The bloody attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall on 22 March, Putin's cold cynicism in Ukraine, the murderous hardline of the Netanyahu government's mass slaughter and starvation of civilians... all this confirms that the capitalist system is bankrupt, that bourgeois society is well and truly being sucked into a vortex of destruction and widespread chaos. And this process can only accelerate, as in the frightening unravelling of the Middle East, where the risk of a catastrophic direct confrontation between two regional powers, Israel and Iran, is immense.

The ICC has repeatedly highlighted the historical dynamic of chaos that has reigned over capitalist society since the disappearance of the blocs and the inevitable weakening of American leadership on the planet. Discipline between "allies" is now tending to disappear, and the sordid imperialist interests of the major and minor powers are running riot. Even a US ally like Israel, which depends entirely on US protection, has the freedom to do as it pleases, to step up its provocations, such as the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, and to unleash chaos in the region that Washington is trying as best it can to curb. As for Iran, it has been adding fuel to the fire since the start of the war in Gaza (through Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis) and has just taken the confrontation a step further by launching a massive air attack directly against Israel. Despite the desperate attempts of the United States to contain the flare-up, developments in the Middle East confirm the continuing decline of its power over the world and risk dragging the region towards a generalised conflagration.

The bourgeoisie can do nothing about the deadly dynamics of its system. The chronic economic crisis, ecological disasters and wars are the ugly face of the decomposition of capitalism, the rotting on its feet of a society based on an obsolete mode of production, shaped by the exploitation of labour power, competition between all against all and war, and which now has nothing to offer but terror, suffering and death. More and more parts of the world are becoming unliveable for their populations, like Haiti in the grip of chaos, abandoned to criminal gangs, or like many states in Africa and Latin America, opened up to widespread corruption, warlords, mafias, and drug traffickers.

US elections, a source of increased instability

The epicentre of this downward spiral lies at the very heart of capitalism, first and foremost in the world's leading power, the United States. After escalating the chaos of recent decades by trying to impose its role as the world's policeman (in Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular), the US is using every means to counter its irreversible decline, and is not hesitating to trample underfoot its former "allies", now rivals.

The implementation of this policy is also exacerbating tensions within the American bourgeoisie itself, as can be seen from the clashes that are already marking the campaign leading up to November's presidential election. These tensions are fuelling the instability of the American political apparatus, which is becoming increasingly fragmented and polarised, not only by the divisions between Republicans and Democrats, but also and above all by the growing rifts within each of the two rival camps. For the moment, the populist Trump is emerging as the favourite, despite all the attempts to incapacitate him. In fact, the groundswell of populism remains deeply entrenched in American politics, as is also clearly evident in several European countries.

This situation plunges not only the American bourgeoisie into uncertainty but also those in high places throughout the world, as they cannot determine in advance what Washington's position will be on the burning issues affecting world geopolitics. These clashes between factions within the American bourgeoisie (from Trump's inflammatory statements to the political deadlock in Congress over military support for Ukraine) are a major accelerator of imperialist instability.

Bloody deepening of imperialist each against all

Domestic disorder is undermining the credibility and authority of the United States itself, which is also increasingly undermined by a chaotic international situation. This instability is encouraging its major rivals and secondary powers even more: it is bolstering Putin's irrational claims and galvanising Zelensky’s deadly logic of war to the end, and stimulating the war fever of Netanyahu, Iran and its terrorist affiliates. And while China is avoiding any immediate response to Washington's provocations and pressure, it is stepping up its own pressure on Taiwan and the Philippines and looking more openly at the longer-term possibility of strengthening its status as a challenger to Uncle Sam.

The growing aggressiveness of the imperialist sharks, large and small, who are trying to exploit the clashes between bourgeois cliques in the United States, in no way means that they will be spared internal tensions. Putin is caught between the butchery in the Donbass and the terrorist campaigns of Islamic State, whose forces are infiltrating from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, a threat that the ruling clan and its secret services had failed to neutralise despite warnings from various foreign secret services. In China, Xi is faced with a stagnant economy, the destabilisation of the "Silk Roads" project due to the prevailing chaos, and internal tensions within the apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party. Israel's headlong rush is the product of fierce confrontations between the hardline nationalist cliques in power and other factions of the bourgeoisie, as well as the struggle for political survival of Netanyahu, who has been on trial since 2020.

The current instability of US policy is also worrying European bourgeoisies and is tending to accentuate the divisions within the EU itself over the policy to adopt in the face of pressure from NATO and the United States. As a result, the quarrels within the "Franco-German couple", already constrained in a "forced marriage", are intensifying.

The future of humanity does not lie in the ballot box

Faced with the sinking of society into barbarism, the proletariat can expect nothing from the forthcoming presidential elections in America, or indeed from any of the other elections to come. Whatever the outcome of the Presidential election in the United States, it will in no way reverse the trend towards chaos, war and the fragmentation of the world, and the working class will suffer more than ever the consequences of capitalist exploitation. Elections are only important to spread the illusion among the working class that it can influence the course of events by making the "right choice", whereas the electoral circus is nothing more than conflict between bourgeois cliques which are competing ever more sharply for power. Contrary to the lies spread by the Democrats, and in particular by leftist groups, comparing a "progressive" or "lesser evil" camp of Biden to the "absolute evil" of Trump, the proletariat will have to counter the "democratic" discourse, refuse the electoral trap and wage its autonomous class struggle.

As for the bourgeois factions in the US, they are only fighting over the most effective and least costly strategy for perpetuating the American supremacy that they all agree they want to maintain by any means, whatever the consequences for humanity and the planet. Attack Iran militarily or weaken it through an economic blockade? Increase the pressure on Russia to the point of it imploding, or feed the war of attrition? Or threaten the security of its European "allies"? Whatever the answers, they will always be part of the logic of war, and its financing will always demand new sacrifices from workers. In short, whichever faction wins the elections, the result will be further instability, new massacres and a scorched earth policy.

The proletariat must continue its class struggle

In the face of this unspeakable barbarity, in the face of the promise of widespread chaos, the proletariat represents the only possible alternative to save the human race from a destruction determined by the murderous dynamic of a decadent capitalist system. The working class has returned to its struggle, and its revolutionary potential remains intact. It is still able, in the long term, to affirm its perspective and its communist project.

It is for this struggle that we must fight as a class, rejecting from now on the logic of war and sacrifice. The bourgeois rhetoric that presents war as a "necessity" in the name of preserving peace is a disgusting lie! The real culprit is the capitalist system!

EKA, 18 April 2024

Governments are raining down attacks on the working class. Big cuts are being made to state benefits, such as for the unemployed and pensioners, and unemployment is on the rise. Public services are lacking the necessary resources and there is a general lack of support for both the public and private sectors with a shortage of medicines in places. Millions of working class families, even those still "lucky" enough to have jobs, are struggling to make ends meet. Many are having to go hungry because of the increased cost of food, heating, rents, mortgages and petrol for cars. The gas and electricity bills are soaring too. More and more people are having to rely on the charity of Food Banks. And what image could be more damning than that of many hundreds of homeless individuals forced to sleep on the streets of Europe's major capitals and across the major towns and cities of the world’s most developed countries, some even freezing to death.

In the last four years, we have witnessed a succession of dramatic events: the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the massacres in Gaza, the climate catastrophe... This whirlwind of catastrophes has deepened the capitalist crisis and fueled chaos on a global scale[1].  The future that capitalism has in store for us could not be clearer: the worsening economic crisis will only accelerate the threat to humanity. But the economic crisis can provide some benefits too, since it provides the platform and stimulus for working class to develop its fightback and take forward a struggle that can lead to the overthrow of this  bankrupt system!

The proletariat will not succumb to the attacks on its living standards

Faced with such high stakes and with the inexorable and terrifying collapse of bourgeois society, the working class is not resigned to accept a future of pauperisation. For almost two years now, despite the wars and the war-mongering, the struggles of the working class have been widespread and on a massive scale. In many countries, these struggles have often been considered to be "historic" in terms of the number of strikers and demonstrators, but also in terms of the determination of workers to fight for their dignity and living conditions. This is a real turn around after decades of passivity and resignation[2]

In the summer of 2022, the proletariat in Britain began its fightback against the crisis. Month after month, workers went on strike and demonstrated in the streets, demanding better wages and more dignified working conditions, something not seen for three decades! At the beginning of 2023, with strikes spreading in different corners of the world, the proletariat in France mobilised en masse against the government's proposed pension reform. Millions of people, across all sectors and generations, took to the streets determined to fight back together. Then, in the autumn, workers in the United States embarked on one of the most large-scale wave of strikes in that country's history, notably in the automobile sector, which was followed by a public sector movement in Quebec, also described as historic.

More recently, in a country presented as a "social model", the workers at the Tesla factories in Sweden went on strike, followed by actions of solidarity by postal workers who blocked all mail bound for the workshops of the company run by billionaire clown Elon Musk. Dockers in turn blocked four ports and electricians refused to carry out maintenance work on electric vehicle charging points.

In Northern Ireland in January, the largest workers' strike in the region's history also brought together hundreds of thousands of workers, particularly in the public sector, demanding payment of the wages they were owed.

An unbroken fighting spirit

Even today, while war is still raging in Ukraine and Gaza, workers' strikes and demonstrations are continuing to spread around the world, particularly in Europe.

In Germany, Europe's largest economy, railway workers launched a massive historic week-long strike at the end of January. This is the latest in a long series of strikes against extended working hours and for higher wages. In the coming months, the rail network could be affected by indefinite strikes. In the country renowned for "social dialogue", strikes have been unfolding for months in many sectors: strikes in the steel industry, the civil service, transport, health, refuse collection, etc. On January 30, a national rally of 5,000 doctors took place in Hanover. On February 1st, eleven of the country's airports were affected by a strike by security staff, while 90,000 bus, tram and metro drivers also stopped work. 10,000 retail workers were also on strike in mid-February and Lufthansa ground staff were called out on strike on 20 February...

This strike movement, in terms of its broad scale and duration, is also unprecedented in a country renowned for the enormous administrative obstacles erected in the face of every social movement, and the cordon of steel imposed by trade unions that has long enabled the bourgeoisie to impose austerity plans and "reforms" without the working class really reacting. Despite the difficulties in breaking free from the corporatist straitjacket and mobilising "all together", the struggles in Germany are of immense importance and symbolic significance. They are taking place in the heart of a major industrial geographical region, in the country that was the epicentre of the revolutionary wave of the 1920s and the tragic theatre of a long period of counter-revolution. The current movement is clearly part of the international revival of the class struggle.

However, this workers' combativity is not confined to Germany. In Finland, a country with little tradition of industrial strike action, a "historic strike" took place for 48 hours at the beginning of February. Even more recently, dockers paralysed port activity in this country for four days between February 18 and 21. Up to 300,000 people were on strike to oppose the law to “reform workers' rights”. In Turkey, tens of thousands of steelworkers mobilised for months to demand pay rises at a time of rocketing prices. In Belgium, it was the non-commercial sector that went on strike and demonstrated in Brussels on January 31. In Spain, the United Kingdom, France and Greece, strikes continue in many sectors. The bourgeoisie is maintaining a deafening media blackout on these struggles, because it is well aware of the growing discontent among workers and the danger posed by broadcasting reports of such mobilisations.

The old mole is still burrowing

But the breakthrough we are witnessing is not only linked to the massive and simultaneous nature of the mobilisations. The proletariat is beginning to recognise itself again as a social force and to rediscover its identity. Despite all the illusions and confusion, on placards and in discussions, statements that "we are workers" and "we are all in the same boat" could be seen being expressed ..... These were by no means empty words! Because behind these words, solidarity is very real: solidarity between generations, first of all, as we saw very clearly in France when pensioners took to the streets en masse to support "the young"; then between sectors, as in the United States with the honking car horns outside the striking factories or in Scandinavia in defence of Tesla workers.

There were even embryonic expressions of international solidarity. The Mobilier National in France went on strike in solidarity with the cultural workers on strike in Great Britain. Refineries in Belgium went on strike in support of the mobilisation in France, while small demonstrations multiplied around the world to denounce the ferocious repression of the French state. In Italy, while many sectors have been mobilising for several months, bus, tram and metro drivers went on strike on 24 January: in the wake of the movement against pension reform in France, the workers said they wanted to carry out mobilisations "just like in France", demonstrating the links that workers are beginning to recognise across borders and the desire to learn the lessons of previous movements.

The proletariat is also starting to reappropriate its experience of struggles. In Britain, the so-called "summer of anger" explicitly referred to the major strikes of the "winter of discontent" in 1978-1979. In the French demonstrations, references to May '68 and the fight against the CPE in 2006 featured on placards at the same time as the beginnings of a reflection on these movements. And all this at a time when the state is imposing restrictions and continuing to legitimise and justify the war.

Of course, we are still a long way from a massive and profound return of class consciousness. Of course, all these expressions of solidarity and reflection are riddled with confusion and illusions, easily subverted by the bourgeoisie's complementary bodies, the unions and the left-wing parties. But do the revolutionaries who are watching all this from the balcony, scratching their heads[3] , appreciate the shift that is taking place compared to previous decades, decades of silence, resignation, rejection of the very idea of the working class and complete obliviousness of that experience?

The bourgeoisie is still able to take advantage of the immense weaknesses of the working class

While these struggles clearly demonstrate that the working class is not defeated and remains the only social force capable of confronting the bourgeoisie, its fight is far from over. It still suffers from immense weaknesses and illusions, which are cruelly illustrated by the current movements. Until now, the unions have succeeded in controlling the struggles as a whole, keeping them within a very corporatist framework, as can be seen today in France and Germany, while favouring, when necessary, a semblance of unity and radicalism, like the "Common Front" of Canadian unions or the movement in Finland.

During the movement against pension reform in France, many workers, wary of the endless days of mobilisation by the unions, began to ask themselves questions about how to fight, how to unite, how to get the government to back down... but nowhere was the class able to challenge the unions for the leadership of the struggle through sovereign general assemblies, nor was it able to break with the corporatist logic imposed by the unions.

The bourgeoisie is also deploying all its ideological weaponry to undermine the consciousness that is beginning to mature in the heads of the workers. While it remains silent about the massive strikes by the working class, it has of course been very outspoken about the farmers' movement. In Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Spain, etc., the bourgeoisie has once again been able to count on its left-wing parties to extol the merits of methods of struggle that are the antithesis of those of the proletariat and to explain that "the workers' movement must profit from this opportunity"[4]. At a time when the proletariat is timidly beginning to rediscover its class identity, the bourgeoisie is ideologically exploiting the farmers' struggle with a media offensive designed to sabotage the process of the continuing reflection and so deflect attention away from the many workers' strikes.

Nor does it spare any effort to try hitching the working class to the bandwagon of bourgeois democracy. In Europe as in America, the putrefication of its system is giving rise to political aberrations such as Trump in the United States, Milei in Argentina, the Rassemblement National in France, Alternative für Deutschland, Fratelli d'Italia and others.  In response, the bourgeoisie, or at least its factions least corrupted by capitalist decomposition, while seeking to limit the influence of the far-right parties,  are eager to exploit the influence they have over and against the working class. In Germany, in particular, more than a million people took to the streets in various cities, in response to calls from parties on the left and the right, to protest against the far right. Their aim, once more, is to maintain  democratic illusions and prevent the proletariat from waging its historic struggle against the bourgeois state.

One thing is certain, however, is that in the heat of current and future struggles, the working class will gradually find the political weaponry to defend itself against the traps set by the bourgeoisie which will therefore allow it eventually to open the course towards the communist revolution.

 

EG, 20 February 2024

 

 

This year marks 40 years since the miners’ strike began in the UK. On 6 March 1984 exactly, the miners of 20 collieries in the Yorkshire coalfield spontaneously started a strike after the announcement of the planned pit closures. They were followed by tens of thousands of other miners elsewhere in the country. Among them were many who were not immediately affected, but joined the strike in solidarity with the 20,000 miners who were threatened by lay-offs. More than 100,000 workers in a key sector of the working class braved the measures of the Thatcher government and the National Coal Board.

The strike was not an isolated event. It was part of a wave of struggles that had begun with the strike of the public sector workers in Belgium in the late summer of 1983, in response to the lowering of wages. A few weeks later, the same scenario unfolded in the Netherlands, where the government had also decided to cut incomes by 3.5 per cent.

These attacks on the conditions of the working class were an expression of the conditions of the 1980s, the ‘years of truth’, when the bourgeoisie could no longer delay its economic attacks, since the effects of the Keynesian economic policy were as good as exhausted. This time the attack was “not improvised, but has been prepared over several years now by the ruling class at the international level” [1].

In the central countries of capitalism the bourgeoisie had developed “a clear political strategy for confronting the class with the ‘left in opposition', whereby the left fractions were removed from the government teams so that they could pose as opponents of the austerity measures. This was complemented with the deployment of rank and file unionism, using radical rhetoric against the union leaderships’ ‘betrayals’”[2].

Since the beginning of 1984, the French bourgeoisie had launched an attack on the working class in France’s major industrial centres. The policy of “restructurings” and “modernisations” targeted mainly shipbuilding, mines, metal, steel, and even the chemical and telephone sectors. When 12,000 to 17,000 redundancies were announced in Lorraine's steel industry, the lid flew off the social kettle. But the unions managed to keep Lorraine’s steel workers carefully isolated from the rest of the working class, who were also hit by massive layoffs. The unions were able to give the demonstration in Paris a regional flavour, with a large Lorraine cross and majorettes in traditional costume at the front.

Along the lines of the policy of the bourgeoisie in other countries, the British ruling class was determined to inflict a defeat on the working class to prevent it from thwarting the measures of the government. The miners were a very suitable object, since a defeat of the miners, as a key sector of the working class, would certainly have a demoralising impact on the whole class and significantly affect its combativity.

The purpose was not just to close a number of pits, but to inflict if a major defeat on the miners in order to put an  end to  any further class resistance in the UK. Therefore the British bourgeoisie had devised a highly developed strategy, which had been worked out long before (the Ridley Plan of 1977). Its key components were:

• to close the country's unprofitable coal mines, but not all of them at the same time, in order to provoke a possible situation in which parts of the miners went on strike and others continued to work;
• the appointment of a radical union member - belonging to Labour’s left wing - as leader of the NUM.
• to stockpile enough coal in case the extraction of coal could no longer be guaranteed due to a complete shut down in the coal industry;
• the introduction of three new laws to make every strike, organised by the union, subject to stricter rules. For instance the Employment Act 1982 effectively outlawed secondary, or “sympathy” strike action;

• deals with unions in other sectors (transport, steel, energy, etc.) to prevent the outbreak of strikes in these sectors, even if that meant meeting the demands of the workers.    

The situation unfolded more or less as the bourgeoisie had expected. On the basis of the division between the miners who were on strike and those who kept on working, the bourgeoisie, with the help of the NUM and other unions, were able to imprison the workers in the corporatism of the coal industry and to exhaust them in a year long strike. After a year's struggle the miners had to admit that they were defeated, with tens of thousands of miners being effectively laid off, doomed to years of unemployment.

The fact that it remained isolated does not mean that the strike did not have  the strength and the potential to break with the corporatist confines, imposed by the union, and to extend to other sectors of the class. In particular, the opportunity presented itself on two occasions: during the two strikes of the dock workers in the summer and during the strike of the car workers in November. But all the unions, in close consultation with the government and with each other, succeeded in keeping the strikes separated from each other - for example, thorugh the dockers’ union insisting that they were engaged in an “industrial, not a political dispute” so that it had no direct connection to the miners’ strike.. Despite their huge reserves of combativity, the miners allowed themselves to be manipulated by the unions, including the NUM

The working class had lost a battle, but this was not the end of the class war or even of the strike wave. Several more strikes took place around the world and even in the UK, although they no longer had the same dynamic as at the beginning of the wave in 1983, when it was characterised by:

• a tendency towards a broad simultaneity of struggles nationally and internationally;
• a tendency towards spontaneous struggles, with the capacity for initially bypassing the unions;
• a growth in confidence in the proletariat's capacity to defend itself against the attacks [3].

 

An international strategy of the ruling class

“It was the British bourgeoisie (the most intelligent in the world), with the policies of the ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher, which sounded the key-note for the strategy of the ruling class in other central countries, aimed at stopping the dynamic of the class struggle (…) notably in France, the country in Europe where the proletariat had traditionally been very combative” [4].

For instance, after the miners’ strike had ended on 3 March 1985 “the French bourgeoisie (…) set out to lock up the workers in corporatism, taking full advantage of the tendency towards ‘each for themselves’ (which was one of the first phenomena of the decomposition of capitalism)” [5]. This first expression of decomposition, working in a more underhand manner, slowly gained more impact in the second half of the 1980s, giving the anti-proletarian policy of the ruling class a powerful boost in breaking the momentum of the workers’ struggle on all fronts.

The final blow to the strike movement in the 1980s was inflicted by the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the countries of “really existing socialism” (ie the Stalinist variety of capitalism) which ushered in a deafening campaign about the death of communism and the disappearance of the working class. This campaign had a very negative impact on the consciousness and the combativity in the class. The ensuing reflux in struggle was accompanied by a loss of self-confidence and a deep confusion in the proletariat about its identity as a class, which was reinforced by the break-up of many traditionally combative industrial sectors (mines, shipyards, steel, etc) and the policy of “relocations” to countries where labour power was much cheaper. . But despite this historic setback in its struggle, the working class had not been decisively defeated, and contrary to the campaign of the bourgeoisie, it had not disappeared.

Expressions of proletarian unrest continued (for example the students’ movement in France in 2006, and the Indignados movement in Spain in 2011), but nowhere did the working class manage to set the tone and to put forward a clear proletarian perspective. Strikes remained strongly controlled by the official unions, by rank and file bodies or “coordinations”, and generally isolated from each other. Or, in the case of the Indignados, the participants had a great difficulty in seeing themselves as part of the working class – a testimony to the serious loss of class identity that developed during the 90s and 2000s . Above all, pointing to the defeat of the miners, the bourgeoisie succeeded in pushing the message that “struggle doesn’t pay”.

Despite the huge obstacles, the ICC never lost faith in the ability of the working class to take up the struggle again at a later date against the effects of the economic crisis, which continued to fester and deepen. At the same time we were aware that any revival of the struggle would not take place quickly and without a great effort. The fundamental change in the overall conditions facing the class, the opening of the phase of decomposition, required a considerable reorientation in the class about the objectives of the struggle. The reality of a system descending into barbarism through war, ecological destruction and social dislocation made it more necessary than ever for workers to integrate the political dimension into their defensive struggles.

In 2022, more than 30 years later, the confidence in the working class finally materialised in a break with the years of passivity and resignation. It was the working class in the United Kingdom that first declared that  "enough is enough" and, for more than a year, numerous sectors took up the struggle against the effects of the "cost of living crisis". And it did not stop there: the struggle of British workers was followed by workers in France and then by those in various other countries.

In recent years, a new generation of workers has emerged, not weighed down by the defeat of the 1980s and subsequent campaign on the death of communism. “Carried forward by a new generation of workers, the breadth and simultaneity of these movements testify to a real change of spirit in the class and represents a break with the passivity and disorientation which has prevailed from the end of the 1980s up till now” [6].

Since the summer of 2022, through these massive and simultaneous mobilisations, the working class has picked up where the struggle had ended in the late 1980s. The proletariat is again beginning to recognise itself again as a social force and to rediscover its identity as a class. In this sense, today’s struggles are in continuity with those of 35 years ago. Like in the 1980s, the workers are again responding to and fighting against the attacks of the bourgeoisie, no longer as a more or less amorphous mass with no clear class identity, but as a part of the class whose interests are fundamentally opposed to those of the bourgeoisie and its state.

 

Dennis

Since the outbreak of the barbaric conflict in Ukraine and its deterioration into a terrible war of positions, the massacres in Israel and Gaza and the threats of conflagration in the Middle East through a direct conflict between Israel and Iran, the tensions around Taiwan, the uncontrollable appetites of capitalist nations are leading bourgeois politicians to the “discovery” that the capitalist world is a sinister basket of crabs. At the start of the conflict in Ukraine, their speeches immediately tried to convince us that we had to break with "angelism" and agree to prepare for "high-intensity warfare": to make sacrifices in order to fuel new mass murders and destruction! Of course, in the name of "peace" and the "defence of democracy"...

An ideological offensive to justify armament and prepare for war

In a context of accelerating imperialist tensions where every man for himself is the rule, the Western bourgeoisies, in Europe and the United States, are redoubling their efforts to propagate the worst warmongering campaigns in the media. In a totally cavalier move, President Macron, supported by the heads of state of seven European countries, has taken the lead in asserting that the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine "should not be ruled out". In Great Britain, General Patrick Sanders advocated "doubling the size of the British army" and called for ordinary citizens to be prepared for "civic mobilisation". He was joined by the head of NATO's military committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, who said in a speech: "The responsibility for freedom does not rest solely on the shoulders of those who wear the uniform [...]. [...] We need a change of mentality in the public and private sectors from a time when everything was plannable, predictable, controllable, efficiency-driven... to a time when anything can happen at any time". In short, they want to be able to mobilise the population for the "war effort" and prepare troops for combat.

While such statements were widespread and controversial, they were immediately contradicted by the divisions and tensions between the various bourgeois factions. But they all agree on one thing: that we should support one side in the war, in this case Ukraine. All the speeches are unanimous in asserting that "Ukraine is fighting for us" and that "if we lose, the Russian army will be on our doorstep". It was against this backdrop that NATO's seventy-fifth anniversary took on special significance, celebrated with great pomp and circumstance while emphasising that Putin's stalemate in Ukraine did not make him any less dangerous. And while Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made it clear that there were "no plans to send NATO troops to Ukraine", he was keen to point out that "NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to Ukraine".

This is all about preparing people's minds to accept the principle of war and its sacrifices. This is all the more important because, as Rosa Luxemburg pointed out at the time of the First World War, "war is methodical, organised, gigantic murder. In order to bring about systematic murder in normally constituted men, it is necessary [...] to produce an appropriate intoxication. This has always been the usual method of belligerents. The bestiality of thought and feeling must correspond to the bestiality of practice; it must prepare and accompany it"[1].

Naturally, from this point of view, the primary aim of all the warmongering today is to justify the dizzying rise in military budgets everywhere. In this respect, the impressive increases in arms spending in the Scandinavian countries (20% in Norway, for example) and in the Baltic states are highly symbolic of this new frenetic arms race. In fact, all European countries are making major efforts. Poland, for example, is aiming for a record 4% of its GDP (the highest rate within NATO); Germany, with this year's budget (€68 billion), will reach 2.1% of its GDP for the first time in over thirty years; and France is planning to spend a whopping €413.3 billion over seven years.

Today, the involvement and efforts to be made in terms of arms spending are taking on a new quality. However, since the end of the First World War, "peace" has in reality been nothing more than a mystification, with so many corpses piling up. Following the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the new "multipolar world" has only generated chaos, increasingly involving the armies of the great imperialist powers in costly conflicts, first and foremost the armed forces of the United States. But the gigantic sums of money now being planned are being spent in a context of accelerating decomposition and a dramatic deepening of the economic crisis which followed the brutal shock caused by the Covid epidemic.

The need for class struggle

The current situation is marked by stagnating industrial growth, and even signs of recession, while debts continue to grow and inflation continues to erode wages. It is in this very poor context that the bourgeoisie needs to attack the workers even more in order to strengthen its military resources. To put it plainly, the bourgeoisie has no other choice, given the spiral into which it is being dragged by the bankruptcy of its system than to coldly plan attacks with a view to preparing for war and imposing austerity in order to drag us further into its logic of destruction.

Such madness, and the new economic attacks that it entails, can only favour the conditions for a continuation of the class struggle. In reality, the ideological campaigns on war paradoxically reveal that the bourgeoisie is walking on eggshells in its attempt to impose austerity. All its concerns are confirmed by the resumption of workers' struggles at international level, particularly in Western Europe and North America. Such resistance, despite its great weaknesses, testifies to the fact that the working class in these countries is not prepared to "die for the fatherland".

WH, 10 April 2024

The whirlwind of serious shocks to the global economy over the last two years, initially as a result of the corona-virus pandemic and the devastating environmental destruction, and now increasingly as a result of the wars, has put the German economy under severe pressure. While it was possible to keep the economy afloat during the pandemic, mainly thanks to gigantic rescue packages, the war in Ukraine and the associated global offensive by the USA have had a major on its impact at an economic level.

The impact of the war on energy supplies, growth and competiveness

The sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of the war have forced German capital to make major cuts to its energy supply and at the same time have caused huge and lasting price increases across the board, especially in the energy and food sectors. A gigantic programme of renewal and conversion of the energy supply has begun ... and shortly after its adoption, it has already encountered obstacles and difficulties getting the necessary funding.

The switch to new technologies (heat pumps) and the widespread provision of charging stations for electric vehicles, etc. is inconceivable without massive financial subsidies from the state. After initial promises of widespread subsidies, these and other subsidies have now been cut back considerably. Owing to inflation and the accompanying rise in interest rates, the banks are in a difficult position. The situation in the construction industry is most critical and there has already been a reported 30% drop in orders with many construction sites having to shut down.

While the defence industry is booming with a record numbers of new orders, production is collapsing in other parts of the economy, with the result that Germany is registering the lowest growth in Europe and has even slipped into recession. At the same time, inflation has weakened competitiveness,  particularly in the energy market, as the price of gas and electricity in Germany is up to five times higher than that in the USA.

The increased vulnerability of supplies

Furthermore, the Covid pandemic had already exposed some vulnerability due to the heavy dependency on suppliers of medical products from China and India. In an attempt to wrestle Russia to the floor economically, the entire energy sector has been turned on its head, and the new dependencies taking place only create exposure to the likelihood of blackmail and threaten to weaken competitiveness even more. The war in the Middle East and the spread of the conflict across the region has now created new bottlenecks in the supply chains on the Red Sea/Djibouti Strait as a result of the Houthi missile attacks (with ships resorting to longer and more expensive detours around the coast of southern Africa).

Germany's opposition to the US strategy against China and the intensification of US pressure

In addition to the sanctions package against Russia and the attempt to bleed Russia dry economically, the US has also strengthened its package of sanctions against China, both directly and indirectly, targeting all companies operating in China. At the same time, the USA has introduced the Inflation Reduction Act, which is intended to incentivise investment in the USA. This poses the threat of deindustrialisation in Europe. Also, US companies that invest in Europe are being hit by punitive measures from the US government (Ford, for example, has decided to cut back investment at its plant in Cologne, switching it to the USA, with 1700 redundancies). German capital knows that if Trump becomes president again, not only will the tone become harsher, but it also means that conflict between Germany and the US will intensify across many sectors.

The US-China trade war

While the USA wants to bring China to its knees, Germany is simultaneously being squeezed by China. From the global Silk Road project to the acquisition of companies and plants, Chinese competition is pushing further and further ahead. After Germany had gained a considerable share of the Chinese car market, with several German car manufacturers generating around 40% of their sales in China at peak times, China has for some time now been on the offensive in the e-car sector. Alongside Tesla, Chinese competition is the most dangerous for the German automobile sector.

On the one hand, the US threat means that German companies will withdraw from China, either completely or in certain areas, and some German car plants will be converted into (seemingly) independent units in China so it can maintain a local presence.

Should the West's economic war against China escalate, VW China, for example, has plans to separate itself from the parent company at some cost. "Consequentially, German investment in China has recently increased sharply, raising the German investment portfolio there to record levels. Economists admit that this effect of the Western economic war is paradoxical and not actually intended"[1].

In the event of an escalation, production "in China for China" should be able to continue by decoupling and taking advantage of lower Chinese wages. The plan of retaining production in Germany would only lead to dramatic job losses in Germany. This is why the most serious cuts in the automobile industry, which has long been a mainstay of the German economy, are now imminent.

In short, the intensified military offensive against China by the USA, together with the economic sanctions packages, is already putting German capital in a difficult situation.  And with China's dramatic rise over the years, it provided a large market and a workshop for the world, from which Germany was able to benefit for a long time. But this is all now rebounding detrimentally on Germany.

Even though Germany certainly has a common interest in working with the USA to weaken China, it does not want to be marginalised in the process. There will inevitably be more conflicts between the USA and Germany and between Germany and China - and also within the German bourgeoisie in dealing with this problem (it is already a major bone of contention between the SPD and the Greens in the coalition government).

The boomerang: From a beneficiary of globalisation to a period of growing instability

With the opening up to the East and the gradual integration of most countries into the EU, Germany gained many advantages: e.g. access to cheap labour. There would be no building site, no craft business, no delivery of goods without lorry drivers from Eastern Europe and no retirement home or hospital, no agricultural business without low-wage workers, especially from Eastern Europe. In this respect, the downward pressure on wages increased and maintained competitiveness alongside the well-known market expansion into Eastern Europe through the common market. The worldwide surge in globalisation, which had occurred with the integration of China and other parts of the periphery, and which then declined worldwide with the Covid pandemic, the Ukraine war and the attempt to contain China, is now noticeably impacting Eastern Europe. The Ukraine war has destabilised the whole region (for example, with the Poland-Hungary border blockades). The consequences of the war, the renewed dominance of national interests and the strong presence of populist forces throughout Europe are generating more areas of conflict and uncertainties in the economy.

From the mountain of debt to an avalanche of debt

The brutal intensification of competition and the global competition for investment opportunities is forcing every state to sink into spiraling debt, using massive subsidies to attract capital. Competition without gigantic subsidies, using taxpayers' money, is unthinkable. No project of modernisation and/or renewal/repair of infrastructure facilities can take place without injections of state money (billions of euros of support for investments in semiconductor  production facilities is one example). This combination of subsidies, state reconstruction measures and rescue packages had already been systematically introduced after 1989 following reunification, with the result that an astronomically high level of debt has now been reached. As long as interest rates were low or even zero, the cost remained "low". But with the rise in interest rates fueled by the war in Ukraine, a turning point has now been reached.

Unleashing a wave of attacks with the "budget crisis"

The latest "budget crisis" is only the start of the debt frenzy. The latest parliamentary-judicial fiasco has forced the government, or rather it has taken advantage of it, to implement a series of brutal price increases and cuts that will cost every family dearly. Gone are the phases of "temporary relief" and "cushioning the blow" after corona-virus and the "concealment" and cover-up of the costs of the war. A brutal downturn is now imminent. Even if Germany still has the most resources in the EU for the distribution of state subsidies due to its continuing superiority, the benefit is getting smaller and smaller for capital, forcing it to go on to the attack.

The initial consequences of the price increases for gas had already led to redundancies and relocations at the major chemical companies, as well as job cuts. Due to the "green" transition, massive job cuts are imminent in the automobile industry, while many department stores and shops are closing in the retail sector. The watchword everywhere is "cut labour costs"! The resulting shortage of housing and the collapse of investment in the construction sector will mean that tenants will have to spend an even higher proportion of their income on rent[2].

Labour shortage - a new feature of capitalist decadence in the phase of decomposition

Several factors are coming together:

- the demographic problem. As in many industrialised countries, the "native" population is shrinking (we will not go into the reasons here);

- as a result of years of merciless staff cuts and worsening working conditions (especially in healthcare, geriatric care, education and transport), many employees are worn out and suffering from burnout;

- at the same time, as elsewhere (from China to the USA), the motivation to work hard is decreasing, which is driving many to quit their jobs (see the OECD’s 2022 ‘PISA’ study;

- the level of education has fallen in many areas due to a state of decay;

- a lack of unqualified and, above all, qualified personnel (in the semiconductor industry alone, the shortage of skilled workers has risen from 62,000 to over 80,000), in other words, production is being held back due to labour shortages, while a lot of employees in other sectors are losing their jobs.

The crisis no longer has just one face - mass redundancies - it has several faces: redundancies and labour shortages.

At the same time, German capital is handicapped by political incompetence, xenophobia and populism, which is hindering even the influx of qualified labour. Finally, the unbelievable inertia of German bureaucracy should be mentioned. There is no effective management of immigration. All this restricts competivity, while at the same time a whole campaign against illegal immigration is underway and stricter deportation measures have been announced.

What lies in store for us?

As a result of the mounting costs of the wars, the costs of environmental destruction, inflation, the energy crisis, the costs of competition, the costs of debt and the price of decades of neglect - or the deliberate dismantling and decay of infrastructure - the cuts in the education system, the simultaneous incessant rise in costs for the accommodation and maintenance of the unstoppable number of refugees, German capital will have to resort to even more brutal action.

It will also have to avoid pressure from the USA and China. How will the situation in the USA affect the Ukraine war and its financing in particular? What will be the consequences of the worldwide unraveling of globalisation? Will Germany continue to reach joint agreements with the EU, especially with France? So far, the tendencies of every-man-for-himself have also increased here. Generally speaking, even in the Covid era, there was initially a dominant tendency to go it alone and corresponding chaos in dealing with vaccines and masks. No matter how the German bourgeoisie reacts, everything boils down to stepping up the attacks against the working class.

The situation and dynamics of the crisis in Germany are an expression of a global situation in which the entire burden is falling on the shoulders of the working class. We must not accept this and must unite to defend our living conditions at an international level. We will discuss what this means in another article.

TW 19.02.2024

In the past few decades it has become clear that bourgeois civilisation is posing a grave threat to the natural conditions which provide the basis for human existence on the planet. It has also become more and more evident that the main factions of the ruling class are obliged to recognise the severity of the ecological crisis, and even its connection to the other main expressions of a society in decline, above all the flight into militarism and war[1]. This recently acquired “understanding” is not at all cancelled out by the fact that other parts of this same ruling class are retreating into an openly irrational and suicidal denialism regarding the danger posed by climate change and the pollution of air, soil and water. But neither recognition nor denial can hide the fact that the bourgeoisie is proving itself incapable of slowing down, let alone halting the juggernaut of ecological destruction. We can point in particular to the obvious and repeated failure of the spectacular COP conferences of the last few years.

This exposure of the powerlessness of the ruling class has generated the need for a kind of ideological compensation, notably on the part of the left wing of the bourgeoisie. Hence the rise of a kind of “Green Keynesianism”, the notion of a “Green New Deal”, in which the state, by penalising the worst polluters and investing in “sustainable” technologies, would not only be able to prevent climate change from getting out of control, but also to create green jobs and green growth – in short, a healthy green capitalism.

But there are also more radical voices who are quick to point out the shortcomings of this kind of greenwashed capitalism. Foremost among them are the proponents of “degrowth”. Writers like Jason Hickel[2] can easily show that capitalism is driven by the constant need to expand, to accumulate value, and that it must treat nature as a “free gift” to be exploited to the maximum as it seeks to subsume every last region of the planet to the laws of the market. Hickel therefore talks about the need for a transition to a post-capitalist economy[3]. Others, like John Bellamy Foster go further and more explicitly refer to Karl Marx’s growing interest in ecological questions in the later stages of his life, to what they call Marx’s “Eco-Socialism”[4]. But most recently, the books of the Japanese writer Kohei Saito, who is deeply versed in Marx’s later writings as a result of his engagement with the new edition of Marx and Engels’s complete works (the MEGA project) have attracted enormous interest and considerable sales, in particular, his most recent work, entitled Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth (2024). Whereas Saito’s previous books[5] were written in a rather academic style, this is a much more popularising effort which presents not only his key argument that Marx himself became a “Degrowth Communist”, but also outlines the steps which could lead to the adoption of Degrowth Communism today. And indeed, at first sight, he does indeed appear to be talking about communism as understood by the real, historical communist movement – a society of freely associated producers, where wage labour no longer exists. The fact that he aims to go beyond the term “Eco-socialism” (which implies that there can be and indeed have been forms of socialism which were not ecological, which were no less ecologically destructive than capitalism) and now talks about communism, is a response to a growing search for solutions which go to the very roots of today’s civilisational crisis. But a closer and more critical investigation of Saito’s argument shows that this is a response which can only lead to more false solutions.

Marx did not reject the materialist conception of history

As we have said, Saito is not the first to point out that the “late Marx” developed a strong interest both in ecological questions and in the communal social forms that preceded the emergence of class society and that continued to leave traces even after the rise of capital. What is specific to Saito is the idea that the study of these questions led Marx to an “epistemological break”[6], with what he calls the “linear, progressive view” of history, marked by “productivism” and “Eurocentrism”, and towards a new vision of communism. In short, Marx abandoned historical materialism in favour of “degrowth communism”. But Marx never adhered to a “linear, progressive view” of history. Rather, his conception was dialectical: different modes of production have gone through periods of ascent, where their social relations allowed for a real development of production and culture, but also periods of stagnation, decline, and even regression, which could lead either to their disappearance pure and simple, or to a period of social revolution which could usher in a higher mode of production. By extension, while a generally progressive movement can be discerned in this historical process, all progress has hitherto come at a cost: hence, for example, the idea expressed by Marx and Engels that the replacement of primitive communism by class society and the state was both a fall and an advance, and that the communism of the future would be a kind of “return at a higher level” to the archaic social form[7].

With regard to capitalism, the Marx of the Communist Manifesto pointed to the enormous development of productive capacities made possible by the rise of bourgeois society. Again, these advances came at the cost of the ruthless exploitation of the proletariat, but the struggle of the latter against this exploitation laid the foundations of a communist revolution which could place the new productive forces at the service of humanity. And even at this early stage in the life of capital, Marx was impatient to see such a revolution, identifying the crises of overproduction as signs that capitalist social relations had already grown too narrow for the powers of production they had unleashed. The defeat of the 1848 wave of revolutions led him to revise this view and to recognise that capitalism still had a considerable career ahead of it before a proletarian revolution would become possible. But this did not mean that every country and every region of the world was condemned to go through the exact same process of development. Thus, when the Russian populist Vera Zasulich wrote to him in 1881 to ask his view about the possibility that the Russian mir or agricultural commune could play a role in the transition to communism, Marx posed the problem in the following terms: while capitalism was still in its early stages in large parts of the world, “the capitalist system is past its prime in the West, approaching the time when it will be no more than a regressive social regime”[8].  This meant that the objective conditions for a proletarian revolution were fast maturing in the centres of the system, and that if it came about, “then present Russian communal land ownership can serve as a point of departure for a communist development”[9].

This hypothesis did not entail an abandonment of the method of historical materialism. On the contrary, it was an attempt to apply this method in a contradictory period where capitalism was simultaneously showing signs of historic decline while still disposing of a very large “hinterland” whose development could temporarily stave off its growing inner contradictions. And, far from advocating or supporting this development, already expressed in the imperialist drive of the major powers, Marx saw that the sooner the proletarian revolution broke out in the industrialised centres, the less pain and misery would be inflicted in the peripheries of the system. Marx did not live to see all the consequences of imperialism’s conquest of the planet, but others who took up his method, such as Lenin and Luxemburg, were able to recognise, in the early years of the 20th century, that capitalism as a whole was entering its epoch of decline, thus posing the possibility – and the necessity - for a world-wide proletarian revolution.

The same concern informed the “late” Marx’s burgeoning interest in the ecological question. Stimulated by his readings of scientists such as Liebig and Fraas, who had become aware of the destructive side of capitalist agriculture (Liebig termed it “robbery agriculture”), which in its hunger for immediate profit was exhausting the fertility of the soil and wantonly destroying the forests (which Marx already noted was having a deleterious effect on the climate). If the development of capitalism was already undermining the natural basis for the production of life’s necessities, then perhaps its “progressive mission” was drawing to a close – but this didn’t invalidate the method which had been able to recognise the positive role played by the bourgeoisie in overcoming the barriers of feudalism. Furthermore – and Saito is well aware of this, having shown it in his earlier works - Marx’s preoccupation with capitalism’s impact on the relationship between humanity and nature did not come from nowhere: its roots can be found in the notion of man’s alienation from his “inorganic body” in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, a notion further elaborated in the Grundrisse and Capital, notably in the idea of the “metabolic rift” in the latter work. By the same token, the recognition that communist society would have to overcome the rigid separation between town and country can be found both in the early writings of Marx and Engels, and in the period of Marx’s inquiry into agricultural science, when it was seen as a precondition for restoring the soil’s natural fertility. Elaboration, development, criticism of outmoded ideas – but no “epistemological break”.

Only the class struggle leads towards communism

There is much more that we could say about Saito’s actual vision of communism. In particular, it relies heavily on the notion of the “the commons”, implying that precapitalist communal forms still have a substantial existence in present-day capitalism, and could even serve as a kind of nucleus for the communist transformation. In fact, it had already become apparent in Lenin’s day that imperialist capital was fast completing the work carried out in the period of “primitive accumulation” - the destruction of communal ties and the separation of the producer from the land. A century or more later this is even more evident. The vast slums that surround the mega-cities in the peripheries of the system testify both to the devastation of old communal forms and decadent capitalism’s inability to integrate vast number of the dispossessed into the “modern” network of production.

This idea that the new society could be built in the shell of the old reveals what is perhaps the most fundamental distortion of marxism in Saito’s book. To be sure, Saito criticises the “Green New Deal”  - both because of its reliance on “top down” measures imposed by the state, and because it does not address the problem of capitalism’s need for endless “growth”, which is incompatible with maintaining a healthy natural environment. Against this, Saito insists that the new society can only come out of a social movement “from below”. For Marx, communism was the real movement of the working class, beginning from the defence of its class interests and leading towards the overthrow the existing order. For Saito, by contrast, the social movement is a conglomeration of different class forces – alongside attempts to set up small expressions of “the commons” in the neighbourhoods of today’s cities, such as Detroit, he refers to interclassist protests like the Yellow Vests in France, protest groups which from the very start are situated on a bourgeois terrain, like Extinction Rebellion, a sprinkling of workers’ strikes, the “citizens’ assemblies” set up under the aegis of Macron in response to the Yellow Vest protests. In short, not the class struggle, not the struggle of the exploited to break free of the capitalist organs which keep them under control (such as the trade unions and left parties), not the emergence of communist consciousness as expressed in the formation of revolutionary minorities.

One of the clearest proofs that Saito is not talking about the class struggle as the lever of communism is his attitude to the Indignados movement which appeared in Spain in 2011. This was a movement based on a proletarian form of organising – the mass assemblies – even if the majority of its protagonists saw themselves as “citizens” rather than proletarians. Within the assemblies, there was a battle between those organisations like “Democracy Now” who wanted the assemblies to revitalise the already existing “democratic” system, and a proletarian wing which defended the autonomy of the assemblies from all expressions of the state, including its local, municipal tentacles. Saito praises the “Movement of the Squares” but at the same time pronounces in favour of channelling the assemblies towards the formation of a municipal political party, Barcelona en Comu, and the election of a radical mayor, Ada Colau, whose administration has put forward a series of “democratising” measures and ecological declarations. Furthermore, the Barcelona experiment has given rise to the “Fearless Cities” movement, which aims to apply the same model in a number of other cities around the world.

This is not the international extension of the workers’ struggle – a precondition for the communist revolution – but a structure for the recuperation of authentic class combat. And it is based on the rejection of another fundamental element of the communist project, the lesson that Marx, Engels, Pannekoek and Lenin drew from the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871: that the task of the proletariat, the first step in its revolution, is to dismantle the existing state machine, not just its armies, its police and its central government apparatus, but also its municipal councils and other forms of localised control. For Saito on the other hand “it would be foolish to reject the state as a means of getting things done, such as the creation of infrastructure or the transformation of production” (Slow Down, p 232) What this boils down to is a “Green New Deal” from below, not the revolutionary overthrow of existing conditions.

The proletarian revolution and the end of capital accumulation

This is not the place to go into immense challenges that will face the working class once it has taken power into its hands and has begun the transition to communism. Clearly the ecological question will be at the centre of its concerns, and this will require a series of measures aimed at the suppression of the drive to accumulate and its replacement by production for use - not merely on a local scale but across the entire planet. It will also demand the dismantling of the gigantic apparatus of waste production which feeds into the climate disaster: the arms industry, advertising, finance, and so on. As we have shown elsewhere[10], previous marxists from Bebel to Bordiga have also talked about overcoming the mad rush fuelled by the accumulation process, of “slowing down” the hectic pace of life under capital. But we don’t describe this as “degrowth” for two reasons: first, because communism is the basis for a true “development of the productive forces” with an entirely new quality, compatible with the real needs of humanity and its metabolism with nature. And secondly, because talking about degrowth in the framework of the existing system –and Saito’s “communism” does not escape this – can easily be used as a justification for austerity administered by the bourgeois state, as a reason for the working class to cease its “selfish” struggles against wage or job cuts and get used to reducing its consumption even more.

Amos

 

 

With this issue [16], the ICC has now published four hundred editions of World Revolution. The first issue came out in May 1974, so the publication has been going for fifty years.

Today, in the era of the internet, “fake news” and constant noise from “social media”, a printed paper may seem obsolete. On the contrary; the printed press is still, together with our articles published on our website, the backbone of the ICC’s intervention and will continue to be. The sales of the paper press are still a vital part of our activities, important in the sense that it gives an opportunity for face-to-face discussion, at meetings, demonstrations, picket lines and other places where we intervene. Today, when social media and flashy sites are the norm, and anyone can proclaim to be an organisation, our paper press, together with constantly updated articles on our website, represents not only continuity with traditions and our own past practice but also the existence of a real organisation and not merely a personal blog.

Already in 2006, when WR published its 300th issue, we wrote: “Right from the start we tried to put the publication on a historical basis, drawing on the contributions of the Italian, German and Dutch Left. We were also part of an international tendency that formed the ICC in 1975. We warned of the danger of expecting immediate results from intervention and falling into activism. The disappearance internationally of so many printed papers and journals shows how far our warnings were ignored”.

As the backbone of the organisation’s intervention the press tries to answer the questions being posed by the class struggle. As we said in 1978, in the series ‘The Present Tasks of Revolutionaries’ (WR 17-19):

“Intervention is first and foremost a question of elaborating and disseminating ideas”. In practice this means “the stimulation of reflection in the class, especially amongst those elements who are moving towards communist ideas, is the central aim of the organisation’s publications. These publications must be composed both of basic programmatic texts and of analyses which apply these basic class positions to the various issues which arise out of the general situation, so that the organisation can assist these elements to understand what’s happening on the world. As an instrument for understanding social reality, the publications must bring theoretical clarification to the general problems confronting the class; as an instrument of combat, they must also contain polemical texts directed against confused or counter-revolutionary positions and the groups which defend them”.

Today, with the continuing acceleration of decomposition since the beginning of the 2020s, with bloody wars and conflicts ravaging Europe and the Middle East, at the same time as the working class is taking up its struggle on an international scale, this understanding of the role of our press remains entirely valid. Through our press, whether it is our paper press or our publication on the internet, we can maintain our role as a reference pole in the working class and in the milieu of politicised elements.

As we wrote in 2006: “In all this we want to show the debates taking place in the internationalist milieu. We want to make a contribution as a living organisation to a process of clarification that is already underway. Sometimes this will mean producing articles on general questions such as the perspective of communism, the nature of the working class, what imperialism is or how to understand the decadence and decomposition of capitalism. We want to show how capitalism’s economic crisis is unfolding, what’s going on in imperialist conflicts, how the bourgeoisie arranges its forces, and how the class struggle is developing.

We are also committed to defending the basic principles of behaviour within the working class movement against all their detractors. Fundamentally we want WR, as one of the publications of the ICC, to act as a reference point for all those who are challenging the ideas of the ruling class, or want to participate in the struggle of the working class, or see communism as a necessity for humanity, or are searching for a coherent understanding of what’s going on in the world.”

World Revolution, May 2024