Let's support the world revolutionary wave against capitalism
Statement of La Marx International- August 8 2022
A huge and profound revolutionary wave sweeps the world. A global wave of strikes and social protests is underway, rising in the 5 continents against capitalism, imperialism, and their governments. From Sri Lanka, in South-East Asia, through the general, railway, metallurgical and dockers' strikes in Europe, the revolutionary struggle of the people of Ukraine with arms in hand facing Putin's invasion, and from the uprisings in Sudan, and Tunisia in Africa, going through the rise of the peoples of Iran, and Palestine in the Middle East, or the massive protests in Latin America of the peoples of Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, all this uprising of the masses of the world is placed at the center of the global political situation.
This wave of strikes and revolutions is fundamentally caused by the outbreak of global inflation. The masses of the world rise up due to the dramatic situation to which they are pushed by the permanent and incessant increase in the prices of the family basket and all the basic necessities. Prices rise, and rise, as a result of the bailout policy, and financial aid to the Global Corporations that dominate the world economy carried out by the imperialist governments of the G7.
The brutal injection of fictitious capital masses of more than 30 billion dollars in the last 3 years made by central banks, triggered unbridled global inflation, a process that is exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, but that began in the year 2021, when the war in Ukraine did not exist. It is a global phenomenon from which, no matter what country we live in, the workers, the poorest, and the oppressed cannot escape, because it is a symptom of the current crisis of the capitalist mode of production. But he's not the only one.
The seizure of government house in Sri Lanka
With it develops the trend towards global recession or depression, the cut in the supply chain or "global gridlock", the growing inequality and growth of hunger, and poverty, bubbles, speculative maneuvers, the "crack" of cryptocurrencies, the development of pandemics, wars, climate change, etc. Inflation is a symptom that, together with all the above, is an expression of the collapse that the capitalist mode of production is currently experiencing. All this pushes millions to come out to confront capitalism and imperialism, and is the underlying reason for this global revolutionary wave that we are witnessing .
The working class and the masses enter the scene in the imperialist countries
In Britain on June 23, 50,000 rail and shipping workers staged the biggest strike in over 30 years, a historic transport general strike as they joined a joint walkout with 10,000 London Underground employees. In turn, 38,000 workers voted in favor of the strike against the telecommunications multinational BT (British Telecom), one of the largest in the world. Measures of struggle are also being voted on by other unions such as the teachers, post office and health unions, which shows English workers, united with Scottish, Irish and Welsh workers, among the most combative in the world, to confront decadent imperialist capitalism British, which has caused the fall of the government of Boris Johnson.
In Germany, 12,000 port workers went on strike on June 23 in the ports of Hamburg, Emden, Bremer, Bremerhaven, Brake and Wilhelmshaven, while 4,000 of them actively mobilized in the city of Hamburg. At the same time, a 7-week strike process among university hospital workers in North Rhine-Westphalia took place in July involving 2,500 nurses. Also the largest union in the country, the metalworkers of IG Metal, with 2 million members, went out into the fight with several days of strike for a salary increase.
On June 20, a general strike was held in Belgium that paralyzed central transport sectors, and the Brussels airport, headquarters of the European Union, which had to cancel all its flights. In France 35,000 petrochemical workers went on strike on June 24, while in Italy a wave of strikes has ended the unpopular government of banker Mario Draghi. In Spain, a wave of workers' strikes is developing, one of 16 days in Cantabria, that of the metallurgists of Bizkaia, the cabin crew unions with more than 18 days that paralyzed 10 airports, and the strike of Mercedes Benz in Vitoria, Pais Basque, 5,000 workers.
Rallies in London of unions and social organizations
In Norway, oil and gas workers went on a historic strike for wage increases that caused a 13% drop in gas production and halted 130,000 barrels of oil. In Denmark, aeronautical workers carried out a strike for 15 days, which affected 3,700 flights against the aeronautical multinational SAS. In solidarity with the pilots, 200 mechanical workers refuse to work on machinery owned by SAS. In the United States, thousands of women are mobilizing in all the cities of the country against the decision of the Supreme Court to annul the right to legal abortion, with massive mobilizations, and even arrests of congressmen.
The working class and the masses enter the scene in poor countries
The revolutionary wave is particularly strong in the poorest countries. In May in Iran there were street demonstrations in 20 cities, in the same way that in Iraq the increase in the prices of wheat and cooking oil sparked protests in the south of the country, while the Parliament was occupied in the fight against the elections fraudulent. In China, hundreds of savers from rural banks are mobilized in Henan province to demand the return of their confiscated deposits, while strikes by thousands of health workers are being witnessed in India and New Zealand. In South Korea, workers belonging to more than 100 Daewoo subcontractors have come out to fight.
In Africa, the cost of living provokes demonstrations in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and South Africa. Sudan continues to witness massive demonstrations against the military regime imposed since October 2021. The powerful General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), which has more than a million members in a country of twelve million inhabitants, carried out the July 16 a general strike of the public sector and transport.
Movilizaciones en Ecuador
In Latin America, the Mining Union came out to fight on June 15, challenging the largest steel company in the world with a presence in at least 69 countries. In 24 hours they managed to resolve part of their demands, after the mediation of their leadership, loyal to the Mexican government. For its part, the Telephone Operators Union of the Mexican Republic (STRM) began a strike on July 21, demanding that tycoon Carlos Slim Helú respect his work. The strike was called off in 24 hours and shifted to a "work table", after the intervention of the treacherous leadership of the union, which has caused a wave of discontent and the emergence of an opposition current.
These types of calls had not been seen for 30 years, because miners and telephone operators are unions mediated by opportunist and pro-boss leadership, however, the crisis of capitalism will not allow this situation to last long. Other strikes in sectors such as education and workers in the service of the state have preceded it (IEMS and the Notimex strike), we note that the heavy sectors of the proletariat that have not mobilized for 16 and 30 years, are doing so under inflationary pressure and the exacerbation of class antagonisms. In Venezuela, between August 1 and 2, 2022, 30 demonstrations by public employees took place in 16 regions, and the protests continued on August 3 with 13 protests in nine states.
On July 20, massive mobilizations took place in Puerto Rico against the blackouts and the massive increases in the price of electricity, demanding that the Executive Power of the country cancel the contract with the company Luma Energy. In Cuba, on July 14, protests took place in the municipality of Los Palacios, Pinar del Río, where hundreds of demonstrators, mostly young people, came out to protest chanting slogans against the Cuban government and its president Miguel Díaz-Canel, as well as The students of the University of Camagüey, fed up with the poor living conditions, famine, and long electricity cuts, did in June. In Ecuador for 18 days a mass insurrection took over the main city, Quito, and defeated the adjustment of the Lasso government, while in Panama an uprising of the people put the capitalist government in crisis, while massive mobilizations are taking place throughout the country against the dearth of life.
We live a 3rd global revolutionary wave
We are in the midst of a third global revolutionary wave, which began with the triumph of the workers and people of Ukraine who defeated the Putin dictatorship's attempt to take the capital kyiv, and depose the Ukrainian government in mid-March 2022. After the defeats in the battles of kyiv, Summy, and Kharkiv, the troops of the oligarchy led by Putin had to retreat and try to consolidate their domination of the Ukrainian region of Donbass, where they have been acting as an occupying army since 2014.
However, Putin's defeat opened a second stage of the war, characterized by armed resistance against the occupation led by thousands of partisans. The struggle of the Ukrainian people is no longer about rejecting the irruption and invasion of Putin's troops in the main cities of the country, but about the expulsion of an occupying army that has been usurping and attacking the Ukrainian Donbass for 6 years.
The partisans are guerrillas for freedom: peasants, women, workers, young people who take up arms fighting to liberate their land, and families who take up the European tradition of the French, Italian and Yugoslav partisans against the fascist occupation. Ukrainian partisans organize attacks, ambushes, surveillance, and intelligence, and have turned Melitopol, a city occupied by Putin's troops, into the partisan capital of the country, and a symbol of resistance with thousands of fighters.
Each fighter has millions behind them, friends, relatives, neighbors who equip and provide all kinds of support to each partisan, a fact that has turned the Ukrainian partisanship into a mass resistance organization. This has allowed the Ukrainian troops to liberate the Snake Island and to find themselves at the gates of Kherson, the only large city still in the hands of Putin's troops, threatening to liberate the entire southern Ukraine. These advances of the Ukrainian people are carried out at a high cost of thousands of deaths, millions of displaced people, and destruction of vital infrastructure of the country due to the brutal fascist attack of the capitalist oligarchy headed by Putin.
ukrainian partisans
triumphs of the Ukrainian people have been supported by a mass mobilization throughout the world, with its epicenter in Europe, which opened this 3rd revolutionary wave. This whole world process that we are experiencing today, including the 1st and 2nd revolutionary waves that preceded the current one, began after the defeat of imperialism and NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan in the years 2006/07. The triumph of the war of national liberation of the masses of Iraq and the Middle East counted in those years, as the masses of Ukraine count today, on the support and mobilization of the global masses against the imperialist invasion of NATO.
That triumph of the masses of the Middle East in the years 2006/07 opened a world revolutionary situation characterized by the outbreak of the acute peak of the world crisis of capitalism, the political crisis of the imperialist governments, and the beginning of the bailouts between the years 2008/09. The bailouts and financial relief are an extreme measure taken by the central banks as a result of the widespread bankruptcy of the Global Corporations that dominate the world economy. But the response of the masses to the first bailouts and financial aid was the irruption of the first revolutionary wave that began between the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 and lasted until 2016.
This 1st wave featured mass movements that shook entire countries and continents such as the Arab Spring, outraged in Europe, Occupy Wall Street in the US, the uprising in Hong Kong, the EuroMaidan, the triumph of the revolution in Ukraine, and in Latin America the fall of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, among others. The first revolutionary wave had an anti-capitalist character, and at the same time a strong popular bias, dominated by tendencies with an autonomist ideology, and self-management such as Occupy in the US, or Indignados in Spain.
After this first revolutionary shock wave, the world women's movement broke out, or "Fourth Wave" of the feminist movement that had already been anticipated in the 1st revolutionary wave as part of the Arab Spring with the Kurdish guerrilla movement of Rojava. But it spread like wildfire with the Ni Una Menos Movement in Argentina, the struggles of women in Spain for abolitionism, in Chile, the mobilizations in Mexico against femicide, in Ireland for legal abortion, the Me Too Movement in USA etc.
The 1st wave caused the crisis of autonomy, and the self-managed currents that, due to their reformist nature, could not respond to the movement. But another wave of reformist movements began to emerge, such as Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Bernie Sanders in the US, Jeremy Corbyn in England, PSOL in Brazil, or the FITU in Argentina, which caused illusions in a sector of the world vanguard. This "new reformism of the 21st century" was developed through the strategy of the "Anti-capitalist parties", electoral fronts, or parties with tendencies whose priority is to use elections and parliamentarism to carry out the rise of a "New Left" .
Images of the 1 global revolutionary wave 2011- 2016 Occupy Wall Street in the US Indignant in Spain, the Arab Spring, the general strikes in Greece
The emergence of Revista Jacobim in 2011, and the rise of the Democratic Socialists in the US were the levers for the fundamental drive of this reformist strategy, driven by sectors of imperialism itself linked to the US Democratic Party, of which they are a part. intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Slavoj Zizek, among others, and the group of intellectuals supported by CLACSO, the UN financed ideas tank. This reformist project led in 2018 to the founding of the Progressive International (PI) that brings together global reformism, and whose policy and orientation practically all the left-wing organizations in the entire world folded.
The traitorous left turns its back on the revolutionary wave
The founding of IP meant an unprecedented aggravation of the global crisis of the left, as a result of the fact that Stalinist groups, former guerrillas, and the remnants of Trotskyism aligned themselves with its strategy, from the SWP of the USA, that of England, the France's NPA, Peter Taff's CIT, Alan Woods' IMT, the LIT, or smaller groups like the Socialist Left, the MST, and Argentina's PTS, etc. This entire process detonated a disintegration and complete crisis of the last groups that abandoned Marxism, renounced defending the orthodox Trotskyist tradition, and transformed into social democratic organizations.
Castro-Chavismo exploded into a deep crisis, to the extent that Cuba and Venezuela sank into a serious crisis, and along with it all reformists projects such as Lula's in Brazil, the K's in Argentina, Correa in Ecuador. , etc. But the foundation of IP came up against the outbreak of the 2nd world revolutionary wave that began with the uprising of the yellow vests in France in 2019. Unlike the 1st wave, this one had an essentially urban character, which began to place in the center the working class developing the elements and methods of the proletariat.
Its fundamental milestones were the revolution in Chile, known as "Chile Awakened" from 2019, the National Strike in Colombia in 2019, an uprising that lasted practically 7 months, the revolution that caused the fall of Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2019, the mobilization of Black Lives Matter in the USA in 2020, a movement of struggle of the black race, which spread to all the continents of the world. In this 2nd wave there were also to a general strike in Belgium, the Amazon strikes in Germany, the miners' strike in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the general strike in India in 2020, which was the largest general strike in history. In the second wave there was also the Second Arab Spring with the uprisings in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, as well as the third Intifada, this time of the Palestinians living inside the cities of Israel.
This entire process suffered from the successive paralysis caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, but as a whole it meant a maturation and progress in relation to the first wave, as a result of the Wall Street bankruptcy and the bailouts having an impact on the conscience of millions of people. activists who began to be attracted to Marxism. The second wave witnessed like never before a combination of the action of the working class with the oppressed sectors such as women, oppressed races, oppressed nationalities such as Catalonia, Palestine, and Ukraine, oppressed sexualities, and original peoples.
Bourgeois feminism began to betray the global struggle of women, as it has done before in history, supporting capitalist governments. But as part of the maturation and advance in consciousness that occurred in this second wave, Marxist feminism began to develop, and a process of rejection of the parties and institutions of bourgeois democracy that was expressed in a strong abstention of the masses in the elections. This "abstentionist wave" was expressed in the elections in Venezuela in which 80% of the workers did not go to vote, in France with margins of 40%, in Peru 30%, in Mexico 50%, in the US 50% etc
This process of growing abstention is a symptom that broad sectors of the masses no longer believe in the institutions of the bourgeoisie, nor in its parties, and refuse to attend the calls to vote, an action that expresses an advance in the consciousness of the masses, which in turn, puts the bourgeois governments, and all the reformist organizations, in crisis. The 3rd wave that we are currently experiencing has, like the 2nd, a component of a working-class and urban character, but incorporates a new element with the explosive emergence of thousands of new activists who are developing a process of political revolution that revolutionizes the unions, and the whole of the social organizations of the world.
Images of the second global revolutionary wave Yellow Vests in France, October 17 Movement in Lebanon, Mobilizations overthrow Evo Morales in Bolivia, Black Lives Matter in the US
These thousands of new activists, and young workers, most of them precarious, carry out the impulse to massive strikes also in formal work sectors, claiming for wages, as well as for working conditions. Fight for the legalization of unions, the election of new delegates, and against the union bureaucracy. Along with the growing union activism, and interest in Marxism, the new waves of activists confront the largest capitalist corporations in the world, and their millionaire owners.
In March of this year, Amazon workers defeated the maneuvers of millionaire Jeff Bezos and managed to form their union, an issue that was emulated by North American workers in other Global Corporations such as Starburcks, Apple, or the case we discussed of Mexico against Slim. This is how the new activism moves: Without fear of confronting the empires of some of the biggest capitalists.
We revolutionaries unite in support of the revolutionary wave
The world activism that advances in the fight against capitalism, and advances in sympathizing with Marxism, faces a problem: When it goes in search of Marxism and the left finds that the leaders of the 99% of the world left are abandoning Marxism, and going towards reformism. This global activism has had a bitter experience with Syriza, and Podemos, who after coming to power governed for imperialism, and the multinationals. But it is also having the experience with the DSA and the US Democrats, and all the groups in the world that are incorporated and co-opted to the reformist strategy that the PI is leading worldwide.
This global activism observes how the entire world left led by Stalinists and former guerrillas supports governments, and calls for voting for capitalist candidates such as Castillo in Peru, Boric in Chile, and Petro in Colombia who belong to the Progressive International. This is also the case with the groups that claim to be Trotskyists, the French NPA supporting Jean Luc Mélenchon, Alan Woods supporting Castro-chavism, the English SWP capitulating to Islamic fundamentalism, Peter Taafe calling for a vote for the PI candidates and English Labor, the LIT, and the groups that make up the PSOL of Brazil remaining in it and thereby supporting Lula's candidacy in Brazil, or the FITU groups of Argentina IS, PTS, and MST supporting the IP candidates in Latin America. , its deputies voting laws and by that way collaborating with the Peronist government of Argentina. All these groups have adopted the politics of bourgeois feminism, supporting the legalization of prostitution, and the co-optation of feminism to the capitalist state.
A battle for global activism has broken out between reformists and revolutionaries. A battle that takes place in the midst of a revolutionary process whose development is uneven, and does not mean only victories or advances. Also the successive revolutionary waves have shown defeats and setbacks. The situation in Syria has been backward, and the same in Libya. In Cuba the people's uprising was brutally repressed, just like in Hong Kong or Nicaragua. In Sudan or Myanmar there have been coups, and the masses have come out to confront them, just as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is being confronted.
But these successive revolutionary waves are changing the world as a whole forever, a historical process, which can no longer be turned back. The leaders of the world left are carrying out the betrayal of the current revolutionary wave. They do not mention it, nor do they propose to support it, or promote it.
The groups of the world left carry out propaganda or are only concerned with intervening in the elections, and they form cadre structures with the aim of being part of the electoral processes, and the selection of candidates or electoral tactics with the sole objective of working as officials of the regime, with many of the leaderships of these leftist groups presenting an advanced state of corruption and political decomposition.
It is correct to make Marxist propaganda, or to intervene tactically in the elections. But by transforming this activity into the axis of action of these groups, and not placing world support for the revolutionary wave at the center, the world left betrays the workers and peoples of the world, and ratifies its reformist, social democratic course of breaking with the Marxism. The line that descends from 99% of the world left is to focus on the reformist strategy, precisely at a time when millions are breaking up and ceasing to believe in the parties and institutions of bourgeois democracy.
In order to justify this course, the IP leaders lie by affirming that what is happening in the world is a "reactionary" situation, a defeat of the masses, the advance of the right, or the march towards Bonapartist or fascist regimes, a complete lie. to justify support for "progressive" regimes and candidates for the "defense of democracy." But the masses of the world, abandoned and their aspirations destroyed by the global crisis of capitalism, increasingly disbelieve in the calls to vote, and in the false "democracy" of the rich.
The place of the reformists is in the superstructure, in the offices, in their propaganda groups, in intellectual circles, university circles, in the palaces of parliaments, secretariats, and ministries. Our place is the opposite: Alongside the most oppressed, poor, and vulnerable. The strategy of the Marxists in the 21st century is the regrouping of the revolutionaries. The current revolutionary wave unites us on the practical ground: We shake this support for the insurrections, mobilizations and uprisings that shake the world. Our objective is the recruitment, organization and training of cadres to combat the capitalist state in all its forms, and the struggle for power.
At the same time, following the tradition of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Cannon and Nahuel Moreno, we carry out the relentless and systematic denunciation of the treacherous, reformist and revisionist left. The road we are on could not be more promising: Millions of activists around the world are looking for Marxism to liquidate rotten capitalism and its reformist accomplices. They will decide if they take the path proposed by the reformists and opportunists of supporting "progressive" capitalist sectors because the world is going towards World War III in the midst of a reactionary world situation, or if, as we propose from Marx International, they take the path to build a revolutionary organization to face the revolutions that are shaking the world. Never a better time to advance on the path of the strategy of building a Revolutionary International, and advance in the struggle to impose Global Socialism.