From Venezuela to Kashmir, from Greenland to Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine and the Sahel, the capitalist world is burning on all sides. Guns are roaring in the China Sea, the Middle East is ablaze, Iran is sinking into immense chaos. And the United States, hitherto presented as the ‘champion of democracy’, is the biggest arsonist on the planet: for dubious projects in Greenland, Trump is hammering another nail into the coffin of the transatlantic alliance; in an attempt to drive China out of Latin America, he is destabilising an entire continent; he is relegating the UN bandits to the background in favour of a nebulous project, the ‘Board of Peace’, which has all the hallmarks of an extortion operation... We are witnessing a profound acceleration of militarism, chaos, and confrontation between bourgeois cliques.
Choosing one bourgeois camp over another is always a dead end
While the United States is at the heart of this global chaos, Trump is also the product of a capitalist system gone mad. For in every country, powerful or not, democratic or authoritarian, the bourgeoisie seeks to rally the exploited behind its sordid national interests, whether directly behind a gun or by accepting ‘reforms’ and budget cuts to buy weapons.
In Ukraine, Putin is sending thousands of young people to the slaughter under the delusional pretext of saving Russian-speaking populations from Nazism. On the other side of the front, Zelensky's arch-corrupt government is sending the population to the slaughter in the name of national sovereignty and democracy.
In Gaza, the Israeli army is turning 18- and 20-year-olds into killers, while Hamas cynically uses the population as human shields.
In Iran, while the mullahs are crushing anger in blood, rival factions, actively supported by Israel and the United States, are fuelling revolts in favour of ‘democracy’ and the return of the Shah.
Meanwhile, workers in Europe are being told that ‘sacrifices’ are necessary for rearmament, and minds are being prepared for a war economy: we must ‘accept losing our children,’ in the words of the French Chief of Staff. All this, as always, in the name of democratic values and peace!
And today, we are asked to choose between bloodthirsty mullahs and a ‘democratic’ Iranian bourgeoisie, made up of a bunch of mafiosi, archaic monarchists and upstarts supported by Trump and the mass murderer Netanyahu!
Capitalism oozes misery and death from every pore! The immense chaos that has taken hold in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War is spreading across the entire planet. But we still have to choose the ‘good side’ or the ‘lesser evil’...
No! No faction of the bourgeoisie, democratic or not, powerful or weak, is capable of creating the conditions for a world of peace and stability. Mired in the vicious cycle of capitalism's historical contradictions and dead-ends, they can only spread chaos and death. Choosing one bourgeois camp over another is always choosing our exploiters and murderers.
The only alternative to capitalist wars is world revolution!
Faced with this immense chaos, with the disastrous future that capitalism promises us, fear is spreading across all continents. How should we react? If no bourgeois camp has the solution, what do we do, here and now? Do we passively allow the massacres to continue while we wait for the revolution?
History has shown that the only class capable of ending the wars of capitalism is the proletariat in struggle, and no one else. This was the case when the workers in Russia overthrew the bourgeois state in 1917 and when the workers in Germany revolted in 1918. This revolutionary wave in Eastern Europe and the risk of it spreading to the West forced governments to stop the First World War. This was the case when the return of the working class, starting in May 1968 in France, after decades of counter-revolution, prevented the Russian and American blocs from clashing in a Third World War. The proletariat will have to conquer real and lasting peace by overthrowing capitalism on a global scale!
The proletariat certainly does not yet have the strength to directly oppose war, and the revolutionary perspective is clearly not for tomorrow. The road to the overthrow of capitalism will be long and fraught with pitfalls. But there is no other way. Today, there are two possible directions: either we allow ourselves to be drawn into false alternatives between bourgeois cliques for a fairer and more peaceful capitalism, an ideology that has always contributed to disarming the class in the face of imperialism, whether in the name of the ‘lesser evil’, the ‘right of the aggrieved to defend themselves’, or the ‘right of peoples to self-determination’... Or we can patiently fight to develop our solidarity, our identity and our class consciousness, to develop a movement that is the only one capable of putting an end to capitalism and its wars.
Since 2022, as we have pointed out in numerous articles, the working class has begun to regain its combativity on an international scale.[1] [1] And it is already through these struggles against the sacrifices demanded by militarism that the proletariat is concretely expressing its solidarity with its class brothers and sisters in countries at war.
But above all, this break with the passivity of previous decades is based on an underground development of class consciousness, which is essential for the politicisation of struggles. At different (and very heterogeneous) levels, workers are questioning the future of society, how to organise struggles, and how to recover our class identity. This reflection is the breeding ground for the revolutionary future. It is up to the small communist minorities to push this reflection as far forward as possible in order to prepare for the struggles of tomorrow. That is why, starting today, coming together to reflect, convince and push for debate wherever possible is not a waste of time; on the contrary, it is the best preparation for the future.
EG, 15 January 2026