On 16 November, the ICC held an Online Public Meeting on the theme ‘The Global Implications of the US Elections’.

In addition to ICC militants, several dozen people took part in the discussion, from four continents and around fifteen countries. Simultaneous translation into English, Spanish and French enabled everyone to follow the discussions, which lasted just over three hours.

Obviously, in view of the revolution that needs to be achieved by the entire working class worldwide, this small number may seem insignificant. We still have a long way to go before the proletariat develops a profound consciousness and a vast network of self-organisation. This type of international meeting is precisely a means of advancing along that road. For the moment, revolutionary minorities are still very small, a handful in one town, an individual in another. Gathering together from several countries to discuss, work out and compare arguments, and thus gain a better understanding of the world situation, is a precious opportunity to break down the isolation of each individual, forge links and feel the global nature of the proletarian revolutionary struggle. It's about participating in the effort of our class to create an international vanguard. This type of meeting is thus a milestone which foreshadows the necessary organisation of revolutionaries on a world scale. This regroupment of revolutionary forces is a long process, requiring a conscious and constant effort. It is one of the vital conditions for preparing for the future, for organising ourselves for the decisive revolutionary confrontations to come.

A debate that raises a thousand questions about the state of the world...

The large turnout for our meeting also reveals the concern, even anxiety, aroused by the election of Donald Trump as head of the world's leading power.

All the speakers stressed, along with the ICC, that the victory of this President - who is openly racist, macho, full of hate, vengeful, and who advocates an irrational economic and war policy - will accelerate all the crises ravaging the world and exacerbate all the uncertainties and chaos.

From this common position, many questions and nuances, as well as disagreements, emerged in the course of the discussion:

Is Trump's triumph the result of a deliberate and conscious policy on the part of the American bourgeoisie? Is Trump the best card for the interests of the American bourgeoisie? Are his imperialist choices regarding Iran, Ukraine and China a step towards the Third World War? Is his protectionist policy of raising tariffs a piece in the jigsaw towards war? Are his plans to ferociously attack the working class, especially civil servants, linked to the sacrifices needed to prepare the national economy for this war?

Or, on the contrary, as the ICC and other participants argued, does Trump's arrival at the head of the world's leading power testify to a growing difficulty on the part of the national bourgeoisies to prevent its most obscurantist and irrational fractions from taking power? Is the clique war within the bourgeoisie itself, like the fragmentation of society into Americans/immigrants, men/women, legal/illegal, all of which the Trump clan is aggravating, not a sign of the trend towards disorder and chaos in American society? Doesn't the trade war that Trump wants, by returning to the protectionist measures of the 1920s and 30s, which ruined every country at the time, show the irrationality of his policy precisely from the point of view of the interests of American capital? In the same sense, doesn't the growing uncertainty about the imperialist policy of the new American administration reinforce war tensions between all countries, pushing even more towards unstable and changing alliances, towards every man for himself, towards short-sighted politics, towards the outbreak of wars which engender nothing other than a scorched earth?

For the ICC, answering all these questions means taking a deeper look at the historical period we are going through: decomposition, the final phase of capitalist decline. Because, basically, Trump's victory is not something to be taken in isolation, analysed separately and imprisoned in the immediate term. It is the fruit of a whole global situation, of a historical dynamic, one that sees capitalism rotting on its feet. The victory of Donald Trump in the United States or Javier Milei in Argentina, the 'no future' policies of Israel in the Middle East or Russia in Ukraine, the stranglehold of the drug cartels on ever larger swathes of Latin America, of terrorist groups in Africa or warlords in Central Asia, the rise of obscurantism, conspiracy theorists and flat earthers, the outbursts of violence from certain sections of society - all these apparently unrelated phenomena are in fact expressions of the same fundamental dynamic of capitalism  in decomposition.

We'll come back to this subject and all these questions in a later article to develop our response[1].

... and the class struggle

The second part of the discussion, which focused on understanding the current state of the class struggle, followed the same dynamic. Here too, the debate was open, frank and fraternal, and many questions were asked, with nuances and disagreements emerging.

Does Trump's victory mean that the proletariat has been defeated, or at the very least that it too is gangrened by racism and populism? Or, on the other hand, does the rejection of the Democratic Party by the workers lead to an awareness of the real nature of this bourgeois party? Can Trump's appearance as a dictator encourage working-class anger and reaction? Or will the campaign to defend democracy be a death trap for the proletariat? Will the worsening of living and working conditions, carried out in an extremely brutal way by Trump, Musk and their gang, provoke the class struggle? Or will these sacrifices reinforce the search for scapegoats, such as foreigners, illegal immigrants, etc.?

All these contradictory questions are not surprising. The situation is extremely complex, difficult to grasp in its entirety and coherence. And just as in the first part of the discussion, what is lacking is a compass, the compass to consider each question not in isolation, separately from each other, but as a whole and in an international and historical context. It's impossible to think about the world without consciously and systematically referring to the general and profound dynamics of global capitalism: the system is plunging into decay (with all the nauseating stench that emanates from it), but the proletariat is not defeated; indeed, since 2022 and the summer of anger in the United Kingdom, it has been raising its head, finding its way back to the path of struggle and its historic goals.

We can't develop our response any further here; we'll come back to it in our press and at our next meetings[2].

We look forward to the next one!

This debate is just the beginning. We encourage all our readers to come and take part in this effort by our class, in the debates between revolutionaries, in the collective process of clarification. Don't remain isolated! The proletariat needs its minorities to forge links, on an international scale, to organise themselves, to debate, to compare positions, to exchange arguments, to understand as deeply as possible the evolution of the world.

The ICC warmly invites you to come and take part in its various meetings: online and international public meetings, ‘face-to-face’ public meetings in certain towns and cities, and drop-in sessions. All these opportunities to meet and debate are regularly announced here on our website.

In addition to these meetings, we also encourage you to write to us, to react to our articles, ask questions or express your disagreement.

And the columns of our press are open, they belong to the class. We welcome your suggestions for articles.

Debate is an absolute necessity. We are far apart, isolated, often at odds with the ideas developing around us. Gathering together, on an international scale, is vital if we are to prepare for the future. All revolutionary minorities have this responsibility.

ICC

Media across the world have broadcast images and news of dead bodies being swept away by the floods and of people buried under the mud and landslides, as well as of the searches for many other missing persons. Bodies are washing up on the beaches; many villages have no food or drinking water; after one week the water has been stagnating with animal and human corpses, and infections are beginning to spread, with the risk of epidemics. The situation of a stranded population, on the brink of survival, left to fend for themselves, is in some ways reminiscent of Gaza, minus the bombings and the war; and this is all happening in Spain's third largest city, in a European Union country at the heart of capitalism. Whether through war or ecological disaster, capitalism is condemning humanity to its ultimate destruction.

The High Altitude Isolated Depression (known as the DANA in Spain) that swept through the Valencia region on October 30 caused flooding that killed more than 200 people, a figure that will rise sharply once the bodies of some 2,000 missing people have been located. Added to this is the devastation of thousands of homes, roads, railways, telecommunications systems, etc., affecting hundreds of thousands of people, that will take months to repair. This is undoubtedly one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in Spain's history, similar to the floods that took place in the central European countries in 2021; in Bonn, Germany for example where, despite the State's tradition of efficiency and organisation, the population was left stranded; and just like what happened during Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans in the United States in 2005. But contrary to what right-wing commentators say, this is not an unpredictable 'natural' disaster. Nor is it, as the left of capital maintains, the consequence of incompetent "neo-liberal management". This disaster is ultimately the result of a social system that sacrifices the lives of its workers and subjects the entire planet to the demands of capitalist production and accumulation.

With the accumulation of disasters for several decades (climate change, unregulated urban development, irresponsible management of water resources, neglect of infrastructure maintenance, etc[1]), this system has also entered its terminal phase of decomposition, where all this devastation is accelerated and amplified by other manifestations of capitalist decadence such as wars, economic crises, etc. in a vortex[2] that will lead to inevitable catastrophe. Faced with this situation, the attitude of the ruling class is one of increasing irresponsibility in the management of its own system, with the defence of competing factional interests accentuating the disaster still further.

Nature isn't to blame for the disaster, capitalism is

Many of the victims were workers, forced by their bosses and managers to remain in their workplaces. At Ford Motors, the evening and night shifts were not allowed to leave at the time of the floods, with 700 people having to sleep in the factory and not able to communicate with their families. In the Ribarroja industrial estate, more than 1,000 workers were rescued the next day. Another "lock-in" was in the shopping centres (IKEA, Bonaire de Torrent) where opening hours were maintained and where the employees themselves had to help the customers and other users. In the Inditex factories, the workers did not hear the alerts because they were not allowed to have their mobile phones with them and the managers did not say anything... We also know that this alert was issued by the local authorities several hours after the red weather warnings and the first floods upstream. Employee discipline and smooth running of the business would take precedence over any consideration for the lives and health of the workers. This is the true law of capitalism.

The situation, though on a different scale, is reminiscent of the COVID pandemic four years ago. There too, the cause was said to be "natural" and was met with the familiar response of "who could have predicted such a thing?". But even then, we did point out that this was a predictable disaster because of the worsening global warming disaster and that society did have the technology and know-how to prepare for and prevent its ravages but that resources were being diverted into capitalist accumulation and war. It is appalling and scandalous that at a time when armies have the cybernetic means to remotely detonate a mobile phone, and when spy drones are capable of recording pictures with detailed precision, that the telephone lines suddenly collapsed during the floods in Valencia, including for emergency calls, and that those who had to travel that night had to do so practically blind, without any information, regarding roads and railways that were literally at a standstill, or they had to take secondary roads without knowing whether or not they were flooded.

What use is the capitalist state to us, the workers?

The nightmare didn't end when the rains stopped. The next morning, people found themselves searching for survivors, salvaging what they could from the devastated homes, etc., with virtually no help, no food, no drinking water, no electricity, no telephone, with the road infrastructure washed away and without the appropriate rescue resources (helicopters, bulldozers, etc.). That's why the cynicism and crocodile tears of the regional and national governments that were seen on several occasions in front of the television cameras are even more repugnant than the ritual messages of "solidarity" and promises that "they won't leave the victims on their own" (!), when they knew perfectly well that they were abandoning the victims to their fate.

The fact that they have also devoted themselves to blaming and shooting each other in the foot shows that in this age of capitalist decomposition, so-called traditional state policies are giving way to irresponsibility and "every man for himself". The regional government (of the centre right People’s Party) has indeed shown negligence, but also arrogance and provocation (by, for example, trying to expel volunteers or making them clean up the shopping centres as well as sending home people looking for their missing relatives). But the "ultra-progressive" coalition government of Sánchez and Sumar was not to be outdone. It took them days to deploy the necessary resources in terms of personnel, on the pretext that they had not been "officially" requested by the regional government. This means one of two things: either it left the PP to stew in its own juices despite the human cost it represents, or it is hiding behind administrative niceties to mask its own negligence.

Governments such as those in France and the EU have announced their willingness to help but have not done so because the Sánchez government has not made the necessary "request".

The democratic state presents itself as the guarantor of social health and welfare, as the means for the population to "defend itself" against the abuses of capitalist exploitation, when in reality it is its most energetic defender of these abuses[3]. When protests against the enforced stay at work began to emerge on the night of the flood, the pseudo-communist Yolanda Díaz (also Vice-President of the government and Minister of Labour) made clear that the law supposedly allowed workers to leave their jobs when their lives were in danger, but said she was "appealing" to the responsibility of employers (?). To shift the decision on to the workers[4] at a time of job insecurity is insultingly sarcastic; as is the government's call on landlords to show 'understanding' towards their tenants and to help ease the housing crisis.

The floods also prompted a spontaneous and generous outpouring of solidarity, which was broadcast on television around the world. This initial solidarity was interrupted by the authorities, who feared that the situation would get out of control as a result of the outrage of the neighbouring population which came together in a bid to help; it was then manipulated as an expression of "regionalist support for the people of Valencia" alongside the sound of the regional anthem.

Apart from the stand-off and class solidarity, it was condemned to become a popular and interclassist support of the "only the people can save the people" type. But to believe that "salvation" is possible without eradicating capitalism, its disasters, its wars and its impoverishment from the face of the earth, is a fatal illusion. The only way out of this grim future is to channel the indignation and rage produced by all these disasters into the class struggle, the struggle of the exploited of all countries against the exploiters. As and when the proletariat regains its class identity, it will, by staying on the class terrain, then be able to support the defence of the entire non-exploiting population, thus creating a balance of forces against the bourgeois state.

Valerio (November 2, 2024)

Everywhere, the bourgeoisie is raining down redundancies, multiplying drastic budget cuts, squeezing wages under the blows of inflation, and increasing job insecurity and exploitation. And there's no end in sight to the attacks! The crisis of capitalism is intractable and considerably aggravated by the wars and chaos that are spreading everywhere, like the deadly conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. To finance the massacres, the bourgeoisie is constantly increasing its insane military spending and demanding ever greater sacrifices from the exploited. The working class is still incapable of taking a direct stand against these conflicts, but it is not prepared to accept the attacks without reacting.

The working class is fighting a massive battle against austerity

At the end of August, as price rises continue to take their toll, rail freight workers in Canada attempted to go on the offensive. Described as  unpredented in terms of its scale, the abortive action brought together almost 10,000 workers in a country where the right to strike is governed by extremely draconian regulations. The government immediately banned all strikes in the name of safeguarding the national economy, ordering new negotiations between the railway companies and the sector's main union, Teamsters Canada. That was all Teamsters Canada needed to nip the movement in the bud by promising that the government's decision would be challenged... in the courts! In short, the union skilfully reduced the workers to impotence by postponing the fight to an indefinite future. As the union's public relations director so aptly put it: “We want to negotiate. Our members want to work, they like it, operating trains in Canada”’. The bourgeoisie could not have found a better watchdog...

A month later, nearly 50,000 dockworkers in 36 ports in the United States, as well as those in the port of Montreal, launched a strike lasting several days. A strike on this scale has not been seen since 1977. In the midst of an election campaign, the Biden administration rushed to play mediator, hypocritically showing its ‘support’ for the dockworkers. With the complicity of the government, the unions were able to put an end to the strike by pushing through a “wage agreement in principle”’, which will be negotiated... in January 2025.

After a number of partial work stoppages since April, 15,000 workers at 25 major American hotels went on strike on 1 September (Labour Day in the United States), demanding better pay, a reduction in workload and the cancellation of job cuts. The 700 workers at the Hilton San Diego even went on strike for 38 days, the longest hotel strike in San Diego's history.

Car workers are also continuing to fight, particularly in the factories belonging to the Stellantis group. In 2023, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis workers tried to unite their struggles at national level and even beyond, with workers in Canada. Of course, the unions had confined the struggle to the car industry alone. But this phenomenon expressed the desire of workers not to remain alone in their corner, not to shut themselves away in the factory, and resulted in a huge outpouring of sympathy from other parts of the working class. Since then, the unions have succeeded in meticulously dividing up the struggle at factory level, locking the workers in to defend this or that production line threatened with closure.

In Italy too, at the end of October, 20,000 employees of the Stellantis car group demonstrated in Rome against the closure of several Fiat plants. The movement was also described as “a historic strike the like of which has not been seen for over forty years”. But here again, the unions did their utmost to reduce the workers to impotence. At the same time as Stellantis was laying off 2,400 employees at its plants in Detroit (United States), the Italian unions called for a single day's strike with nationalist slogans around the Fiat brand, that “emblem of Italy”.

But it was the strike at Boeing's factories in the US that made the biggest impact. For over a month, 33,000 workers have been demanding pay rises and the restoration of their pension scheme. As in Canada, the striking workers are accused of selfishly mortgaging the future of this ‘flagship’ of American industry and threatening the jobs of subcontractors. The aircraft manufacturer has even cynically threatened to lay off 17,000 employees to wipe out the ‘multi-billion dollar slate’ caused by the strikers. Here again, the unions are trying to confine the struggle to Boeing alone, locking the workers into a tough but highly isolated strike.

While the proletariat in the United States and Canada has shown itself to be particularly combative over the past two years in the face of the considerable deterioration in its living conditions, the unions have had to ‘radicalise’ their discourse and present themselves as the most determined in the struggle. But behind their alleged desire to win wage increases, they are seeking above all to strengthen their overseers’ role in order to better sabotage any mobilisation. Wherever struggles break out, the unions set out to isolate and divide the class, to deprive the workers of their main strength: their unity. They confine workers to their sector of activity, their company, their department. Everywhere, they seek to cut strikers off from the active solidarity of their class brothers and sisters in the struggle. This corporatist division is a real poison, because when we fight each in our corner, we all lose in our corner!

Despite the decomposition of capitalism...

These struggles are taking place in an extremely difficult context for the working class. Capitalism is decomposing, all social structures are rotting, violence and irrationality are exploding at unprecedented levels, fracturing society ever further. All countries, starting with the most fragile, are affected by this process. But of all the developed countries, the United States has been hardest hit by the putrefaction of capitalist society[1]. The country is ravaged, from the poorest ghettos to the highest levels of government, by populism, violence, drug trafficking and the most delirious conspiracy theories. The success of extreme right-wing libertarian theories, which advocate individual resourcefulness, hatred of any collective approach and the most idiotic Malthusianism, is a distressing symptom of this process.

In this context, the development of class struggle can in no way take the form of a homogeneous and linear rise in class consciousness and an understanding of the need for communism. On the contrary, with the acceleration of the phenomena of decomposition, the working class will constantly find itself confronted with obstacles, catastrophic events and the ideological rot of the bourgeoisie. The form that the struggle and the development of class consciousness will take will necessarily be bumpy, difficult and fluctuating. The eruption of Covid in 2020, the war in Ukraine two years later and the massacres in Gaza are sufficient illustrations of this reality. The bourgeoisie will take advantage, as it has always done, of every manifestation of decomposition to turn them immediately against the proletariat.

This is precisely what it is doing with the war in the Middle East, by trying to divert the proletariat from its class terrain, by pushing the workers to defend one imperialist camp against another. With a multitude of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the creation of ‘solidarity’ networks, it has cynically exploited the disgust provoked by the massacres in Gaza and Lebanon to mobilise thousands of workers on the terrain of nationalism[2]. This is the bourgeoisie's response to the maturation which is beginning to take place in the entrails of the working class. During the strikes of 2023 in the car industry, the feeling of being an international class began to emerge. The same dynamic was seen during the movement against pension reform in France, when workers at Mobilier National mobilised in solidarity with strikers in Britain. Although these expressions of solidarity remained in the embryonic stage, the bourgeoisie is perfectly aware of the danger that such a dynamic represents. The whole bourgeoisie was mobilised to stuff nationalist muck into the skulls of the workers because these reflexes of solidarity contained the seeds of the defence of proletarian internationalism.

With the growing instability of its political apparatus, of which populism is one of the most spectacular symptoms, the bourgeoisie is still trying to drive a wedge into the maturing of class consciousness. The strikes in the United States are taking place in a deafening electoral context. The Democrats are constantly calling for the road to populism to be blocked at the ballot box, and for the institutions of ‘American democracy’ to be revitalised in the face of the danger of ‘fascism’. Striking workers are constantly accused of weakening the Democratic camp and playing into the hands of Trumpism. In Italy, the arrival of the far right in power has also given rise to a whole campaign in favour of bourgeois democracy.

With the deceptive promises of the American and European left on ‘taxing the rich’ or ‘reform of workers’ rights’, and with the ‘progressive’ rhetoric on the ‘rights’ of minorities, the bourgeoisie is everywhere trying to sow illusions about the ability of the bourgeois state to organise a ‘fairer’ society. No, the bourgeoisie will not restore a flourishing economy! No, the bourgeoisie will not protect black or Arab people from its racist cops and bosses! The aim of all this nonsense is nothing more and nothing less than to spoil the workers' thinking and distract them from the struggles that are the only way to offer a real alternative to the historic crisis of capitalism and all the horrors it brings.

... the future belongs to the class struggle!

Despite all these obstacles, the class is fighting on a massive scale. From the point of view of the vulgar materialist, the current strikes are nothing more than corporatist struggles, depoliticised, directed and led to dead ends by the unions. But if we take a step back historically and internationally, despite the corporatist straitjacket imposed by the unions, despite all the very real weaknesses and illusions that weigh on workers, these movements are part of the continuity of the break that we have been observing for nearly three years. Since the ‘summer of anger’ which shook the United Kingdom in 2022 for several months, the working class has tirelessly resisted the attacks of the bourgeoisie. In France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Greece, the United States, Canada, Korea... The world has not seen such a wave of massive and simultaneous struggles in so many countries or over such a long period for three decades.

Over the last thirty years, the working class has lost its sense of itself and its identity, but it is gradually beginning to see itself again as a social force, and to rediscover some of its reflexes of solidarity. Better still, as the ICC has been able to document, workers are beginning to reappropriate the lessons of past struggles, trying to reconnect with the experience of their class: as with the struggle against the CPE or May 68 in France, with the Cordobazo in Argentina, or the miners' struggle in Great Britain in 1984.

Since the 1980s, workers' struggles had all but disappeared from the North American landscape. With the collapse of the USSR, proletarians in the United States were subjected to the same intense ideological bludgeoning as during the Cold War about the ‘victory of capitalism over (alleged) communism’. Workers' struggles were ruthlessly consigned to the dustbin of history. In a country plagued by violence and populism, where even Kamala Harris is suspected of being a ‘communist’ and wanting to ‘do what Lenin did’, the very fact that people dared to strike en masse again, to ask the question of solidarity and to call themselves ‘workers’, testifies to a profound change in the minds of the working class the world over.

The solidarity that has been expressed in all the social movements since 2022 shows that the working class, when it struggles, not only manages to resist social putrefaction, but also initiates the beginnings of an antidote, the promise of another world through proletarian fraternity. Its struggle is the antithesis of war and the each-against-all that marks capitalism’s terminal phase.

EG, 28 October 2024

Trump is back in the White House after a landslide victory in the presidential election. In the eyes of his supporters, he is an invincible American hero, one who has survived every obstacle: the ‘rigged election’, the ‘judicial inquisition’, the hostility of the ‘establishment’ and even... bullets! The image of a miraculous Trump, his ear bleeding and his fist raised after a shot grazed him, will go down in history. But behind the admiration aroused by his reaction, this attack was above all the most spectacular expression of an election campaign that reached new heights of violence, hatred and irrationality. This extraordinary campaign, spewing out money and saturated with obscenities, just like its conclusion, the victory of a megalomaniac and stupid billionaire, reflects the abyss into which bourgeois society is sinking.

Vote against populism? No! We need to overthrow capitalism!

Trump has all the makings of a bad guy: he's an unmitigated vulgarian, a liar and a cynic, as racist and misogynist as he is homophobic. Throughout the campaign, the international press talked endlessly about the dangers that his return to office poses for ‘democratic’ institutions, minorities, the climate and international relations: “The world holds its breath” (Die Zeit), “An American nightmare” (L'Humanité), “How will the world survive Trump?” (Público), “A moral debacle” (El País)...

So should we have preferred Harris, chosen the side of a so-called ‘lesser evil’ to block the road to populism? That's what the bourgeoisie would have us believe. For several months, the new President of the United States found himself at the heart of a worldwide propaganda campaign against populism[1]. “Smiling” Kamala Harris constantly called for the defence of “American democracy”, describing her opponent as a ‘fascist ’. Even Trump’s former chief of staff was quick to describe him as a “would-be dictator”. The billionaire's victory only fuelled this mystifying campaign in favour of bourgeois ‘democracy’.

Many voters went to the polling station thinking: ‘The Democrats have given us a hard time for four years, but it still won't be as bad as Trump in the White House’. This is the idea that the bourgeoisie has always tried to put into the heads of the workers to drive them to the polls. But in decadent capitalism, elections are a masquerade, a false choice that has no other function than to hinder the working class's reflection on its historical goals and the means of achieving them.

The elections in the United States are no exception to this reality. If Trump won so widely, it was first and foremost because the Democrats are hated. Contrary to the image of a ‘Republican wave’, Trump did not attract massive support. The number of his voters has remained relatively stable compared with the previous election in 2020. It was above all Vice President Harris who, as a sign of the Democrats' discredit, suffered a debacle, losing no fewer than 10 million voters in four years. And for good reason! The Biden administration carried out ferocious attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class, starting with inflation, which caused the price of food, petrol and housing to skyrocket. Then there was a huge wave of redundancies and job insecurity, which ended up pushing the workers to fight on a massive scale[2]. On immigration, Biden and Harris, who were elected on the promise of a ‘more humane’ policy, have constantly tightened the conditions for entry into the United States, going so far as to close the border with Mexico and bluntly forbid migrants from even asking for asylum. On the international stage, Biden's unbridled militarism, lavish funding of massacres in Ukraine and scarcely critical support for the Israeli army's abuses also angered voters.

Harris' candidacy could not give rise to any illusions, as we have seen in the past with Obama and, to a lesser extent, with Biden. The proletariat has nothing to expect from the elections or from the bourgeois powers that be: it's not this or that clique in power that's ‘mismanaging business’, it's the capitalist system that's sinking into crisis and historic bankruptcy. Whether Democrat or Republican, all of them will continue to ruthlessly exploit the working class and spread misery as the crisis deepens; all of them will continue to impose the ferocious dictatorship of the bourgeois state and bomb innocent people around the world!

Trumpism, an expression of the decomposition of capitalism

The most responsible fractions of the American state apparatus (most of the media and senior civil servants, the military command, the most moderate faction of the Republican party, etc.) have nevertheless done their utmost to prevent the return of Trump and his clan to the White House. The cascade of lawsuits, the warnings of virtually every expert in every field and even the media's relentless efforts to ridicule the candidate were not enough to stop his race for power. Trump's election is a real slap in the face, a sign that the bourgeoisie is increasingly losing control of its electoral game and is no longer able to prevent an irresponsible troublemaker from acceding to the highest offices of state.

The reality of the rise of populism is nothing new: the vote for Brexit in 2016, followed the same year by Trump's surprise victory, were the first and most spectacular signs of it. But the deepening crisis of capitalism and the growing powerlessness of states to control the situation, whether geo-strategically, economically, environmentally or socially, have only served to reinforce political instability across the world: hung parliaments, populism, tensions between bourgeois cliques, governmental instability... These phenomena bear witness to a process of disintegration that is now operating at the heart of the world's most powerful states. This trend has enabled a madman like Milei to rise to the head of state in Argentina, and populists to come to power in several European countries, where the bourgeoisie is the most experienced in the world.

Trump's victory is part of this process, but also marks a significant additional step. If Trump is rejected by a large part of the state apparatus, it is above all because his programme and methods risk not only damaging the interests of US imperialism in the world, but also further increasing the difficulties of the state in ensuring the semblance of social cohesion necessary for the functioning of national capital. During the campaign, Trump made a series of inflammatory speeches, rekindling as never before the vengeful spirit of his supporters, even threatening the ‘democratic’ institutions that the bourgeoisie so badly needs to ideologically contain the working class. He has constantly fuelled the most retrograde and hateful rhetoric, raising the spectre of riots if he is not elected. And he never gave a thought to the consequences his words could have on the fabric of society. The extreme violence of this campaign, for which the Democrats are also responsible in many respects, will undoubtedly deepen the divisions in the American population and can only further increase the violence in an already highly fragmented society. But Trump, in the scorched earth logic that increasingly characterises the capitalist system, was prepared to do anything to win.

In 2016, as Trump's victory was relatively unexpected, including by himself, the American bourgeoisie was able to prepare the ground by placing in government and in the administration personalities capable of putting the brakes on the billionaire's most delirious decisions. Those whom Trump later described as “traitors” had, for example, been able to prevent the repeal of the social protection system (Obamacare) or the bombing of Iran. When the Covid pandemic broke out, his vice-president, Mike Pence, was also able to manage the crisis despite Trump's belief that injecting disinfectant into the lungs was enough to cure the disease... It was this same Pence who ended up publicly disavowing Trump by ensuring the transition of power to Biden while rioters marched on the Capitol. From now on, even if the army's general staff remains very hostile to Trump and will still do its utmost to delay his worst decisions, the new President's clan has prepared itself by removing the  “traitors” and is preparing to govern alone against everyone, leaving us with the prospect of a mandate even more chaotic than the previous one.

Towards an increasingly chaotic world

During the campaign, Trump presented himself as a man of ‘peace’, claiming that he would put an end to the Ukrainian conflict “in 24 hours”. His taste for peace clearly stops at the borders of Ukraine, since at the same time he has given unconditional support to the massacres perpetrated by the Israeli state and has been very virulent towards Iran. In reality, no one really knows what Trump will do (or be able to do) in Ukraine, the Middle East, Asia, Europe or with NATO, so versatile and capricious has he always been.

On the other hand, his return will mark an unprecedented acceleration of instability and chaos in the world. In the Middle East, Netanyahu already imagines that, with Trump's victory, his hands are freer than at any time since the start of the conflict in Gaza. Israel could seek to achieve its strategic objectives (destruction of Hezbollah, Hamas, war with Iran, etc.) in a much more head-on manner, spreading more barbarism throughout the region.

In Ukraine, after Biden's policy of more or less measured support, the conflict risks taking an even more dramatic turn. Unlike in the Middle East, US policy in Ukraine is part of a carefully devised strategy to weaken Russia and its alliance with China, and to strengthen the ties of the European states around NATO. Trump could call this strategy into question and further weaken American leadership. Whether Trump decides to abandon Kiev or ‘punish’ Putin, the massacres will inevitably escalate and perhaps spread beyond Ukraine.

But it is China that is the main focus of attention for US imperialism. The conflict between the United States and China is at the centre of the world situation, and the new President could multiply his provocations, pushing China to react firmly, for example by putting pressure on the USA’s Japanese and Korean allies, who have already expressed their concerns. And all this against a backdrop of escalating trade wars and protectionism whose disastrous consequences for the global economy are already being denounced by the world's leading financial institutions.

Trump's unpredictability can therefore only considerably reinforce the trend towards every man for himself, pushing all the powers, large and small, to take advantage of the ‘retreat’ of the American policeman to play their own card in a climate of immense confusion and increased chaos. Even America's ‘allies’ are already more openly seeking to distance themselves from Washington by favouring national solutions, both economic and military. The French President, as soon as Trump's victory was confirmed, called on the European Union states to defend their interests in the face of the United States and China...

An additional obstacle for the working class

In a context of economic crisis, at a time when the proletariat is regaining its fighting spirit on an international scale and gradually rediscovering its class identity, Trump's clique is clearly not, in the eyes of the American bourgeoisie, the best suited to managing the class struggle and pushing through the attacks that capital needs. Between his open threats of repression against strikers and his nightmarish partnership with a guy as openly anti-worker as Elon Musk, the billionaire's sweeping statements during the recent strikes in the United States (Boeing, dockers, hotels, cars, etc.) augur the worst and can only worry the bourgeoisie. Trump's promise to take revenge on state employees, whom he considers his enemies, by sacking 400,000 of them, also heralds trouble after the elections.

But it would be a mistake to think that Trump's return to the White House will encourage class struggle. On the contrary, it will come as a real shock. The policy of division between ethnic groups, between urban and rural dwellers, between graduates and non-graduates, all the violence and hatred that the election campaign generated and on which Trump will continue to surf, against blacks, against immigrants, against homosexuals or transgender people, all the irrational ravings of evangelicals and other conspiracy theorists, in short the whole mess of decomposition, will weigh even more heavily on working people, creating deep divisions and even violent political confrontations in favour of populist or anti-populist cliques.

The Trump administration will undoubtedly be able to count on the left-wing factions of the bourgeoisie, starting with the ‘socialists’, to instil the poison of division and ensure the derailing of workers’ struggles. After campaigning for both Clintons, Obama, Biden and Harris, Bernie Sanders unblinkingly accuses the Democrats of having “abandoned the working class”, as if this militaristic, proletarian-murdering party, which has frequently been in power since 19th century, had anything to do with the working class! As soon as she was re-elected to the House of Representatives, the left-wing Democrat Ocasio-Cortez promised to do her utmost to divide the working class into “communities”: ”Our campaign isn't just about winning votes, it's about giving us the means to build stronger communities”.

But the working class has the strength to fight back despite these new obstacles. While the campaign was in full swing, and despite the infamous accusations of playing into the hands of populists, workers continued to fight against austerity and redundancies. Despite the isolation imposed by the unions, despite the huge amount of Democratic propaganda, despite the weight of divisions, they showed that struggle is the only answer to the crisis of capitalism.

Above all, workers in the United States are not alone! These strikes are part of a context of international combativeness and heightened reflection that has been going on since the summer of 2022, when workers in Britain, after decades of resignation, raised a cry of anger, “Enough is enough!”, that resonates and will continue to resonate throughout the working class!

EG, 9 November 2024

With attacks and redundancies multiplying in Europe (VW-Audi in Germany and Belgium, Port Talbot Steel in Britain, Auchan and Michelin in France, Fiat in Italy), the bourgeoisie can count on its left-wing parties to push through this assault on the working class. In Britain, a country where the proletariat has suffered the worst attacks in Western Europe for decades, the Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has promised “an in-depth reform of workers’ rights”. But this “historic turning point” is still two years away, and will undoubtedly be another well-packaged attack on workers' living conditions. In the meantime, there will be austerity for the working class, as Starmer has already announced a “painful”  budget. In addition to the fall in income due to inflation, the left is adding billions in budget cuts. At a time when energy prices have soared in recent years, the Labour government has, for example, decided to end the allowance that enabled some ten million pensioners to keep warm in winter. To sweeten the pill, the NHS, the UK's beleaguered health system, will receive “investment” that is totally ridiculous in relation to needs, and has announced tax increases to “rebuild public services”. Over the last few months, in the UK as in other countries, the bourgeoisie has been clamouring about raining taxes on the super-rich. This is the traditional refrain of the left and far left parties of capital to make the exploited believe that it is possible to make the capitalist system ‘fairer’ with their ballot paper.

In France, this mystification has been taken to the height of ridiculousness: Michel Barnier's right-wing government, in order to push through its huge €60 billion austerity package, has also promised to raise taxes “on the richest”. This is obviously a crude way of justifying the claim that “everyone has to make an effort”... especially the working class! It's all the more hypocritical because the rules on tax optimisation are such that the ‘effort’ of the ‘rich’ and ‘big business’ will be much less than announced.

In Italy too, the far-right government has played the same tune. Giorgia Meloni attacked the ‘citizenship income’ intended for the poorest by promising to introduce a “tax on super-profits”... before watering down her tax measures. In Germany, the government of the ‘socialist’ Olaf Scholz swears with his hand on his heart that he wants to “support the economy, consumers and companies in difficulty”, but is nevertheless preparing to raise taxes on energy and shamelessly attack minimum social benefits!

In reality, contrary to the lies of the left-wing parties, ‘tax rises’ are absolutely not designed to ‘rebuild public services’. On the contrary, they are necessary for the bourgeoisie to cope with the economic crisis and the huge increase in military spending. Germany is preparing for its second consecutive year of recession, while France and Italy are drowning in debt. Against this backdrop, Europe is set to spend €552 billion on ‘defence’ by 2023, an increase of 62% in 10 years! As capitalism plunges into chaos, this spending will continue to explode in the future: France plans to spend €413 billion on armaments by 2030; Germany has doubled its military spending in ten years to reach 2% of its GDP; the UK's colossal military budget will grow by a further €3.5 billion in 2025; Poland's could exceed 5% of GDP...

Raising taxes ‘for greater tax justice’ and ‘better public services’ is nothing more than a despicable fable peddled by the left to make it easier to accept the attacks on the working class, mass redundancies, ever lower wages and job insecurity!

EG, 4 November 2024