The International Criminal Court, that bastion of bourgeois morality, rational control and ‘human-rights’ along with countless other empty fetishes of bourgeois ideology, is currently hearing a case to decide, in their august opinion, whether or not genocide was officially committed in Darfur, in 2003, when at least 300,000 people were killed. The people of Sudan are most probably not holding their breath for being informed about any great discoveries from the mouths of this imperial talking shop.

After all, this deliberation takes place as one example of “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world”, which has cost the lives of up to 150,000 [1] people since 15 April 2023 and displaced between 12-14 million people, rages across the very same region.  While this orgy of bloodletting shows no signs of abetting, the vacuity of bourgeois ‘justice’ and international ‘rule of law’ is shown for the fraud it always was and always will be.

The world is simultaneously watching in live-stream the disgusting spectacle of the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the ongoing killings in other parts of the world. The suffering of the people in Gaza saturates the wide variety of propaganda and the smart surveillance devices offered us by the world bourgeoisie, but the suffering of the Sudanese people is kept largely out of view. The main reasons for this forgotten war is probably that it lacks the compelling factor of easily discernible and ideologically ‘appealing’ sides, with which sympathies and ideological commitment can be manipulated towards nationalistic fervour in either direction.

Descent into chaos

Since violent clashes broke out on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) [2], both gangs have engaged in a so-called civil war, assisted by armed militias from across Sudan and several other countries. Sudan today is fractured into a multi-layered conflict that involves a bewildering array of smaller armies, who are not really controlled by either of the main military forces. The country offers us a pattern of insanity in which alliances across the board contain inherent contradictions from their inception, and thus shift at the drop of the bourgeoisie’s hypocritical hat.

There are no front lines in this bloody conflict and civilians are caught in the crossfire. Both parties conduct indiscriminate attacks against civilian infrastructure such as hospitals [3], against civilians in densely populated areas such as refugee camps, and make widespread use of sexual violence. The RSF in particular utilises the conflict to intensify ethnic cleansing, targeting non-Arab communities. A last major horrific expression of this civil war took place in April of this year, when the RSF began a 72-hour ‘genocidal’ massacre in Zamzam refugee camp. The 500,000 residents – predominantly women and children – were defenceless, and about 1,500 of them were killed in one of the bloodiest war crimes in this conflict so far. Famine has the population increasingly in its grip. It has spread to 10 areas of the country, with another 17 at risk. Nearly one million are faced with imminent starvation. For lack of better food people are for instance compelled to prepare porridge with ingredients normally fed to animals. The war severely obstructs aid being delivered where it’s needed most. Calculated starvation has become a weapon of war.

Sudan is a clear manifestation of capitalism’s dynamic towards disintegration: “dangerous imperialist fault-lines have opened up and are opening up over the globe with militarism as the main outlet left to the capitalist state”. The outbreak of the civil war “expresses the profound centrifugal tendency towards irrational and militaristic chaos” [4] in the world of today. It shows the future this system has in store for all of us. This future though is not a straightforward descent into chaos; it is a descent which the bourgeoisies of all nations attempt both to exploit for their own ends and to develop plans to counter-act. More and more the outline of this attempt is making itself clear. Vast swathes of chaos and bloodshed surrounding islands of ‘development’ with fortress borders and deportation centers. From Sudan and the Sahel more generally to Gaza, Libya and El Salvador to Calais/Dover and the US/Mexico border, this future is gathering momentum with every passing day. 

Sudan: object of imperialist rivalries

Africa is also an important object of interest for countless imperialist powers in the world who try to conquer a favourable position in order to exploit critical minerals [5]. Alongside the U.S. and China – countries with vast commercial and geopolitical interests in Africa – Turkey, Russia, Japan, Brazil and India have also invested to various degrees in this continent, be it militarily, commercially or only diplomatically.  The increasing chaos, marked by the social, environmental and economic break-down of entire regions, is seen by many other nations as a useful occasion to loot resources. This modern scramble for Africa is more than ever before accompanied by the organised violence perpetrated by the most ruthless and brutal militias.

In Sudan, it is mainly the Gulf States that profit from the country's destabilisation and developing chaos. In addition to securing reliable sources of agricultural produce such as food crops, animal feed, and biofuels, today the focus is in particular on gold mining, counting for about 50% of Sudan’s exports. The conflict has triggered several imperialist powers in the region to support one of the warring camps. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt back the SAF (the so-called “legitimate” government forces) against the UAE, who are more and more openly supporting the RSF. But other imperialist predators also stir up the chaos in the country. Not only Saudi, UAE, Egyptian Turkish, but also Qatari, Russian, Ukrainian and Iranian interests intersect and overlap, turning the conflict into a highly volatile can of worms.

The entire Sahel is increasingly part of what has been referred in some bourgeois papers as an “eco-system” of conflict [6]. It is increasingly part of a general trend towards Balkanisation which, in the final analysis, is one aspect of the larger tendency towards ‘everyman for himself’ at the local level. Thus, one of the dangers of the Sudan war is its extension through the proliferation of small armed conflicts, which cross Sudan’s over-porous borders, leading to a worsening of the situation in a big part of the Sahel and mutating into a regional bloodbath. Darfur is not the only destination for the RSF. Airports in Libya and Chad are already used to supply it with weapons. RSF leader Dagalo has roots in Chad and has expressed his aspiration to extend its influence across the Sahel.

The bourgeoisie is arrogant enough to believe it can control this descent into insanity. It certainly has been a strategy in many respects for various imperialist powers thus far; however this control is and will always be a chimera. It is and can never be truly in control of the all the barbaric expressions of its own social system! It is this which must be kept in mind when analysing the imperialist strategies of the current era. Despite its attempts to use chaos to its advantage and to establish more and more maniacal forms of control to contain this chaos, eventually the bourgeoisie will dig its own grave.

The catastrophic situation in Sudan is generally presented as a “humanitarian crisis”. But the conflict and its dire consequences cannot be resolved by the intervention of charitable organisations or ‘responsible’ countries. The real issue is the internal war between the various gangsters, used by imperialist nations in the region to increase their influence on the African continent. And for many their main interest is not a unified Sudan; a divided Sudan offers them more opportunities to gain a foothold in the country.

The working class solution

The working class and other oppressed strata in Sudan, despite the incredibly unfavourable conditions, have shown incredible resilience and ingenuity to survive the tragedy unfolding all around them. Traditions of social solidarity, including pre-capitalist socio-cultural remnants of mutual aid such as nafir [7] were undoubtedly helpful for communities to endure and even survive. But we should not have any illusions, for they will certainly not be able to contribute to ending capitalisms’ drive towards the destruction of humanity. War in the phase of decomposition is a key danger for workers worldwide. They may be drowned in a sea of rotting phenomena and so lose the ability to act on history, as a class. This is precisely why we must reiterate that our strength lies in internationalist solidarity. We must resist the attempt of capitalism to divide us into ‘citizens’, given more or less comfortable cages, and ‘outcasts’ fed to the idols of militaristic destruction.

The positive outcome of such a resistance will not be achieved through any idealistic notions of brotherhood and unity, but only in the practice of the international struggle against the ruling class, wherever we are. Those fractions of the proletarian class who live in areas of the globe which have not yet been driven into the deepest depths of barbarism awaiting us all must fight all the more determinedly with an eye to the moment when all the struggles of the workers in the world can be united. Everywhere though, the enemy is the same and everywhere the same ultimate stakes remain: the overthrow of capitalism or the destruction of humanity.

JD, August 2025

[1] The death toll is hard to estimate because of the general break-down and lack of hospitals and data. The US envoy to Sudan puts the number at around 150,000 while some estimates are far lower (around 60,000).

[2] The present embodiment of the Janjiweed militias responsible for genocide in 2003, now under scrutiny by the International Criminal Court

[3] At least 119 attacks on health care have been verified between April 2023 and October 2024, but the true figure is likely much higher.  In conflict zones more than 80 per cent of the hospitals are non-operational.

[4] See: Sudan 2023: a vivid illustration of the decomposition of capitalism [1], ICConline

[5] Critical minerals—including cobalt, lithium, nickel, and rare earth elements—are vital for modern technologies ranging from electric vehicles (EVs) to renewable energy infrastructure, and they play a key role in the global energy transition.

[6] A conflict that isn't isolated but rather a result of multiple interacting elements.

[7] A traditional practice of communal mobilisation/voluntary gathering of people to help each other with tasks that are too large or challenging for one person or family to handle alone

 

 

 

The Labour government’s legal proscription of the direct action group Palestine Action (PA) as a “terrorist organisation” mark a new stage in strengthening the repressive apparatus of the British capitalist state. Faced with growing military tensions on the international level, and the threat of domestic social unrest, the bourgeoisie and all its parties are sharpening both their ideological and material weapons. Weapons like these new powers will be used against workers’ struggles and revolutionary organisations in the future.

These new legal measures mean that you can get 14 years in prison for supporting PA in any way. Internationally the bourgeoisie is reinforcing its repressive apparatus and actions. In the US the actions of ICE against migrant workers, the sending of the National Guard to Los Angeles against demonstrations, in Washington DC the National Guard being brought in against the homeless and others, in Germany the repressive apparatus being used against Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists: these are among many examples from the biggest economies in the world, not from countries being laid waste by conflict.

Since the proscription of Palestine Action in early July there have been many protests and demonstrations, from open letters from distinguished academics and intellectuals to editorials saying how it’s disproportionate to put PA in the same category as Al Qaida and Islamic State, to a series of demonstrations where people in their 60s and 70s held up supportive signs. This was most extensive on 10 August when more than 500 protesters were arrested in London. The indignation provoked by this acceleration of repression has led to more massive demonstrations called by leftist organisations for the beginning of September, to display “mass defiance” in support of Palestine Action and the Palestinian cause.

Treating protest as terrorism is just one example of increased state repression. We have also witnessed the increasingly harsh treatment of immigrants – from tougher measures against the those coming over the Channel in small boats, to multiple threats of deportation. In its attempts to out-racist Reform UK, the Labour government has now changed the immigration rules, which could be used against tube workers in London and result in their deportation.

From its beginnings in 2020, PA has made direct action attacks against targets that could be linked to support for the Israeli military at various war industry or military locations.  Other actions have been directed at symbolic targets, such as the destruction of a portrait of Balfour at Trinity College in Dublin 2024. Through these ‘exemplary actions’ they have got full media coverage and support from different leftist and pro-Palestinian groups and publications. The proscription of direct action protests as terrorism does not reflect the significance of PA’s activities, but tells us a lot about the state of capitalist society. It is clear that this draconian measure from the Labour government is a new step in the escalation of repression. We remember the 1970s and 80s, when terrorist groups like the RAF in Germany, Brigate Rosse in Italy, and Irish Republicans were subject to repression and punishment from the bourgeois state. But today’s use of such repressive measures is a new phenomenon which is a sign of desperation from a bourgeoisie which is increasingly losing control of its political machinery. Just as with the examples of Trump in the US and the attacks on immigrant workers all over Europe, the new level of repression by the state will not be temporary but will increase everywhere, not just in the illiberal countries in the former East but in the heart of the liberal democracies of Western Europe.

Palestine Action is part of the war campaign

As revolutionaries we denounce state repression, but we also denounce a group like Palestine Action because it is clearly a part of the left of capital: it is a leftist group trying to play a role in the inter-imperialist conflict between Israel and Hamas and its various backers, Iran in particular. The struggle of the working class has nothing to do with the spectacular publicity stunts of this group. The activist vision of political work, focusing on civil disobedience and exemplary acts, shows clearly that this group is a part of the bourgeois media campaign.

The reaction to the proscription and the threat of 14 years in prison for demonstrating has stirred up reactions from liberal and leftist media all over Europe, as the Labour Home Secretary makes claims of “disturbing” information about future attacks from PA. This is no coincidence. The aim of this campaign of protest is to focus on the defence of the democratic state and to try to draw the working class into it. There is widespread indignation at what Labour has done and a fear of possible future state actions, and the campaign can draw workers away from their own class terrain of struggle by spreading the illusion that capitalism could be made to be less militaristic, less repressive.

The worsening of repression is a reality for the working class already. The situation for immigrant workers today in Britain threatened with deportation shows that the only way forward for the working class is not to get taken up in bourgeois campaigns, but in the struggle as a class, as it has done since the “Summer of Discontent” in 2022. Reflecting on past struggles, fighting in defence of their own interests, is the only way forward for workers, with the ultimate aim of putting an end to this decomposing capitalist society that has nothing to offer humanity except wars, famine, destruction and terror.

Edvin/Narl

 

The ICC has published several articles noting the Anarchist Communist Group’s slide from an initially internationalist response to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East towards a more or less overt support for Palestinian nationalism. While Ukraine is an obvious case of a war between states, the war in Gaza poses a much harder test, given the heightened level of barbarism and destruction, and the evident ‘inequality’ between the two camps. Leftists often argue that “this is not a war, it’s a genocide”, ignoring the fact that most of the worst genocides in the last century or more have taken place precisely in the context of imperialist war and conquest.

Further evidence of the ACG’s trajectory is supplied by its more or less open support for Palestine Action.

Palestine Action provided evidence that it is firmly opposed to any internationalist stance on the war at a meeting it organised at last year’s Radical Bookfair in London. Comrades of the ICC attended this event and posed the question: why are you calling on people to support one side against the other in an imperialist war? This was immediately dismissed by the chair of the meeting as a “childish analysis” and the discussion went back to trying to recruit people for the next series of publicity stunts.

Thus, Palestine Action shows that it is part of the capitalist left, denying that the Gaza war is an inter-imperialist war, playing down the role of Iran and other imperialist states in arming and supporting groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who are themselves proto-states. The inequality between the two camps in this conflict is not a reason for supporting the so-called ‘nationalism of the oppressed’, which is no less poisonous for the working class, no less inimical to real internationalism.

To be clear, the ACG does not openly call for support for Hamas or Hezbollah. The slide towards placing Palestinian resistance against the Israeli state above the struggle against the Palestinian bourgeoisie and its proto-state is more implicit than explicit, but is nevertheless there, as we point out in the articles  The ambiguities of anarchist internationalism [2], World Revolution 399 and The ACG takes another step towards supporting the nationalist war campaign [3]  in ICC Online. In the latter article we point in particular to the ACG statement The situation in Gaza [4] (October 18, 2023) which contains the following formulation: “We affirm the right and necessity of the Palestinian working class to resist the Israeli state, including through the method of revolutionary struggle. The priority is first armed self-defence and the building of a revolutionary workers’ movement which can distinguish itself from the nationalist forces”. Even if the idea of self-organised, armed proletarian militias emerging out of the terrible chaos and suffering of today’s Gaza is no more than a fantasy, this passage, far from creating the conditions for a movement that “distinguishes itself from the nationalist forces”, tends to subordinate any incipient proletarian reactions in Gaza to the actual “armed self-defence” organised by Hamas.

Our article also shows that the same ambiguities can be found in the attitude of the ACG towards the big “Free Palestine” demonstrations, where the growing anger expressed in these marches is presented as something positive, without raising the alarm that it is precisely this anger that is being manipulated by the left of capital to boost support for the “Axis of Resistance” camp in this war. We also point out that “the ACG also advocates workers participating in the campaign by the openly pro-Palestinian, leftist Workers’ for a Free Palestine, that calls for ‘an end to arms sales to Israel and for the UK government to support a permanent ceasefire’”[1]. 

With regard to Palestine Action itself, the apporach is the same. The ACG hasn’t openly called for workers or revolutionary minorities to take part in the activities of this group, any more than it calls for workers to participate en masse in the demonstrations (something the trade unions are increasingly taking in hand through the formation of their own blocs on the Free Palestine marches).  The method is more underhand. The same ACG article cited above ends with the following link: “Palestine Action [5] is a group which organises direct-action against Israeli weapons factories in Britain”. There is no other comment. The ACG site also contains reports of specific actions carried out by PA, delivered in a somewhat neutral tone. Palestine Action Rooftop Occupation at Runcorn in Cheshire [6] describes an action in May 2021 which halted production at the arms factory owned by the French-Israeli firm Elbit for six days. The article describes PA as a “grass roots direct action group” and points out that “the Fire Brigade refused to assist the police in removing the activists, while passing Royal Mail trucks blasted their horns in support”. The unstated implication is that this is a form of working class resistance against war.

The dangerous lure of “direct action”

The more recent article published by the ACG, The proscription of Palestine Action [7], correctly links this ban to a long history of repressive actions by Labour in power, referring to the States of Emergency brought in against the dockers’ strike in 1948 and the seafarers’ strike in 1966. But the explanation for the ban leaves us with more equivocation about the class nature of Palestine Action: “The reason PA was proscribed was because their direct action was proving effective, especially against the arms firm Elbit which was targeted on many occasions. During this time PA was not proscribed. It is with the recent rhetoric of militarism and the backing of Israel by the Starmer government that the State felt it had to act, as PA was now directly focussing on military targets, the splashing of red paint over military planes at RAF Brize Norton. This was seen as a step too far, and that this would encourage further actions against militarism”.  The article then affirms that “as anarchist communists we believe mass working class direct action is a legitimate tool to use against our politicians or bosses or landlords”.

Concerning the ‘effectiveness’ of PA’s actions, this is a red herring if we don’t define the class nature of these actions. After all, an imperialist power engaged in war with a rival camp can often use sabotage as an ‘effective’ means of weakening the enemy. But clearly such methods are entirely part of an inter-bourgeois conflict. And yet the ACG implies, hints, insinuates that what PA is doing amounts to “mass working class direct action”.

The Communist Workers’ Organisation has recently published an article on the banning of Palestine Action which, while denouncing the repressive actions of the government, also clearly situates Palestine Action on the left wing of capital[2]. We also agree with them when they say that “the ‘direct action’ framework that Palestine Action espouses is implicit in its rejection of the working class as the revolutionary subject, instead basing itself on professional activists who sacrifice themselves in more and more extreme ways in order to put pressure on governments and shift the tide of public opinion”.

The anarchist concept of “direct action” can easily encompass the activities of small minorities which, at best, substitute themselves for the working class and thus  go in the opposite direction to the working class taking charge of its own struggles. At worst – as in the case of Palestine Action – they can be part of a bourgeois war campaign. In contrast, real working class self-activity always goes in the direction of drawing ever wider sectors of the class into the struggle, for example through sending massive delegations calling on other workers to join a common fight in defence of working class interests.  Such activities may bear a superficial resemblance to the anarchist notion of “direct action” when they show a willingness to disregard official union diktats or the laws of the state, but their content is entirely different.

Because of its unstable, ambiguous character, anarchism has so often capitulated to the pressures of the dominant ideology. The ACG’s inability to distance itself from the long-standing anarchist tradition of 'exemplary acts' is thus an added factor in pulling them away from a solid defence of internationalism and towards the campaigns of the bourgeois left.

Amos

 

ICC online public meeting

Saturday 27 September 2025,

2pm to 5pm UK time.

It is 120 years since the working class in Russia rose up against the Tsarist regime, developing forms of struggle and organisation that announced the proletariat’s response to the approach of a whole new epoch in the life of world capitalism: the mass strike and the soviets (workers’ councils). These forms and methods of struggle were to appear again and again over the following decades, most notably in the international revolutionary wave of 1917-23, which saw the working class in Russia, organised in its councils, seize and hold political power for a brief period.

Thus, the 1905 revolution still contains numerous lessons for the class struggle today and in the future, and it is up to all those who recognise the need for a revolutionary struggle against capitalism to discuss and clarify these lessons in the light of subsequent experience. This is the aim of the forthcoming public meeting, which will be held online in English (together with other meetings on the same theme in different languages).

Given the volatility of the world situation, we will be prepared to devote some time at the meeting to possible major developments.

Please write to [email protected] [10] if you want to take part.

In the meantime, some recommended reading from a dossier of articles on our website:

1905: the mass strike and the workers’ councils first emerge [11]

 

Below we publish correspondence between the ICC and a comrade who has written to us from the Netherlands. We welcome his letter and especially the initiative to share his disagreements on an essential political question: the relationship between fascism, populism and democracy. The importance of this question today lies in the fact that the international situation is marked by the rise of populism, by a widespread tendency to equate it with the fascism of the 1930s, and by the calls to defend democracy that this provokes. This is a vital issue for the proletariat because the bourgeoisie is fully exploiting and ideologically instrumentalising this situation to mystify the working class and lead it onto a false terrain, allowing it to exonerate and protect its system: capitalism. This is particularly the case in the United States, where Trump's policies are presented as a ‘threat to democracy’, or in Germany, where the inexorable rise of the AfD is presented as a new ‘fascist threat’. Faced with these dangers, the “liberal” factions of the bourgeoisie and, above all, the left wing of capital are calling for significant mobilisations to ‘defend democratic institutions’. The enemy is no longer capitalism but populism or ‘new fascism’.

In our response, we want to highlight not only how different the context is today from the 1930s and the era of fascism, but also how the mystification of the ‘defence of democracy’ has always been a formidable weapon of the bourgeoisie to lead the working class to defeat. Our response aims above all to provide some initial answers, to encourage debate and reflection on this subject in order to broaden and deepen the discussion. However, it needs to be extended and enriched by further debate and reading. We encourage all comrades who wish to do so to write to us and raise any questions that arise within the proletariat, as this comrade from the Netherlands has done.

Our reader’s letter

Dear comrades,

This is a response to the article The bourgeoisie is trying to lure the working class into the trap of anti-fascism [12].

In general, I read your paper with great approval. I am particularly impressed by your internationalism. International solidarity should be very important to the left, rather than nationalism. The above-mentioned article appealed to me less.

Here is my response to your article

It is very important to note that modern fascism is not fundamentally different from old fascism. Fascism differs fundamentally from pre-9/11 liberalism. Fascism once again fanatically supports capitalism and, moreover, longs for a return to the pre-Enlightenment era. The repression of protest is increasing sharply. Rights that have been acquired are being abolished at a rapid pace. This applies to the rights of workers. It also applies to the rights of a large number of social groups, from refugees to women. This is partly intended to sow division among workers. We should therefore fight to preserve and, preferably, expand all acquired rights. In doing so, countering division among workers is an important point.

Now, a few comments on parts of the article.

You claim that what I call the ‘parliamentary left’ is firmly opposed to fascism. The opposite is true. Fascism is seen as harmless and is usually not mentioned, but referred to as ‘populism,’ as if it were something belonging to the common people. Unfortunately, this is also done in your article.

You rightly argue that fascism was a very effective means of crushing the proletariat. Isn't that still the case today? The fact that there is less protest from the proletariat now than 100 years ago is not a significant difference.

The ‘parliamentary left’ does indeed argue that the choice is between fascism and the parliamentary system. Fighting against fascism certainly does not mean agreeing with the parliamentary system. You cannot stop fascism by voting once every four years. Moreover, in the (recent) past, the parliamentary left has repeatedly agreed to severe cuts and/or opposed protests against them. Extra-parliamentary actions are essential to combat fascism and achieve social change.

You consider ‘all kinds of fragmented demands’ from ‘the LGBTQ movement to charities’ to be ‘all of a bourgeois ideological nature’. It seems to me that you are overlooking the diversity of these movements. Some activists are significantly more radical than others. It is important to support these groups' struggle against the restriction of their rights. How this should be done is, of course, a matter of discussion.

Hopefully, you will consider this a contribution to the much-needed discussion.

With fraternal greetings,

R. V., Amsterdam

 

Our response

Dear comrade R.

Thank you for your enthusiastic assessment of the ICC press. In your letter, you raise several important points, but, in this response, we would like to focus on the political question of fascism, populism and democracy. You write: "It is very important to note that modern fascism is not fundamentally different from old fascism. Fascism is not generally referred to as such, but under the name of “populism”, as it were something belonging to the common people "

This is an important position to discuss because it is often expressed in debates and texts about the populist tidal wave. The ICC does not share this view, for two reasons:

- the current social context, and more specifically the situation of the working class, is in no way comparable to that of the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy in the 1930s;

- the current phenomenon of populism is not comparable to fascism, but rather expresses the political and ideological putrefaction of a bourgeoisie that no longer has any perspective to guide society.

Let us explain[1]:

Fascism is a historical product, a political current that emerged during the counter-revolutionary period (the 1920s and 1930s), after the working class in Europe had been defeated ideologically and physically. First there was the bloody failure of the revolution in Germany (1919-1923), notably with the crushing of the proletarian uprising in Berlin, massacred by the Freikorps under the impetus and orders of the treacherous Social Democratic Party (SPD), a party which, by voting for war credits and supporting the Sacred Union for the slaughter of the First World War, had gone over to the side of the bourgeoisie. Then came the failure of the Russian Revolution, isolated by the failure of the world revolution to spread, weakened by a terrible civil war and where the counter-revolution was embodied by the Bolshevik Party itself under the leadership of Stalin (1917-1927). It was this physical and ideological crushing of the battalions at the forefront of the global revolutionary movement and the assassination of the vanguard of the communist movement in these countries (1919-1923) that paved the way for the advent of fascism. In other words, fascism (like Stalinism, for that matter) merely confirmed the heavy defeat of the proletariat, which once again paved the way for war between imperialist powers. From this point of view, the advent of fascist regimes met the needs of national capital: it was necessary to concentrate all power within the state, accelerate the war economy, and militarise labour. In Western European countries where the working class had not been defeated, it was in the name of ‘anti-fascism’ that the proletariat was mobilised by the left wing of capital to defend democracy and enlisted for war.

In short, fascism is not the cause but the product of the crushing physical and ideological defeat of the working class orchestrated by social democracy, Stalinism and other ‘democratic forces’, fraternally united within the ‘popular fronts’. Furthermore, the context of class struggle today is fundamentally different from that of the 1930s. At present, the working class in the world's major countries has not been defeated either physically or ideologically. On the contrary, since 2022, various important struggles indicate that it is striving to recover its class identity, and attempts to mobilise and divide workers behind populist campaigns or, conversely, behind campaigns to defend democratic institutions, are aimed precisely at breaking this proletarian dynamic.

The use of the word ‘populism’ is debatable, but whatever name we give to this phenomenon, it differs fundamentally from fascism. Unlike fascism, it is not the product of a defeated working class, but of the growing contradictions within capitalist society, which make rivalry within the bourgeoisie increasingly uncontrollable and consequently lead to a growing loss of control over the political apparatus. Populism is therefore a pure product of the profound disintegration and decay of capitalist society. Due to the absence of any meaningful perspective for society, “creates within the ruling class, and especially within its political apparatus, a growing tendency towards indiscipline and an attitude of ‘every man for himself’”. (Theses on decomposition [13])

As a result, in many cases, current elections do not lead to the appointment of a bourgeois faction capable of representing the general interests of national capital in the best possible way, but to the appointment of factions that defend their own interests, often in contradiction to overall national interests.

Thus, populist movements find support among the ‘people,’ victims of the economic and financial crisis, who feel abandoned by the political establishment, betrayed by the left-wing media, and threatened by the influx of immigrants. These are often people from the lower petty bourgeoisie, but also from more marginalised working-class backgrounds in areas that were once heavily industrialised. In 2016, Trump's campaign "won the support it won from non-college educated whites, and especially from workers in the ‘Rust Belt’, the new industrial deserts who voted for Trump as a protest against the established political order, personified in the so-called ‘metropolitan liberal elite’. (…) Their vote was above all a vote against – against the growing inequality of wealth, against a system which they felt has deprived them and their children of any future." (President Trump: symbol of a dying social system [14]).

However, the bourgeoisie is using and exploiting this situation ideologically by attempting to draw the working class into a battle between populist vandals and defenders of democratic principles, thereby preserving its capitalist system from any challenge. The left in particular reacts to populism by readily brandishing the spectre of fascism and the banner of ‘defending democracy’ in order to rally as many workers as possible. However, this left-wing opposition to populism is just as much a part of the bourgeoisie and attacks workers' working and living conditions just as much as all the other parties and, as you yourself write, ‘has repeatedly approved drastic austerity measures in the (recent) past’. Workers must therefore refuse to follow this path and under no circumstances allow themselves to be divided into ‘populist’ and ‘democratic’ workers.

While you seem to reject parliamentary activity in your letter (“Fighting against fascism certainly does not mean agreeing with the parliamentary system”), at the same time, nothing in your letter indicates that you reject democracy, which, like dictatorship, despotism and autocracy, is also a political expression of the dictatorship of capital. This is, in fact, the central theme of the article you criticise. Let us be clear, this question is vital and central to the proletariat. It is indeed the campaigns for the defence of democracy that will disarm the working class and lead to defeat by preparing the mobilisation for a stronger regime in preparation for war if we are not careful and do not fight against being misled by the democratic myth. Workers must not allow themselves to be drawn into ‘campaigns to defend the democratic state.’ They must wage the struggle on their own class terrain, independently of the bourgeois parties.

Finally, in your letter, you also point to a phenomenon that suggests a similarity with the emergence of fascism in the 1930s: “The repression of protest is increasing sharply”. Admittedly, this is also the case with other phenomena such as the hunt for migrants and their confinement in camps, the exclusion of certain sectors of the population, the search for scapegoats, the use of blackmail, threats, and reprisals, etc. But all these phenomena are far from being specific to fascism: they were already present in Stalinist countries such as China, in ‘strong democratic’ regimes (sic) such as Russia, Turkey and Pakistan, for example, and they are becoming increasingly widespread in countries that are ‘champions of democracy’. Above all, the explosion of these phenomena is a characteristic manifestation of the generalisation of barbarism that characterises society's current plunge into the period of decomposition of decadent capitalism.

ICC