United States

In bourgeois mythology the first settlers to America were free men and women who built a democratic and egalitarian society from scratch in the New World. The reality is that the American proletariat was born into bondage and slave labour, faced barbaric punishment if it resisted, and was forced to struggle for its basic rights against a brutal capitalist regime that most resembled a prison without walls.

The massacre of innocent lives at Sandy Hook elementary school is a horrific reminder that short of a thorough revolutionary transformation of society the spread and depth of decomposing capitalism can only find expression in ever more barbaric, senseless, and violent acts.  There is absolutely nothing in the capitalist system that is capable of offering a meaningful understanding of why such an act could even be conceived, let alone a viable proposal for change.

It is often said that the history of the class struggle in America for the last four decades, that is, since the late 1960’s, is the history of an almost uninterrupted wave of defeats and rollback.Is it then correct to conclude that the working class has lost its battle against capitalism? Should we accept  that we are at the point where the reversal of the balance of forces in favor of the working class is no longer possible?  Are the struggles that the working class still engages in a sign of its waning, a reflection of a slow, but irreversible process toward all-out defeat?  Does all of this mean that the working class is no longer the social force in society that has the potential and historic mission to destroy capitalist relations of exploitation and give birth to a communist world?

All around the world people have seen the images of coastal towns’ destruction and the desolation of the hundreds of thousands left homeless –40,000 in New York City alone.  They evoke the recent memories of last year’s tornado in Joplin, Missouri; of last year’s hurricane Irene; of 2005’s hurricane Katrina, to name only a few, and only the ones that struck the US. Each time the same questions are raised...

In this two-part series of articles about the employed and unemployed workers’ struggle of the 1930’s we have looked at what seem to us to have been the strengths and weaknesses of that movement. We think that this kind of assessment is important in the context of the present economic crisis and the struggles that it has given birth to, especially regarding the development of protest movements such as Occupy Wall Street. In this first part we will look at the present attacks against the working class, and especially the unemployed. Then we will start the examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the movement of the 1930’s. In the next article, we will focus more in detail on its weaknesses and broach the question of what lessons to draw for the present and future struggles of the class.

As the Republican primary elections dominate the media, the battle for the White House next fall is finally beginning to take shape. It’s pretty clear that the main factions of the U.S. ruling class are pushing for an Obama vs. Romney presidential election contest. After months of a chaotic Republican primary contest in which a series of conservative and Tea Party inspired candidates dominated the polls only to fall to one of their many rivals in short order, the field of candidates has finally narrowed.

It appears that the main factions of the U.S. bourgeoisie will likely get the presidential election match-up they want.

While homeowners are left to their own devices as to how to repair damage or relocate altogether as they discover that their insurance does not cover flood damage, they, and the rest of the population, are treated to a shameless display of political exploitation and disregard for human suffering by our exploiters. Whether to the right or the left or at the center of the capitalist state’s political apparatus, the politicians are trying to reap political benefits from the devastation.

Spurred on by the deepening economic crisis, the aggravation of imperialist tensions to a point of paroxysm, and the more and more apparent inability of the bourgeoisie to offer any viable solution to the worsening deterioration of the environment, a maturation of class consciousness has been brewing below the surface for a number of years. This maturation is following a difficult and non-linear path, and in the last few years it has manifested itself not only in the return of the class to the path of struggle, but also in a veritable world-wide explosion of discussion circles, reading groups, internet discussion forums, and individuals in search of political answers and clarification.

This past summer the ICC held a number of public forums across the US, which provided the opportunity for comrades from the ICC to meet a wide range of people and discuss a variety of issues with them.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlights the complete absence of care and the incredibly dangerous character of the search and use of natural resources by capitalism.

August 29 sees the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans flood and the war subsequently declared by the US bourgeoisie on its innocent victims. If this event had happened in an underdeveloped country it would have been shocking enough, but to occur in the richest country in the world indicates the bankruptcy of the capitalist system.

Capitalism in its death throes cannot offer any perspective to humanity and the planet. In fact, the longer the oil continues to gush, the clearer the bankruptcy of the system becomes.

California is the epicenter of the developing student movement against cuts to public education. This article will analyze the specific origins of the March 4 (M4) and tendencies involved in the movement, which were only briefly enumerated in the previous article.

Another mine tragedy has this time taken the lives of 29 miners. Combined with similar recent mine disasters in Russia and Mexico, the world is once again grimly reminded that even in the so-called ‘post-work information age', significant numbers of workers continue to make their living putting in long hours in dangerous conditions.

On 20 April 2010 an explosion rocked the floating rig Deepwater Horizon about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The rig finally sank on Thursday, April 22, causing the worst oil spill in history and leaving the blown-off drill pipe gushing millions of gallons of oil and methane gas into the ocean every day.

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The dramatic Republican victory in the Massachusetts Jan. 19th election which destroyed the Democrats filibuster proof margin in the Senate seems for the moment to have thrown the bourgeoisie's plans to "reform" health care into complete disarray. 

In early January Internationalsm hosted its second weekend-long Days of Discussion conference in New York, once again bringing together sympathizers, readers, and correspondents from across the US and Canada for the opportunity of political discussion and theoretical deepening.

The British government has been embarrassed by revelations that it has used ‘torture by proxy'. It was alleged that part of the UK's secret service, MI5, was involved in questioning suspects while they were being tortured by the secret services of Pakistan and the United States.

This is 2009 and with the new year comes a brand new president predicting that the economy will get worse before it gets better, a new congress ready to act where the past one fumbled, and a great new economic team educated at the most prestigious American institutions, with fresh ideas on how to save capitalism from catastrophe. Yet given the fact that so far the bourgeoisie has failed to contain the crisis, the odds for Obama's success are definitely not good.

This statement was produced by the ICC's section in the USA just after the presidential election, when ‘Obamania' was in full flow.

The President of the USA is often described as the ‘most powerful man in the world'.The US President does have many formal powers, but ultimately he is just the most prominent figure in a whole state capitalist class. After the votes are counted the faces can change, but the same capitalist state still dominates every aspect of American society.

The ruling class likes to call the period of time that goes from one recession to another a "recovery." What was unique about this alleged period of capitalist "prosperity" was that the living conditions of the working class actually continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate.

The following text was prepared as a contribution to a discussion on the lessons the 1960's initiated by the primarily Chicago-based Platypus group, which is involved in the revived SDS organization. In the spring issue of their publication, the Platypus comrades reported on their frustration on the cancellation of a public panel discussion on the political experiences of the 1960's after Mike Klonsky and Rick Ayers, prominent SDS leaders from 40 years ago, abruptly withdrew from the forum after seeing the questions that would be posed to the panelists.

As this issue of Internationalism goes to press, details are still emerging regarding the senseless mass slaughter of 33 people-including the apparent shooter who committed suicide-on th

In this article, the second in the series, we will see how far the IWW’s theory and practice allowed it to live up to its own goals, and to the greatest challenge yet faced by the workers’ movement world wide: the outbreak of history’s first great inter-imperialist conflict in 1914.

We continue our series on the experience of anarcho- and revolutionary syndicalism with the first of a two-part article on the Industrial Workers of the World.

The following article was written before election day by a comrade of the ICC's section in the US.

The capitalist propaganda barrage that accompanies each electoral circus always promotes the democratic mystification, the capitalist political swindle that tries to convince the working class that its participation in choosing the particular politician who will formally preside over the capitalist class dictatorship for the next few years means that it is free. While it is fashionable this year for journalists, politicians, pundits, professors, and clergymen to proclaim that this is the most important election in a generation or in our lifetime, one must note that similar claims were made in many previous elections. From the perspective of the democratic mystification, there is no such thing as an 'unimportant' election.

In the last few months the ruling class has unleashed an incredible barrage of democratic campaigns to confuse and disorient the working class. The democratic mystification is used skillfully by the bourgeoisie in diverting political discontent within the working class into harmless traps that keep workers tied to the state and dilute the working class within a broader "civic movement" (interclassist people’s movements). Notable democratic campaigns in recent months include not only the union reform campaigns and the ongoing presidential campaign mentioned above, but also those centered on anti-police brutality and corruption movements, the ideological campaign around investing in the stock market, the Elian Gonzalez affair, and the anti-globalization movement.

Prior to the 1930s, only the AFL, organized in craft unions, represented a significant organization, though it represented only a small minority of the working class and pursued conservative policies. Industrial unions, organizing workers in mass production industries, such as auto, steel, rubber, electrical, aviation, etc., were created only in the 1930s, by the CIO, under state sponsorship, as part of the New Deal run-up to World War II, for which they were needed to assure a reliable, disciplined workforce.