In four days, a million German residents signed the farmers’ petition “Against the abolition of discounts on agricultural diesel fuel and exemption from vehicle tax.” The people support the farmers’ uprising, despite the fact that, if necessary, they threaten to paralyze the entire country.
“In the worst case scenario, cancellation means more farms will have to close due to rising price pressures. Thus, more food will be imported along long, high-emission transport routes, an ironic consequence of the “climate-damaging subsidy cuts,” says the explanatory text of the petition launched by young farmer Marie-Sophie von Schnechen.
If the government does not cancel the plans by January 8, farmers will go on a nationwide strike.
“Farmers receive support not only from millions of citizens, but also from the opposition CDU/CSU.” CDU agriculture expert Stefan Bilger confirmed to NIUS that “German farmers have every reason to protest.” He explained that the government is seeking to solve its problems at the expense of the peasants, reducing them “almost 6 times more subsidies than the rest of the economy.”
Currently, more than 250 thousand farms benefit from subsidies.
How should a communist approach this? On the one hand food security and the survival of German agriculture is extremely important and something we should all fight for. One the other hand the farmers seem to carry a lot of reactionary baggage with them. Basically missatributing the cause to the “left” government and not capitalism. Should we try to separate these from one another, and is that even possible? Atm I’m leaning towards critical support but I’m very unsure which is why I’m asking for opinionsm
Collectivization, if you want to go the Lenin route. Convert them, you want to go the Mao route. Just don’t do what the golden path did.
Regardless of the route, we would first need to find out how their conditions can be bettered, and if there are progressive elements within the farmers to empower.
Regardless of reactionary baggage, there are always progressive elements that we can polarize to align with our cause, which is helped greatly by bettering their material conditions.
collectivization is the only way forward. it is very complicated because it varies country from country, some had land reform and some didn’t, some did limit the amount of land a person could own and some didn’t.
Countries like mexico are in a bad spot, the ejido land reform was an historic necessity back then but now it is hindering the development of agriculture in mexico. efficient farmers can’t scale their operations with bigger and more efficient equipment because land is limited by law and land is very fragmented.
Great answer, thanks comrade! Edit: also what is golden path?
assuming they probably mean shining path
A rebel group in Far Cry 4. I had meant to say shining path
I think critical support and education should be the goals. The job of the communists is to provide a compelling narrative that explains why the standard of living is declining that can compete with the narrative the right created. As material conditions continue to deteriorate, more and more people will start losing faith in the system, at which point they become open to alternative views. Unfortunately, the right currently far ahead in promoting their narrative of why the conditions are declining, and hence why we’re seeing people flooding to the right in Europe. My view is that the main issue with with the failure of communication from the communist left.
How do we make sure that these aren’t petty-bourgeois, if not large farmholders (a la Trucker’s protest in Canada) but more of an potential revolutionary agricultural proletarian type…?
I’ve heard past news in the Netherlands about something reactionary like that, and it had to with the gov’t regulating fertilizer use for farmers
The only things we can realistically do is to go out and talk with people, and try to radicalize them to our point of view. At the end of the day, there are far more working class people than there are large business owners. It’s a matter of doing outreach, and organizing people around an idea.
Was Canadian trucker protest petit bourgeoisie?
The Canadian trucker protest was funded by anti-vax reactionaries across both Canada and the US.
A bit, but more on the labor aristocratic side, I guess…
You see, the political issues of the Truckers’ Convoy wasn’t much on wages or salaries, working conditions, paid leave, medical insurance, but rather on vaccine mandates, which is a core issue for Reactionary IDpol…
Not to mention, in terms of working class orientation, no Union, as far I am concerned, has supported them…
Here’s a primer: https://communist-party.ca/freedom-convoy-a-dangerous-movement-for-the-working-class-but-useful-for-the-ruling-class/
That being said, the anti-vax mandate was more of a class infighting between more rural-based petty bourgeois reactionaries and the professional managerial classes’ liberals
Critical support, I think. Farmers are the lifeblood of any sensible society, and in the imperial cores, you’ll find reactionary baggage even amongst some of the homeless and unions.
On the other hand, I’m less certain in regards to this. Critical support all the same, but is food security and local agriculture (overwhelmingly positive things) in the imperial cores, something that benefits the cause of socialism, or even anti-imperialism, globally- or even within Germany? I’m not an accelerationist (so critical support) but another commenter here noted, for instance, the role agricultural subsidies in the imperial cores have in the economic imperialism waged abroad. If western countries such as Germany (and the EU in general- it’s been a unending series of Ls from the bloc, really) want to undermine the very foundations of a working society in their countries, while we should work against these things, when they (usually, inevitably) pass anyways, hell if I know if it’s a great loss for the majority of humanity, rather than part of the process where the capitalists sell us the rope we’ll use to hang them with.
Good point! Edit: can you elaborate on how agricultural subsidies further imperialism?
I’m not the expert on this- someone else mentioned it in thread. But I am halfway aware of how it goes about, and it’s basically the same logic as how industrial subsidies, alongside the forcing open of developing markets, is a common tactic in neo-imperialism.
Basically- through extensive subsidies and the benefits of modern, industrial farming, developed countries can overwhelm the native industries (agriculture included) of developing nations, and do so at a lower price. Usually this also involves strongarming said nations into dismantling the necessary protectionism for maintaining their own indigenous industries. In this way, they can essentially (financially) starve out local agricultural producers and seize more and more of the market share- from there they can go several routes- like buying up local farmland, etc. on the cheap, or using these circumstances to then go on to threaten the developing nation’s food security or affordability as a means of gaining further concessions.
I’m not sure to what extent Germany can be said to be guilty of the above, though. The US is definitely the worst offender by a overwhelming margin.