Report on the class struggle (May 2025)

26th Congress of the ICC

Report on the class struggle (May 2025)

Below we publish the report on the class struggle presented at the 26th Congress of the ICC. This document, written in December 2024, does not take into account the events that occurred in 2025 (Trump's return to the White House, massive struggles in Belgium, etc.), but the validity of the perspectives outlined remains. This report develops important elements of analysis on what the ICC calls the “rupture” in the dynamic of the class struggle and on the impact of decomposition on the working class.

 

The resolution on the international situation adopted at the 25th International Congress analysed the dynamics of the class struggle as follows: “The revival of workers’ combativity in a number of countries is a major historical event which is not the result of local circumstances alone and cannot be explained by purely national conditions. Driven by a new generation of workers, the scale and simultaneity of these movements testify to a real change in the mood of the class and break with the passivity and disorientation that prevailed from the end of the 1980s to the present day”. The Summer of Discontent in the UK in 2022, the movement against pension reform in France in the winter of 2023, the strikes in the USA, particularly in the car industry, at the end of the summer of 2023, remain the most spectacular manifestations of the historical and international dimension of the development of workers' struggles. The strikes lasting almost 7 weeks by Boeing employees and the unprecedented strike by 45,000 dockworkers in the USA in the middle of the presidential election campaign represent the latest episodes in the real break in the dynamic of the class struggle compared with the situation in previous decades. Moreover, as we write the first lines of this report, the working class of the major economic powers is preparing to undergo unprecedented attacks as a result of the accelerating economic crisis, heralding major reactions by the class in the months ahead. But this movement of renewed combativeness and development of the subterranean maturation of class consciousness is taking place in a context of worsening decomposition, where the simultaneous effects of the economic crisis, the chaos of war and the ecological disaster are fuelling an infernal whirlwind of destruction. Trump's comeback to the White House, signifying a real rise in power of the populist current in American society, is going to constitute an additional weighty obstacle which the class struggle is going to have to confront not only in the USA but also on an international scale. The aim of this report is to provide a basis for reflection which will enable the ICC to deepen its understanding of the current dynamics of the class struggle and its historical implications. But also to assess in more detail the obstacles facing the proletariat, in particular the impact of the effects and ideological manifestations of decomposition.

 

I - The reality of a rupture in the dynamic of class struggle

The analysis of the rupture in the dynamic of class struggle from the summer of 2022 has been greeted with scepticism and even sarcasm within the political milieu, in particular by the historic organisations of the Communist Left such as the Internationalist Communist Tendency and the Bordigist groups. Similarly, doubts and disagreements were expressed at the ICC's public meetings, including by fellow travellers accustomed to the ICC's method and framework of analysis. This situation was exploited by the parasitic milieu[1], such as Controverses, which was quick to use our past analytical errors to mock our current analysis (‘you have over-estimated the class struggle in the past, what's different now?’).

A - Defending the marxist method of analysis

These reactions to our analysis were in fact the expression of a purely empiricist and immediatist approach. On the other hand, if the ICC was able, almost immediately, to recognise a profound change in the series of strikes by the British workers, it was because we were able to draw on our experience, particularly the method which had enabled Mark Chirik to grasp the May 68 movement not as a simple momentary reaction of the working class in France but as the expression of a historical and international movement, whereas the historical groups of the Communist Left  totally missed its significance.

As a result, today, as in the late 1960s, the ICC is the only organisation able to understand the historically significant international dynamic of the development of workers' struggles around the world since 2022. This is the result of understanding:

- the framework of analysis of the decadence of capitalism and the emergence from counter-revolution since the end of the 1960s, unlike the Bordigist current or the analysis of the course to a third generalised war defended by the ICT, implying a politically defeated working class;

- that the accentuation of the economic crisis on a world scale forms the most fertile ground for the development of workers' combativity on an international scale;

- that the development and scale of this workers' combativity from the summer of 2022 onwards in the United Kingdom, unprecedented since the 1980s, in the oldest proletariat in history, was necessarily of historic and international significance;

- that this change of mindset within the class is the product of the development of the subterranean maturation that has been taking place within the class since the beginning of the 2000s;

- that the rupture is not limited to the scale and multiplication of struggles throughout the world, but is accompanied by the development of reflection on an international scale in the different layers of the working class and, in particular, by in-depth reflection within politicised minorities;

- that this dynamic is a long-term one, and therefore contains the potential for the recovery of class identity and the politicisation of struggles (indispensable milestones if the working class is to have the capacity to confront the bourgeois state directly), after decades of a decline in consciousness within the class.

Here lies the strength of the marxist method inherited from the Communist Left: an ability to discern the major changes in the dynamics of capitalist society, well before they have become too obvious to be denied.

 

B - The need to overcome confusion on this question

However, it is vital to fully grasp the consequences and implications of our analysis and to fight against superficial approaches which can arise. Among the main ones are:

- a tendency to reduce the rupture to the scale of the expression of combativity and the development of struggles, neglecting the process of subterranean maturation;

- implying that the development of struggles can enable the working class to counter the effects of decomposition, or that populism weakens the bourgeois state's ability to deal with the reaction of the working class;

- A tendency to see the whirlwind effect and the rupture as two parallel dimensions, watertight one from the other.

Fundamentally, these vacillations express a difficulty in analysing the dynamics of class struggle in the historical context of decomposition. The basic reasons for this include:

- a general tendency to underestimate the negative impact of the phase of decomposition on the class struggle;

- A difficulty in assimilating the now inadequate nature of the concept of the historical course. This contributes in particular to distorting the prism through which the class struggle is viewed: “Thus, 1989 marks a fundamental change in the general dynamics of capitalist society in decadence.

Before that date, the balance of power between the classes was the determining factor in this dynamic: it was on this balance of power that the outcome of the exacerbation of the contradictions of capitalism depended: either the unleashing of the world war, or the development of class struggle with, in perspective, the overthrow of capitalism.

After that date, this general dynamic of capitalist decadence is no longer directly determined by the balance of power between classes. Whatever the balance of power, world war is no longer on the agenda, but capitalism will continue to sink into decay, since social decomposition tends to spiral out of the control of the contending classes”[2].

Consequently, the analysis of two opposing and contradictory poles, developing concomitantly, fits into the framework set out above. However, these two seemingly parallel dimensions of the situation are intertwined. It is in a world fuelled by every man for himself, social atomisation, irrationality of thought, nihilism, each against all, war and environmental chaos, and the increasingly incoherent and destructive policies of the national bourgeoisies, that the working class is forced to develop its struggle and mature its reflection and consciousness. Consequently, and as we have often repeated, the period of decomposition is not a necessity for the march towards revolution, and even less is it in favour of the working class[3]. However, the considerable dangers that decomposition poses for the working class and humanity as a whole must not lead the working class and its revolutionary minorities to adopt a fatalistic attitude and give up the fight. The historical perspective of proletarian revolution is still open!

 

II - Struggles against economic attacks are the road to the recovery of class identity

The repercussions of the crisis will be the deepest and most brutal of the entire period of decadence, under the cumulative effects of inflation, budget cuts[4] , redundancy plans[5] (exacerbated in particular by the introduction of artificial intelligence into the production system) and the drastic reduction in wages. This situation means that the bourgeoisie will have less and less room to manoeuvre in its ability to cope with the effects of the economic crisis, as it has in previous decades, and the planned economic policies of the Trump administration can only have the effect of a further dive into the world economic morass. Consequently, faced with the growing impoverishment and the considerable deterioration in working conditions that the working class will suffer as a result of the intensification of the exploitation of labour power, the conditions will ripen for the working class to fight back. But in this general situation, we must above all take the measure that all these attacks affect simultaneously the three main capitalist countries  (USA, China, Germany). Europe is going to see an unprecedented dismantling of the car industry, certainly on the same scale as that of coal and steel in the 70s and 80s. We must therefore prepare for the emergence of large-scale struggles in the years to come, particularly in the main areas of capitalism, and start now to examine the profound implications of this new situation.

To give just few examples: the German proletariat, which until now has been at the rear guard of the class struggle, is going to play a much more central role in the class struggle against capital. In China, the explosion in unemployment, particularly among young people (25%), will increasingly erode the myth of a modern and prosperous China and will lead to reactions from an inexperienced proletariat still largely influenced by the Maoist doctrine, the ideological weapon of state capitalism.

Similarly, the scale of the crisis has not spared the proletariat in Russia, which is bearing the full brunt of the consequences of the war economy. This leads us to expect reactions from this fraction of our class, without however neglecting the profound weaknesses caused by the counter-revolution and aggravated by decomposition.  

We also need to pay closer attention to the class struggle in the Indo-Pacific region. The year 2024 was marked by strikes in many sectors (automobile, construction, education…) in several countries in the region (India, China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia) against falling wages, factory closures and worsening working conditions.

However, if indeed economic attacks form the most favourable terrain for the development of class struggle - not only in the immediate defensive sense (a vital element in the recovery of class identity) but also in the emergence of a conscious understanding that the mode of production as a whole is totally bankrupt and must give way to a new society - we need to assess more precisely which types of attack are most conducive to the development of solidarity and unity within the class in both the short and long term.

The multiplicity of attacks, for example, company closures and the job cuts that accompany them, are leading to numerous struggles in several central countries at the moment, but they remain largely isolated and lead to a kind of impasse. It is very difficult for workers to fight against factory closures, when strike action alone will not be enough to put pressure on bosses who are already planning to close companies. One example is the difficulty workers at Port Talbot in Wales have had in developing a struggle against the closure of this key steelworks. In fact, more generally, the ICC is going to have to look closely at the impact of mass unemployment on the development of proletarian consciousness. Regarding this direct result of economic crisis “while in general terms it may help to reveal capitalism’s inability to secure a future for the workers, it is nonetheless today a powerful factor in the ‘lumpenisation’ of certain sectors of the class, especially of young workers, which therefore weakens the class’ present and future political capacities”[6]. Consequently, it is only when it has taken a further step in the development of its consciousness, when it is able to conceive of itself as a class with a role to play in the future of society, that the question of mass redundancies and mass unemployment will truly constitute elements enabling the class to mount a united response to the bourgeois state, as well as developing a more in-depth reflection on the bankruptcy of capitalism.

Attacks on wages, on the other hand, can create a more favourable balance of forces. In fact, the struggles that led to the breakthrough in 2022 were essentially about wages. This also seems to have been demonstrated by the latest episode of struggles in the USA over the last few months. Because wage labour forms the basis of the relationship between capital and labour, the question of defending wages is the ‘common interest’ of all workers against their exploiters. This struggle “unites them in a common thought of resistance – combination. Thus combination always has a double aim, that of stopping competition among the workers, so that they can carry on general competition with the capitalist. If the first aim of resistance was merely the maintenance of wages, combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves into groups as the capitalists in their turn unite for the purpose of repression, and in the face of always united capital, the maintenance of the association becomes more necessary to them than that of wages…. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests. But the struggle of class against class is a political struggle”[7].

 

III. War, decomposition and class consciousness

In the period of massive workers’ struggles between 1968-75, when the central countries of capitalism had been through a long period of prosperity, there were still strong illusions about the possibility of restoring the “glorious years”, especially by electing governments of the left. Thus although these movements gave rise to a definite politicisation of minorities[8], notably with the reanimation of the tradition of the Communist Left, the potential for the struggles themselves to give rise to a more general politicisation in the class was limited; and even in the struggles of the 80s, it was still far less clear that the capitalist system was reaching the end of its tether, and the workers’ struggles, even when massive in scale and capable of acting as a block to the drive towards world war, did not succeed in generalising a political perspective for the overcoming of capitalism.

The fundamental result of the stalemate between the classes in the 1980s was the development of the new phase of decomposition, which became a further obstruction to the capacity of the working class to reconstitute itself as a revolutionary force. But the acceleration of decomposition has also made it much easier to understand that the long decline of capitalism has now reached a terminal phase in which the choice between socialism and barbarism has become increasingly apparent. Even if the feeling that we are heading towards barbarism is much more widespread than the conviction that socialism provides a realistic alternative, the increasing recognition that capitalism has nothing to offer humanity but a spiral of destruction still provides the foundations for a future politicisation of the class struggle.

Along with the economic crisis, which remains the essential basis for the development both of the open struggles of the class and the growth of an awareness of the bankruptcy of the system,  the  two elements which most clearly underline the reality of capitalism’s impasse are the proliferation of and intensification of imperialist wars, and the inexorable advance of the ecological catastrophe, most recently symbolised by the massive floods in Valencia which demonstrate that this catastrophe will no longer be limited to the ‘peripheral’ regions of the system. However, as factors in the emergence of a political awareness in the class, the two elements are not equal.

We have long rejected the idea, still clung to by most of the groups of the proletarian political milieu, that war, in particular world war, offers a favourable terrain for the outbreak of revolutionary struggles. In articles written in the International Review of the 1980s[9], we showed that while this conception was based on the real experience of past revolutions (1871, 1905, 1917), and while any class struggle in times of mobilisation for war inevitably poses political questions in a very rapid manner, the disadvantages facing revolutionary movements that arise in direct response to war considerably outweigh the ‘benefits’. Thus

• The experience of the First World War gave the ruling class a very important lesson, which it was to apply very systematically before, and at the closing stages of, the Second World War: prior to launching a global war, first you must impose a profound physical and ideological defeat on the proletariat, and when the miseries and horrors of war provoke any signs of proletarian reactions, they must be crushed immediately (cf the objective collaboration of Allied and Nazi forces in the annihilation of the workers’ revolts in Italy in 1943, the terror bombing of Germany, etc).
• The old schema of revolutionary defeatism, which held that the defeat of one’s own government is favourable to the development of the revolution, as well as containing an inherent ambiguity about the need to oppose all governments in a situation of war, has been demonstrably refuted by the fact that the division between victorious and defeated nations creates deep divisions in the world proletariat, as was most clearly seen in the wake of the 1914-18 war.
• Capitalism’s military technology has ‘advanced’ to the point where fraternisation across the trenches becomes less and less feasible, and it has also made it far more likely than any future world war would rapidly lead to a nuclear escalation and “mutually assured destruction”.

The current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have confirmed that the main obstacles to the capitalist war drive are much less likely to come from revolts in the countries directly engaged in warfare, and more likely to emerge from the central fractions of the proletariat who are only indirectly impacted by imperialist war through the mounting demands of the war economy.

None of this implies, however, that war is no longer a factor in the development of class consciousness and the process of politicisation. On the contrary, we have seen:

• That the omnipresence of war, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, remains a significant factor in the emergence of minorities putting into question the whole capitalist system;
• That the capacity of workers to defend their own class interests in spite of the call for sacrifices in the name of ‘defending freedom’ was a key element in the rupture of 2022. Furthermore, the recognition that workers are being asked to pay for the bloating of the war economy was posed explicitly among some of the more combative workers engaged in the struggles after 2022, notably in France[10].

It's true that in both examples, we are talking more about the politicisation of minorities than the politicisation of struggles. This is not surprising given the number of ideological traps facing those who begin to draw connections between capitalism and war: on the one hand, we have the example of how the populists in Europe and above all the US have recuperated any embryonic anti-war sentiments in the class, even turning it, in the case of the Ukraine war, into a barely concealed pro-Russian orientation. On the other, we have a host of leftists brandishing a version of internationalism which may even appear to denounce both warring camps in Ukraine but which always amounts, in the end, to an apology for one side or the other. And the same leftists, who are generally much more partisan in their support for the “Axis of Resistance” against Israel, are an important factor in the exacerbation of the religious and ethnic divisions stirred up by the Middle East war. It is hardly surprising that a genuine internationalist response to the current wars is limited to a searching minority – and even within this minority, even within the groups of the Communist Left, confusions and inconsistencies are only too evident.

In the concluding section of the Theses of the Decomposition, we put forward the reasons why the economic crisis remains the principal vector in the capacity of the working class to rediscover its class identity and form itself into a class openly opposed to capitalist society, in contrast to the main phenomena of decomposition:

“while the effects of decomposition (eg pollution, drugs, insecurity) hit the different strata of society in much the same way and form a fertile ground for aclassist campaigns and mystifications (ecology, anti-nuclear movements, anti-racist mobilisations, etc), the economic attacks (falling real wages, layoffs, increasing productivity, etc) resulting directly from the crisis hit the proletariat (ie the class that produces surplus value and confronts capitalism on this terrain) directly and specifically; unlike social decomposition which essentially effects the superstructure, the economic crisis directly attacks the foundations on which this superstructure rests; in this sense, it lays bare all the barbarity that is battening on society, thus allowing the proletariat to become aware of the need to change the system radically, rather than trying to improve certain aspects of it”.[11]

These formulations remain essentially valid, even if it’s not strictly true that the destruction of nature is merely an aspect of the superstructure, since it is a direct product of capitalist accumulation and threatens to undermine the very conditions for the survival of human society and the continuation of production. If the worsening ecological crisis can be a potential factor in small minorities[12] calling into question the very foundations of capitalist production, it remains a factor of fear and despair for a large part of the class.  The ecological disaster tends to hit all strata in society in much the same way, even if its most devastating effects are generally felt by the working class and the exploited, and thus remains “a fertile ground for aclassist campaigns and mystifications”, and this tends to restrict the ability of elements perturbed by the ecological disaster to understand that the only solution is via the class struggle. Furthermore, the immediate ‘solutions’ put forward by capitalist states to the deterioration of the natural environment often involve direct attacks on the living standards of a part of the working class, in particular massive lay-offs to replace fossil fuel-based production by ‘cleaner’ technologies. In this sense, demands to save the environment are more often a factor of division than of unification in the ranks of the working class, unlike the economic crisis which tends to ‘level down’ the whole proletariat.

The conclusion to the Theses does not include the impact of war on the development of class consciousness, but what we can say is that:

• The question of imperialist war – like the prolonged and irresolvable economic crisis which lies at its root - is not a specific product of capitalist decomposition but is a central element throughout the whole epoch of decadence;
•  there is a much closer link between economic crisis and war: in particular, the development of a war economy carries with it a very evident and quite generalised assault on workers’ living standards through inflation, intensification of the pace of work, and so on. Resisting this assault on a class terrain, even when founded on a clear internationalist world outlook only in a tiny minority, cannot fail to raise profoundly political questions about the link between capitalism and war, and about the common international interests of the proletariat. This is the principal reason why the politicisation of minorities in a proletarian sense is showing itself to be based on a reaction to the question of war much more than to the more specific phenomena of decomposition, including the acceleration of the ecological crisis. And further down the line, the growing threat and utter irrationality of war will be a real factor in the future politicisation of struggles. But we must emphasise that it is only at the further point in the development of class identity and class struggle that these steps towards politicisation – whether around the question of war or the more characteristic expressions of decomposition, like the ecological crisis – can shift from the level of small minorities to much broader and more open movements of the working class.

 

IV - The ability of the bourgeoisie to use its classic weapons against the working class

However much it is fragmented and weakened by the advancing decay of its own mode of production, the bourgeoisie will never lose the capacity to respond to the development of the class struggle. In response to the revival of struggles since 2022, and in particular to the development of the subterranean maturation of consciousness, we have thus seen the ruling class make ample use of its ‘classical’ instruments for controlling the proletariat:

• The trade unions, which have radicalised their language in anticipation of or response to the outbreak of workers’ combats. This was a very clear element in the struggles in Britain for example, where the leadership of the trade unions most directly involved in the struggles was assumed by very left-wing elements like Mick Lynch of the railway workers’ union, the RMT.
• The leftist groups, particularly the Trotskyists, some of whom (“Revolutionary Communist Party”, “Révolution Permanente”, etc) have begun once again talking about communism and, as already mentioned, can appear to defend internationalist positions, especially in response to the war in Ukraine. Many of these groups have recruited successfully among the young, a muted echo of what took place after the battles of May-June 68 in France.

 

V - The weight of decomposition and the bourgeoisie’s  instrumentation of its main manifestations

As we mentioned above, we have recently heard in discussions that the current struggles of the class could make it possible to push back the effects of decomposition, or that decomposition weakens the bourgeoisie in its capacity to fight back against the working class. Such ideas call into question the idea that decomposition does not favour the struggle of the working class. Fear, withdrawal, despair caused by the generalisation of warlike barbarity; nihilism, atomisation, irrationality of thought engendered by the absence of a future and the destruction of social relations, are all obstacles to the development of class solidarity and of a collective, united struggle, and to the maturing of thought.

But we are also seeing how the bourgeoise is using the products of its own rot against the development of workers’ struggles, in particular:

• Through the campaigns against populism and the far right, the most ‘chemically pure’ product of decomposition, reviving the time-honoured ideology of anti-fascism and the defence of democracy. These campaigns, which will undoubtably intensify in the wake of Trump’s victory in the US election, have the double advantage of persuading workers to place the defence of the democratic illusion above the fight for their own ’selfish’ class interests, and of countering the threat of class unity by dragging different sectors of the working class behind the competing capitalist camps.
• This strategy of division is also seen in the different forms of the “culture wars”, which play on the conflict between the “woke” and the “anti-woke” around numerous issues (gender, migration, environment, etc as well as around the increasingly violent disputes between political parties).
• The development of anti-immigration campaigns by right-wing and far-right parties aims to instil a pogrom atmosphere, scapegoating migrants and foreigners and blaming them for the decline in living standards. This kind of ideological poison can only be countered by the ability of the class to forge its unity and solidarity against the material attacks faced by all proletarians.
• The situation will also be marked by revolts by the intermediate classes, which the bourgeoisie will use to distort workers’ struggles and reflection.

 

VI - The necessity for the proletariat to respond on its own class terrain

Faced with this huge ideological onslaught, the only possible response from the standpoint of the proletariat can be:

• The recovery of the lessons of past combats which can elucidate the sabotaging role of the unions and the left and prepare the ground for the self-organised and unified struggles of a higher phase of the rupture.
• The development, in and around the open struggles, of the proletariat’s sense of itself as a class opposed to capital, indispensable both for the capacity of the class to defend its immediate demands and for the development of an understanding of its historical mission as the gravedigger of capital.

It goes without saying that the revolutionary organisation has an irreplaceable role to play in the evolution of consciousness in this direction. The ability of the ICC to assume its role depends precisely on its ability to take the measure of the immense challenges facing the working class in the decades to come.

ICC, May 2025

 

 

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[1] We are referring to small groups or individuals, animated by resentment, whose ‘militant’ life consists of casting discredit upon, or trying to destroy, revolutionary organisations. Revolutionary organisations have always had to defend themselves against this real scourge and the Communist Left has not been spared by it. See The marxist foundations of the notion of political parasitism and the fight against this scourge on our website

[2] Report on the question of the historic course, International Review No 164.

[3] “During this period, it must aim to resist the noxious effects of decomposition in its own ranks, counting only on its own strength and on its ability to struggle collectively and in solidarity to defend its interests as an exploited class (although revolutionary propaganda must constantly emphasize the dangers of social decomposition). Only in the revolutionary period, when the proletariat is on the offensive, when it has directly and openly taken up arms for its own historic perspective, will it be able to use certain effects of decomposition, in particular of bourgeois ideology and of the forces of capitalist power, for leverage, and turn them against capital”. Theses on decomposition, International Review107

[4] The French government is planning to save several tens of billions of dollars, while Elon Musk has promised to cut nearly $2,000 billion from the federal budget.

[5] Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs are under threat in the main countries at the heart of capitalism (France, Germany, the UK, the USA, etc.) in the months and years ahead.

[6] Theses on decomposition, International Review107

[7] Karl Marx, Poverty of Philosophy, chapter II, Section V. Workers‘ strikes and combinations’.

[8] See the report on class struggle to the 24th congress for the distinction between the politicisation of minorities and the politicisation of struggles (Report on the international class struggle to the 24th ICC Congress, International Review 167). The article entitled  After the rupture in the class struggle, the necessity for politicisation in International Review 171 provides a basis for examining this question in greater depth in order to understand  its profound significance in the phase of decomposition.

[9] Why the alternative is war or revolution,  International Review 30, and The Proletariat and War, International Review 65.

[10] In Iran, which has recently seen a series of strikes and protests among health, education, transport, and oil workers, along with retirees from the steel industry faced with sharply rising prices. Their understanding that the inflationary surge is a product of the war economy was expressed in the slogan raised in the cities of Ahvaz and Shush:“Enough with warmongering, our tables are empty.”

[11]  Theses on decomposition,, International Review 107.

[12] The development of such minorities, or rather the objective need to derail them from arriving at a coherent critique of capital, explains the emergence of a radical wing of the ecological protest movement, notably the advocates of “degrowth”.