indian subcontinent has not alleviated the dire poverty, misery and exploitation of the vast masses of populace, and in particular the sanitation workers.

The coronavirus pandemic is a turning point in history. The world economy is receiving one savage blow after another. Healthcare systems are totally overwhelmed in the advanced capitalist countries as a result of decades of attacks on living standards. The inefficient and ghastly nature of capitalism is in full display in the west, where people until recently enjoyed at least a semi-civilised existence. In Africa, Asia and Latin America the consequences of a full-scale outbreak will be catastrophic.

It would be hell if the Covid-19 breaks out in Nigeria on the scale presently being witnessed in Europe and the US. Apart from the dire state of the healthcare system, 69 million Nigerians have no access to clean water. This invariably leads to water-borne diseases like cholera, which continue to break out as regular epidemics. Social distancing and self-isolation presuppose that people have enough space. In Lagos where we have over 100 slum areas, about 80 people can be found sharing a 10-room building with only two toilets and a bathroom being shared by all with no pipe-borne or treated water readily available.

Since mid-March, the National Education system is supposed to ensure pedagogical continuity for nearly 12 million primary and secondary students. Far from the meticulous preparation praised by Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, pedagogical continuity has been set up with a mixture of approximation and improvisation. This has plunged students and staff into great confusion, while, at the same time, reinforcing social discrimination.

The ongoing crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the world political situation. In Defence of Marxism has risen to the occasion, stepping up our coverage and our activities. The big response we've received from our readers show that the ideas of Marxism are more relevant than ever. Read and share our coverage, and donate to our financial appeal, to educate yourself and help build our forces for the battles to come!

Health and safety is not the first priority of the Austrian government - despite all its solemn assertions. The government sees its primary task in ‘protecting Austria’s appeal as a business location’. This is the lesson to be drawn from the three new legislative packages that result in the revision of 85 statutes and create 7 new ones. The new sweeping laws have been passed in a split vote by a majority. Only votes against came from FPÖ and NEOS.

Lucha de Clases has interviewed Jesús Suárez and Pedro García, members of the Fertiberia-Avilés factory committee within the Trade Union Confederation of Workers’ Commissions (CCOO), on the current COVID-19 crisis and how it is affecting the worker and business activity. Fertiberia manufactures fertilizers and industrial chemicals.