The election of Donald Trump as president of the USA, which closely followed the unexpected result of the EU referendum in the UK, has created a wave of unease, fear, but also questioning across the world. How could our rulers, those who are supposedly in charge of the present world order, allow such things to happen – turns of events that seem to go against the “rational” interests of the capitalist class? How did it come about that a chancer, a narcissist thug and hustler is now at the head of the world’s most powerful state? And more important: what does this tell us about where the entire world is headed.

We are publishing here the resolution on the social situation in France adopted at the 21st Congress of RI. This document goes back over our analysis of the balance of forces between the classes, with the aim of arriving at a better understanding of the underlying reasons for the relative social calm which has existed since the movement against pension reforms.

An important part of an ICC Congress is always the discussion of the international situation, since this is a key element in determining the organisation's activity in the years to come. The discussion at the 20th Congress gave rise to the resolution, adopted by the Congress, which we are publishing here.

1. The resolution adopted by the previous ICC Congress pointed out right away how reality had categorically refuted the optimistic predictions of the leaders of the capitalist class at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, particularly after the fall of the “Evil Empire”, the imperialist bloc which called itself “socialist”. It cited the now famous declaration of George Bush Senior in March 1991 announcing the birth of a “New World Order” based on respect for “international law”, underlining how surreal this declaration now seemed when confronted with the growing chaos engulfing capitalist society. Twenty years after this prophetic speech, and especially since the beginning of the last decade, the world has never been such a picture of chaos.

The 20th century began with the entry of the capitalist system into its phase of decadence: with the First World War, and with the first world wide revolutionary storm of the proletariat which brought that war to a halt and opened the combat for a communist society. Already at that time, revolutionary marxism announced the alternative facing humanity - socialism or barbarism - and predicted that in the event of the failure of the revolution, the First World War would be followed by a second one, and by the greatest and most dangerous regression of human culture in the history of humanity.

For ten years decomposition has spread its grip over the whole of society. Increasingly, world events can only be understood in this framework.

A few weeks before the events in the USSR, the ICC held its ninth International Congress.

1) The resolution on the international situat­ion from the 6th Congress of the ICC in November ‘85 was placed under the heading of the denunci­ation of a whole series of lies put forward by t

1.

It's necessary to analyze the class struggle on three complementary but distinct levels, in order to understand its characteristics and draw its perspectives:

* This manifesto was written in 1991. The principle of its publication, and its contents, were decided by the ICC's 9th International Congress in July, 1991. See International Review no. 67.