Review of Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India: Popular Mobilisation in the Long Depression by Jörg Nowak

The central argument of this book is that ‘Only a theory of strikes that goes beyond a focus on trade unions and the workplace will be able to grasp the forms of labour conflict that affect the majority of the world population, and the global working class, which lives in non-core countries’ (p.3). Jörg Nowak states that this claim emerges from his investigation of two strikes in the Indian automobile sector and three in the Brazilian construction sector, in the course of which workers created new forms of organisation and allied with other actors who were not all waged workers.

The Enemy of Our Enemy May Be Equally Our Enemy

The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban raises issues for socialist internationalists. On one side, the departure of US and NATO forces, which had inflicted so much violence and suffering on the people of Afghanistan, is a cause of celebration for many. Those who celebrate include some who refuse to acknowledge that the people of Afghanistan had earlier suffered well over a million civilian deaths at the hands of Russian imperialism. But can we really celebrate the fact that a brutal, authoritarian, misogynist armed group like the Taliban has taken over the state? The fact that they are now in power is certainly not a victory for the working people of Afghanistan.

What this example illustrates is a dilemma that has confronted us for a long time: However vehemently we oppose Western imperialisms, we have to recognise that among the other forces opposing them are some that are equally brutal and authoritarian. We have to reckon with the possibility that genuine support for working people in other countries or our own country may mean confronting two or more enemies who may be fighting against each other but are equally inimical to the self-emancipation of the working classes, and may even be making deals behind the backs of the people they claim to represent, as Trump did with the Taliban. Genuine anti-imperialists must oppose all oppressive forces.