Korean Elections: Break with the bourgeois political forces and wage class war against the ruling class!

In line with our analysis of the shift in capitalism’s centre of gravity towards Asia (see our contribution entitled: Geo-economic bipolarization and global class struggle), we are publishing below an analysis by an internationalist revolutionary group in Korea (Internationalist Communist Perspective) of the outcome of the latest elections in that country. We underline this conclusive passage:

We have been fundamentally opposed to all tactics based on parliamentarism and trade unionism for a long time. For the self-organization of the working class, we have appealed for the spread of workers’ struggle from below, beyond parliamentarism and trade unionism, for the realization of workers’ democracy, and the strengthening of class solidarity. After the election, the tasks of the working class have not changed. In the context of a deepening capitalist crisis and a move towards generalised war, the bourgeoisie’s attacks on living standards cannot be stopped without a massive counter-offensive by the working class. Since the current successive crises are all caused by capitalism, we must resolutely refuse to accept unilateral sacrifices by the working class and wage an all-out struggle for the right to survive.

As long as the capitalist system continues, we will never be able to escape from the shackles of economic crisis, war and massacre, ecological destruction, and workers’ sacrifice. The only solution is the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement with communism, a society in which the means of production are no longer in the hands of capitalists or the state, but are socialised, in which production and distribution are in harmony with humanity and nature.

Another bourgeois election is over. From a bourgeois political point of view, the result of this election is a defeat for the Yoon Suk-yeol regime and a victory for the opposition, but for the working class, it is a ’victory for capitalism’ with nothing to hope for no matter who wins.

As with all elections over the decades, this general election was a major obstacle to the development of workers’ struggle and self-organization. And the public’s anger against the Yoon Suk-yeol regime was just restricted to voting on the ’government’s record. The two years of Yoon’s regime demonstrated the violence and total incompetence of the bourgeois dictatorship in the face of the deepening capitalist crisis. The living conditions of the proletariat continued to deteriorate as prices skyrocketed, real wages fell, trade unions were cracked down on, and welfare was cut. In addition, the Yoon administration’s evasion of responsibility for the massive social catastrophe, its support of the discharge of contaminated water from Fukushima, and the medical riots caused by the confrontation over the increase in the number of students in medical schools (for the general election) have put people’s safety at risk. Depending on the level of workers’ struggle and their ability to fight back, this situation could either hasten the downfall of the Yoon regime or pave the way for the revival of class struggle and class identity.

However, the bourgeois elections completely served their purpose of absorbing class discontent into the system and reorganizing ruling class power. The anger of the working class was distorted into support for yet another bourgeois faction. The Democratic Party, which won the majority in this election, was the same ’liberal nationalist bourgeois force’ that formed the Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun, and Moon Jae-in governments. Although they pretended to oppose conservative ideology, they were hostile to socialism and communism, and consistently maintained policies that oppressed the working class.

Immediately after the election, the police used merciless violence against a rally in support of workers engaged in a sit-in protest, arresting 17 people and causing many injuries. This shows that in a capitalist society, the actual power institutions exist outside of parliament as controllers of the means of production who exercise state violence. As a result, bourgeois elections not only fail to change the system of exploitation, they are also an obstacle to everyday workers’ struggles. Every election is essentially a victory for capitalism.

The Korean general election has further subordinated the already bankrupt so-called "progressive-left" to bourgeois politics. The social-democratic party (Justice Party), which had been the left of capital as a bourgeois political force, failed to win any seats in the elections, whilst a nationalist party (Progressive Party) joined hands with the Democratic Party and established itself as a bourgeois political force.

Meanwhile, the Labor Party, which is inherently parliamentarian, only strengthened the grip of parliamentarism within the workers’ movement through unprincipled candidate tactics. The Labor Party, which claims to be socialist, promoted the illusion that it could defend working-class politics and workers’ struggles by running candidates. They ultimately ended up imitating bourgeois politics by begging for parliamentary votes. They raised demands at the level of a bourgeois civil movement organizations as election pledges and used election tactics in the bourgeois political space which were not based on workers’ struggles. This just subordinates the workers’ movement to bourgeois politics.

As soon as the election was over, most of the so-called progressive-left and socialist groups talked about analysis of election votes, made criticisms of the election coalition, analysed the regime’s failures, and the decline of progressive parties and workers’ political power. However, they did not discuss the nature of bourgeois elections and the negative effects of parliamentarism, which are important to the working class. Now that capitalism is in decline, the bourgeois electoral system (democracy) has become entrenched in its tendency to encourage workers’ passivity and has become an important factor in managing the systemic crisis. Therefore, we must reject bourgeois elections themselves with the perspective of destroying bourgeois politics. The ‘Parliamentarism’ politics that has deceived the working class for a long time still dominates the workers’ movement today. No matter how difficult it may be, the working class can self-organize and create a new subject only through a break with this declining movement.

The bourgeois electoral circus is over. Elections are short, but the crisis of capitalism is long and deepening. The working class must break with bourgeois politics and wage a full-scale struggle for the right to survive, rather than being interested in the outcome of elections that do not help improve their living conditions. Workers must break the illusion of that changing the government will improve their iives. The working class can achieve nothiing by voting or in collaboration with bourgeois political forces.

We have been fundamentally opposed to all tactics based on parliamentarism and trade unionism for a long time. For the self-organization of the working class, we have appealed for the spread of workers’ struggle from below, beyond parliamentarism and trade unionism, for the realization of workers’ democracy, and the strengthening of class solidarity. After the election, the tasks of the working class have not changed. In the context of a deepening capitalist crisis and a move towards generalised war, the bourgeoisie’s attacks on living standards cannot be stopped without a massive counter-offensive by the working class. Since the current successive crises are all caused by capitalism, we must resolutely refuse to accept unilateral sacrifices by the working class and wage an all-out struggle for the right to survive.

As long as the capitalist system continues, we will never be able to escape from the shackles of economic crisis, war and massacre, ecological destruction, and workers’ sacrifice. The only solution is the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement with communism, a society in which the means of production are no longer in the hands of capitalists or the state, but are socialised, in which production and distribution are in harmony with humanity and nature.

Break with the bourgeois political forces and wage class war against the ruling class!
Reject the sacrifices of workers due to the crisis and war of capitalism and wage a class war to overthrow the capitalist system!

lee
25 April 2024
Internationalist Communist perspective