ICC introduction

We are publishing below extracts of a contribution from a close contact in India. We think that his denunciation of the powers waging the current conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East shows a clear internationalist position and is fundamentally different from the pseudo-internationalism of the leftists. The text was written as a basis for discussion and some parts, in which the comrade polemicises with Indian leftists, are not taken up in these extracts. We however think that it is an important contribution for further reflection on the internationalist position of the Communist Left in the face of the war. We should also point out that we do not agree with all of his formulations about Lenin’s weaknesses on national liberation and state capitalism, for example, and also on the definition of marxism as a “science”, rather than as a scientific method. But we will return to these points in another text.

 

General statement on imperialism

Amidst the general backdrop of the two major wars in the world now, Russo-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine, there is growing talk on imperialism and colonialism as well as neo-colonialism. A whole slew of bourgeois intelligentsia has come out to represent either side’s position in the war. The leftists, liberal and conservative academics have taken various differing positions on the conflict. Those belonging to various “isms” of so-called scientific thinking have too taken their positions. Some offer calls for subaltern internationalism yet in their own analysis fail to see the role of world capital and accumulation thereof as well resort to some amount of self-determination and have not yet shaken off the irregular strategy of national liberation.

“Evidently, for a just world order to exist, the share of the world economy must depend on the actual proportion of a country’s population. A violation of this principle amounts to the common people of developing countries being reduced to a subservient position in, both, complex and simple value extraction / transfer. While majority of people in such countries are compelled to labour more and more in return for less and less from the economy, the economic elites of the same countries – albeit at times in a subordinate role – converge with the global alliance of economic elites. Typically, when the rate of profit in these developing economies decline, their economic elites tend to financialize their wealth in dollars, which together harms their local economy.”[1]

The above statement is indicative of the general position even leftists tend to take. While it is certainly admissible that the labouring class of the so-called global south are amongst the most exploited, this analysis does not engage with the true internationalist nature of the communist movement and does not understand the real concept of imperialism. One might even say that it is haunted by a spectre of self-determination.

A further example would be:

“Indeed, a close reading of the subtext of the Israel-Palestine conflict reveals precisely how the ‘war on terror’ serves as a smokescreen for the convergence of U.S. imperialism, Israeli elites, and Arab elites with respect to beating back the revolutionary nationalism in the region.”[2]

Nationalism of any form, whether revolutionary or democratic, serves only to further divide the working classes. A very ill-conceived way of looking at class struggle, such as the idea that revolutionary socialism can principally only arise in the most backward countries and self-determination and national liberation can help pit the working class of each country against the bourgeoisie of each country, does not understand capitalism in the context of imperialism.

Prashad writes: “Why does Hamas attack Israel? Because a political grammar has been imposed on the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis by the nature of the Israeli occupation. Indeed, any time there is a modest development for talks - often brokered by Qatar - between Hamas and the Israeli government, those talks are silenced by the sound of Israeli fighter jets.”[3]

This is a very mundane view of the events in Gaza. He presents the Palestinians as the infallible people and Hamas as their political voice while the Israelis are an occupying colonial force. This childish malady of the enemy of my enemy is my friend has been the dominating style of many a liberal and leftists. Terms such as nationalism, self-determination and liberating struggle are clear indicators that they have not truly understood the meaning of capitalism and how imperialism functions as a stage, the highest one, of capitalism. Imperialism is, in its roots, a result of the accumulation of capital.

Again, now we must come back to a critique of the leftists and liberals who are a latently retrogressive force. No leftist or liberal has truly escaped this spectre of national liberation which, one could say, speaks to their lack of understanding of capitalism and imperialism.

First considering the leftist position for it makes a call to subaltern internationalism which veils a larger goal of revolutionary nationalism. The usage of terms by both leftists and liberals such as “Neo-Colonialism” “Islamophobia” and “Jewish colonisation” do nothing but engage in mysticism and counterrevolutionary phrase-mongering.

Their goal of national liberation in Palestine is very much apparent in their writing.

“Likewise, the strategy of partition was a potent tool of British imperialists, which was clearly compatible with the doctrine of ‘divida et impera’ (divide and rule). The strategy of partition was a prominent, tried-and-tested strategy of the ruling elites of the British imperialist era. Prime Minister Lloyd George, for example, had partitioned Ireland in December 1921. As the Second British Empire proved difficult to hold on to post the end of World War II, India too was partitioned. With the loss of India, the Oriental end-point of the Second British Empire was immediately re-established on the Persian Gulf, with the Palestinian region rising in importance. This was more so, given that imperial control over neighbouring Egypt proved difficult, especially as Egyptian nationalism grew and eventually precipitated the toppling of the monarchy in order to establish the Egyptian republic in 1952. Given this, Palestine was the obvious alternative for the strategic control of the Suez Canal that connects European trade with Asia.”[4]

I.

The acquisition of new territories can be said to form a part of imperialism; however one must understand that imperialism is a specific phenomenon that is an essential and final step of capitalist mode of production. Such an argument as using imperialism in a bourgeois sense thereby labelling even Rome an imperial power is akin to stating that alienation and exploitation are unique only to capitalism. This romantic-utopic view of imperialism is highly improper. Imperialism is, instead, a stage in capitalist mode of production since it arises out of a specific crisis of capitalism: A crisis of markets, acquisition and fall of profit.

The imperialist phase of capitalist accumulation comprises the industrialisation and capitalist emancipation of the hinterland where capital formerly realised its surplus value. Characteristics of this phase are lending abroad, railroad construction, revolutions and wars.[5] This offers us an insight into the functioning of imperialism, as a product of capitalism, rooted firmly in the latent contradictions of capitalism. Unlike bourgeois reactionaries who often portray conquests as an inevitability or the norm, those who understand Marxism as a science are able to offer a more holistic understanding, such as the understanding provided by Luxemburg.

Lenin’s role too cannot be discounted in providing a deeper analysis of imperialism. In his role in the analysis of banks in part II of his text, “Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism”, Lenin writes: “The principal and primary function of banks is to serve as middle-men in the making of payments. In doing so they transform inactive money capital into active, that is, into capital yielding a profit […] The big enterprises, and the banks in particular, not only absorb the small ones, but also ‘annex’ them, subordinate them, bring them into their ‘own’ group or concern by acquiring ‘holdings’ in their capital, by purchasing or exchanging shares, by a system of credits, etc., etc.”

Lenin’s analysis and further polemics against various bourgeois economists and social democrats such as Hobson (former) and Kautsky (latter) should be held in good respect. From Lenin’s statement (amongst other things), the overall schema of imperialism can be ascertained: the need to capitalise surplus value and to maintain stable profits by acquiring new resources and markets as well as cheaper labour is the driving force for capitalists to seek out newer territory and what distinguishes capitals’ pursuit of new territory from feudal pursuit of new territory. The underlying and perhaps principal contradiction of capitalism is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. To maintain and grow the capitalisation of surplus value, larger capitalists have to expand their markets into all other regions making imperialism a stage in capitalist development.

II.

While the above stands true, one must also understand that capitalism and the imperial stage is also subject to change. In this case, the role of the state is essential. The ultimate condition of production is the reproduction of the conditions of production.[6] A single capitalist not only has to continue production but must also continue the reproduction of his raw materials which other capitalists do, and their own reproduction is performed by other capitalists. In doing so, this reproduction of the forces of production is endless and will consume the entire world thereby leading to no place in our world being free of capitalism. This speaks to the integration of the world capitalist market and the creation of world capital. One does need to go deep into ideologies of the state and its apparatuses. What is more important is, “What is the purpose of the state and its apparatuses”? The state serves to enable the reproduction of the productive forces of capitalism and to ensure the reproduction of the entire mode of production itself. In doing so, it sometimes negotiates with trade unions and offers piecemeal reforms. However, today, the state’s role in the economy is much greater. Many call this socialist when in reality they are state capitalist.

It is in this analysis of state capitalism where we can find Lenin’s greatest drawback. Instead of the state acting as a puppet of the capitalists, these capitalists are subordinated by the state to ensure reproduction of productive forces and the mode of production as a whole. To condense an elaborate argument, the subordination of national capital by the state as well as the internal contradictions of capitalism that leads to need to expand across the world has led to the emergence of imperialism and state capitalism as its most driving form.

The defects of Lenin’s theory and soviet imperialism can be readily seen. In his thesis on “The socialist revolution and the right of nations to self-determination”, Lenin says “the semi colonial countries, such as China, Persia and Turkey, and all the colonies, which have a combined population of 1000 million, the bourgeois democratic movements have either hardly begun or have a long way to go. Socialists must not only demand the unconditional and immediate liberation of the colonies without compensation - and this demand in its political expression signifies nothing else than the recognition of the right to self-determination.”

It is very much clear that Lenin supports the wars of national liberation and the question of a popular frontesque alliance escapes him. Even in the case of wars of national liberation, the national bourgeois are already cowed by the imperialist world capital or they themselves became imperialist in nature.

 

Raghav / November 2024

Trump is back at the head of the American state, four years after his electoral defeat by Biden. This represents a resounding failure for the more 'responsible' faction of the US bourgeoisie despite all the efforts made since 2020 by parts of it to isolate Trump and his camp, with the involvement of the Biden administration, the Democratic Party, part of the Republican Party and part of the American intelligentsia. In fact, the recent electoral victory against Harris, even clearer than the previous one against Hilary Clinton in 2016, is by no means fortuitous but is typically the product of the decomposition of capitalist society, of which Trumpism is an offshoot. Since Trump had already clearly demonstrated his power to cause harm at the head of state during his first term in office, and his delirious irresponsibility during the assault on the Capitol in Washington which he encouraged in the face of Biden's election, all this illustrates the impasse in which American capitalism and its bourgeoisie find themselves, unable to curb the hold of populism during Biden's 4 years in office. So much so that it has grown even stronger, resulting in a Trump 2.0 even more delirious than Trump1.

The populist agenda: a social and economic aberration

Trump's programme expresses a radicalisation of populism, notably through his most outlandish electoral promises, and this is an aberration from the point of view of the management of national capital: deportation by the army of millions of illegal immigrants; dismissal of hundreds of thousands of civil servants, including in particular those who, in the performance of their duties, had been led to take a stand against Trump, notably for his role in the assault on the Capitol following Biden's election.

To renew the administration, Trump is selecting candidates for key posts at the head of strategic departments and agencies on the basis of two decisive criteria that do not take into account the candidates' competence: being a Trump loyalist and being ready to join an offensive against the federal state. Among Trump's proposals, the most strategic - since it concerns the head of the Pentagon - and emblematic of the ‘radical break’ promised during his election campaign, is a former military officer and Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth who, moreover, has been accused of sexual assault and excessive alcohol consumption. This method, which guarantees the greatest incompetence in strategic positions to defend the interests of American capital, is a very good indicator of where Trump 2.0 is taking America.

Once again we see that populist politics, when not supervised at the head of the state by other factions of the bourgeoisie, more responsible with regard to the management of national capital, has always proved detrimental to the interests of the latter. This was illustrated, for example, by the disastrous management of the Covid crisis by Trump in the United States and by Bolsonaro in Brazil. And what can come out of the Trump/Musk tandem at the top of the American state? Both undoubtedly share the most foul values of populism, just as they are profoundly in agreement on a number of issues such as the need for a deep purge in the administration, but both are indifferent to the serious dysfunctions of the state apparatus that may result. What's more, behind their agreement there are different motivations that will sooner or later constitute a factor of rivalry and fragility at the top of the state: Trump deliberately wants to take revenge on institutions that have been hostile to him, while Musk wants to improve the profitability of American capital by streamlining the administration. The same disagreement also exists over legal immigration, which Trump wants to block completely, unlike Musk, who wants to make an exception for foreign engineers.

The global consequences of Trump's policies in office

They are predictable in terms of the direction they will take, as announced in his election campaign. They are unpredictable in terms of the final decisions.

What might have seemed inconceivable at any other time and in any other part of the world, with the exception of a few banana republics, has happened in the world's leading power, some time before Trump's second inauguration. The future new president began dreaming aloud of an extra star on the American flag, corresponding in effect to the annexation of neighbouring Canada! Even if this is just a ‘populist joke’, it takes on a whole new colouring when Trump also threatens to take back the Panama Canal (ceded to Panama by Carter in 1979) by force if necessary, on the pretext that China is exerting increasing influence over this crucial sea route. The same goes for Greenland (belonging to Denmark), which Trump is considering annexing because it is necessary for US security. No one can say whether or not this will be followed up, but it has certainly caused a wave of panic in the chancelleries of Europe. Similarly, some of them will certainly have been seized with a certain amount of dread at Musk's harassment of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, accusing him in particular of complicity with paedophile networks.

A new migration crisis?

If Trump succeeds in deporting hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to the US by force of arms, there is a great risk of provoking a new migration crisis, like the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war in other parts of the world. The forced arrival of these masses of deportees in Latin American countries will condemn them to languish in abject poverty - which some of them had tried to escape - vulnerable to persecution and blackmail by the police, gangs, etc., and will constitute a risk of destabilisation of the destination countries.

A further boost to the economic crisis

The world is facing the prospect of a historic global economic recession, at least as severe as that of the 1930s. Neither Trump nor any other representative of the bourgeoisie is responsible for this as such; it is the insurmountable contradictions of the capitalist mode of production that are at work. But far from deferring or mitigating the effects of the crisis, the pursuit and amplification of the ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’ doctrines only serve to precipitate them, notably through a series of measures already taken by the Biden administration aimed at dismantling all the international bodies responsible for supporting world trade. More generally, the aim of US policy is to concentrate the world's capital and modern industries on its territory, to the detriment of the rest of the world, a growing part of which is destined to look more and more like an industrial wasteland. Such a policy is not unique to a populist administration, but what distinguishes the latter is the irrational violence of its protectionist measures. The world's major economic powers in Europe and Asia are well aware of this situation and are preparing to organise themselves as best they can to face up to a new stage in the trade war announced by Trump. In any case, we can expect the consequences of the trade war and the crisis to be felt, which will inevitably result in a considerable attack on the living conditions of the working class and the impoverishment of the general population.

A further trump card in favour ... of worsening the climate crisis

Trump's commitment to climate change can be gauged from his recent stance on the fires in Los Angeles, publicly blaming the state's governor for them. This shameless avoidance of the root of the problem bodes ill for the future climate impact of the second Trump presidency.

Worsening imperialist tensions

Since the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the United States, the world's policeman, has proved to be the world's biggest chaos-maker. There is no reason why this should change, as it is a condition of its continued global leadership. The world's two main current hotbeds of war, in Ukraine and the Middle East, will serve as illustrations of Trump's defence of America's imperialist interests.

In Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is a continuation of the old policy of encircling Russia, spearheaded by NATO. It is Russia's response to the efforts of US imperialism to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. After Biden's assurance that the United States would not intervene in the event of a Russian invasion of that country, Russia fell into the trap and, after three years of massacres and barbarism, the war in Ukraine has effectively achieved what American imperialism wanted, namely the military and economic exhaustion of Russia in order to deprive China of a possible ally with a powerful nuclear arsenal in a future confrontation with the United States. But today Ukraine finds itself in a situation which, on the ground, is no better, if not worse, than that of Russia, and which can only deteriorate all the faster as US support, through the supply of military equipment, is set to disappear, since Trump has always disagreed with such support. Moreover, Trump has constantly boasted that, if elected, he would ‘end the conflict in two days’, by which he means working out an agreement with both sides. This now seems highly unlikely. If Ukraine collapses and Russia falters, won't the European Union have to intervene to freeze the status quo by protecting a dying Ukraine vulnerable to a Russian last stand? And how? With what countries and what resources? The outcome is unknown and unpredictable.

With this in mind, and also in view of Trump's very likely reiteration of his plan to force the European Union to bear the cost of its own defence, by increasing its contribution to NATO and the military budgets of all its member countries, the latter will have no choice but to bow out of supporting Ukraine.

The situation in the Middle East offers greater visibility. It is very likely that Trump will continue his policy of unconditional support for Israel's imperialist activities; it is even possible that he will openly encourage some of them, particularly those aimed at destroying Iran's military power.

Tensions with China can only increase, as this country is the most likely to threaten the global leadership of the United States. The US will continue to do everything in its power to weaken China by maintaining increasing military pressure on it and hindering its trade with other industrialised countries.

Faced with the attacks of the bourgeoisie, faced with war, faced with the false alternatives of populism/anti-populism, fascism/anti-fascism, there is only one choice: class struggle.

As a product of the decomposition of the capitalist mode of production, populism is in turn an aggravating factor of this decomposition. Thus, the world situation will evolve towards an aggravation of the decomposition of capitalism, towards even more chaos, more war, towards a drastic worsening of the living conditions of the working class as a consequence of the crisis and the war. The attacks on working class conditions encourage defensive struggles, opening up the possibility of an increasingly united and conscious response. Nevertheless, the conditions in which this struggle will develop present mortal dangers which the working class must avoid:

- The very context of decomposition - in particular with the ‘every man for himself’ attitude and the absence of perspectives - is an obstacle to the development of a united and conscious practice and project;

- The working class will always be called upon by the different factions of the bourgeoisie to position itself in favour of democracy against populism, just as it was in the past to support the camp of democracy against that of fascism.

The working class would have everything to lose by succumbing to despair, to the feeling of ‘no future’ ..... The only terrain of struggle which is specific to the working class and which has a future is that of the defence of its economic class interests in response to the attacks of capitalism in crisis. This is the only basis for the politicisation of its struggles and therefore holds out the prospect of the overthrow of capitalism.

Sylunken (10/01/2025)

 

ICC introduction

We publish here a contribution from comrade Baboon on the international public forum held by the ICC on the significance of the election of Trump in the USA. The comrade agrees with our general analysis of what this means in terms of the acceleration of capitalist decomposition, and also rightly warns against efforts to calibrate the level of class struggle by examining votes cast for this or that bourgeois politician. The extract that follows focuses on the question of the “rupture” in the class struggle and broadly agrees with much of the ICC’s position on this. However, he expresses some disagreements about the moment at which this rupture took place and so his contribution is followed by our response on this point.

 

My aim below is to try to discern some tendencies to the workers’ struggles coming from the five years with some reference to the 1980’s, which these struggles (culminating in 2022) are connected to and have gone beyond.

An international wave of class struggle builds from 2017

An ICC comrade from France at the meeting disagreed with an emphasis on “Britain 2022”, saying that it was “one movement among many”. She was both right and wrong in my opinion. The “rupture of ’22” in Britain has its roots in significant workers’ struggles that began around half-a-decade before. During this five year period the weight of decomposition was visibly increasing with the coming together of the elements of the “whirlwind” effect so the emphasis from the ICC was that of the weight of decomposition on the struggle and the difficulties of the latter to escape from this. But, fortunately, the working class had its own ideas. There is no doubt that this was an international wave of struggle unfolding which, in my opinion, was to turn out more significant than the 1980’s. Eventually, the role of the proletariat in Britain was particularly important in this wave and its culmination in 2022 should not be underestimated. It was fully part of an international wave but the role of the British proletariat became exceptional.

In 2017, Trump was elected for the first time and by 2018, the proletariat in the US and Canada were engaging in significant strikes – not as an immediate response to Trump, but in relation to the increasing attacks that regimes of all kinds had to unleash on the workers. Throughout 2019, large, militant strikes were increasing across the globe. There was nothing spectacular about these strikes but they did show the persistence and strength of class struggle in the face of great difficulties, particularly in the United States. The year ended with one of the most significant strikes in the history of Britain/Ireland with action by nurses and health workers evaporating the sectarian division in Northern Ireland with mass engagements from other workers. It was where the slogan “Enough is enough” was born. It was the most important strike in the UK for over 3 decades and one of the most important strikes in Northern Ireland ever. As far as I can see WR made no comment on this strike – why was that the case?.

Despite the justified fears that the Covid-19 pandemic would put the lid on the class struggle – again – the working class had other ideas. Strikes began in Britain at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. In very difficult circumstances a minority of workers, mainly in low-paid, service industries (the bigger industries being underwritten by state subsidies), went on strikes across the country, often explicitly against the unions. You can’t strike against a virus – that would be pointless. But what you can strike against – if you’re not crushed – is the working conditions imposed by the ruling class as a result of the pandemic. And this is what a significant minority of workers did in Britain throughout with strikes rumbling up and down the country all year. And to prove that this was no fluke, by late summer similar strikes among similar layers of the working class had broken out in North and South America, Italy, France, Spain and parts of Asia (all references of international struggle, their locations and dates, are taken from recent articles on the class struggle in the International Reviews).

In 2021, strikes were continuing everywhere and a significant strike in Britain was the return of the lorry drivers to the proletarian cause. The lorry drivers were the first major sector of the working class to be defeated – deliberately crushed as a proletarian force - by the Thatcher regime in its quest to take on and defeat the “enemy within”. It’s not a paradox that the strikes in this sector in ’21 saw the strengthening of the unions because the unions were already strengthening in the face of the rising struggles. While the unions were strengthening – they had been brought in as levers of the state during the pandemic by the Tory government – the lorry drivers continued to spread their struggles in ’21 as part of the class movement. This was a remarkable resurrection of the lorry drivers as a proletarian force given their reduction by Thatcher to “Gilet Jaunes”-type elements of the petty-bourgeoisie.

Britain 2022: the best solidarity with the struggle is to join it!

It was a job to keep up with the workers’ struggles in Britain, 2022; in continuity with the struggles of the 1970’s and 80’s, but in conditions where it was far more difficult to engage in struggle than that earlier period (decomposition, populism, Trump/Johnson/Truss, massive and divisive ideological campaigns around race and sex, xenophobia and the spread of imperialist barbarism), the proletariat in Britain threw itself into one of the most intense and relentless periods of class struggle it had ever engaged in. This movement, this “rupture” demonstrated, along the way, the necessity for revolutionaries to maintain their confidence in the working class. Not the blind kind but that based on marxism with the proletariat as a potential revolutionary force. Despite all the limitations and the weaknesses of these struggles – lack of workers’ assemblies, little evidence of self-organisation, which are essential elements to take the struggle forward – these strikes, despite the union divisions, saw the workers fighting as a class with a unity of purpose providing a divergent perspective to the global descent into capitalist barbarism. The strikes of ’22 in Britain, following those of the previous two years did not produce any “spectacular” results in the sense of the unions being overwhelmed or of clear tendencies to self-organisation – workers’ committees and the like. So is it a mistake, an exaggeration to say that they went beyond the 1980’s, where both those elements were expressed? In a sense it was a largely “unconscious” struggle, but unconscious development – subterranean maturation - precedes consciousness in a revolutionary class. The difference between the two periods (1970’s – 80’s and the early 2020’s) has to be taken into account, particularly the difficulties facing attempts to fight in the latter. One of the tenets of the class struggle that the ICC has always insisted upon is that the greatest expression of solidarity towards the class struggle that workers can make is to join the struggle themselves – in ’22, that happened in spades and it was relentless, month after month. The working class showed an awareness regarding its responsibilities and obligations as a revolutionary class. It was fight or go under. There is something “political” about this.

Votes for strikes were very often almost unanimous (90 – 97%); at least several small but important sectors of the class that had never been on strike in their history joined the struggle with enthusiasm; strikes would be settled with all the workers’ demands met and two weeks later the same workers were out on strike again. This happened in several industries. There are elements here (“elements” I stress) that belong to the mass strike or Trotsky’s vivid and analytical descriptions of the strikes of 1905 in Russia. The trade unions were not breached and there was little direct association between workers of different industries but there were no “set-piece” set-up strategies from the bourgeoisie to trap the workers and it was unable to put a check on the movement as workers continued to join the struggle for their own interests.

The struggles in Britain in 2022 were not immediate reactions to any attacks but part of a strong, international wave of struggles that began 5 years beforehand, the dynamic and conclusion of which was that “we have to fight”. The emergence of this international wave, in the most difficult of circumstances, demonstrated that the memory of the class struggle exists outside of open struggle in periods of apparent “quiet” and that it reaffirmed itself in such a dramatic way is testament to the intrinsic historic and revolutionary nature of the working class.

The working class has to develop its own struggles; short-cuts and scams lead to confusion and weakness

The working class has to develop its own struggles or it is beaten. Short-cuts and scams, like the IBRP’s “transmission belts” and anti-war committees can only sow confusion within the class because they are attempts to substitute class consciousness for empty schemas. More importantly, these antics underestimate the real content of revolutionary intervention which has to based upon the greatest political clarity and a constantly defined position on the “lines of march” of the communist perspective. Consciousness can’t be injected into the working class. Bringing consciousness from the outside underestimates the necessary relations of ends and means to the communist perspective, while underestimating the role of revolutionaries and its relationship with the proletariat.

I defend the idea of an international strike wave that began in the depths of decomposition from around 2017 on; I also defend the particular role played the proletariat in Britain within and from this international wave in defending the historical and revolutionary nature of the working class.

Baboon. 22.11.24

 

ICC response

We welcome the contribution of the comrade, particularly because it globally endorses the position of the ICC on the rupture in the class struggle. The comrade affirms that the recent struggles are in general no longer “immediate reactions to any attacks” and that “there is something ‘political’ about this”. Important also is his statement that the movement “was a largely ‘unconscious’ struggle, but unconscious development – subterranean maturation - precedes consciousness in a revolutionary class”. Although it would be more precise to say that subterranean maturation is a process of coming to consciousness rather than being entirely ‘unconscious’,  this confirmation of the analysis of the ICC is all the more important since he ICC is the only organisation of the communist left that defends this notion of subterranean maturation and is therefore able to develop an intervention that, in the words of the comrade, “has to based upon the greatest political clarity and a constantly defined position on the ‘lines of march’ of the communist perspective”[1].

Having said this, there is however one point in his contribution that is different from the position of the ICC and that is about the moment the rupture clearly started. According to the comrade the rupture already “has its roots in significant workers’ struggles that began around half-a-decade before” the wave of struggles in the UK.

The struggles at the beginning of 2020 in France; ‘Striketober’ in the autumn 2021 in the United States and even the more isolated strikes during the pandemic, such as those of healthcare workers in different countries and lorry drivers in the UK, were clear expressions of workers’ combativity. These struggles showed the maturing conditions in the class, but they were not yet the rupture, the real turning point. They ran into obstacles such as the outbreak of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, which each time threw the workers’ struggle back. Until the summer of 2022.

Should we now say in retrospect that the various struggles the comrade mentions in his contribution were already preliminary steps to the rupture? Yes and no.

Yes, because in retrospect we can establish that some of them were not only valuable experiences for the workers – for example the attempt to go beyond divisions between Catholic and Protestant workers in the struggle in Northern Ireland - but even necessary steps, contributing to the build-up of the conditions for the rupture. No, because they were not yet able “to rise to the occasion”, to offer an adequate reaction to the challenge of the period. They all remained isolated, in their own corporation (such as the struggle of the healthcare workers) or at least within the boundaries of the country (in France at the beginning of 2020). And none of them had the international resonance necessary to be considered as the start of a new phase in the struggle of the working class.

The significance of May ’68 in France was due to the fact that the radiation of the struggles went far beyond the French context alone. The level of the mass struggle of May ’68 was not only a response to the economic attacks on the workers in France, but also a response to a whole historical situation. It was the struggle that put an end to the counter-revolutionary conditions. May ’68 “was the fruit of a long process of disengagement from bourgeois institutions and ideological themes (such as trade unions and the so-called workers’ parties, the myths of democracy and “real socialism” in the east, etc), accompanied by worsening material conditions (the first signs of a new open economic crisis).”[2]

The struggles which started in Great Britain in the summer of 2022, had a similar significance. Like in 1968, a new generation of workers had emerged, less affected by the campaign about the death of communism and the disappearance of the working class. The recovery of workers’ combativity, exemplified by the struggle in the UK, was on such a scale and was so impressive that it could not be explained by national circumstances alone. It was actually a manifestation of the change of the state of mind in the whole international working class, which had shaken off passivity, timidity and disorientation. The struggle itself had become the first victory: “the greatest expression of solidarity towards the class struggle that workers can make is to join the struggle themselves”, as the comrade writes in his contribution.

Since 2022 workers’ struggles are no longer a simple response to this or that immediate attack, even if such reactions are never excluded. As we have already seen in the slogan “enough is enough”, but even in the fight against something like “the cost of living crisis” (against inflation, energy bills, housing costs, etc.), a fundamental characteristic of the rupture was the tendency to go beyond the immediate defence against the economic attacks. A particular feature of the current struggles is that they carry within them the tendency to reject the solution offered by the limitations of capitalism.

In and through the struggle workers begin to recognise themselves as part of the same class, the famous class identity: “we are all in the same boat”. Even if we have not seen examples of direct extension of the struggles beyond the sector, there have also been clear expressions of solidarity as was seen by the statement “we are all fighting for each other”. There have been expressions of solidarity between workers of different companies and sectors, between precarious younger workers and older workers and even embryonic international expressions of solidarity.

The rupture and its characteristics are indeed the outcome of a process of subterranean maturation of consciousness which “exists outside of open struggle in periods of apparent ‘quiet’”, as the comrades writes. But after the class struggle was beaten back heavily by democratic campaigns following the collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe, this process is still in a relatively embryonic stage, “the broad tendencies initiated by the ‘break’ of 2022 are only at their beginning”[3].

So, it should not surprise us that we have seen very few forms of self-organisation or attempts to break out of the unions in the current struggles.

Regarding the strike in Northern Ireland, the comrade is right that the slogan “enough is enough” was raised in this strike, which may have been an indication that something was changing in this particular sector of the working class. But it did not fundamentally change the nature of that strike. The slogan was raised in the context of an essentially corporatist strike with demands for a fair pay and for the quality of the care for the patients.

But the signification of the slogan “enough is enough”, as was put forward in the strike wave of 2022-23, is that it goes beyond particular working conditions of a certain sector of the class. The slogan expresses a mood that transcends the immediate and particular conditions of this or that sector of the class, and contains an appeal to fight for more general interests. The slogan is the expression of the potential dynamic towards the unification of the struggles of the different sectors of the working class.

The rupture is essentially an international phenomenon, echoing in the class struggles in the whole world. The struggle in the spring of 2023 in France and later that year in the United States, confirmed the rupture and the characteristics of the new period.  "As well as fighting against the deterioration in its living and working conditions, the working class is engaged in a much broader reflection on this system and its future.” (‘Strikes and demonstrations in the United States, Spain, Greece, France... How can we develop and unite our struggles? [3]’, World Revolution no. 398, autumn 2023).

 

According to Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema's initial assessment, Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were not known for causing trouble. The National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism and Security (NCTV) stressed that with regards to this Israeli football club, there was “no concrete threat to the home supporters, its players or the match.” However, at the time the riots broke out there were barely 1,000 police officers available to prevent possible clashes of Israeli supporters with the Dutch citizens. It was clear that, the bourgeoisie had made a “misjudgment.”

It should take no time at all for anyone who makes the effort to find out that the supporters of this football club are no wimps. They are notorious for their provocations and brawls with their opponents and, contrary to the bourgeoisie's proclamations, have resorted to violence a number of times, including outside Israel. Moreover, Maccabi supporters are notorious for their anti-Arab rhetoric. Every Arab football player, even in their own club, is targeted and “Death to Arabs,” is a slogan they often chant.

So the inevitable happened. In the run-up to the match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv on 7 November, these supporters went on the rampage. It was as if they were in the West Bank, intent on teaching the Palestinian inhabitants a lesson. They chanted racist slogans, abused onlookers and, armed with sticks, attacked random passersby. Furthermore, they destroyed property, ripped down Palestinian and Dutch flags and set them on fire. A few even tried to enter a house to remove a Palestinian flag from the wall. In other words anything but a typical crowd of football supporters. This in turn led to violent reactions from Muslim youth. After the match, a number of the Maccabi hooligans were indeed chased, threatened, assaulted and even thrown into the cold water of Amsterdam's canals. And no doubt innocent victims were caught up in the process.

It is inconceivable that the Netherlands bourgeoisie did not know about the reputation of the Macccabi fans. So why did they choose to keep quiet about it and let crowds of these people flood into the city? What led the NCTV in particular to declare that there were no particular risks associated with the arrival of a thousand Maccabi hooligans? We can only guess. What we can observe, however, is that both the ruling and opposition parties were only too happy to use the riots to publicise their populist politics.

The populist exploitation of the riots

The populist parties had already decided in advance who should be to blame for the disturbances in Amsterdam: it was the Muslim youth, supposedly driven by deep-seated anti-Semitism. Politicians of the ruling parties made exaggerated claims to justify it, speaking of a hunt for Jews, even a pogrom, comparing these attacks to those of the Nazi Stormtroopers.

A main characteristic of populism is to always look for a scapegoat. For the populist parties PVV, BBB and NSC[1] (and also for the VVD), the youth with an Islamic background in particular, “the multicultural scum” as Wilders calls them, were the real instigators of the violence in Amsterdam and should therefore be removed from “our” society.

Furthermore, the solutions proposed by populism, even by bourgeois standards, are completely unrealistic. Proposals such as deporting the 'scum' and closing the borders to newcomers, as well as closing mosques and banning the Koran, testify to a very simplistic response to the complex problems that capitalism has created.

Finally, populism is not averse to conspiracy theories either. The PVV regards Islam as “a totalitarian, intolerant and violent political ideology of conquest disguised as a religion. The goal of Islam is the establishment of an Islamic world empire”[2]. In doing so, this party deliberately ignores the fact that Islam, either religiously or politically, does not form a united whole, but has different strands and is also clearly subservient to the interests of nation states.

Whipping up these extreme reactions was designed to unleash a real smear campaign against a particular section of the Dutch population, a campaign that had to underline once again that the mass expulsion and deportation of migrants to a country like Uganda, which is a focus of the Schoof government's policy, is more than justified.

The fuss surrounding the riots before and after the football game served the populist coalition well for more than one reason:

 - It deflected attention from the shambles that is the Schoof government:

- It diverted attention from the new migration policy which, with the abolition of the bed-bath-bread measure, the overruling of the dispersal law, the drastic cuts in the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (CRA), is only leading to greater chaos. The new government's policy of drastically slowing down the influx of asylum seekers is a failure because the introduction of an emergency law, which should have given it special powers, is not supported by the House of Representatives. To prove that it is nevertheless capable of actually acting against mass immigration, one day after the riots in Amsterdam, it made the decision to introduce border controls, following the example of Germany and France.

- With this campaign around the riots, the government also wants to divert attention from the €2.2 billion cuts in the budgets for higher education and the care of the elderly that will be implemented in the coming period. This also provides it with an opportunity to limit the right to demonstrate, not only regarding protests on the bourgeois terrain but especially for those workers facing attacks on their livelihoods.

Populism and anti-populism have both polarised around the riots to cover up their basic agreements

It was not only the Schoof government that fuelled polarisation around the Amsterdam riots. By publishing amateur footage of the provocations by Maccabi supporters, the left-wing opposition condoned the retaliatory actions of immigrant youths driven by nationalistic and religious feelings of revenge, and condemned the fascist-like behavior of Israeli soccer supporters. Thus the polarisation surrounding the riots and the war stirring up tempers was complete, and the left could therefore play its part in stifling any working class opposition to the Schoof government's austerity measures. In Utrecht, for example, a planned demonstration by university staff against the austerity plans in Higher Education was cancelled “for fear of further riots.”

However, it is important that the workers of the Netherlands are not distracted by the sham divisions that the bourgeoisie tries to impose on them. They have no interest in choosing for or against Jews, for or against Muslims, for or against immigrants. The only interest for the working class is the struggle for the defence of its working and living conditions, its wages, which are severely squeezed as a result of the destabilisation of the world economy by the wars and planetary chaos.

In the first months of 2023, simultaneously with the strike movement in Britain and France, a small wave of strikes was already underway in the Netherlands, a simultaneous occurrence of strikes “of the municipal workers, workers at social workshops[3], staff at various retail chains, the Über taxi drivers, some bus and coach company drivers, hospital workers, those in the beverage industry, workers at the Netherlands Post, at Douwe Egberts, and the potato processing company Aviko.”[4]. Such struggles are important because in every strike against the effects of the economic crisis lies the seeds of the international unification of workers' struggles, which is the only force that can end populism, racism, xenophobia, Zionism and anti-Semitism, by overthrowing

 

ICC international online public meeting

Saturday January 25, 2pm to 5pm UK time

The election of Trump will accelerate capitalism’s decomposition

The election of Trump is a clear product of the advancing decomposition of capitalism, but it will also be an active factor in the acceleration of this process, bringing with it sharpening conflicts within the US ruling class, heighted imperialist tensions, a new dive into the economic crisis and further proof of capitalism’s inability to deal with the crisis of the natural environment.

Above all, it signals further brutal attacks on the international working class:

• At the economic level, through rising inflation and unemployment
• At the political level, both through the divisions fired by populism and the campaigns for ‘democracy’ against the threat of the far right.

The discussion will thus aim to deepen understanding of the concrete perspectives for capitalism and for the working class in the coming period.

The ICC is thus following up the international online public meeting it held in October (see An international debate to understand the global situation and prepare for the future [7]) with a second meeting on the significance of Trump’s victory. The format will be the same as the October meeting, offering translations into English, French and Spanish.

If you want to take part, write to us at [email protected] [8]

A dispute arose a few months ago between the two French Trotskyist groups, Révolution Permanente (RP), an offshoot of the NPA (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste), and Lutte Ouvrière (LO), concerning the Palestinian question. The argument centred above all on what each of these organisations considers to be the clearest internationalist position in the face of the barbarity of the Middle East conflict, with RP criticising LO for pitting the State of Israel and Hamas against each other and refusing to “come down on one side or the other”.

Even if these two Trotskyist groups claim to defend proletarian internationalism and the communist revolutionary perspective, the reality is quite different since as leading members of the extreme left of capital, they are still the most relentless defenders of Palestinian nationalism in a more or less insidious way, always backing one imperialist camp against the others behind devious verbiage.

In such military conflicts where the working class is used as cannon fodder and massacred in its thousands as a result of being politically hijacked in the countries involved, their approach is always to conduct all the verbal exchanges in a supposed debate of clarification, which is nothing but a bourgeois discourse in which both want to be the most radical ‘champion’ of the defence of the national interests of the Palestinian people. And this is all in the name of the ‘right of peoples to self-determination’, in the name of the ‘right of the oppressed to respond to the imperialist oppressor’, principles seen as emancipatory and springboards for a supposed revolutionary perspective: “it is a political mistake to equate the nationalism of the oppressors and that of the oppressed. It amounts to failing to understand that the national, anti-imperialist and/or anti-colonial sentiment of an oppressed people has a progressive and liberating content (even if it is limited)” (RP, September 2023).

Despite their fine speeches and their falsified references to Marx, Lenin and even Trotsky, there is nothing at all proletarian about the nationalist terrain and, in the declining phase of the capitalist system, the ‘progressive content’ of the warlike adventures of ‘an oppressed people’ has always turned out to be reactionary and barbaric in practice. The constant confused and vacillating language is nothing other than the contribution of these organisations, in all their more or less radical forms, to the barbarity of war itself, with the call to choose one imperialist camp against another!

The Trotskyists' shoddy 'internationalism'

This dispute was triggered by RP, who criticised LO for having a ‘Bordigist position’, seen as the result of having a globally invariant political position, incapable of analysing the actual evolution of the imperialist balance of forces: the positions might be “right” in general but “do not take the current situation into account”. RP defends the idea that there are internationalist principles, of course, but that there are different dimensions to it, and it must be defended within the framework of a “reality principle”, a policy of the lesser evil, adapted to the circumstances!

However, this reference to Bordigism[1] is not insignificant. It seeks to link Trotskyist ideology, however critical, to an authentic historical internationalist tradition of the workers' movement which did not betray the proletariat during the Spanish Civil War or the Second World War. This is in contrast to the Trotskyists who wallowed in anti-fascism and sank into supporting the Allied imperialist camp behind the Russian Stalinist state. The objective of this quarrelling is clearly poisonous! It is nothing more than a deception designed to misrepresent the real defence of internationalist principles by existing groups of the Communist Left, such as the Bordigist current or the ICC.

Whatever criticisms, however important, that the ICC may level at the Bordigist current and the groups which make it up, this current has remained in the camp of the proletariat and that of the Communist Left since it denounced the imperialist character of the Second World War, refusing to choose between the barbarity of the anti-fascist camp or that of the Axis powers.

RP and LO make grand internationalist declarations: “revolutionary organisations seek to analyse the opposing sides in conflicts and where the interests of the international proletariat ultimately lie in a given armed confrontation, and which outcome would be the more favourable or, conversely, be opposed to the revolutionary perspective” (RP, November 2024). But their nationalist agenda is never far away. For Révolution Permanente: “To make a strong political stand without then taking sides in a military conflict is tantamount to burying your head in the sand”. “In the case of a conflict between an imperialist belligerent [...] and colonised peoples or semi-colonial countries [...] under the yoke of imperialism, revolutionaries are in the ‘military camp’ of the latter”. “Whether we like it or not, Hamas is not Daesh and, in military terms, it is the main organisation of Palestinian national resistance to the State of Israel”...

It is in the name of the revolutionary perspective that these recruiting sergeants have the nerve to defend the most shameless policy of mass murder: “This headlong rush into an ever more destructive war could create an opening for the popular masses of the region to enter the stage on a social, political and military terrain, depending on the different scenarios, and could change the dynamics of the conflict [...]. Any victory or advance by the Palestinian camp could open the way for a revolutionary development in the region”.

Such warlike and nationalistic raving has lead LO to distance itself a little more from its own defence of the Palestinian cause by criticising RP's ‘abandonment of internationalism’. But it doesn't matter: the nationalist logic still oozes out of every pore.  RP regrets having to remind LO that during the 1973 war LO clearly did take sides. It's true that LO's apparent and counterfeit radicalism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nothing but window dressing, given that on other occasions LO has never hesitated to defend openly nationalist positions (Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq...).

It is hence a reflex for LO to restate its slimy message after having worked the ambiguities to perfection: “As revolutionary communists, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Lebanese and all the peoples who are victims of the violence of imperialism and the Israeli state which acts as its armed force in the Middle East. In the war it is waging, we hope for the military defeat of the Israeli state” (LO, September 2024). So there you have it! However radical the rhetoric of Lutte Ouvrière or Révolution Permanente, their internationalism is a bluff, an authentically bourgeois deception!

But far from us making fun of this bluster, these sometimes tortuous speeches to justify the unjustifiable, we continue to believe that they represent above all a major trap in the politicisation of those who are trying to understand what wars really represent in today's imperialist chaos and how to oppose them. For the Trotskyists, it's clear: one way or another, you must take part and take sides: “We have therefore chosen a side, but it is first and foremost a political side: we are in unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people in the face of the oppression they are suffering” (LO, September 2024).

That's the whole point of their intervention: to respond to and spoil any clear understanding in the working class regarding the massacres by Hamas and the IDF. In the end, RP and LO shared the dirty work: while RP waded into a ‘critical’ support for the barbarians of Hamas, LO assumed a more underhanded support by saying it “flew the red flag, that of the international working class and not the Palestinian national flag, unlike RP”. Unanimously, these two organisations regretted that the pro-Palestinian demonstrations “have only involved a very small fraction of young people, particularly in France where they have never reached a level of mobilisation comparable to that in the United States” (LO, September 2024).

These mobilisations are a trap designed to exploit the difficulty of the working class and its younger generation to understand the seriousness of the situation of decomposition and the chaos of capitalism that lies behind the military conflicts. But the lack of mobilisation behind the Palestinian nationalist flags is also a sign that the young working class generation in the central countries, for all its confusion, is not ready to be mobilised behind the rhetoric of the war-mongers and be drawn into the ever more bloody and irrational butchery that in no way serves its interests, clearly much to the displeasure of Trotskyism...

Stopio, 5 January 2025

The cards are on the table: the federal and regional governments each want to impose tens of billions of savings within the scope of their respective powers in order to make the Belgian economy more competitive and profitable. All sectors of the working class will be strongly affected by this broad austerity programme.

While workers in private companies are being made redundant on a massive scale, the automatic indexing of salaries and benefits continues to be challenged, overtime and night work bonuses are being reduced, labour flexibility is being increased, access to unemployment benefits is being restricted, pensions and health insurance are being drastically cut, the total number of civil servants is being reduced, the tenure of teaching staff is being jeopardised, etc.

And this at a time when working conditions are becoming increasingly unbearable everywhere: underemployment, faster pace of work, blurring of the boundary between professional and private life, inflationary price increases, reduction of all kinds of subsidies, growing environmental disasters, depression, burnout. Enough is enough!

We should refuse to pay for the crisis of capitalism!

The government claims that there is no choice. In the logic of every ruling class, it is necessary to increase competitiveness to face the decline in economic growth and the trade war accentuated by Trump's protectionist economic policies, but also by the growing cost of military spending linked to imperialist tensions and wars. In every country, the ruling classes are trying to pass on to the workers the consequences of their own crisis of overproduction, i.e. commodities that they can no longer sell at a sufficient profit on the available markets. Labour must be made cheaper. Once again, the focus is not on the well-being or the needs of the workers, but on the profitable sale of goods and services. We need to reject this destructive and suicidal logic of the bourgeoisie.

We are not alone in reacting! In 2022-23, in Great Britain, tens of thousands of workers from companies in different sectors were fighting for almost a year. In 2023, in France, workers participated en masse in 14 ‘days of action’ against the government's attacks on pensions. In Belgium itself, from the first ‘leaks’ concerning the planned measures, the strength and dynamism of the mobilisations during the cross-sector demonstration on 13 January or the teachers' demonstration on 27 January resulted in a massive turnout of more than 30,000 demonstrators, far more than was ‘expected’ or rather hoped for by the unions. Protesters gathered in Brussels from all regions, and the movement spread to sectors other than education and rail, contrary to the unions' original intention. The mobilisation thus showed that the discontent goes beyond a particular measure or a specific ‘reform’: it expresses the will to resist the intention of the employers and the government to make the working class pay for the crisis.

Enough is enough! We must refuse to passively endure this avalanche of attacks on our living conditions. Our first victory is the struggle itself. But to truly counter these attacks, we must wage the battle as widely as possible in a unified manner, beyond the company, sector or region in which we work. All workers are “in the same boat. All these groups are not separate movements but a collective group: workers and employees, unionised and non-unionised, immigrants and natives’, as a teacher on strike in Los Angeles said in March 2023.

Our strength lies in the unification of struggles in a single movement

Against all manoeuvres and divisions

The bourgeoisie has understood all too well that its plans would provoke reactions in large parts of the class. It is mainly the unions who have the job of controlling and diverting this expected resistance. They have seen the workers' concern and discontent grow from week to week and are pre-emptively occupying the field to prevent discontent from manifesting itself in ‘uncontrolled’ actions.

Proven tactics are being used again: isolating and dividing the different sectors when the measures affect everyone. A demonstration solely for health and social care staff in November; then on 13 December a day of action in protest against the ‘European austerity measures’. For the day of action on 13 January, a strike against the ‘pension reform’ was announced only on the railways. It was only much later, under social pressure, that the unions decided that education would also participate and later, other sectors joined in. In Wallonia, the unions organised separate strike days for teachers in the French-speaking areas on 27 and 28 January, thus avoiding massive participation in Brussels on 13 January. The demonstration on 13 February is about the ‘defence of public services’, as if private sector workers or the unemployed did not need defending! In short, the aim is to plan a series of futile days of action, as they did in France, or to try each time to limit the mobilisations by concentrating them on certain sectors, as they did in the UK, or on particular aspects of the austerity plans. The aim is to finally exhaust the will to fight and pave the way for far-reaching concessions to the austerity measures under the fallacious argument that ‘sacrifices are inevitable, provided they are fairly distributed’.

To avoid the traps set by the unions, these saboteurs of the struggles in the service of the ruling class, and to develop the response, it is important to mobilise in large numbers, but that is not enough: we must also take our struggles into our own hands. To do this, we must:

- create places for discussion and decision-making, such as sovereign general assemblies open to all, and unite behind unifying demands;

- overcome regional divisions, those between public and private sector workers and the unemployed;

- counter every tendency to divide struggles, by sending massive delegations to other workers to join the struggle;

- refuse to pay for the crisis and the wars of capitalism.

It is this dynamic of solidarity, expansion and unity that has shaken the bourgeoisie throughout history.

International Communist Current

10.02.2025

Come and discuss it at the public meeting on Saturday 1 March in Brussels: rue du Fort 35, 1060 Saint-Gilles from 2 to 6 p.m.

 

World imperialist competition today is dominated by the tendency towards ‘every man for himself’, by an increasingly irrational and chaotic dynamic. These are fundamental characteristics of the terminal phase of decadent capitalism, the phase of decomposition.

In such conditions “it is easier for each power to stir up trouble for its adversaries, to sabotage the alliances that threaten it, than to develop for their own part solid alliances, and to assure stability on their own ground. Such a situation evidently favors the game of secondary powers, to the extent that it is always easier to stir up trouble than to maintain order.” (‘Resolution on the international situation’, International Review no. 82)

For nearly three decades, Rwanda has presented its regime to the world as a beacon of development and stability while systematically undermining the stability and territorial integrity of Congo, by supporting consecutive military gangs such as the M23 militia which controls large parts of the country.

Turkey, a member of NATO, is constantly at odds with this alliance, opposing Western sanctions against Russia and supporting Hamas in the Israel-Palestine conflict. In Syria, it exacerbates the chaotic conditions there by attacking the Kurdish forces which are supported by the USA. In Libya, it directly opposes the forces supported by Russia.

India, whose imperialist policies we cover in this article, in turn extends its relative power by stirring up trouble in the region. For a number of years it has been actively supporting armed ‘liberation’ forces and, until 2021, even the Taliban against the Pakistani government. Today, it supports ISKCON, a religious organisation of the Hindu minority, against the new course of the Bangladeshi regime which, after 53 years, has re-established political ties with Pakistan.

Turkey and India are prime examples of secondary powers that have put a spanner in the works of the efforts of Biden’s USA to develop a coherent alliance against Russia and China.

Western media characterise India as a rising world player: “India is quietly laying claim to economic superpower status” (The Guardian); “India: From snake charmers to global superpower” (Deutsche Welle); “India needs to assert its superpower arrival” (Asia Times in Hong Kong); “Why India will become a superpower” (The Financial Times). In the meantime, India’s growing influence and so-called responsibility to the world is also acknowledged by the G7. The county has already participated several times as a guest at the G7. But in this article we will argue that the conditions for India to become a primary world power on the model of China do not exist, and that India’s main role will be to exacerbate the global tendency towards fragmentation and disorder, above all in its own Asian ‘neighbourhood’.

Indian imperialism and its ideological cover

In the West India is generally not portrayed as a belligerent nation, and the leftist organisations don’t call it an imperialist power. And the facts seem to prove them right: in the 2000s India rejected participation in military interventions such as in Iraq in and Afghanistan, and also rejected requests for military assistance from Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal. Furthermore, its response to provocations by China at its border has always been rather restrained. "We have never moved forward with the feeling of expansionism", as Modi said during an address in the Parliament of Guyana[1].

On the other hand, throughout the short history of India as an independent nation, Hindu nationalists have always dreamed of a Greater India. They aspire to rebuild the Akhand Bharat (Undivided India) and Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation), a nation matching the size and glory of the Vedic Golden Age between 1200–600 B.C. India’s right-wing factions view South Asia as their backyard and the Indian Ocean as their own sea. In particular, the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) openly propagate the “political rearrangement” of all contiguous states, with a reunited India as the motherland.

This ultra-nationalist ideology received a particular boost with the coming to power of Modi in 2014, glorifying a return to the so-called good old times when Hindu culture was still dominant in the region. Some examples:

• New school textbooks in which a picture is presented of India as a Hindu-only country, as though this should have existed throughout history.
• A mural in the new parliament in New Delhi depicts the map of Undivided India, spanning from Afghanistan to Myanmar and from Bhutan to the Maldives, and even extending to parts of China and Iran.

The same ultra-nationalist ideology also underlies the change in foreign policy from non-alignment to ‘multi-alignment’. The slogan of the populist government is: “there are neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies but only permanent national interests”. This idea gives India a free hand to pursue its expansionist policy outside the major military conflicts, without being compelled to take sides in any military conflict or open war between so-called ‘friendly’ nations, such as in the present war between Russia and Ukraine.

The imperialist appetite of India is aimed in particular at the increase of its sphere of influence in the immediate region and at turning the neighbouring countries into obedient vassal states via the so-called “Neighbourhood First Policy”. This policy brings India regularly into a deep involvement in the internal affairs and diplomacy of these countries, first of all Pakistan[2], cultivating support for pro-India forces by manipulating political parties and religious groups, and opposing and sabotaging the activities of the bourgeois factions who represent opposing aims.

 Growth of Indian militarism

It seems to have been forgotten, or has even been consciously swept under the carpet, but since its independence India has performed different military operations in the region: in 1961 it conquered the Portuguese colonies Goa, Daman, and Diu; in 1971 its military forces supported the independence of Bangladesh, and in 1988 it intervened in the Maldives. It has also intervened in the ‘civil war’ in Sri Lanka as a ‘peacekeeping force’, ending up in open military confrontations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

In 1989, the Indian army invaded Jammu Kashmir after an armed uprising by local militias, which it managed to suppress after a three-year fight. Since then, India has occupied the region in a very similar manner to the occupation of the West Bank by Israeli IDF. Subsequently India has also militarily intervened numerous times under the umbrella of ‘peacekeeping’ missions of the UN, where it of course defended nothing but its own imperialist interests.

India is engaged in a frenzied process of militarisation. It is a nuclear power with more than 150 atomic warheads, which it constantly builds up in order to gain parity in destructive power with its most feared nearby enemies. “India currently operates eight different nuclear-capable systems: two aircraft, five land-based ballistic missiles, and one sea-based ballistic missile. At least five more systems are in development”. In order to defend its status as regional power “the expected expansion of India’s nuclear forces is increasingly focused on a militarily superior China”[3]

Finally, India has made important steps in the use of ‘space’ as a domain for defending its imperialist interests. It has steadily increased its presence with new military satellites. The successful first ASAT test in March 2019, aimed at disabling a satellite in space, gave a significant flip to Indian capabilities. Last year India conducted its first-ever military space exercise, “Antariksha Abhyas 2024”, destined to improve and integrate India's space capability into military operations.

India as a destabilising factor in the region

India is the biggest player in South Asia and it has much to gain from maintaining stability in the region, since only this will permit it to extend its grip on this part of the world. But the deepening of the world economic crisis and its devastating effects on the social situation in the weaker countries, as well as the incapacity of the bourgeoisie of these countries to offer any viable perspective for their own population, is constantly accelerating the tendency towards ‘every man for himself”, internally and towards the outside. Even weaker countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, and Sri Lanka are more and more prone to pursue their own imperialist policies. These conditions make it far more difficult for India to maintain order in what the ultra-nationalists in India consider as their backyard.

And this centrifugal tendency is reinforced by the irrational Hindutva[4] policy of the Indian regime. India’s neighbouring countries are fundamentally opposed to the inherent violent and divisive nature of Hindu fundamentalism that goes along with any Indian dominance. Wherever this ideology gains ground, internal tensions, communal violence and instability increase. India’s intention to impose this ideology pushes these countries further away and sometimes even into the arms of China. This opposition is not limited to Muslim-dominated countries such as Bangladesh, but comes even from ‘Hindu’ countries such as Nepal.

In addition, India has also stepped up its terrorist activities in recent years. Accusations of terrorism are used by the Indian regime to justify the use of precisely this instrument. “If any terrorist from a neighbouring country tries to disturb India or carry out terrorist activities here, he will be given a fitting reply. If he escapes to Pakistan we will go to Pakistan and kill him there”, Rajnath Singh, India’s defence minister said[5]. This policy resulted in 20 killings in Pakistan since 2020. This government assassinates more enemies beyond its own borders than any previous Indian government.

All these factors demonstrate the contradictions the imperialist policy of India is facing today. While it has every interest in regional stability, its attempt to impose the Hindutva ideology is itself a factor of instability in the region. Since India has boosted its state terrorist activities, the neighbouring countries’ suspicion of India’spolitical intentions has only increased

 The encirclement of India by China

In a 2012 article on the situation in South-East Asia we wrote that “India is faced on its western, northern, southern and eastern side and all along its shores by increased pressure from China. The Indian army is locked down in a permanent defence of its land borders”[6]. This is still true today: the main imperialist interests of India are not spread across the whole world, but are located in the South Asian region, close to its own borders. And there it confronts its principal enemies: Pakistan, and above all China, which has been developing a general offensive throughout the region.

Ten years ago, China started the New Silk Road project, alias Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). One of its purposes was to lay the groundwork for what might one day serve as a network of military and naval bases, in particular on the western, northern, southern and eastern side of India. As part of this network China also began constructing a “String of Pearls” in the Indian Ocean, which would complete the encirclement of India. With this in mind, China has sought to build close ties with countries on India’s periphery, like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.

The construction of the BRI, although severely hampered by the growing chaos in the world, expressing itself in the omnipresence of armed conflicts, has still made some advances in the past years, especially in Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. And this had its repercussions on the political situation in the region. In Nepal it has led to pro-China politicians being elected, and in Bangladesh to an anti-India government. In Sri Lanka (a participant in the BRI) and the Maldives the fight for influence is currently open; both China and India are still competing to gain the upper hand.

Over the years India’s primary focus has been the creation of a counter-weight to China, cultivating strategic ties with both the US and Russia, and maintaining, as well as it can, a grip on the regional geopolitical framework. But, because of its inferiority on the military, economic and technological levels, India’s response to the offensive of China has always been restrained. Only after the violent clashes with China at its border (in Galwan Valley in the Ladakh region), in 2020, did India reinforce its military presence by deploying an additional 40,000 troops, artillery, tanks, and aircraft to the border, and occupying strategic mountain passes. In 2021 and 2022 it succeeded in pushing back Chinese military intrusions. Nonetheless, China seems to have made some strategic advances in this region without provoking any further military confrontations with India.

China’s expansionist policy pushes India more and more into the arms of the U.S. Since 2017 it has been part of the Indo-Pacific Quad – a grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. – and a couple of years later also the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Strategy. These are two of the major examples of India’s response to the Chinese strategic offensive. Furthermore, it has announced that it will receive American support for upgrading its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies and logistics capabilities. A more recent development is the announcement of an operational deployment of the Indian Navy to the South China Sea, emphasising defence cooperation with countries like Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam. The start of the war in Ukraine and the ensuing rapprochement between Russia and China only reinforced this closer cooperation with the U.S., without completely cutting ties with Russia, which remains an important trading partner for India, including the purchase of military equipment.

Recently tensions have increased in the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, when China was ramping up its activities, thereby increasing the number of naval vessels conducting surveillance. Chinese “assertiveness” was answered by the Quad, which developed a multinational military exercise over three weeks in October 2024 in the Bay of Bengal, in order “to demonstrate to China the combined ability” of the four participating nations.

 India, the new world power?

In the period of decomposition, with its centrifugal tendencies and the incapacity of the leading powers to constitute real military blocs, secondary powers become more and more assertive in defending their own imperialist ambitions. And India wants to demonstrate that it is an economic and military power that needs to be taken into account. In Modi’s populist India, which projects the image of an emerging world power, the western imperialist nations find a useful counter-weight to the main threat in the East. These nations, and their media, boost this image of India as a world power and have a hand in building up its war economy faced with the expansionist policy of China.

This does not mean that India will ever become a world power like China. The rise of China to world power status is an exception, and due to specific circumstances, in particular the new conditions created by the collapse of the two military blocs that had existed since the end of the Second World War. The ensuing circumstances, the push towards opening up “new spheres for capital investment, including the exploitation of a huge new fund of labour power reared outside of directly capitalist social relations”[7], and which permitted the ‘miracle’ of China’s emergence as a second world power, no longer exist today.

It's true that there are still considerable areas of pre-capitalist economy in India, which under different circumstances could be capitalised to reinforce India’s economic growth, and there are many capitalists hungry to invest in this kind of development. As Bill Gates put it, “There is no better place to have an impact than India. That is why I believe India is a solid investment for anyone who cares about development”[8]. His Gates Foundation has thus invested over 1.3 billion dollars in India in recent decades, mainly under the heading of ‘philanthropy’ and improving the quality of health.

But the deepening of the world economic crisis, the acceleration and inter-action of all the crises of a decomposing world system – military, ecological, social – are constantly undermining the conditions for the kind of profitable economic development that India would require as a foundation of its great power ambitions. Thus, India will not be able to play a role equivalent to China's in the 1990s and 2000s. Furthermore, the existing superpowers will do all they can to prevent India from achieving a comparable status.  India will not abandon imperialist ambitions to conquer a bigger place in the international imperialist arena, but as we have seen these efforts will tend to rebound on India by exacerbating the chaos and conflict in its own ‘backyard’.

Resist the hymns of Hindu nationalism!

In the decadent period of capitalism, as Rosa Luxemburg explained in her Junius Pamphlet in 1915, all nations are imperialist and have no choice but to prepare for war and whip up patriotic sentiments. The bourgeoisie in India stirs up Hindu nationalism, a supremacist ideology, which prepares the population for the creation of a Greater India along the lines of the Holy Roman Empire, with New Delhi in the role of Rome and Modi as the Holy Father. This revanchist view of a Hindu nation can only mean the submission of the neighbouring countries to Indian expansionist whims, which means war.

Whether faced with open military confrontations or covert state terror, it is the population, in particular the working class, which will have to pay the price. If it is not by the massive destruction of human life and infrastructure then at least by the implementation of higher taxes and lower wages, and through the overall subjugation to the needs of the war economy and the militarisation of more and more sectors of society.

It is not possible to stop this ongoing war drive by pacifist demonstrations, or by exemplary actions like sabotaging military businesses and installations. Only the working class holds the key to blocking this tendency through the refusal to pay for the costs of the war economy and eventually through an open, collective struggle against capitalism itself. But this cannot be the task of the working class in India alone. It will demand a break with all forms of nationalist ideology and a recognition of the necessity for the unity of the struggle of the workers, not only in Asia but across the world.

Dennis, March 2025

International Online Public Meeting

Saturday 5 April 2025, 2pm to 5pm, UK time

The historic significance of the break between the US and Europe

The acceleration of events since the advent of Trump 2.0 in the US continues.

• We are witnessing the last stages of the break-up of the ‘world order’ inaugurated by the imperialist war of 1939-45. When the Russian imperialist bloc collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, the ICC predicted that the western bloc would also unravel. This process was immediately signalled by the conflicts between the US and its former allies over the war in ex-Yugoslavia and confirmed by deep divisions over the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But now the divorce between the US and the European powers has become definitive.
• This is not leading us towards a world of peace and reconciliation. Far from it. Capitalism’s drive to war is intensifying, but it is taking a chaotic form which is all the more dangerous because of the absence of any bloc discipline. Humanity’s very future is threatened by a whirlwind of imperialist war, ecological destruction and social disintegration.
• The growth of militarism can only mean further attacks on the living standards of the working class, already under the lash of decades of economic crisis. The politicians, especially in western Europe, are quite open about this and have decided to implement gigantic armaments programmes: it’s “guns or butter” all over again.

This is why the ICC is holding a third international online public meeting focused on the current world situation. It is essential that all those who understand the necessity to rid the world of a decaying capitalist system recognise exactly what the working class is up against. We thus encourage all those engaged in the search for “the truth of this world” and the way to overcome capitalism to attend this meeting and take part in the debate.

If you want to attend, please write to us at [email protected] [8]