Tough Times Ahead

Our last issue of Spartacist, which represented a major turn for our tendency, was dedicated to the world situation and laying out how the decline of U.S. hegemony is the overarching characteristic of our era. Going through the history of the post-Soviet period up to the 2020s, we posed the great question of our time: Will the decline of the U.S. order occur through a spiral of wars, political reaction and ethnic strife, as we have seen so far, or will the working class be able to seize this opportunity to strengthen its position and open once more the possibility of establishing a socialist order? As we explained, the latter course depends entirely on the quality and capacity of the leadership of the working class, which everywhere is led by liberals and bureaucrats who have overseen one defeat after the other. Thus, the task of socialists is to forge a new, revolutionary leadership by fighting for a rupture with the defenders of the U.S.-led world order and its conciliators in the workers movement.

The events of the last year and a half have only made this struggle more urgent. However, the conditions for battle are becoming more difficult. The wave of strikes and social struggles that followed the initial shocks of the pandemic and the Ukraine war have receded. As for the pro-Palestinian movement, it is now losing momentum, mired in impotent liberalism and Islamic nationalism. Despite bursts here and there, nowhere has the working class been able to impose itself as a serious political force capable of shaping the situation and putting its interests front and center against those of the ruling class.

Ditto for the left and socialist movements, which, in almost all societies, are increasingly irrelevant. Rather than exploiting the weakened position of the U.S. imperialists, socialists of all stripes have liquidated into reactionary coalitions with liberal and “progressive” politicians, like the New Popular Front in France and the Congress-led coalition in India. Or else they are pursuing a sectarian course, separating themselves from the mass of workers. In both cases, the workers movement ends up tied to the forces of the status quo, paralyzed and discredited in the eyes of millions.

As a result, the one political force that has made some real gains is the far right, which is on the rise globally. Growing layers of workers see right-wing demagogues as the only ones opposing the unbearable status quo. And growing sections of the ruling class are putting their fate into their hands, as the decades-long liberal consensus is proving incapable of solving the crisis shaking the world.

The worsening political situation for the working class occurs on the eve of major shocks. First, there is the global economy. While it has seen a relative stabilization in the last year, it remains extremely unstable, relying on speculative frenzy. It is reasonable to expect an economic slowdown or even a crash in the near future. With societies already rife with conflict and polarization, this will necessarily bring about deep political turmoil. Second, Ukraine is being ground down on the battlefield. A Russian victory, either militarily or through a deal with the U.S., appears to be the most likely outcome—as Trump has not hidden his preference for a deal to end the war. This would have a major impact on the entire political and military order in Europe and beyond.

Third, there is China. Its growth model, built on the foundations of post-Soviet stability, is hitting a wall, with the country under increased military and economic pressure from the U.S. and experiencing growing internal tensions. Increasingly squeezed between imperialism and the gigantic Chinese proletariat, the Communist Party ruling clique will react to turmoil in the chaotic and brutal manner typical of Stalinist bureaucracies. This will pose even more starkly the two avenues open for China: capitalist restoration or the coming to political power of the working class, regenerating the People’s Republic. To guide the working class in the coming conflicts, it is crucial to have a correct materialist understanding, which is the subject of our in-depth article, “The Class Nature of China.”

Whether it is an economic depression, the outcomes of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East or the shifting ground in East Asia, these developments are bound to provoke new economic and geopolitical shocks. But given the position of the working class worldwide and its absence as a contending force, these events risk benefiting, in the first instance, the political right and further accelerating the reorganization of the U.S.-led world order away from liberal values and institutions and onto a more reactionary arrangement at the expense of workers and the oppressed. In turn, that will further squeeze defenders of the liberal status quo—onto whom most of the left still clings—resulting in the usual panic and hysteria.

The struggle of the working class and its entry onto the scene is the one element that can change this dynamic in a progressive direction. The burning necessity for socialists is to fight at every stage for this outcome. Absent this, we are heading for a period of increased reaction and attacks on the left and workers movement—hence the title of this editorial. Undoubtedly, the coming shocks will open new possibilities of struggle and even social explosions with revolutionary potential—a glimpse of which can be seen in Nigeria, Kenya and Bangladesh. But it is completely delusional to believe, as some on the left do, that the general trends favor the revolutionary movement and that bold offensives are on the order of the day.

Rather, the task of revolutionaries in the immediate period is to prepare defensive struggles against growing reaction, do the patient work of implantation into the working class and carry out political struggles with other left organizations, which will most likely see crises in their ranks. Crucially, the coming period must be used to advance the fight against the working-class leaders who have led the proletariat into this situation, as well as against their “left” hangers-on who have shielded them throughout. Resolute struggle must be waged against those who, under the blows of reaction, will seek to further tie the workers movement to the liberal petty bourgeoisie and repeat the betrayals that have led us here.

These aims can be advanced only on the basis of a correct understanding of the world situation. In many ways, the content of this issue of Spartacist is our contribution to these coming struggles.

Opportunities Betrayed

While the world has been in incessant turmoil for years, it would be wrong for Marxists to be blinded by the “perma-crisis” and fail to see the ebbs and flows of our times—when working-class struggles are ripe for the offensive and when to retreat and take a defensive stance. For example, the economic and social shocks provoked by the pandemic, the end of lockdowns and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022 and extending into 2023 led to an uptick of class and social struggles, providing important opportunities for the working class to go on the offensive and turn the tide in its favor. Major strike movements shook France, Britain, the U.S. and many other countries, while social explosions rocked Iran and Sri Lanka.

The strikes in France, Britain and the U.S. are still hailed by many leftists as a great example (“the working class is back” is the saying), conveniently omitting that this wave of struggle was sabotaged and betrayed by its own leaders. Because the workers movement is led by yesterday’s men, who all support the imperialist system, they refused to mount a serious offensive against the ruling class when the time was ripe. Rather, in Britain and France strikes were stifled and contained until they ran out of steam and headed to defeat and demoralization. In the U.S., the trade-union bureaucrats derailed the struggles of major unions (Teamsters, ILWU, UAW) by accepting pay settlements that were literally bribes, delivered under pressure from the White House to pacify the labor movement and prevent it from breaking onto the political scene as an independent force. In fall 2023, the powerful labor movement in Quebec was probably the best positioned in the West to wage an offensive, only to see its bureaucratic apparatus steamroll the half-million union members then in contract negotiations and sell out the struggle.

In these various ways, prime opportunities to change the balance of class forces were sabotaged, weakening the position of the working class as a whole. In all these cases, the task of revolutionaries consisted in forming oppositional groupings inside the trade unions to push for a broad offensive based on a strategy completely counterposed to all wings of the union bureaucracy. Instead, the bulk of the far left supported left-talking trade-union bureaucrats and politicians, hailing the struggles while limiting their criticisms to tactics (when to strike, for how long, etc.). As a result, these defeats further accelerated the political turn to the right. All the countries mentioned above saw the rise of poisonous anti-immigrant polarizations following the defeat of the strikes.

In Iran, the murder of Mahsa Amini sparked a powerful movement of protest. While it faced tremendous repression at the hands of the brutal clerical regime, politically the movement failed to win over broader layers of the population in part because it became associated with pro-imperialist and monarchist forces. The regime was able to appeal to the masses’ deep-seated anti-imperialist sentiment to maintain its hold and neutralize popular support for the revolt. In turn, this solidified the opposition behind pro-imperialist politics. Now, many Iranian leftists refuse to take up the cause of Palestine precisely because they are pursuing a treacherous alliance with Western imperialism.

The example of Iran shows the broader problem of leftists in the so-called “Third World” who are constantly caught between supporting nationalists of various stripes in the name of “anti-imperialism” or blocking with liberals, NGOs and other pro-imperialist forces. In both cases, so-called revolutionaries end up liquidating into forces hostile to the interests of the working masses and find themselves irrelevant and discredited. This goes to show that the only progressive way forward in Iran, or the Global South more broadly, is through revolutionary opposition to imperialism and also to the nationalists—be they left-wing or conservative—due to their inability to combat imperialism and their inherent tendency to conciliate it.

Palestinian Liberation Struggle at an Impasse

Israel’s genocidal war following Hamas’s 7 October Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has been the focus of most protest movements in the last several months. But the struggle is at an impasse. Despite months of mass protests in the Arab world, the West and beyond, the movement has remained impotent, unable to stop Israel in its tracks or end the support it receives from Western powers. Yet most of the left worldwide claims that the struggle is on an upswing, with some even chanting that “Palestine is almost free”! This delusional assessment serves to avoid confronting the political problems of the movement, which, as the main article of this issue details, go back a century.

The Palestinian cause is one of national liberation. From this standpoint, it is obvious that Palestine has never been further away from liberation. Gaza has been leveled, a new Nakba is unfolding and Zionist terror in the West Bank has reached new heights. Many point to the fact that Israel’s international reputation is suffering or that the Palestinian cause has now gathered more attention globally. This is true but secondary. Far more relevant is the fact that the aim of the Zionist movement—that is, the displacement and extermination of the Palestinians from the river to the sea—is moving forward at a much quicker pace than before. The destruction of Gaza and the deep national unity behind the war in Israel shows that Hamas’s strategy—provoking a strong Israeli response to then count on the intervention of the UN, the “international community” and the treacherous Arab regimes—has brought disaster for the Palestinians.

In the West, the movement has been hampered by liberal ideas and ties to the very ruling classes and parties that support the genocide. In Britain, the mass demonstrations are led by trade-union bureaucrats and politicians who support the pro-Israel Labour Party. In the U.S., “left” Democratic Party politicians are at the helm, together with the Democratic Socialists of America, who support and campaign for the Democratic Party of genocide. In Germany, despite the courage of activists who face a near-total Zionist consensus, the movement remains tied to the Left Party and the SPD-led government, which support Israel to the hilt. As a result, in all these countries the workers movement has not entered the fray, and calls for labor action to stop arms shipments to Israel—something that could actually turn the situation around—have largely remained a dead letter.

In the Global South, dynamics play differently, but not fundamentally. In the Middle East, the pro-Palestinian movement is often led by the regimes themselves—as in Türkiye, Iran, Egypt—which mouth words for the Palestinians while at the same time seeking to balance relations with U.S. imperialism as well as maintain internal political stability. Often, the only forces standing in frontal opposition to the regimes are Islamists or liberal outfits, whose strategies cannot free Palestine and whose programs divide the working class.

Whether in the Global South or the Western world, the movement’s aims, demands and methods (e.g., pleas to the UN, camping on campus, regime-sponsored demonstrations) are all constrained by an alliance with a wing of the ruling class. This guarantees impotence and will produce demoralization and further separate the workers movement from the Palestinian cause, enabling right-wing forces to lead a backlash against the movement and further crack down on it. We are already witnessing this.

Given all of this, it is criminal for revolutionaries to simply cheer on the movement. Rather, we must fight for a fundamentally different course of action against the liberal and nationalist dead ends. There is a reason we titled our article “Marxists & Palestine: 100 Years of Failure.” As long as the socialist movement continues painting the struggle in rosy colors and refuses to confront its political impasse, the fight to free Palestine is condemned to repeat the same mistakes. Nationalists end up conciliating U.S. imperialism and the Zionist state and are then overtaken by more radical Islamists, whose actions reinforce the Zionist fortress, with liberal campaigners abroad cheering on whoever leads the movement.

Election Results and the Working Class

This year is seeing a high number of elections. While certainly not the driving force for change, their results indicate societal trends and give a picture of current polarizations. It is in this field that the far right’s gains are most obvious, with victories in Italy, the Netherlands and Argentina and important gains in Germany, Austria, France and many more countries. South Africa will see a coalition of the ANC with the Democratic Alliance, an openly pro-imperialist and white-dominated party.

The eyes of all right-wing think tanks are turned to Argentina, where Javier Milei won the presidency last year with an openly pro-U.S. agenda of attacks on all gains of the working class and on state-owned industries. As our articles "Hot Air and Sectarianism", "To Defeat Milei, Fight for National Liberation!" and "WAKE UP!" detail, Milei is moving forward with his reactionary plan and facing leaders of the labor movement who refuse to mount any serious struggle. Those labor leaders are tied to the hated clique of Peronistas who laid waste to the country for decades and whose rule paved the way for Milei. Meanwhile, the sizable Argentinian Trotskyist movement pursues a sectarian and sterile course, refusing to confront the labor leaders while in denial that the working class is heading toward a historic defeat unless it fundamentally changes strategy.

Across the globe, many on the left have celebrated the electoral results in India and France. Modi’s re-election came with a much-reduced majority, forcing him into a coalition—something many leftists and liberals see as a great victory for Indian “democracy” and the Congress-led popular-front alliance. As the article "The Fight Against Modi: What Next?" lays out, the reason for Modi’s reduced vote lies in the limits and failures of the BJP’s growth model and is in no way the doing of the impotent Congress-led alliance, which extends from the Communist parties to Hindu chauvinists. The so-called liberal wing of the Indian bourgeoisie, onto which the left clings, has no answer whatsoever to the problems of Indian development, which are rooted in dependence on foreign capital and capitalist property. It can only foster the very right-wing forces it claims to obstruct.

The same triumphalist noise emanates from France, and the same problem is posed. The New Popular Front, which came in first in the legislative elections, is a grand coalition stretching from the far left to some of the most reactionary representatives of French imperialism, who enacted brutal anti-working-class attacks when they were in power. Its openly pro-imperialist program is an incoherent project whose sole purpose is to keep this unstable bloc together. As the article "France: Popular Front Paves the Way for Le Pen" lays out, our French comrades stood alone in opposing this reactionary coalition, with the far left openly joining it (PCF, NPA-A, etc.) or capitulating to it in the second round of the elections (LO, NPA-R and RP). While liberals and leftists celebrate, what we are seeing is another tragic edition of the “republican front”—the succession of class-collaborationist arrangements made in the name of “blocking the far right,” whose only achievements have been to attack the working class and…fuel the far right.

From India to France and Argentina, the electoral outcomes highlight the fact that the workers movement is constantly shackled to a wing of the ruling class responsible for the immiseration that, in turn, fuels the forces of reaction. As the threat of far-right reaction grows, so does the pressure for unity with elements of the bourgeoisie. Many “revolutionaries” offer themselves up as the glue for such unholy alliances rather than standing on their own two feet, denouncing this entire reactionary business and pursuing an independent course to fight for what the working class actually needs.

However, some countries do not correspond to the trend we’ve outlined, Mexico being the prime example. The recent election there resulted in a resounding victory of the left-populist Morena party for a second term, defeating the right wing by far. But this exception is due not to the action of the leaders of the workers movement, who are liquidated into Morena’s bourgeois populism, but to Mexico’s particular position in the current world order. As imperialists shift their capital away from China, Mexico has become a beacon for foreign investment, surpassing China as the biggest exporter of goods to the U.S. last year. This has enabled the government to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the U.S., which tolerates a left-populist administration (for now). But it has also led to the growth of the Mexican proletariat, which works in large and modern factories and holds a growing proportion of the U.S. economy in its hands. Some other countries have seen a similar process, notably in Southeast Asia.

It is this tremendous force, which has yet to flex its muscles, that holds the key to progress and has the potential to shift the world in a progressive direction. Indeed, as this issue of Spartacist was being produced, the powerful miners of Lázaro Cárdenas in Michoacán, Mexico, were engaged in a militant strike against the imperialist conglomerate ArcelorMittal, only to then be stabbed in the back by their union leaders, behind whom stands the Morena government. The miners have given the world a taste of their power, but they have also learned and shown that the question of leadership will determine all others. This is posed concretely in Mexico by the need to break the straitjacket of populism, which holds back the struggle against the country’s enslavement to foreign capital.

A Year of Work, the Left and the Tasks Ahead

We pointed out above that many Marxists view today’s movements in bright colors and predict revolutionary upheavals in the immediate future. The newly formed Revolutionary Communist International probably best embodies this trend, interpreting the growing turmoil and its recent recruitment among layers of students and the petty bourgeoisie as proof that the world’s masses are turning to communism. For sure, they will accuse us of being pessimists.

It is not pessimistic to state the fact that the working class is facing tough times ahead. Being a revolutionary requires optimism. But revolutionary optimism does not mean peddling illusions and false hopes, as the rest of the left does. The only basis for optimism is revolutionary realism, rooted in a materialist understanding of social and political conditions. As Marxists, we assess the overall course of the class struggle based on whether the proletariat’s position is strengthened against the bourgeoisie. Our revolutionary optimism comes from our understanding of the laws of class struggle and confidence in the working class as the decisive force for world-historical progress. This is a much stronger foundation than optimism inflated by impressionism and fatuousness.

While the change in the world situation has led certain far-left organizations to look at the world with a deluded sense of optimism, others literally embody the crisis of the left. Here we find groups like the CWI, ISA, IST and others who tied their fate to the now-defunct movements around Syriza, Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. They stand disoriented and demoralized, hoping to resuscitate the bygone “magic” of the mid 2010s. Finally, there are the myriad sectarian groups that cling to rigid dogmas and formulas entirely divorced from the realities of the class struggle, rendering them irrelevant to current political developments.

Whether it is the impressionistic, the demoralized or the irrelevant, what all these trends reject is precisely what our own organization reasserted in its recent major reorientation: that the task of Marxists is to put forward a revolutionary strategy to advance the struggles of workers and the oppressed against their bureaucratic, liberal and nationalist leaderships. At bottom, our central difference with all other left organizations boils down to the question of revolutionary leadership.

For the last year, the sections of our international have sought to intervene in the various struggles of their societies to cohere revolutionary poles, not by spewing revolutionary verbiage but by putting forward courses of action that advance the fight, against the sabotage of their current leaders. We intervened into the British, French and American strike waves by putting forward a road to victory and confronting the bureaucracies on fundamental questions of strategy. We have intervened into the pro-Palestinian struggle, whether by seeking to organize student strikes in the U.S., engaging in united-front defense actions in Germany or building contingents calling to break the U.S. connection in Australia—in each case seeking to promote a split against the pro-imperialist forces shackling the movement.

Our Greek comrades heavily intervened in student struggles earlier this year, confronting head-on the sabotage by the Stalinist KKE tops, seeking to orient the struggle against the EU and linking it to the working class. We have also sought to increase our interventions in the Global South, where we have only a small presence, with trips to Argentina, Brazil, the Philippines, Nigeria and more.

Of central importance have been our interventions in the industrial proletariat. Notably, our German comrades have worked with a militant committee of Hamburg dock workers set up to fight the privatization of the port and the top union bureaucracy’s criminal support to this attack. Our comrades are becoming known there as “those who don’t give up.” In the U.S., our sustained intervention in the UAW strike got a real hearing for Workers Vanguard, with hundreds of subscriptions sold to auto workers. On the West Coast, we have supported the campaign against tier segregation led by Emily Turnbull, ILWU Local 10 executive board member, in the longshore union. Other efforts to build class-struggle poles against the union bureaucracies are underway in key industries.

One of our biggest efforts over the last year has been to struggle inside the socialist movement to reorient it fundamentally. We have sought united-front actions with other groups wherever possible and debated other organizations to clarify political differences over key questions for the Marxist movement. The article on China in this issue is a result of such efforts. The article “Marxist Principles and Electoral Tactics Revisited” is in the same vein. Apart from correcting our previous sectarian approach to elections, it provides a broader explanation of the use Marxists can make of elections and the application of tactics in a revolutionary manner. Flowing from discussion on this question, we have been able to carry out intense and fruitful interventions into electoral campaigns in Britain, France, South Africa and the ongoing contest in the U.S.

Central to all this have been our efforts to understand the world and the societies in which we work and deepen the ICL’s political reorientation. Last October, our South African section launched the first issue of its new paper, AmaBolsheviki Amnyama, with a lengthy document on the lessons of the anti-apartheid struggle (see “For National Liberation and Black Proletarian Power!”). Our Australian section recently fused with the Bolshevik-Leninist group based on key interventions in the labor movement and high-level documents addressing fundamental questions of Australian politics, which are published in its new paper, Red Battler. Our Italian comrades produced a substantial article detailing how the workers movement’s ties to the Euro-Atlanticist order, which go back to the end of WWII, are paralyzing its struggles today, not least against Meloni. These breakthroughs followed national conferences held in the last few years in the U.S., Mexico and Britain, where we sought to firmly ground our national sections in the burning questions of their societies.

Active intervention in various movements to give them a revolutionary direction; pursuing united-front actions with other organizations in the workers movement; patient implantation into the working class to build poles of struggle against the trade-union bureaucracy; and, crucially, debate and struggle inside the left to achieve clarity about what is going on in the world and what constitutes the tasks of revolutionaries. This is the work we have pursued, and this is what’s posed for every serious revolutionary in the period ahead. Of course, we are a small organization, and we know that this work is of modest proportions. However, it is not modest in its aims.

Tough times are coming. Reaction is lifting its head in the fractured liberal post-Soviet world. Left groups that are without a compass and demoralized will be shattered. Those that are blind to the dynamics of the period and believe the challenge ahead can be overcome by screaming for communism will learn the hard way that the communist movement cannot grow independently of the general working-class movement.

We do not pretend to have all the answers. But we do believe we have unlocked key problems plaguing the left today. We hope that this Spartacist, together with the previous issue, can help those serious about fighting for revolution to prepare themselves for the times ahead and for the inevitable conflagrations to come.