1946: Italian women were finally granted the right to vote. The eightieth anniversary was marked by celebrations and a wide range of reenactments commemorating this near-revolution, which finally accorded women the same rights (more or less…) as male citizens.

In a publication of the Chamber of Deputies, we read these words:

“On February 1, 1945, while the war was still ongoing, the first measure extending the right to vote to women was adopted: this was a first step recognizing the “right to elect” for Italian women. […] The next step toward securing the “right to be elected” was recognized in the decree of January 1946, in preparation for the local elections held in the spring and subsequently in the autumn of that same year. As for the elections for the Constituent Assembly, a decree issued in March 1946 supplemented and integrated the existing regulations by granting the right to stand for election at the age of 25. It is an important first sign, yet the parties contesting the upcoming election for the Constituent Assembly are still fielding a rather limited number of female candidates. On June 2, 1946, Italians were called upon to choose between monarchy and republic and to elect their representatives to the Constituent Assembly. There are 226 female candidates in total: 68 on the Partito Comunista lists; 29 on the Democrazia Cristiana lists; 16 on the Partito Socialista lists; 14 on the Partito d’Azione lists; 8 on the Unione Democratica Nazionale lists; 7 on the Fronte per l’Uomo Qualunque lists; and 84 on other lists. Of the 556 elected deputies, 21 were women: 9 Comunists, 9 Christian Democrats, 2 Socialists, and 1 from the Fronte per l’Uomo Qualunque. Despite their diverse backgrounds in terms of age, culture, and political experience, these first elected women succeeded in voicing the legitimate aspirations of Italian women for emancipation during the drafting of the Constitution […] The 21 female deputies elected to the Constituent Assembly played an active role in drafting the text of the Constitution. A significant indication of this commitment can be found in the proposed amendments to the draft Constitution that they signed. Particular attention is paid to various aspects of equal opportunities; this theme is the focus of amendments to Article 48 of the draft bill (Article 51 of the final text), concerning equal access for both sexes to public office and elected positions, which have been signed by female deputies from various political groups. Despite belonging to widely divergent political forces, the women of the Constituent Assembly managed to find common ground and ways to join forces, ensuring equal rights and equal opportunities for Italian men and women in the new Constitution of democratic Italy, which entered into force on January 1, 1948.”

Aside from the purely symbolic nature of the “mothers of the constitution” group (21 out of a total of 556, or less than 4%), it takes a lot of nerve to claim that they were able to “guarantee Italian men and women equality of rights and equal opportunities.”

Granting women the vote could have been an almost revolutionary act had the bill introduced by Deputy Salvatore Morelli back in 1875 been passed, a bill bearing the title: “Abolition of domestic slavery through the legal reinstatement of women, granting women civil and political rights.” Yet, the democratic liberal parliament never even bothered to bring the bill up for discussion.

When women were granted the vote in 1945/46, the move stemmed from a concept that was anything but progressive, indeed, one might well call it conservative. The monarchy banked on the female vote to secure victory in the institutional referendum, while the reactionary Italian bourgeoisie saw it as a means of salvation from the threat of social-communism. Indeed, the slogan “In the secrecy of the polling booth, God sees you, but Stalin does not!”, along with the notices posted on church doors threatening excommunication for anyone who voted Communist, was aimed primarily at the female electorate.

But aside from these considerations, the fact that the right to vote and stand for election granted to women did not even remotely represent equality of rights between the two genders can be demonstrated by the continued existence, for decades, of laws that shamefully discriminated against and humiliated women.

We wrote in issue No. 81 of our magazine Comunismo:

«The Constitution carried over the worst outrages of the Rocco Code: Article 559, regarding the imprisonment of an “adulterous wife” for up to two years (it took two Constitutional Court rulings, No. 126 of December 19, 1968, and No. 147 of December 3, 1969, to declare this article unconstitutional); Article 587, concerning the “crime of honor,” which reduced the penalty for killing a wife, daughter, or sister “in the act of discovering her illicit carnal relationship”; and Article 544, under which a “reparatory marriage” extinguished the penalty for rape, a simple way to acquire a lifelong slave through the act of rape. The latter two were repealed in 1982 by Law 442 of 1981, thirty-three years after the Constitution came into force.» But, as the saying goes, one cannot expect to have everything all at once. The vote granted to women and the appointment of 21 “founding mothers”—now *those* were achievements to be considered “historic”!

We can discern the Communist position on women’s suffrage, or rather, on voting in general, from an article in the Communist Party of Italy’s daily newspaper; the piece dismisses the bourgeois concept of universal suffrage in favor of the opposing concept of class-based voting, and we present an extensive excerpt here.

“Women and the Right to Vote”

“The ladies who had a world map posted on the walls of Milan, highlighting the countries where women’s suffrage is the law of the land, quite naturally had the insight to place a large question mark within the geographical boundaries of Soviet Russia. The baronesses of the Italian suffragist committee evidently want an answer. Well, their Russian female friends have no right to vote in the Communist Republic. Participation in political life cannot be granted except to those who work, whether physically or intellectually, and who perform productive work. Political rights are challenged for the old parasites, grand dukes, barons, or major capitalists who have been dispossessed, or for their not-always-gracious womenfolk. Let them lament the situation and persist in their efforts within Latin countries to secure the right to vote; yet, as it happens, the struggle to win all the rights already enjoyed by men, and to raise women to that same level of dignity, has always been waged by subversive parties, [missing line] whereas constitutional parties have consistently denied women the vote, even while their speakers, whenever elections were called, have voiced a feigned sympathy for women’s political issues. It is possible that the new Chamber might discuss and approve the bill inherited from previous legislatures; we do not believe so. In any case, we could not accept the principle of extending the vote to all women. For the same reasons that make us opposed to extending the right to vote to men who live off the labor of others. All the baronesses of the suffragist committees should be excluded from any political rights. It is false that those who live within the same State thereby possess the same rights. The life and wealth of a people are the fruit of labor. If a state is strong, it owes its strength to the industriousness of the working classes, without whom life is not possible. Wherever universal employment can be achieved, universal suffrage (truly such) can be applied.”

“In Communist Russia, this goal is gradually being reached; yet universal suffrage does not yet exist, because vestiges of bourgeois rule still remain, given that a revolution is not concluded in twenty-four hours. Those who point out with foolish irony that communism has not yet been fully realized in Russia fail to grasp the laws of Marxist gradualism, and arguing with them is a waste of time. The women entitled to participate in political and administrative elections include the female worker, the peasant woman, the office worker, the housewife, and the woman whom Turati in a phrase that was both blunt and profoundly true, called the “wage-earner of love.” 

“Let the ladies of the women’s committees for universal suffrage take no offense. Without a trace of irony, and without the slightest intention of disrespecting their integrity, we must demonstrate why they do not possess the same social rights as working-class women and prostitutes. […]” (Il Comunista, May 19, 1921)

The US-Iran agreement, which, at least for the time being, eases the crisis in the Middle East, has brought the war in Ukraine back to the forefront of discussions among G7 leaders at the mid-June summit in Evian. With Zelensky in attendance, support for Ukraine was reaffirmed, and the possibility of reimposing sanctions on Russian oil was assessed. The optimistic outlook regarding the durability of the agreements with Iran, would allow Middle Eastern oil to flow through the Strait of Hormuz, which would thus make it possible to resume targeting Russia.

The war follows the same script that took hold during the Trump presidency: while there is public talk of negotiating with Moscow to halt the conflict—with Trump declaring at the G7 that “Russia must make a deal”—the fighting continues on. The costs have been offloaded onto the Europeans, and Ukrainians serve as cannon fodder, all while Americans profit from arms sales for Ukraine and position themselves to carve up the Ukrainian spoils alongside the Russians once the need to end the conflict arises.

There are no fatherlands to be liberated from imperialist aggression—contrary to the narrative of Kyiv’s supporters—nor are there anti-fascist struggles, as claimed by pro-Russian campists; the war in Ukraine is an imperialist conflict over the partitioning and control of territories and resources, for the defining of spheres of influence.

After all, involvement in the war in Ukraine, now dragging on for over four years, entails high costs, and only a division of the spoils of war can guarantee a profitable economic return for the brigands involved.

The Figures on Support for Ukraine

According to data from the Kiel Institute, which has been tracking and updating statistics on support for Ukraine since February 2022, the United States has provided €115 billion in aid to the country. This assistance has been primarily military in nature, amounting to nearly €65 billion. The US ranks first among Ukraine’s supporters in the delivery of missile launch systems (HIMARS), howitzers worth nearly a billion euros, and infantry fighting vehicles (Bradleys); however, it ranks second to Germany in air defense systems and fifth in the supply of tanks—an area where Poland’s contribution is by far the largest, and where the US also trails the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.

American support however, came to a halt with the arrival of Trump. Between January and February 2025, less than half a billion in aid was recorded, before dropping to zero in the following months.

As a result, the data for 2025 shows a 99% collapse in US aid, offset in large part by increased allocations from European countries. Despite the absence of American support, these contributions limited the decline in total military aid to just 13%, and financial and humanitarian aid to only 5%, relative to the annual average for the 2022–2024 period. However, this required a significant increase from Europe: a full 67% rise in military aid and a 59% increase in financial and humanitarian aid compared to the 2022–2024 averages.

The European Union is the primary provider of financial and humanitarian aid, with its share rising from 50% in 2022 to nearly 90% in 2025, a shift that entails a redistribution among member states based on their share of GDP. The €90 billion loan agreed upon within the EU framework is part of this context.

Military aid, on the other hand, depends on the commitment of individual European countries, demonstrating a clear divide between Northern and Western European states, who have provided fully 95% of military aid, and those in Southern and Eastern Europe, where such aid has actually diminished.

Data for 2025 clearly show that the cost of the war has been shifted entirely by the Americans onto the shoulders of the Europeans. Moreover, the United States is also profiting from military contracts paid for by Europeans to supply weapons to Ukraine, specifically through the so-called PURL, a NATO-adopted mechanism under which Ukraine’s supporters purchased arms from the US totaling €3.7 billion in 2025.

Data from the first few months of 2026 confirm the American withdrawal and show a high level of military support for Ukraine from European countries. On average, between January and April 2026, European states allocated approximately €2 billion per month in military aid—lower than the 2025 average of €2.4 billion, but significantly higher than levels seen between 2022 and 2024. Between March and April 2026 alone, Germany allocated €4.2 billion in military aid, primarily for air defense and drones.

The first few months of 2026 are characterized by an increase in military aid related to drones, which rose from 400 million euros in 2022 to 1 billion euros in 2024 and 1.2 billion euros in 2025, reaching approximately 1.6 billion euros in the first quarter of 2026 alone.

Overall, Europeans have invested nearly 215 billion in the war in Ukraine so far!

Germany, in particular, is among the imperialist powers that have openly taken a warmongering turn. The war in Ukraine has led to a shift in the attitude of German imperialism. From the very beginning, we identified one of the characteristics of the imperialist war in Ukraine as being a war against Europe and, in particular, against Germany, which has suffered the severing of its energy ties with Russia—from which its industry had drawn its strength. With the skyrocketing rise in energy prices, German industry has fallen into crisis. Consequently, the German bourgeoisie’s way out is the conversion of its industry toward war production — essentially, tanks instead of cars.

Germany’s rearmament is also accompanied by a revision of its military strategy, which identifies Russia as the main threat. The goal is to develop the largest army in Europe, aiming to increase the current strength of 185,000 to at least 460,000 by 2035—comprising 260,000 active-duty soldiers and 200,000 reservists—making a new shift in the current volunteer-based military service system inevitable, moving toward the introduction of mandatory military service.

German imperialism, however, needs time to fine-tune its war machine, so it keeps the war in Ukraine going through substantial funding to Kyiv—to the point that Germany is now the world’s leading provider of aid to Ukraine.

These figures, taken from bourgeois statistics, clearly illustrate—from a communist and revolutionary perspective—the imperialist nature of the war, with European and American bandits, spending hundreds of billions, having no qualms about fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian—with the difference that while American imperialism is already profiting from military contracts and Europe’s energy dependence—as Europe is forced to buy expensive American gas—and can agree to strike a deal with Russia to divide up what remains of Ukraine, the Europeans are forced to see the fight against Russia through to the end in order to recoup the “investment” of their support for Ukraine.

Russia’s War

The billions from Western bourgeoisies that flooded into Ukraine to support its war effort were not the only weapon used against Russia; alongside the war on the ground, an economic war was waged—one consisting of sanctions—that was intended to bring the Russian economy to its knees. Although weakened, the Russian economy has not collapsed, having found buyers for its energy resources in the East—China, above all. In this way, the bond has been strengthened between Russia and China, and given that Russia’s ability to continue the war in Ukraine is closely tied to its hydrocarbon exports, it is precisely because of its energy ties with China that it can continue the war. China has, in fact, supported Russia’s war effort.

In the West, politicians and hacks, in their anti-Russian crusade, go out of their way to produce analyses designed to emphasize how the war in Ukraine has made Moscow dependent on Beijing. In fact, both sides derive mutual benefits from their relationship: on the one hand, China is now Russia’s main trading partner, accounting for about 35% of its foreign trade, and serving as a market for the hydrocarbons that previously flowed westward; on the other hand, China obtains energy at discounted prices, reducing its dependence on riskier supply sources, as recent events in the Middle East have demonstrated.

These two imperialist brigands are driven to march together against the imperialist powers of the West, not because of the bogus theories of those who dream of “multipolar worlds,” but because they need each other—first and foremost from an economic standpoint, and secondarily due to the course of the global imperialist struggle, with Russia engaged in a war on its western front and China surrounded by hostile powers aligned with American imperialism to the east. But these are precisely imperialist bandits, willing to make deals among themselves to confront their common enemies, yet each still thinking only of their own share of the spoils. The recent meeting between Putin and Xi in China is proof of this. More than twenty economic agreements were signed in May, but the one regarding the “Power of Siberia 2” gas pipeline is missing from the list, with China stalling and haggling over gas supply prices.

In addition to its economic difficulties, Russia must also contend with challenges related to the progress of its military operations. The widespread use of drones on the front lines prevents the concentration of troops and equipment, making the Russian advance extremely slow, difficult, and bloody. But, albeit slowly, the Russian army continues to advance in the Donbas, where the urban battle for Kostyantynivka is turning in its favor.

What continues, then, is that war of attrition that requires large numbers of cannon fodder on both sides of the front.

Ukraine, however, is also using drones to launch deep strikes into Russian territory—now extending more than 1,000 kilometers—and is successfully targeting economically significant objectives, such as industrial and energy facilities. Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory are thus causing damage both to the military-industrial complex—thereby undermining Russia’s war effort—and to its economy, by inflicting damage on the energy sector. The success of these attacks is driven by the involvement of NATO countries, with European nations now directly participating in drone production at European industrial facilities—which are, for the time being, safe from Russian attacks—where the drones used by Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory are manufactured.

Essential to these deep-strike operations is the logistical and cyber support that the intelligence agencies of European nations now provide unreservedly to the Ukrainian military—support without which these precise and deadly strikes could not possibly take place. It is clear that Russia is at war—first and foremost with the European powers, rather than with Ukraine.

The widespread use of drones and missiles is the European bourgeoisie’s solution for derailing any potential agreements and keeping the war going, while avoiding direct involvement in the conflict. But this situation is now being tolerated less and less in Moscow and is leading to disagreements over what is seen as the current Russian political leadership’s overly lenient stance. There is open talk of “red lines” having been crossed, calls for direct attacks against European countries, and even the use of nuclear weapons.

Every imperialist power has its “hawks.” At the moment, the major imperialist powers are still primarily focused on preparing as best they can for a major war—by bolstering their military capabilities, seizing strategic chokepoints, and gaining control over energy flows. But the path is set; the old order no longer reflects the balance of power between mature and emerging imperialist powers, leading to a global struggle that is marching toward the inevitable outbreak of a general war—the only way capitalism, having reached its imperialist phase, can bring about a new division of the world market.

Our Internationalism

Faced with the ongoing wars and the prospect of their escalation into a general war, the world proletariat—in order to avoid ending up as cannon fodder in imperialist wars—must reject all bourgeois leadership and control, while at the same time, and above all, exposing those “slogans” coming from falsely proletarian and communist organizations which, regardless of the level of consciousness of those who put them forward, end up aligning the proletariat with its own bourgeoisie, serving as a formidable tool for suppressing any attempt at political independence by the proletariat vis-à-vis the enemy class.

All the “slogans” regarding the war in Ukraine—other than those calling for fraternization at the front and the transformation of the war between states into a war between classes—fit perfectly within a framework of national defense, whose sole purpose is to subjugate the proletariat to the will of its own bourgeoisie, dragging them into a war to defend purely capitalist interests.

Slogans such as “defending Ukraine against Russian imperialist aggression” or “fighting fascism in Kyiv”—touted by fake communist organizations—may appear to be contradictory, but from the standpoint of revolutionary Marxism, they are cut from the same opportunist cloth. This is bourgeois politics being introduced into the proletarian camp; it is the enemy of the communist revolution and, therefore, a pillar of capitalist rule.

Today’s true internationalists have nothing to add or revise regarding the struggles of over a century ago, when—during the First World War—while the Social Democratic leaders had betrayed the working class by siding with their own bourgeoisie, the internationalists of that time cried out, “The enemy is in our own house!” A clear example of what the position of internationalists must be regarding war—and, in particular, regarding slogans such as the “defense of the fatherland,” a tool always present in the toolbox of the opportunist who sides with his own bourgeoisie—can be found in Lenin’s “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky”:

“An imperialist war does not cease to be imperialist when charlatans or phrase-mongers or petty-bourgeois philistines put forward sentimental “slogans”, but only when the class which is conducting the imperialist war, and is bound to it by millions of economic threads (and even ropes), is really overthrown and is replaced at the helm of state by the really revolutionary class, the proletariat. There is no other way of getting out of an imperialist war, as also out of an imperialist predatory peace.”

The criminal and bloodthirsty designs of Israeli capitalism to drive out all Palestinians still settled in the territories of interest to it have been meticulously planned and are being progressively implemented by the government clique led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ably assisted in this hellish scheme by National Security Minister Ben-Gvir.

The most devastating blow to this plan came as a retaliatory response to the massive “surprise” attack orchestrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, an event regarding which one must be precise and blunt, which resulted in the deaths and hostage-taking of hundreds upon hundreds of Israeli civilians and military personnel. The notion that the events of October 2023 caught the Israeli government and state by surprise is as absurd as the idea of ​​flying donkeys.

This fact has been glossed over with the usual reticence by the entire information apparatus, regardless of political affiliation, something both obvious and natural, given the absolute wall of lies and complicit silence erected by the press and all other dissemination systems of the bourgeois world in the wake of that desperate and militarily senseless act.

It is certainly implausible that an intelligence system as powerful and organized as Israel’s knew nothing about an armed attack being prepared beyond a border it had erected itself, and which was undoubtedly under the tight, pervasive surveillance of who knows how many spies recruited from among the Palestinians themselves.

Indeed, some time later, following an Israeli retaliatory operation launched with great ferocity, there was a partial admission from much of the European and non-European press: it emerged that the military movements leading up to the desperate attack were well known and documented. However, this vast amount of information, lacking a “definitive” date, as even Israeli intelligence sources reported, was not given adequate consideration; despite being reliable, it was disregarded while awaiting further evidence.

In short, a level of carelessness that allowed for the massacre of so many young Israelis, and this speaks to the seriousness of state public information mechanisms. Some truth has emerged, yet just enough to conceal the probable, far graver truth.

Faced with this evidence, voiced quietly and through gritted teeth by the international press, one might suspect that the casus belli was deliberately manufactured to put an end, once and for all, to the “festering sore” of Gaza.

Regarding Hamas, too, the global press could not help but construct a suitable smokescreen of half-truths and omitted facts, solely to denounce its terrorist nature (which is certainly real), without, however, explaining the historical process that led to the organization’s emergence, development, and funding.

Hamas is the political-military movement that won the elections held in the Gaza Strip, a territory home to two million Palestinians that it continues to administer, control, and financially support to this day. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with roughly four thousand people per square kilometer; in reality, however, it is an open-air concentration camp.

Elections that Israel was careful not to denounce or sabotage. In reality, this is an organization that was helped to grow and achieve dominance by Israel itself, cynically used against the previous Palestinian organization, the PLO, and other minority non-secular factions.

In its 1988 charter, Hamas stated that Palestine is an Islamic homeland that could never be ceded to non-Muslims and that waging a “holy war” to wrest control of Palestine from Israel was a religious duty for Palestinian Muslims.

Dozens of countries, including Israel, the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, although some, for various reasons, refer only to its military wing.

Under the pretext of definitively rooting out Hamas terrorists and all the organizations controlling the Gaza Strip, Israeli capitalism immediately declared total war on the group, launched heavy bombardments on Gaza, and ordered a “total siege” of the Strip, cutting off supplies of electricity, fuel, food, and water.

These bombardments were, and still are, aimed at destroying the vast network of underground tunnels dug beneath that territory; according to some Israeli estimates, there are around a thousand of them, extending for some one hundred kilometers.

The first rudimentary tunnels beneath the Strip were dug in the late 1980s, when Israeli armed forces were militarily occupying the territory; excavation continued even after 2005, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the withdrawal of the occupying army, creating the false impression of a “liberation” of the territory into a “free” Palestinian enclave.

The following year, Hamas won the elections, and in 2006 work began on expanding and modernizing the dense network, known as the “Gaza Metro”, through which everything essential to carrying out Hamas’s plans moves in both directions: personnel, materials, weaponry, and supplies of all kinds.

In 2014, the Israeli army once again invaded the enclave with the stated aim of destroying the tunnel network, resulting in the deaths of several thousand Palestinians, including Hamas militants, but mostly ordinary civilians.

Despite repeated Israeli bombardments and acts of sabotage by Egypt, which feared, and still fears, both reprisals from the Tel Aviv government and a massive exodus of desperate Palestinians into its territory, the network has consistently been rebuilt, even though the Israelis have attempted to halt its expansion by constructing their own underground wall, stretching 65 kilometers and reaching depths of tens of meters.

While the chancelleries of the “civilized” world barely conceal their satisfaction with the “dirty work” carried out by Bibi Netanyahu in his attempt to destroy this massive network of “Islamic terrorists,” television networks and newspapers dwell on documenting the destruction of whatever remains standing after years of bombardment and painful deprivations endured by the people of Gaza. They have nowhere to go, as no “civilized” country is willing to take them in, and they are forced to constantly move between areas already devastated by airstrikes while the Israeli army proceeds to “clear” the designated territory, an operation that, according to local health authorities, has resulted in over 65,000 deaths during this latest phase.

While public outrage over the October 7th massacre was intense, albeit disputed by the contentious history surrounding the founding and expansion of the State of Israel, the indignation is far stronger and more widespread regarding the slaughter that has dragged on for years against the desperate people of Gaza, who rely entirely and exclusively on “humanitarian” aid from a select group of authorized international agencies. Over time, religious and charitable institutions have been excluded due to accusations, or even mere suspicions, of collusion with terrorist organizations. In effect, the Gaza Strip is completely cut off from any outside initiatives.

It is equally natural that, within the vast and turbulent sea of ​​indignation, various currents and attempts persist to alleviate such suffering, aiming to provide essential humanitarian aid to the desperate people of the Strip and, above all, to keep the global conscience awake to a massacre calculated and planned to resolve, once and for all, the troublesome and dangerous “Palestinian question.”

Among these attempts, the adventurous expedition of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) has recently been publicized and widely documented; according to the Difesa Online website:

It is an international, non-governmental coalition of over 50 civilian vessels, with participants from 44 countries, formed in the summer of 2025. The term sumud (Arabic for “steadfast resistance” or “perseverance”) evokes the tenacious will to resist in the face of adversity. The flotilla’s stated goal is to challenge the naval blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, a siege in place for 18 years, in order to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to Palestinians and establish a grassroots, civil society-led humanitarian corridor. This initiative represents the largest maritime solidarity mission to Gaza ever organized, bringing together hundreds of activists, doctors, legal experts, parliamentarians, and volunteers united by the motto: “The siege and the genocide must end.”

A little further on they explain to us that

“The peaceful action of this civilian flotilla aims to ensure that Gaza is not forgotten. The Flotilla thus embodies a form of grassroots diplomacy: pressure exerted by global public opinion and civil society to urge Israel and the international community to address the humanitarian emergency. Indeed, according to independent observers and United Nations rapporteurs, this initiative arose from the international community’s failure to end the illegal blockade of Gaza, highlighting how the Flotilla fills a void left by traditional diplomatic inaction.”

In other words: step aside, you inept and well-paid officials of every rank and level, whether from the West or the diverse Arab world, for now, we are taking over!

Naturally, the question of why this has persisted for so many years, despite the numerous proclamations and promises of assistance from all parties involved, is never raised or addressed.

From our journal *Comunismo* (No. 12/1983), specifically the article “Marxist Lesson on State Formation and Social Struggles in the Middle East”, we read the following in Point 2 of the appendix, “Key Points on the Middle East Question”:

“While the birth of the State of Israel met imperialism’s need to establish a solid bridgehead, it also acted as a decisive factor in disrupting the region’s political equilibrium and backward economic structure. The Israeli bourgeoisie, rich in capital, technical expertise, and highly skilled labor, acted not in obedience to some alleged “Zionist doctrine,” but rather to the iron laws of capitalism. It was a young capitalism that underwent the characteristic cycle well known to the Marxist school: the forced expropriation of poor peasants, with the complicity of the Arab landowning classes; aggression toward neighboring backward states and the conquest of new, strategically and economically important territories; and the emergence of a modern industry alongside the formation of a mass of pure proletarians.”

The Israeli bourgeoisie has pursued this project cold-bloodedly, without hesitation and heedless of any external objections, confirming that a “capitalism with a human face” neither exists nor can exist, much to the chagrin of all the pious, well-meaning souls across the globe.

Since 2008, some vessels from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) have managed to breach the naval blockade of Gaza, and two of them, belonging to the Free Gaza Movement, founded in 2006, succeeded in reaching Gaza. In the following years, another five vessels managed to breach the blockade and dock at the Strip.

Since 2010, dozens of vessels have attempted to reach Gaza but have all been intercepted by the Israeli Navy.

The most dramatic incident occurred on May 31, 2010, when the Mavi Marmara, a 93-meter Turkish passenger ship serving as the flagship of the Freedom Flotilla (comprising six vessels of various sizes and carrying a total of 600 activists attempting to breach the naval blockade), was boarded by Israeli special forces arriving via helicopter and fast boats, while located 200 km northeast of Gaza and 64 km off the coast.

Following the violent clash between special forces and activists armed with improvised weapons, eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American were killed and sixty people were wounded, while ten Israelis sustained injuries.

The incident sparked a severe clash between Turkey and Israel, followed by a deterioration in diplomatic relations. Reconciliation between the parties took place in 2016, when Israel paid $20 million in compensation to the victims’ families.

We certainly do not intend to get drawn into the numerous legal debates surrounding the “San Remo Manual”, finalized in 1994 by a group of experts in maritime law and humanitarian legislation, which concerns the alignment of international laws applicable to maritime operations in areas of armed conflict involving humanitarian convoys.

The debate regarding the application of Paragraph 60E, which mandates halting navigation for inspections, versus the subsequent Paragraph 47C concerning humanitarian convoys is utterly hypocritical. This applies not only at sea but everywhere, in situations where international law is pitted against the rights of those wielding the most powerful weaponry.

In June and July 2025, there were two further attempts to reach Gaza to deliver aid by sea, but both were blocked by the Israeli navy. Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir promptly presented a plan to neutralize any future arrival attempts by activists labeled as terrorists. As a deterrent, he decreed that all arrested “terrorists” would be taken to the notorious Israeli maximum-security prisons of Ketziot and Damon and subjected to a harsh, uncompromising regime.

Following the grim experience of the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla organizers distributed a handbook to participants in last September’s expedition, advising them on how to conduct themselves in the event, deemed certain, of being boarded and facing any kind of confrontation with Israeli forces; as one organizer put it: “We fear for our safety, but we summon our courage. The Palestinian people teach us how.” A legal team was also made available to assist activists should they be detained.

Also ignored were suggestions from various European foreign ministries, including Italy’s, to activists proposing that the permitted aid cargo be handed over to authorized Israeli and international organizations, which would then deliver it by land to various distribution centers. It is worth noting that the list of prohibited goods includes cement, which Israel claims would almost certainly be used by Hamas to rebuild damaged tunnels.

It has been wryly noted that these shipments do little to serve the humanitarian cause, appearing instead to be a deliberate, politicized provocation. Indeed, the approximately two tons of aid declared by the GSF for the 2025 shipment represent a negligible amount in terms of the material aid needed by the people of Gaza, equivalent to less than one-tenth of a single humanitarian truckload. Under normal circumstances, 300 aid trucks enter Gaza daily via the Egyptian border post.

Indeed, according to the American aid organization GHF, since May 27 it has provided an average of 2.7 million meals per day, amounting to approximately 845 tons daily, quantities completely unattainable by a flotilla of small vessels (12 to 16 meters long) manned by volunteers ill-prepared for a voyage of that duration and lacking adequate technical and logistical support; indeed, some of these vessels were forced to turn back or failed to depart from intermediate ports.

Those who have delved into the complex cost-benefit analysis have encountered this uncertain result, published online, which we summarize here.

When totaling the items on the operation’s list, the cost of the 50 vessels (including larger support craft suitable for that type of voyage) at approximately 5 million euros, fuel for the long Mediterranean crossing estimated at around 10 million euros, onboard provisions, port services, and the extensive list of other expedition necessities, the final figure approaches 25–30 million euros. Any vessels that did not sink were seized and dismantled; those still in good condition were refitted and given to local fishermen.

The organizers gave due attention to, and effectively handled, complex legal issues which we will not discuss here regarding ownership and vessel operators, as well as the critical matter of national flags for the larger vessels, diplomatic reprisals threatened by Israel, and maritime insurance for a voyage characterized by the various companies as involving “extremely high-risk factors.”

The complex bureaucratic machinery required for the operation to function demonstrates that the challenge posed by the Flotilla played out not only on the open sea or off the coast of Gaza, but also through an intense, grueling legal and insurance process, carried out primarily in departure ports such as Istanbul, Athens, and Palermo months before the vessels set sail, that relied heavily on the pro bono efforts of activists.

Faced with activities of such magnitude and significance, one must not be deterred by these issues and figures, the funding for which is believed to come from a constellation of diverse NGOs worldwide, including some from Qatar, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia, with a predominance of Turkish organizations. It is worth recalling that the Mavi Marmara was owned by the Turkish NGO Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH).

The substantial funds required to organize all these activities also come from various types of donations:  Crowdfunding global, Grandi Donatori, international Islamic philanthropic foundations, and Palestinian communities abroad, groups the Israeli government accuses of having ties to Hamas terrorism. In Italy, for instance, Banca Etica has launched a crowdfunding initiative for Gaza.

All this points to a large, far-reaching organization enjoying the support of a substantial number of participants and supporters worldwide.

The GSF’s voyage came to an abrupt halt on October 1, 2025, in international waters off the coast of Gaza, when the vessels were subjected to a series of armed boarding operations by Israeli forces, lasting until October 3, that ultimately resulted in the capture of all the activists, none of whom had offered any resistance. They were subsequently transported to Israel, where they were subjected to all manner of abuse and violent beatings. Later distributed among various prisons and eventually deported, they returned in small groups and recounted the violent treatment they had endured. Some of those who suffered the most severe beatings were welcomed and hailed as heroes, displaying their injuries like medals.

In the spring of this year, a new GSF expedition was launched, with an initial group of boats departing from Barcelona on April 15 for Sicily; there, they were joined by other vessels bound for Gaza, bringing the total to 58 boats carrying food, medicines, solar-powered ovens, and school supplies. Additional vessels from Greece and Turkey were also scheduled to join this convoy.

This convoy was first attacked on April 29, 2026, by Israeli special forces in international waters off the coast of Crete, where 20 boats from the convoy were intercepted and 400 activists were arrested. The boats were diverted to the Israeli port of Ashdod. A second group of 23 boats that had set sail from Turkey was stopped between May 18 and 19 in international waters off the coast of Cyprus, following the same script that had already been tested in previous missions.

The unsuccessful outcome of the maritime expedition to Gaza did not prevent the departure from Tunisia, in May 2026, of a land-based humanitarian relief mission, the Global Sumud Convoy, headed for Gaza via Libya and Egypt, comprising a convoy of trucks and buses and 200 activists. This convoy was blocked by General Haftar’s militias while awaiting transit permission through Cyrenaica. Eleven of the activists were arrested and transferred to special detention facilities, where they began a hunger and thirst strike to protest the appalling conditions to which they were subjected. As of this writing, their pre-trial detention has been extended for a second time, until June 12. Some of the expelled foreign activists were subsequently beaten by the police in their home countries upon their return.

The potential scenarios ahead are uncertain, given that the Israeli government has no intention of easing tensions in the Strip, let alone reaching an agreement with the GSF, which is backed by an extensive international network providing all necessary support and shows no signs of stopping.

To date, there have been no casualties during the boardings, and according to accounts from those who have returned, rubber bullets were fired at both the men and the vessels. This highlights that Israel is adopting a hard line, though not an extreme one. At the moment, a compromise, allowing only a few vessels to reach Gaza to deliver aid, does not appear feasible. Given the dire situation facing the people of Gaza, such a solution would be entirely futile and merely symbolic; in essence, it would represent a defeat for both sides.

The harshest and most implausible solution would remain on the table: actual naval support from the warships of other states, with unimaginable consequences.

But this is, in fact, entirely unfeasible, because no state has the slightest interest in providing substantial military aid to the desperate people of the Strip, let alone defending the “flotillas” against assaults by the Israeli Navy. Even in waters designated as “international.”

All the world’s bourgeois states are essentially indifferent to the Palestinians, whether in Gaza, where an outright genocide is taking place, or in the West Bank, which is being invaded by ground troops supporting the “settlers” of “Greater Israel.”

The sordid lie of two states destined to coexist on a tiny patch of territory, as championed in the UN’s perennial lamentations, is fading as the Israeli Armed Forces press their advance, having even invaded Lebanon to expand Israel’s security buffer, all while the international community fails to lift a finger, limiting itself to generic condemnations of the invasion.

All the more reason why the absurd notion of a sort of ‘federation’ has vanished, a federation between a State coldly and ruthlessly pursuing an imperialist agenda , albeit a “local” one, fueled and aided primarily by the United States and countless global arms manufacturers, and a desperate mass of people seeking a form of redemption and a distant hope for a future through terrorism.

Taking stock of these “adventures” means highlighting, with a sense of bitterness, their futility. Without diminishing the courage of the many participants in this pointless voyage, young people who, driven by idealism, concluded that “doing something, anything at all, is better than standing by and watching” and thus engaged in a personally dangerous undertaking, it must be stated with firm determination that this petty-bourgeois ideology leads nowhere; at best, it achieves nothing, and at worst, it results in personal tragedies.

Young proletarians must not let themselves be beguiled by the call of those adventurous sirens; for only through an intense and widespread class struggle, under the leadership of the revolutionary communist party, can the problems of capitalist exploitation, which here has taken this form and produced the genocide in Gaza, be resolved. We must simply reaffirm, with strength and passion, that only revolution can offer hope to the tormented proletariat of Palestine.

A few printed volumes produced by the party over the past few decades are still available. These texts, given the topics they cover, are and will always remain relevant.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY IN THE TRADITION OF THE LEFT

In addition to documenting the party’s history—which led to the reformulation and presentation of its postwar theses—this text, drawing on the powerful teachings of the masters of Marxism, serves as a compendium of the theory of the proletarian party, which is revolutionary in both its nature and its actions.

The 270-page volume is on sale for €10, plus shipping.

THE COURSE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM IN HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE AND IN MARX’S DOCTRINE, 1750–1990

This volume reproduces the transcripts of the reports delivered at party meetings, from the 1956 meeting in Cosenza to the January 1958 meeting in Florence, as they appeared in *Programma Comunista*, from issue 19 of 1956 to issue 7 of 1959, under the title “Corso.” This current reprint also includes all other reports on topics related to the world economy published during those years, in particular: “World Steel Production Over the Last Four Years,” in *Programma Comunista* No. 21 of 1956; “Economic Structure and Historical Course of Capitalist Society,” in *Programma* Nos. 3 and 4 of 1957; “America 1956—Economic Review” in issue 5 of the same year, supplemented by “A Few More U.S. Figures” from issue 6; “Trajectory and Catastrophe of the Capitalist Form in the Classical Monolithic Construction of Marxism,” in issues 19 and 20 of 1957. The extensive statistical documentation in the original reports has not only been verified and reorganized based on subsequent publications from official sources, but the data series have also been extended to include the most recent data available. Added to the 23 tables in the text are 49 new statistics which, drawing on the most comprehensive information currently available, further confirm the Marxist line of argument.

The book, which is over 600 pages long, is on sale for €20, plus shipping.

THE MARXIST THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

The topic is addressed from six fundamental perspectives:

I – The Communist Party and Its Doctrine;

II – Communist Society;

III – Knowledge of the Human Species, which make up Volume 1, and:

IV – Critique of Religions; V – Critique of Science and Technology;

VI – The Charlatan-like Conquest of Space, which are included in Volume 2.

The 6 Parts comprise 115 documents chronicling the Party’s history from its reestablishment immediately after World War II to the present (some documents were drafted much earlier, although their final versions date from that period). The Preface to the work is centered on a series of quotations that trace back to the birth of our Doctrine—and thus to the birth of the Party—in 1848.

The work, in two volumes totaling 850 pages, is on sale for €30, plus shipping costs

Party publications are also available in English, French, and Spanish. Please contact us to find out what is available in each language.

Our General Meeting held every four months took place on Saturday, May 30, and Sunday, May 31; it was the 155th such meeting since the split of November 1973. It was a particularly important meeting, as several young people from various countries and continents participated as full-fledged comrades for the first time, alongside a fair number of highly dedicated sympathizers.

The proceedings followed the usual party method, with the exception of, due to the online participation of comrades from various continents, the schedule being adjusted to allow the greatest number of comrades to participate without undue inconvenience. During the first meeting on Saturday, the comrades responsible for collective activities reported on their progress; subsequently, following the Center’s general report, the comrades were briefed on the features of the revamped website, social media engagement, the reading group’s activities, ongoing and proposed studies, and the organization’s financial situation.

In the second part of the day, work concerning the military question and part of the study on the Italian Railway Workers’ Union (SFI) during the 1920s were presented.

During the first part of Sunday’s meeting, three highly interesting papers on the history of the workers’ movement were presented, each focusing on a specific period and a different country: the United States, France, and Russia. The second part of the day featured the customary presentation on the state of the global capitalist economy, and the work regarding the SFI (Railway Workers Union) in the‘20s of the last century was finally concluded. All of these reports document the progress of studies that have been ongoing for many years and that the party continues to carry out as its primary task; they are then periodically published in our press. The quality of the presentations was, as usual, outstanding.

This issue of The International Communist marks the start of the publication of these summaries.

History of the French trade union movement, Part four

In previous reports, we described the various forms of economic organization within the European labor movement between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We then presented the characteristics of the French labor movement, the revolutionary alliance between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat up until February 1848, the importance of the petty bourgeoisie as a breeding ground for anarchism, parasitic financial capitalism, French imperialism, and the conquest of colonies as a source of corruption for a segment of the proletariat.

We have described the emergence of labor unions before 1871, as well as France’s economic rise, which was accompanied by the rise of the labor union movement and the socialist movement following the Paris Commune.

In 1884, following legal recognition, the trade union movement developed rapidly. The various schools of thought that emerged included, first and foremost, the school of thought of Proudhon, the father of anarchism, who was opposed by Marx and who would inspire Pelloutier’s revolutionary syndicalism. Revolutionary syndicalism, of which Sorel would become the principal theorist, would shape French trade unionism until 1905.

In 1886, a National Federation of Trade Union Chambers (FNS) was founded, bringing together craft unions; it was initially dominated by reformists and later by the French Workers’ Party (POF), which had been established on Marxist principles in 1880.

As early as the 1890s, the French trade union movement became fertile ground for anarchism in the form of revolutionary syndicalism. The country experienced slower capitalist development than Great Britain and Germany; in 1900, nine-tenths of French enterprises employed fewer than ten workers, with a large number of artisans in the workforce, thereby creating fertile ground for the petty bourgeoisie and anarchism. Revolutionary syndicalism extolled direct action and the general strike, as well as confrontation with the bourgeoisie, but rejected parliamentary and political action. The father of revolutionary syndicalism was Pelloutier, who inspired the creation of Bourses du travail (Labor Exchanges) as early as 1887; these served as employment agencies but, above all, as hubs for all workers’ trade unions and mutual aid societies, organizing workers on a territorial basis rather than by trade. In 1892, the Bourses du Travail united to form the Federation of Labour Exchanges (FNB) which was dominated by revolutionary syndicalists.

The socialist movement developed along various currents. The Marxist faction, led by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Marx’s son-in-law, founded the French Workers’ Party (POF) in 1880. It would later become influential in major industries, such as the textile industry in the north and the iron and steel industry in the center. The other currents were the reformist faction known as the “Possibilists”, to which Jaurès would later belong, and the so-called “revolutionaries” who advocated insurrection, comprising Édouard Vaillant’s Blanquist party and Allemane’s party. The Workers’ Party, while asserting the party’s authority over the trade unions, eventually had to break with the trade union movement dominated by revolutionary syndicalism.

The Dreyfus Affair crisis (1894–1906), which divided France, caused the Workers’ Party to veer toward opportunism and parliamentarism as early as 1898, joining forces with the reformists to “save the homeland” from an unlikely monarchist coup d’état.

The birth of the revolutionary syndicalist CGT in 1895 and the weakness of the Workers’ Party

The supremacy of revolutionary syndicalism over the POF (1888-1895)

Under the influence of the anarcho-syndicalists, the third congress of the FNS (National Federation of Syndicates and Workers’ Corporative Groups of France), held in Bordeaux in October 1888, revisited the issue of the general strike and concluded: “Only the general strike, that is, the complete cessation of all work, or the Revolution can lead workers toward their emancipation.”  This congress also concluded, against the views of the Guesdists, that it was necessary to make a clean break from the political movement and to build a solid organization for the trade union chambers: the “one great army of social demands”! The emancipation of the workers had to be the work of the workers themselves! The Guesdists represented a step backward. 

Guesde represented the POF at the international congress in Paris on July 14, 1889, which gave rise to the Second International (or Workers’ International), of which he was a leading figure, and in 1890 he served on the organizing committee for the May Day demonstrations and on the delegation tasked with presenting workers’ demands to the President of the Chamber. On November 14, 1890, he attended the German Social Democratic congress in Halle and drew fierce attacks from the French nationalist press for shouting, “Long live working-class Germany!”

In February 1892, at the Saint-Étienne congress of the Bourses du Travail (of which there were then 14 sections in France), and on the initiative of the Paris Bourse and Pelloutier, a National Federation of Bourses du Travail of France and the colonies (FNB) was established. Its aim was to distinguish itself from the tendency of the Guesdist workers’ party, which, much like the German and Belgian sections of the Socialist International, sought to control the trade unions and favored parliamentary action. Pelloutier had to abandon part of his anarchist theories to foster the centralization of the workers’ forces, dreaming of a revolution without dictatorship, without the State, and without centralization! Alongside the anarchists there were socialists and reformists, but the anarchists led by Pelloutier would take on an increasingly important role and would oppose their competitor, the POF-controlled FNS, whose influence was now very weak. This *Bourses du Travail* movement would prevail over that of the FNS trade union chambers. One of the resolutions in favor of the general strike proposed by Pelloutier was adopted as a “peaceful and legal means… (to) accelerate economic transformation and ensure, without the possibility of a counter-reaction, the success of the Fourth Estate [workers’ associations]” (cited in *Programme Communiste* No. 25, 1963), basing itself, as the Second International had done, on the evident failure of an insurrectionary movement.

For its part, in September 1892, the Federation of Trade Union Chambers FNS (industry-specific trade unions) held its fifth congress in Marseille, attended by delegates from the Labor Exchanges, including the one in Paris. Guesde and Lafargue also participated as delegates. On that occasion, just as at the *Bourses du Travail* congress, a resolution championed by the independent socialist Aristide Briand was adopted in favor of the principle of the general strike (defined as a “simultaneous, universal suspension of work”); however, the task of determining the specific modalities of action was left to the Third International Congress of Socialist Workers (the Second International) in Zurich. The argument put forward was that the unions, having unsuccessfully employed the partial strike, had subsequently adopted it successfully and were therefore agreeing to “engage in politics.” During the POF congress in Marseille in September 1892, the proposal in favor of the general strike was once again rejected. While in 1879 and 1886 the Guesdists might have thought they had secured a grip on the labor movement, they were forced to take a step back during the final decade of the century and beyond.

At the Third Congress of the Second International, held in Zurich in August 1893 and attended by Engels, the anarchists led by Gustav Landauer were expelled with the split being formalized in 1906. Trade unions were officially admitted (the Guesdists and Vaillant were opposed to this, advocating for a trade union organization separate from the socialist parties), and the topic of the general strike was touched upon briefly, without even reaching a conclusion!

Following a period of spectacular attacks (1892–94), the most famous and final instance of which was the 1894 assassination of French President Sadi Carnot in Lyon, described as a “sublimated expression of the exasperation and powerlessness of the exploited classes” (Programme No. 25), anarchism in France moved away from terrorism and turned toward trade union activity, albeit independent of any political party; it was through this union-based action that the movement believed it could bring about the reorganization of society. It was in particular the Bourses du Travail, which brought together various trade unions, that witnessed the rise of revolutionary syndicalism, a movement rooted in anarchism; this movement defined the period from 1892 to 1906, a time dominated by the ideological rivalry between socialism and syndicalism, whereas the years from 1906 to 1914 saw the decline of revolutionary syndicalists and an intensification of the conflict between union and party, a rivalry fueled by the party’s reformist and opportunistic stances, particularly regarding socialist participation in government.

In fact, the separation between the trade unions and the party only intensified. Numerous political battles, such as the clash between monarchists and republicans, the rise of bourgeois radicalism, and political and financial scandals (the Panama scandal, the Dreyfus affair), distracted socialist parties from their task of waging struggle within economic organizations.

In 1893, the FNB declared the absolute independence of the trade union from the State and political parties. The FNB’s federalism also opposed the centralization of the POF. At the FNS congress in Nantes (September 1894), which until then had been sponsored by the Workers’ Party, the majority approved a motion in favor of the general strike. What was at stake in the dispute between socialists and syndicalists (Programme Communiste 24/1963) “was precisely a question of program: the replacement of the socialist slogan, the seizure of power by the proletariat and the dictatorship of the victorious revolutionary class over the expropriated classes, with the anarcho-syndicalist slogan of the ‘expropriatory general strike’.” In other words, it was a continuation of the long-standing debate between Marxism and anarchism. At first, Guesde’s party, while not committing any serious violations of the principles of the revolutionary proletarian movement, failed to understand the pressing needs of the labor movement and, largely for this reason, lost control of it. At that time, the trade union organization had achieved a remarkable degree of cohesion and effectiveness and was resolutely taking the lead in the workers’ struggles. The Guesdists thus suffered a defeat within the Federation of Trade Union Chambers: they had failed to persuade the Federation to once again reject a motion in favor of a general strike, and they resigned because they believed the Federation was nothing more than a caricature of the Marxist conception of the proletarian revolution.

The year 1895 thus marked a turning point between two periods: the first, in which the party still embodied the revolutionary principles of Marxism and the unions had no influence, and the second, in which the unions were expanding while the party was sliding toward opportunism.

The founding of the CGT in Limoges in September 1895

The question of trade union unity between the two federations, the FNS and the FNB, quickly arose after the defeat of the Guesdists at the FNS convention in Nantes in September 1894. The FNS decided to invite all trade union organizations, representatives of trade union chambers, trade groups, craft federations, unions, and labor exchanges, as well as the FNB, to its upcoming congress in Limoges in September 1895; the FNB accepted the offer.

A national committee, composed of representatives from the two federations along with other activists, was tasked with preparing the congress, which was held in Limoges from September 23 to 28, 1895, and which gave rise to the Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor, CGT), with 75 delegates from 26 industrial or sectoral federations, 18 labor exchanges, and 126 independent labor chambers. Sent by a wide variety of labor unions, the delegates—including three women—discussed a very packed agenda. However, it was the creation of a national organization that dominated most of the debates and led to the founding of the CGT. Some had wanted to name the new central body the “National” or “French” Confederation of Labor, but this proposal was ultimately rejected based on the following argument: labor organization must be not only national but also international! It was organized around trade federations and Bourses du Travail.

But above all: an amendment specified that “CGT members must remain outside any political faction.” From its very inception, eleven years before the congress at which the “Amiens Charter” would be adopted in 1906, the CGT had shown extreme distrust toward any political organization. They would maintain this stance until the First World War, and although they would later reaffirm it, the CGT’s relationship with the party would change.

The French Workers’ Party and the Trade Union Question: From Marxism to Opportunism

In  Programme Communiste 24/1963, p. 62 we wrote:

“While the formation of the Workers Party, the first Marxist proletarian organization in France, at the end of the long period of depression caused by the crushing of the Paris Commune, represented a political achievement of the highest order, one would look in vain for its equivalent in the trade union sphere.

To realize that the rift between socialists and syndicalists was based, at least at the start of the conflict, merely on a struggle for leadership of the trade union movement rather than on the superiority or utility of a specific form of action, one need only note that the famous “general strike” advocated by French syndicalism never actually materialized in France.

When general strikes broke out in Russia at the beginning of the following century, they by no means confirmed the models held by French (and foreign) anarcho-syndicalists; yet, on the other hand, the socialists, corrupted by long parliamentary experience, had become incapable of grasping the significance of these events, let alone assuming leadership of them, should this form of struggle happen to spread from Tsarist Russia to ultra-bourgeois France.

This does not change the nature of the initial divergence in any way.

Until that turning point at the beginning of the 20th century, the replacement of the slogan “expropriatory general strike” with that of “seizure of political power” was, and could only be, a rejection of the party and of political action, even though, in the minds of its supporters, it was a means of averting a shift toward parliamentarism. The conflict that broke out around 1890 between the Guesdists and the syndicalists could not be quickly resolved by the shifting balance of class power in France; but this conflict nonetheless reflected the irreconcilable opposition between two conceptions of the workers’ revolution: Marxism, according to which there can be no socialism without the destruction of the bourgeois state and the use of a repressive instrument such as the proletarian state; syndicalism, which, despite having formally broken with anarchism, remained an enemy of “any” state and opposed “any” form of coercion.

The fundamental importance of the issue raised amply justifies Guesde’s intransigence.” And further on, on p. 66:

“Guesde rightly sought a break with those who treated the general strike as an end in itself and fostered the belief that it was possible to put an end to Capital without confronting the capitalist state, overthrowing bourgeois power, and establishing the revolutionary dictatorship; it was also right for him to try to prevent the nascent trade union movement from falling into the hands of a faction steeped in anarchist utopianism at a time when the only existing federation [FNS] was controlled by the Socialist Party [POF]. The indignation of working-class democrats at Guesde’s “authoritarian” attempts to maintain the Party’s influence within the trade union was all the more petty, and their invocations of the alleged general will supposedly being “trampled upon” all the more futile, precisely because the struggle played out within very narrow circles and the majority of the proletariat remained entirely separated at the time. The union itself was still merely in its infancy, and the only question was whether it would fall under the influence of Marxist socialists or that of the anarchists.

Guesde’s great mistake was to mechanically transplant, given the immaturity of the French labor movement, a formula of strict party control over the trade union; such a formula was feasible only in countries with far more advanced industrial development and concentration, such as Germany and Belgium, the two heartlands of social democracy. In these countries, and until the opportunistic degeneration of the Second International, the centralization of the two bodies had made it possible to combine trade union demands with the socialist struggle in Parliament. In France, however, the failed attempt to clumsily imitate German social democracy regarding trade unions had the effect of further polarizing the party’s activity toward electoral propaganda, alienating militants who were already hostile due to their background, exacerbating the trade union leaders’ desire for autonomy, and elevating a nebulous formula, which initially expressed only the ideology of a minority, to the status of a sacred, eternal principle for safeguarding the trade union organization.

Indeed, Guesde, who unreservedly championed the striking workers, took an uncompromising stance against the direct action advocated by revolutionary syndicalists, maintaining instead the effectiveness of parliamentary struggle.

Let us continue with *Programme Communiste* No. 24, p. 67:

“Another, even more serious consequence of Guesde’s intransigent attitude was that, in the long run, it rendered the party hostile on principle to the general strike, even when viewed merely as a means of action in the workers’ struggle. What was merely an academic distortion in Guesde’s case was to become, with the help of circumstances, a truly opportunistic argument. A praiseworthy concern to move away from adventurist notions was turned into a rejection of the struggle and objective complicity with the bourgeoisie. Thus, since the anarchists sought to imbue trade union activity with a romantic revolutionary perspective, Guesde soon adopted the very attitude that, twenty years later in Germany, showed the total sclerosis of Social Democracy: that of leaving economic demands to the unions while entrusting the reforms to be enacted in Parliament to the party.

An attitude truly inspired by Marxism would have been different. The importance, scope, and form of the struggles to be waged are not a matter of principle, but merely of assessing the balance of forces; indeed, within the revolutionary perspective of seizing power, the very concept of a general strike is perfectly orthodox. It is regarding political objectives, the nature and form of power, and the acceptance of the dictatorship of the proletariat that questions of principle arise. Despite their militant rhetoric, anarchists, and the trade unionists inspired by their principles, hold a democratic conception of revolution; unable to conceive of the iron dictatorship necessary to destroy capitalist relations of production, their liberalism contents itself with a coalition of the most disparate classes and parties. It is precisely through the latter that they were defeated by the counter-revolution, as they demonstrated half a century after the events in question here: during their “general strikes” in Spain, the Republicans and anti-fascists betrayed the proletarian uprisings of 1936 and handed them over to Franco. It is therefore necessary for Marxism to combat the anarchist conception of the general strike, and Guesde, from this perspective, was fully justified in doing so during the early days of the French trade union movement. However, this defining and safeguarding of the principles gained by the proletarian movement did not at all require the party to reject, even during a period of capitalist expansion, a powerful means of action valid for the demands of the entire class. It is on this terrain, and not in the unhealthy antechambers of parliamentary activity, that the workers’ party can act in support of the proletariat’s immediate demands during periods when the prospect of a revolutionary assault on power is closed to it. In other words, faced with the slogan that the anarchists had elevated to the ‘nec plus ultra’ of the social revolution, it would have been appropriate for Guesde’s party to distinguish its ideological aspect, which needed to be combated as it was tainted by utopianism and apoliticism, from its content of social militancy, which instead deserved to be encouraged and developed.

By adopting an opposing stance, Guesde’s trade-union faction demonstrated that the party already harbored the seeds of an opportunist evolution, one that, by focusing on elections and the capture of municipal governments, sparked a fierce “anti-party” tradition within the trade-union movement and left trade unionists with a monopoly on agitation for goals that were nonetheless closely aligned with the party’s own tasks: specifically, denouncing the looming imperialist war, as well as anti-militarism and anti-colonialism, causes that would, in subsequent decades, become the hallmarks of revolutionary syndicalism.

If we now place the emergence of the anarcho-syndicalist tendency within the context of the era, we can understand why the ideology of the general strike enabled its proponents to respond more effectively than the Socialist Party to the workers’ aspirations. And this entitles us to separate the undeniable practical effectiveness of the trade unionists, over a specific period, from a social vision that is just as conformist and deviant with respect to the proletariat’s initial program as that of the avowed reformists. Therefore, without detracting from the individual merits of the trade unionists, often upstanding, devoted, and self-sacrificing militants, one cannot subscribe to the laudatory view held by their historians when the latter assert in a doctrinaire tone that this form of trade unionism represented the definitive and future shape of the proletarian revolutionary movement. If the proponents of trade union independence and the general strike found themselves leading the first mass grouping of workers, it was by no means as representatives of the industrial proletariat of the future; on the contrary, it was as a historical remnant, because the low level of development and concentration of productive forces had left the leadership of the trade union movement to the victors of a sort of closed-door competition in which, between the two organized minorities present, the majority sided with the anachronistic perpetuation of the past.

The fact that the struggle for union leadership took place within a minority of the working class is confirmed by data regarding CGT membership in 1902: “At that time,” writes Edouard Dolléans, a historian of the French labor movement, “barely 17% of the total industrial workforce was unionized; it was both a minority of workers and a minority of union members that formed the confederation.” Why, then, did the majority of the militants in this workers’ vanguard opt for syndicalism, the general strike, and direct action? Because the party, already mired in parliamentarism, could offer them nothing but elections; because they were weary of the disappointing parliamentary activity of the workers’ delegates; because their class tradition instilled in them the deep and justified mistrust of a plebs that had always been deceived by petty-bourgeois representatives; because, for the preceding two or three generations, politics had always meant impotent chatter in parliament and betrayal in the streets. Why were so many staunch supporters of trade union independence? For even before Millerand’s “government socialists” sought to annex the trade union movement, “worker militants had suffered so greatly from the political divisions within their organizations that, in their eyes, trade union autonomy was the prerequisite for working-class unity” (Dolléans). For the anarcho-syndicalists, who produced highly prominent militants, were the only ones within the entire movement to escape the party’s stifling, essentially electoral activity and to be able to devote themselves to the immediate issues surrounding workers’ demands; consequently, they were the only ones who knew how to resolve these issues and who tackled them tenaciously through the most appropriate bodies.” (Programme Communiste No. 24).

THE RAILWAY WORKERS’ UNION: THE WRETCHED END OF A GLORIOUS “RED” UNION

Given its length, due in particular to the extensive use of quotations from PCd’I press outlets, this report was presented in two separate parts: on Saturday and Sunday.

At the time we’ll have a substantial number of railway workers in our party and they devoting all their efforts to the reborn class-based union, then we will need to write, from the beginning, the history of the Italian Railway Workers’ Union, the glorious “red” union, founded in 1907 and which met a miserable end in 1925.

In the series of reports already presented, we examined only the ignominious end of what were once formidable class-based organizations, and we sought to highlight the causes of their degeneration, which, as Marxists, we do not attribute solely to the responsibility of traitorous leaders, but rather to material, social, and historical conditions that far transcend the will of individuals. Even though those individuals do, of course, bear their own share of responsibility.

We are not scandalized to acknowledge that the bourgeoisie aims to imprison the proletariat within trade unions transformed into state organs; we are equally well aware that the plan to hollow out the workers’ movement, characteristic of reformist revisionism, substantially coincides with fascist trade unionism, with the corporatism of Mussolini.

What we wish to reiterate and emphasize through these reports is that our Left Communist current has never spoken of traumatic breakups; for us, the degeneration of trade union bodies involves no break in continuity: as early as their support for the First World War, the trade union confederations had placed themselves entirely at the service of the State, subordinating the immediate interests of the working class to the bourgeois class’s overriding interest in preserving the social order and its own regime. Therefore, unless there is a strong resurgence of the class struggle, led by a communist party rooted in the proletariat and its class organizations, trade unions will, on an international level, be reduced to mere appendages of the bourgeois state apparatus.

After helping to pave the way for Fascism’s rise to power, the CGdL was certainly not the only trade union that sought to jump on the winner’s bandwagon. The Italian Railway Workers’ Union (SFI) also followed the same ignoble path even though throughout its history and class-based activism, it had rightly earned the title of “Red union.”

But let’s take things one step at a time.

In the five months following its founding, the Communist Party of Italy established a solid and widespread structure within the so-called “class-based” trade unions, and, through its own action and recruitment groups, the Party steadily gained support among the proletarian masses.

The response from all the other political factions represented in the SFI was swift and unanimous. An anti-communist “united front” immediately formed among anarchists, syndicalists, socialists, republicans, and the “non-aligned”: only 22 delegates voted for the communist motion, whereas the syndicalist-anarchist resolution secured 58 votes.

It should be noted that at previous congresses, Socialist delegates had consistently proposed the SFI’s affiliation with the CGdL, partly in keeping with the 1907 Florence “Pact of Action.” Thus, even at the 10th SFI Congress, the socialist delegates had been mandated by their rank and file to support affiliation with the CGdL, yet, on party orders, they were compelled to vote against the communist motion.

For their part, anarchists and syndicalists had declared that, should the Communist motion pass, they would leave the organization. Thus, the “revolutionary” leaders of the glorious railway workers’ class-based union were apparently willing to shatter its unity just to preserve their privileges and positions of power. Just like the Social Democrats, with whom they in fact formed a very close united front against the Communists.

The anti-communist offensive continued during the appointment of the five General Councilors; while every political faction, even the Republicans, was given the opportunity to choose its own representative, the intention was to deny this right to the Communists.

Just like the social-democratic bigwigs of the CGdL, the “revolutionaries” aimed to force the communists to leave the union. This, however, was merely wishful thinking, because the Party would never have withdrawn its members from a trade union. Ultimately, these were the directives of the Communist International, which had decreed in December 1922: “It is absurd for individual communists and revolutionary workers to be withdrawn from reformist trade unions in order to be placed in revolutionary trade unions. No reformist trade union should be deprived of the ferment represented by the communists. Efficient and vigorous activity by the Communists in both organizations is the prerequisite for restoring the destroyed unity.”

What, then, remained for the piecards of both factions to do? Proceed with the expulsion of the Communists! Thus, our comrades Azzario and Berruti, tireless organizers of the Milan and Turin railway divisions respectively, were expelled for “indiscipline.” This is an accusation that true communists have always, even recently, faced. Meanwhile, the Fascist reaction was intensifying and spreading its most brutal violence throughout Italy, violence to which workers in Piedmont and Lombardy responded on July 19, 1922, with a united general strike.

Under strict orders from the central leadership of the SFI, who incidentally also constituted the Secretariat of the Alleanza del Lavoro, railway workers in Lombardy and Piedmont were forbidden from joining the action, thereby giving the Fascist forces freedom of movement and the ability to concentrate rapidly.

At the same time, however, a faction, whose most direct and prominent representatives sat within the leadership bodies, was openly attempting to steer the union toward a path of collaboration and national syndicalism, under the auspices of D’Annunzio.

When the Labour Alliance called a general strike on August 1, 1922, to protest against Fascism, which had just sacked Ravenna in its latest exploit, Communist railway worker groups were everywhere at the forefront; in many railway hubs, the strike’s success was due entirely to the activity, spirit of sacrifice, and initiative they demonstrated.

As we have repeatedly pointed out, despite the heroic resistance put up by the proletariat in many localities, the strike came to a disorganized end, a failure both politically and from a trade-union perspective. Once again, the proletarians had been led to disaster, both by the defeatist tactics of the reformists and by the ineptitude of syndicalists and anarchists.

Once the strike had ended, the Fascists once again had the opportunity to gather at pre-arranged locations and launch their terrorist attacks against the working class from there.

Railway workers were particularly hard hit by the unleashing of the reaction, both illegal and legal, starting with those militants who had always distinguished themselves in every episode of the class struggle. But the most serious aspect was that this reaction was compounded by a violent internal crisis within the union, instigated by nationalist and *D’Annunzian* elements, who bore primary responsibility for the expulsion of comrades Azzario and Berruti on the grounds that they were Communists.

On August 18, 1922, the Executive Committee of the SFI, by an arbitrary act, resolved to immediately withdraw the Italian Railway Workers’ Union from the Labour Alliance. A most serious act that shattered proletarian unity precisely at the moment when the adversary’s violence was raging most fiercely.

In the course of the report, we focused on the measures amounting to genuine class terrorism adopted by the State against the railway workers who had actively participated in the strike, matters we cannot revisit here and now. 

Thousands of railway workers were dismissed; over 75,000 were penalized, including many temporary workers who were denied any right to permanent employment and were immediately fired.

Meantime the Prime Minister, the Democrat Facta, had assured the “socialists Turati and Modigliani, who were acting as peace mediators between the Alleanza del Lavoro and the government, that there would be no reprisals on the part of the State.

While the Communists were pushing for the implementation of a genuine proletarian united front through the grassroots revival of the Alleanza del Lavoro, a proposal was gaining increasing traction within the SFI leadership to dissolve the union and establish various “independent,” small, trade-specific unions.

While the Communists urged the masses to confront the blows of legal and illegal reaction with class-based action, the union bosses appealed to the Minister of Public Works, calling for an end to the threats and violence directed against the railway workers organized in the SFI.

But, seeing that a minister’s assurances yielded no results, the treacherous union bosses decided to go higher up to plead for mercy. Yes, they too, just like the CGdL bosses, knelt before Mussolini.

Well, on January 17 1923 Mussolini granted an audience to the cowardly representatives of the SFI Central Committee, who presented a supplicatory memorandum to the Duce of Fascism. Less than three months after the so-called “March on Rome,” the SFI declared its submission to the new regime in an official document addressed to Mussolini.

Despite the servility shown toward those in power, Mussolini’s response was that of a master who accepts nothing less than explicit, unconditional surrender:

Yet the leaders of the railway workers’ union did not give up; exactly two months later (on March 17), they submitted a second memorandum to Mussolini, even more abject than the first, containing expressions such as: “The Italian Railway Workers’ Union flatters itself that Your Excellency, as the embodiment of sound justice…” Clearly, the union was declaring its complete submission to the Fascist regime; yet once again, Mussolini’s response was that of a victor unleashing his full thirst for vengeance upon the vanquished, even one ready to place himself at his service. Mussolini’s response could not be clearer: “Let the Railway Workers’ Union make a formal and solemn act of submission to the State, dissolving itself and joining the Fascist corporations.”

In Il Sindacato Rosso, we commented: “The man from Predappio, who knows the soul of railway workers through and through, rightly expects more than the servile bowing and mere verbal declarations offered by those who currently believe they represent and lead the Italian Railway Workers’ Union.” He, the straw dictator, wants deeds; words do not count, and naturally, he cannot take seriously those three wretched figures who grovel before him. Behind those three, he certainly does not see the bulk of the army of the red railway proletariat.”

On October 21 and 22, 1923, an SFI conference, grandiosely termed a “Congress”, was held in Rome. The event was notable for a “historic decision”: the SFI’s affiliation with the CGdL.

We have already seen just how fierce the opposition from all political factions within the union proved to be regarding the Communist proposal to affiliate with the CGdL. Naturally, this sudden change in attitude could only confirm certainties, rather than mere suspicions, regarding the true, genuine motivations. When people lacking political conscience suddenly change their minds, there is usually something discreditable underlying it.

“Who does not remember,” wrote Il Sindacato Rosso, “the shameful and abject attempts at collaborationism they made when the roar of the March on Rome still filled Italy’s squares with shouts of *alalà*, and the fallen of Turin, including railway workers, lay yet unburied following the ‘brilliant and heroic’ fascist days of December?” Comrades, be vigilant! Once again, an attempt is being made to drag your militant red union, bound hand and foot, beneath the heel of the fascist dictator. We seriously fear that the deliberate decision to join the CGdL has no other purpose or meaning. Prepare yourselves, then, to defend against the traitors to the class struggle, against those unworthy individuals who, through ambiguity and cunning, attempt to perpetrate the ultimate deception and an unspeakable disgrace to your detriment and that of all workers: defecting to the enemy.

And, on another occasion: “The railway workers’ union must, more than ever, clearly reaffirm its revolutionary directives; only by upholding its honor as a class-based organization today will it be possible tomorrow to rally the great masses struck by the reaction and lead them to battle and victory. Long live the red railway workers’ union! Long live proletarian unity!”

Having weathered the Matteotti crisis, Fascism consolidated its power. Upon the reopening of the Chamber on January 3, 1925, Mussolini, in a speech in which he assumed full political responsibility for the crimes that had been committed, initiated the decidedly dictatorial phase of his government. Instructions were issued to the prefects to close down all political clubs and parties that might jeopardize public order.

On this basis, on April 9, 1925, the Prefect of Bologna issued a decree dissolving the SFI, on the grounds that its activities had “shifted from the trade union sphere to the political arena, involving propaganda and a course of action hostile to the institutions and the government, thereby posing a threat to public order.”

This is how state power always rewards its foolish servants, the traitors to their own class.

For its part, the Communist Party did not leave the effort to reorganize the scattered forces of communist railway workers and sympathizers underground. An example is found in a PCdI circular dated July 14, addressed to interregional secretaries, provincial federations, and the National Communist Trade Union Committee, which issued directives for the establishment of the National Communist Railway Workers’ Trade Union Committee; this body was tasked with arranging, as soon as possible, “the call for a national conference of railway workers for the necessary coordination of communist railway trade union forces.”

We do not yet know what the results of this reorganization, which had to be carried out in absolute secrecy, were. In any case, police reports indicated that some railway personnel still on duty continued “to keep subversive propaganda alive in a subtle yet effective manner.”

The early stages of the labor movement in Russia

The theme of the historical development of the Russian workers’ movement on its path to the victory of October 1917 has been addressed by many. Why, then, revisit the subject? Not out of academic interest, but to prepare ourselves for a historical situation that evokes a sense of déjà vu: an isolated authoritarian state, devoid of concrete workers’ organizations, whether opportunistic or otherwise.

Although the agrarian question has long been forgotten, no longer acting as a constraint on capitalist production, its nature within the Russian context continues to make itself felt to this day. Indeed, we will show how repression is an established tradition of the Russian bourgeoisie: throughout the evolution from peasants to industrial workers, initially unfree and akin to serfs, and later full-fledged proletarians, the State, acting as the capitalists’ watchdog, was there to brutally repress the workers. It was through these struggles that the evolution of socialist thought, the ideology of the working class, also dialectically unfolded: first the Narodnik movement, then the disparate socialist groups, and finally the Marxists, culminating in the subsequent founding of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labour Party).

The first part, “The Pre-Marxist Workers’ Movement,” deals precisely with these foundations, with the material and political basis of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century (the century of global capitalist development) and how that development entered the Tsarist Empire. The primary consequence of the Russian system’s underdeveloped nature was the introduction of capitalism into a deeply feudal mode of production, giving rise to the figure of the “industrial serf”: a worker employed in a capitalist enterprise yet serving a feudal lord, in some cases, without receiving any wages. But the tide of capital is strong, and so Russian feudalism began to disintegrate, a process we intend to demonstrate through economic statistics, accounts of the working class’s reactions, and the dire general conditions of a country undergoing industrialization. We will then move on to the subsequent development of historical revolutionary doctrine, first in the writings of Herzen and Chernyshevsky, the Russian utopian socialists and early social democrats, and finally by turning to the writings of Lenin and Plekhanov, one of the first true Russian Marxists.

The Labor Movement in the United States of America. Chapter 20

Introduction

After a long hiatus, we are resuming this party work, driven by the need to carry the study of the American labor movement forward to the present day. This is not an academic requirement. We are not historians. The party does not write for the sake of abstract knowledge. Our knowledge is a weapon in the class struggle, which we must hone through study so that we can strike more effectively in practice.

Chapter 20 focuses primarily on the economic situation, while Chapter 21 will cover the political one, although these are dialectically connected and should not be viewed as independent stories. This format is designed to facilitate understanding and is partly chronological, since most political events only fully unfolded in 1920, even though they had taken shape in 1919. Therefore, the Red Scare and the events associated with it will be covered only partially in Chapter 20.

The post-war labor movement

The proletariat emerged from the war expecting the promises made by the bourgeoisie during the conflict to be kept. That was not to be the case. As soon as there was no longer a need to placate the workers with handouts, all benefits were withdrawn, and violent clashes with the unions resumed.

The workers were denied their post-war expectations, and employers sought to dismantle what the workers had achieved during the war. The government immediately abandoned the workers as soon as there was no longer an urgent need to keep them docile. This sense of betrayal remained etched in the minds of the workers. The workers’ strong appeals for the War Labor Board to be retained were to no avail. The workers realized that if they wanted to maintain wartime standards, they had to rely on their own strength.

While Black workers suffered disproportionately from post-war unemployment, all agencies involved in providing them with jobs were abolished to prevent their unionization in the South. Even white unions often hindered Black workers and enforced segregation.

The women distinguished themselves as the most militant and went on strike alongside the men. Many played important roles in the wave of strikes of 1919.

The Seattle General Strike

Seattle was the focal point of the 1919 unrest, which culminated in a general strike in which workers took control of production.

The city had a long history of a radical and militant labor movement. Many workers held both IWW and AFL membership cards. The former was a matter of principle, the latter of practicality, since Seattle was a “closed shop” city; consequently, a worker without an AFL card could not find employment.

The militancy of Seattle’s workers was inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution. No American labor organization was more consistent in defending the Bolshevik Revolution than the Seattle Central Labor Council.

The strike began in the shipyards, which had become the main employer during the war. After a meager wage increase, well below expectations, and in some cases even a reduction, shipyard workers went on strike. The Seattle Central Labor Council soon declared a general strike in solidarity.

The strike was not limited to withholding labor. The workers took charge of production to ensure the maintenance of essential services.

The strike committee meticulously planned the strike so that healthcare, security, and other essential services could operate with their authorization. They also formed an unarmed workers’ guard composed of veterans to maintain order.

Even in a “perfect” strike like this one, which made every effort to remain within the bounds of legality, the State employed all the violence at its disposal to force the workers back to their initial conditions. The State intervened militarily, and the strike ended after just five days.

The Seattle general strike failed quickly and ignominiously, despite the strong union militancy and experience backing it. According to syndicalist and economist ideologies, these were the perfect conditions for a revolution. The impulse was there, the moment was right, and the economic organizations were ready to fight; yet, without the consciousness of the class party to transform this impulse into action, it was doomed to failure. The Seattle general strike is a clear confirmation of our doctrine that the revolutionary class action is impossible without the class party.

The Red Summer

The report also addressed the race riots and lynchings of 1919, known as the Red Summer. We focused in particular on the Elaine massacre, where Black sharecroppers attempted to unionize by withholding their cotton until their demands were met. They were still living in conditions of slavery, even though it had been abolished, the only difference being that they were now paid for the exploitation to which they were subjected. A crowd of white people opened fire on a union meeting in a church in Hoopspur, Arkansas. The workers, who had prepared for this violent reprisal, returned fire, killing one white man and wounding another. The union immediately reported that the whites had fired first and that they had merely returned fire, but a crowd of whites quickly formed. The mob from Helena arrived in Elaine and began searching and looting Black homes, arresting men and women indiscriminately. The armed Black men returned fire, and there were deaths on both sides. The fighting spread from Elaine to the southern part of the county as white men from Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi arrived to take part in the massacre.

Once again, troops were sent against the workers. A secret committee of local white leaders appointed by the governor, including two plantation owners, investigated the uprising and published a false report claiming that the union had planned an insurrection with the aim of killing a number of white men.

Every Black person near Elaine was arrested and released only at the request of a white citizen. During this period, the men were tortured by their captors while a mob outside attempted to lynch them. The local court sided with the white mob, sentencing 12 of the Black workers to death and dozens of others to prison. Thanks to the NAACP, the verdict was ultimately challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court, which dismissed the case, but the damage had already been done. The exact number is undetermined, but at least 100 Black farmers were killed and many were forced to spend years in prison because of this massacre.

The Elaine Massacre was a campaign of violence and terror against Black workers who had dared to oppose their meager agreements. Their admirable self-defense against this campaign provoked a hypocritical reaction from the bourgeois state, which provided all the military and legal means to aid the racist murderers.

The wave of strikes of 1919

The report also covered a number of other significant strikes that took place in 1919, including the telephone operators’ strike (April 15–21, 1919), the Boston police strike (September 9, 1919), the steelworkers’ strike (September 22, 1919 – January 8, 1920), and the miners’ strike (November 1 – December 10, 1919). Each strike followed a similar pattern: militancy born of precarious conditions and inspired by the example of the Bolsheviks, along with popular support and worker solidarity, followed by betrayal by the AFL and interference by the State, often involving the military. Of these strikes, only the one by telephone operators was successful. Not all of these defeats can be attributed to the military defeat. The AFL leadership seized every opportunity to betray the hundreds of thousands of striking workers, especially in the key coal and steel sectors.

Industrial conference

The report concluded with an account of President Wilson’s Industrial Conference, which attempted to put an end to labor unrest through a form of class collaboration indistinguishable from future fascism. The conference was composed of the most collaborationist members of the AFL and the railway unions that “represented” the workers, a number of entrepreneurs representing the business world, and a nebulous “public” group made up of “neutral” figures such as Rockefeller. The State did not even try to hide the fact that the “public” interest meant bourgeois interest.

Despite the efforts of the State and the labor aristocracy, the Industrial Conference failed. The employers’ group rejected any agreement with the unions and announced its intention to establish “open shops” across all industrial sectors as part of its “American Plan.” While the AFL desperately tried to argue that without them, employers would face the “Bolsheviks,” the bosses countered that the unions posed a greater danger than a handful of Reds.

A text from 1980 on two diverse deviations regarding the economic struggles of the proletariat

The historical purpose of opportunism, that is, the tendency to choose the easy path, considered the most “appropriate” for achieving results, has always been to interpose the most varied hypotheses, proposals, and ideologies between the working class and its political party, in order to distract the former from its ultimate task: social revolution; but the labor movement is not excluded from this mission either; for the party, it would be the ideal instrument, the “transmission belt”, for conveying to the working class not only subversive messages aimed at the bourgeois order, but also appropriate guidance on the best tactics in economic struggles. Whether the opportunists are acting in good faith or are outright traitors matters little; as the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” In any case, finding good faith in today’s politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, is simply impossible.

The article we are republishing, from 1980, effectively analyzes the two principal deviations from the economic class struggle: “anarcho-syndicalism” and what we might call “economic agnosticism”.

The former derives from currents already present at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which placed the focus of revolutionary action on the union rather than the party, and sought to keep it free from bourgeois influences (Dutch Tribunists, the German KAPD, American and French syndicalists, etc.). Ever since then, the Left resolutely opposed those movements, similar to the Turin-based “L’Ordine Nuovo”, which believed that the revolutionary movement consisted of hollowing out the unions in favor of workers’ councils, which were supposed to form the structure of the revolution’s economic and state institutions, conceived as having begun in the midst of full-blown capitalism, with a wholly idealistic vision of the revolutionary process.

The latter deviation, the view that the struggle is futile, a mere Sisyphean task, and that everything should be staked on the Party’s political action, is even older, and was already refuted by Marx in 1864 during a debate that took place at the First International in London: Marx’s observations, recorded in the pamphlet “Value, Price, and Profit”, are unequivocal:

«Such being the tendency of things in this system, is this saying that the working class ought to renounce their resistance against the encroachments of capital, and abandon their attempts at making the best of the occasional chances for their temporary improvement? If they did, they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation.

At the same time […] the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. […] Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!”»

«[…] Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system»

Today, our great Karl would not be so delicate in his criticism of the trade union federations. In any case, we must always cite our mentors, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the Left, to demonstrate that opportunism, which seemingly constantly renews itself in its anti-proletarian function, is in reality always the same: the arguments remain the same even if cloaked in ingenious innovations, and they will remain so as long as they are needed to prevent the class from waging genuine and effective struggles for its demands, and from aligning itself with the direction that only the revolutionary party can provide.

It doesn’t matter to us whether the unions are led by reactionaries, which is to be expected in periods when there is a lack of widespread worker militancy, as is the case now, nor are we concerned with founding purely communist, revolutionary unions. But neither do we believe that the struggle for specific demands is useless, in accordance with Marx’s teachings. For us, trade unions, to the extent that they are open to all workers, are and always will be the focus of our attention and, if possible, our participation; as early as 1951, we wrote:

«Trade unions, regardless of who leads them, being professional economic associations, always bring together members of the same class. It is quite possible that organized workers will elect representatives with not only moderate but even bourgeois tendencies, and that the union leadership will fall under capitalist influence. Nevertheless, the fact remains that trade unions are composed exclusively of workers, and therefore it will never be possible to say of them what is said of parliament, namely, that they are susceptible only to bourgeois leadership».

A lot has happened since then, but nothing has changed in the nature of capitalism, and nothing must change in the party’s attitude toward the class’s economic organizations.

The Communists and the Struggles for Workers’ Rights

from “Il Partito Comunista,” No. 66, 1980

Revolutionary communists have always attached great importance to the struggles that workers are forced to engage in, due to economic and social conditions, to defend their position as wage earners against pressure from employers and capitalists. They seek to be the vanguard of the workers in these struggles, to win their trust, and to demonstrate to them that communist methods are more effective in defending workers than those proposed by other political parties or groups.

However, given the inherent instability of the economic and social terrain on which these struggles take place and the precarious nature of “conquests” within a society that thrives on the exploitation of wage labor, these struggles do not even make a dent in social relations; they do not challenge the political power of the propertied classes or the capitalist system.

The proletarians, however, even if they wanted to, could not renounce to the struggles to defend their immediate interests, because simply giving up their defense against the greed of capitalism would reduce them to a state of brutishness worse than the one into which they are being forced. Nor would a “poor” working class, that is, one incapable of participating in the consumption of the commodities churned out at an ever-increasing rate by the productive apparatus, serve capitalism’s interests. Capitalism has an interest in ensuring that workers have an “income” that can be “consumed” on the capitalist market to the greatest extent possible, in order to keep it alive and functioning so as to perpetuate the infernal mechanism of the exploitation of wage earners.

This explains the existence of “capitalist” unions, that is, unions that the regime has an interest in establishing, either in opposition to class-based unions or, in the absence of a class-based organization, as totalitarian unions that serve the regime, abiding to the needs of the market economy, and uphold the social and political stability of the capitalist regime.

Given these preliminary considerations, two tendencies have emerged within the “opposition” to capitalism that deviate from revolutionary Marxism and represent a serious obstacle that delays the arduous and painful process of rebuilding proletarian organization. The first, which we might define as “pure syndicalism”, maintains that today’s unions do not defend the workers’ cause because they are tainted by “politics”, and that, consequently, true class-based unions cannot be revived until organized party groups are banned from within them. This position draws on anarchism, which views political struggle within the working class as an “evil” that generates divisions which tear apart the unity of action of the proletariat. It is a vision that disregards the actual state of social and political organization of the classes, which in simple terms divides people into two clear and distinct groups, the exploited and the exploiters, while overlooking the fact that the terms “exploited” and “exploiter” are “relative” and not absolute. The only social class that possesses this characteristic is the proletariat, which by definition has no reserves or resources other than the ability to create more proletarians. Thus, within these two broad categories, among the exploited, alongside the proletariat, we can also include the lumpenproletariat, which views the working proletarian as “privileged”; the petty bourgeoisie, which sees the middle bourgeoisie as its exploiter; and the middle bourgeoisie, which, in turn, recognizes the big bourgeoisie as its master. It is no coincidence that this conception is expressed in terms of the “People” as opposed to capitalism, a conception that is also common to opportunism. In reality, the boundaries between social classes are not fixed and, above all, cannot be identified in any single person; thus, unlike in pre-capitalist societies where classes were rigid and strictly compartmentalized, in capitalist society classes are “open”, so that individuals can cross class boundaries and move from one class to another at will over the course of their lives. It follows that a factory worker who owns a home is not a proletarian; conversely, an intellectual who writes books for a capitalist publisher, owns nothing, and barely makes ends meet is a proletarian. The labor union organizes both non-proletarian workers and proletarian workers; the unemployed, mostly pure proletarians, are organized alongside “white-collar workers”, who are largely non-proletarian, as well as the upper strata of workers, the so-called “labor aristocracy,” and so on.

The working class, as we can see, is not homogeneous. Divided into strata, each with its own interests, it expresses itself through political orientations and organizes itself into parties. While the basis for union aggregating is common to all wage earners, precisely because they are wage earners, the interests that drive the various strata of workers to organize differ; therefore, each political group in which these different interests are expressed strives to gain control of the organization in order to use it as a lever to defend its own interests. This inevitable dialectic is clearly evident in the history of the labor movement, ranging from the earliest workers’ associations composed solely of wage earners to the Anglo-Saxon trade union, which accepted only skilled workers as members; from the “free” trade union up to the triumph of fascism, which brought all workers, whether or not they were affiliated with political parties, under its control; and finally to the fascist trade union, which was coercive and totalitarian. The division of social classes into political parties, therefore, is irrepressible, just as the political division of the working class is inevitable. Contrary to what the “pure syndicalist” approach posits, “politics” is the only means by which the pure proletariat can ensure that the immediate and general interests of the entire wage-earning class prevail within the class organization. Not just any “politics”, but the one and only “politics”, which springs from the revolutionary Marxist program, represented by the class-based political party, the sole instrument through which the proletariat presents itself as a historical class, with defined principles, a preordained strategy, and a solid and coherent organization. On the other hand, we challenge anyone to provide a single example that attests to the union’s neutrality toward political parties and the state. And even the union’s political neutrality would constitute, amid the clash between parties, a particular, distinct “politics”. The current regime-aligned unions are not the product of “politics” in general, but of a specific policy, one commonly expressed by all parties, based on the defense of the capitalist regime.

The second tendency, seemingly opposed to the one described above, maintains that the union is an outdated form that the proletariat must abandon, that economic demands are fleeting, and that everything must be resolved through “politics”. The proponents of this trend do not deny the “reality” of the proletariat’s economic needs, but they argue that these “vulgar” needs must be regarded as a “pretext”, an unpleasant and unsightly “accident”, to be exploited in a Machiavellian manner to “elevate” the wretched workers to the “level” of a higher political vision. A sort of updated politique d’abord with “revolutionary” overtones, which is supposed to make the bourgeoisie tremble before a proletariat so heroic and generous as to fight for an abstract ideal, to which socialism would be reduced. Socialism is instead a material social need through which all other needs, spiritual, cultural and intellectual are satisfied; it is not a sort of sectarian abstraction.

Political education is either revolutionary education or, alternatively, the mundane conditioning of the proletariat to accept the lies that the upper classes use to keep the working class subjugated. Revolutionary education is that which exposes capitalism’s economic and social blackmail aimed at inducing wage earners to make “sacrifices”, that is, to renounce economic and social struggles, the defense of wages that are being devalued, of jobs that are becoming increasingly precarious, and of lives increasingly teetering between being consumed in the factory or being violently cut short on the battlefields of an imperialist war that already looms large. It is nihilistic, that is, petty-bourgeois education, not emanating from our proletarian class, that urges workers to abandon the “vulgar” struggles for bread, wages, work, and housing. This, on the other hand, is the path toward the proletariat’s submission to the regime, which asks nothing more of the workers than to “leave” the concern for their needs in the hands of the unions and the regime’s parties.

The proletariat’s absence, total thus far, from the class struggle does not authorize anyone to advocate replacing “economics” with “politics”, or abandoning class organization in favor of other “political bodies”, perhaps “Soviet-style.” On the contrary, the proletariat’s current state of subjugation to the regime indicates that we must struggle to wrest from the regime the economic initiative of its unions, an initiative that is steadily waning as the capitalist crisis erodes the “reserves” that have thus far kept the working class tied to the present regime.

But in order to adopt this perspective, these two deviations are misleading. The first because it denies the political significance of economic struggles, and the second because it denies the immediate economic interests of the workers.

Communists neither deny nor dismiss the proletariat’s economic struggles as mere pretexts; rather, recognizing that these struggles are necessary, useful, and inescapable, they work within the proletariat to convince it that there are no “conquests” without class struggle, without class organization, and that these “conquests” are nullified by the capitalist regime if the proletariat does not violently overthrow it and establish its class dictatorship on the basis of this victory.

This is the political program that communists bring to the working class and to its struggles for better working conditions and social change.

With these notes, we continue to take stock of the current economic situation. Regarding industrial production indices, for Europe we can rely on Eurostat, which publishes indices for most European countries, with the exception of the United Kingdom. We compared these indices with those from the OECD and found a high degree of compatibility (except in the case of Portugal); consequently, they can reasonably be used. For the United States, we utilized indices provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 

Interesting insights emerge from this data. Let us begin with inflation. The first chart shows inflation curves for the United States, Europe, and China. While the price index in China was bordering on deflation, due to the saturation of the domestic market, inflation remained above 2% in Europe and approached 3% in the United States. However, following the war against Iran waged by American imperialism, a sharp rise in inflation was observed due to the increase in hydrocarbon prices. Consequently, the rate in the United States rose from 2.4% in February to 3.8% in April. In China, inflation jumped from 0.2% in January to 1.3% in February, before holding at 1% in March and 1.2% in April. Inflation remains low due to the crisis of overproduction affecting China.

Let us examine Europe in greater detail using the charts below. What stands out is the high inflation in the United Kingdom, which has remained well above 3% since October 2024; this is a point that will require further analysis.

Another noteworthy fact is that Germany stands out for having an inflation rate higher than that of Italy and, above all, France. This is attributable to the fact that the German bourgeoisie had staked everything on low-cost energy from Russia, thereby placing itself in the hands of Russian imperialism. All European bourgeoisies, at least those of Western Europe, truly believed in lasting peace for Europe following the collapse of the USSR.

Another significant factor is the low inflation rate recorded in France the previous year, partly attributable to the use of nuclear-generated electricity, though inflation rose sharply starting in February due to the surge in hydrocarbon prices. Consequently, inflation climbed from 0.3% in January to 2.2% in April, even though it typically takes at least 42 days for oil to travel from the well to the gas station pump. This explains the astronomical windfall profits reaped by Total, which capitalized on this time lag. However, this practice of anticipating price hikes is common to producers of any commodity; naturally, the longer the time it takes for products to reach the market, the greater the differential profit.

In the United States, the price of gasoline has risen by 65% ​​since January. In a country where public transport is non-existent outside major cities and workers are forced to drive to work, the situation is dire. We are dealing with a system of swindlers that has expanded with the shift to neoliberalism and the abandonment of all state oversight. Fraud has always been a part of bourgeois society, just as that society is based on the exploitation of the proletariat and oppression in general, but in this historical phase, its unscrupulous use has grown out of all proportion.

Let us turn to an analysis of industrial production indices, first and foremost those of the United States, the world’s leading imperialist power, though one closely followed by Chinese imperialism.

After sluggish industrial growth of 0.2% and 0.3% in 2023 and 2024, respectively, there is a sudden shift to 1.1% growth in 2025. Of course, during the “Thirty Glorious Years,” such a “leap” would have seemed meager! Looking at the monthly indices, figures have hovered around 1% since January 2025, with peaks of 1.9% and lows of 0.7%. As is well known, industrial output is driven by hydrocarbon production, with the United States having become the leading producer, as well as by massive investments in AI.

However, if one considers the total growth of industrial production in 2025 relative to the peak reached in 2007, the result is a meager 2.2%, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 0.12% over 18 years. Hydrocarbon extraction and the AI ​​boom have not, therefore, produced any miracle. Furthermore, looking at manufacturing output, 2023 shows a 7.6% decline compared to 2007; in other words, manufacturing production in 2023 was 7.6% lower than in 2007. The situation in the United States is comparable to that of other established imperialist nations, such as Japan, the UK, Germany, France, and Italy (not to mention Russia), resulting in a relative decline in their share of global industry, which drives the resort to military force to restore hegemony. During the “Thirty Glorious Years,” American hegemony rested primarily on economic, and thus industrial, might; today, however, following its decline, the US is forced to use military force to reassert its dominance over the Americas and the Middle East, thereby laying bare its own weakness. This has not gone unnoticed by its partner and rival, which is quietly awaiting the opportune moment to establish itself as the new master: Chinese imperialism, the new vampire, is poised to replace the old one.

Let us now consider industrial production in European countries. The accompanying table shows that, with the exception of Belgium, which benefited from the dynamic growth of Flanders, all these nations are trailing behind the peak levels reached in 2007. Industrial output in Portugal plummeted by 22% compared to 2007, and by 21.8% in Spain, while Italy recorded a staggering 24.1% decline. The United Kingdom followed a similar trend with a 22.2% drop (these figures refer to 2024; data for 2025 will be provided later in this study). Japan was no exception, posting a 17.8% decline. Germany and France fared better, with drops of 10.5% and 11.6%, respectively. However, we harbor serious doubts regarding the figures for France, given its deindustrialization and the massive offshoring of operations carried out by the French business class since the early 2000s; one would expect to see a decline much closer to that of Italy. To assess this, we will base our analysis on the physical output of key sectors.

Data regarding indebtedness, both public and private, which is colossal, have not been included here.

In conclusion.

For half a century, global capitalism has managed to sustain itself thanks to the development of capitalism in Southeast Asia, particularly in China, and to massive offshoring to countries with low labor costs (such as China, Vietnam, India, and Mexico, as well as Eastern Europe, Turkey, and, to a lesser extent, Morocco and Tunisia). The price paid for this has been a reckless rush toward massive indebtedness, alongside the growing precariousness and impoverishment of the proletariat.

However, capitalism is reaching the end of this cycle and approaching the moment when the entire house of cards will collapse. For nations, rising indebtedness translates into an increasingly burdensome debt-service cost within their budgets and a need for massive debt refinancing on international markets. For instance, the United States will need to borrow $900 billion from the market over the next five months. A time will come when securing such loans becomes increasingly impossible, or comes at exorbitant costs, forcing some nations into default. At that point, it will be a case of “every man for himself.”

At the same time, the relative decline of old imperialist states and the rise of new imperialist powers, foremost among them China, lead to growing instability, which is exacerbated by the crisis of capital. The global crisis of capitalism leads to a proliferation of conflicts and pushes imperialist states, slowly but inexorably, toward a global conflagration.

What lies ahead: a global crisis, featuring deflation and a collapse of financial assets, as in the 1930s, alongside skyrocketing unemployment and a resurgence of class struggle and the communist movement, or a Third World War? For the moment, the prospect of a global crisis akin to those of 1848 or 1929, occurring prior to the outbreak of a third conflict, remains a very real possibility. And this is the best-case scenario for us, for woe betide us should the Third World War break out before the communist movement has been reborn on an international scale.

More than a century has passed since the trumpets of the victorious revolution rang out across Russia. marking the beginning of the proletariat’s great struggle for its own emancipation, waged amidst the ruins of the Russian Empire by the Bolshevik Party at the head of the Soviets. But the horns of victory have long since been transformed, first into the ominous preludes of the Stalinist counter-revolution, then into the melody of the bleak, advertized peaceful coexistence, with Western capital. They now lie silent beside Comrade Lenin’s corpse. Today, in the imperialist war still raging in Ukraine, the Russian state has once again donned the red flag and invoked anti-fascism as a means of driving the proletariat into a bloody massacre; yet this revival has not worked as well as it did in the 20th century. So, what do we Marxists have on our hands in Russia? What are the echoes of the Party’s victory today? If there are any, of course. Let us take stock.

A tribute to the Soviet trade unions

Let’s start with the basics. A country with such a significant history of class struggle must surely have solid proletarian bodies for economic defence, even if they are state-run or have a nationalist slant?

We shall now, therefore, examine the trade unions, Профсоюзы in particular. These are the organisations that Russia is said to have inherited from the dear departed USSR. Our party has repeatedly emphasised the importance of trade unions under bourgeois rule, but the case of Russia deserves special attention. The proletariat in Russia has triumphed; it has seized power! As the proclaimed heir to the USSR, did Russian workers in the Russian Federation inherit a proletarian or a bourgeois trade union structure? The original purpose of these bodies was described by Lenin in a speech in 1920:

«It follows from what I have said that the trade unions have an extremely important part to play at every step of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But what is their part? I find that it is a most unusual one, as soon as I delve into this question, which is one of the most fundamental theoretically. On the one hand, the trade unions, which take in all industrial workers, are an organisation of the ruling, dominant, governing class, which has now set up a dictatorship and is exercising coercion through the state. But it is not a state organisation [Editor’s Note: Emphasis added]; nor is it one designed for coercion, but for education. It is an organisation designed to draw in and to train; it is, in fact, a school: a school of administration, a school of economic management, a school of communism». (V.I.Lenin, On the Trade Unions, the Present Situation and the Mistakes of Comrade Trotsky, 1920.)

Here we can clearly see the Marxist conception of how trade unions should operate under the dictatorship of the proletariat: “it is not a state organisation; nor is it designed for coercion, but for education”. Later, in a speech in 1921, Lenin quoted the Bolshevik Party’s programme on the trade union question:

«The trade unions being, on the strength of the laws of the Soviet Republic and established practice, participants in all the local and central organs of industrial management, should eventually arrive at a de facto concentration in their hands of the whole administration of the whole national economy, as a single economic entity.

Everyone makes references to this paragraph. What does it say? Something that is absolutely indisputable: “should eventually arrive.” It does not say that they are arriving. It does not contain the exaggeration which, once made, reduces the whole to an absurdity. It says, “should eventually arrive”. Arrive where? At a de facto concentration and administration. When are you due to arrive at this point? This calls for education, and it must be so organised as to teach everyone the art of administration. Now can you say, with a clear conscience, that the trade unions are able to fill any number of executive posts with suitable men at any time? After all, it is not six million, but sixty thousand or, say, a hundred thousand men that you need to fill all the executive posts. Can they nominate this number? No, they cannot—not yet—as anyone will say who is not chasing after formulas and theses and is not misled by the loudest voices. Years of educational work lie ahead for the Party, ranging from the abolition of illiteracy to the whole round of Party work in the trade unions. An enormous amount of work must be done in the trade unions to achieve this properly. This is exactly what it- says: “should eventually arrive at a de facto concentration in their hands of the whole administration of the whole national economy”». (V.I. lenin, Speech closing the discussion delivered at a meeting of the communist group of the congress january 24, 1921)

To summarise: the trade unions, which are the foundation of the proletarian dictatorship, under the Party’s leadership, will act as non-state administrative institutions, whilst moving dialectically towards the coordination of the entire economy with the aim of replacing the exchange of commodities with total planning, thereby avoiding the trap of bureaucratisation. What, then, happened historically? To summarise a very long history of proletarian organisation (a history to which we shall undoubtedly return): the Russian trade unions organised themselves under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, first as a confederation known as the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions (ВЦСПС/VTSPS), and subsequently, from 1923 onwards, as the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. But what role did the trade unions actually play during the 69 years of the USSR’s existence? The trade unions went from being organs of workers’ control, a ”school of communism”, to bureaucratic instruments of the state. How could this have happened? It occurred in parallel with the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party, and with it the Comintern and the entire communist movement. (For a more comprehensive analysis, see our text Why Is Russia Not Socialist?, published in 1970). During the NEP period, the trade unions operated under the banner of increasing productivity to rebuild a country devastated by war, boosting industrial output and reducing absenteeism in the workplace. These were all harsh, necessary and temporary measures which, as in many other cases, were transformed during Stalin’s era of socialism in one country. What did this mean for the trade unions? Suddenly, the temporary measures became assosaited as socialism; to give an example, let us quote from a book on Soviet history:

«The Communist Party regarded the implementation of a strict austerity regime as one of the sources of socialist accumulation. In April 1926, the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of the Union issued an appeal, ‘On the Struggle for a Regime of Austerity’, addressed to party organisations, public administrations and all workers, calling for the establishment of a strict regime of austerity in institutions, enterprises and all organisations. This appeal was immediately taken up by the working class and the trade unions. They explained in detail to workers and employees the decisions of the Party’s 14th Congress, the nature and significance of socialist industrialisation, and the need to fight for a strict regime of austerity in order to increase the savings earmarked for industrialisation. The trade unions supported all the measures adopted by the economic bodies aimed at implementing austerity (reduction of the costs of the state and economic apparatus, staff cuts, the merger of small enterprises, etc.).

The trade unions mobilised the working class and all workers in the struggle for austerity, using various forms of mass action. Production meetings played a particularly important role in this regard. They increasingly focused on resolving the fundamental problems of production (its rationalisation, the reduction of industrial production costs, the economising of raw materials and supplies, the reduction of defects and the overall strengthening of work discipline) and began to delve deeper into the process of the technical reorganisation of enterprises». (from ‘History of the Trade Unions in the USSR 1905–1937’)

Socialist accumulation! What a term! We can at least commend this account for its honesty; here we see the truth clearly: the Russian proletariat was persuaded to lay down its arms, in a tragic display of loyalty to the Bolsheviks, unaware of the counter-revolutionary nature of these decisions, thereby aiding the State in its accumulation! (Read: More efficient extraction of surplus value). In 1923, with the official founding of the USSR, the People’s Commissariat for Labour (Narkomtrud) was established. Why is this important? The answer is simple: in 1933, it was dissolved and incorporated into the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, completing the transformation of the trade union federation into a state apparatus.

Firstly, alongside the purges within the party, the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions was also subjected to purges: 14 of its 21 members in 1929 were executed. Once total control had been secured, trade union leaders were not appointed directly by the party, but were approved to ensure that the chosen trade union leader would cooperate with the state; they shifted their focus from improving working conditions to promoting Stakhanovism (the idea that workers should push themselves beyond their limits to increase productivity) during the Five-Year Plan period. The trade unions became a tool for monitoring and pacifying the workers. There were no strikes called by these organisations, nor was there any opposition to the state. Trade union officials distributed benefits and consulted workers on the issue of improving working conditions. In reality, the trade unions distributed leisure trips and minor benefits to workers as rewards for productivity. Soviet state officials boasted that 98% of workers in the USSR belonged to these organisations and, although membership had never been imposed by law, it was encouraged and expected. Nothing more than a tool of subjugation – so much for socialism.

And this is the trade union structure that the Russian Federation would have inherited. But the Soviet trade unions were an instrument of increasing accumulation during an era of industrialisation and economic recovery, population growth and a demographic boom, associated with the bloody and primitive accumulation instigated by the Soviet state; these endless extortions could not last forever, and indeed they did not. Just like a stray dog, the bureaucratic apparatus of the trade unions was left in the dust following the collapse of the USSR. In 1991, the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions was dissolved, replaced by the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) – an ironic name, given the brief history we are about to outline. The only demonstration of independence the FNPR ever gave was during the October coup of 1993, when the trade unions backed parliament in its attempt to impeach Yeltsin, a move which, to put it bluntly, proved counterproductive. Let’s take a look at a report from the time:

«At the government’s insistence, the trade union leader has been replaced.

Yesterday, the Presidium of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia accepted Igor Klochkov’s resignation from the post of chairman. During the crisis in September and October, the federation’s leadership called on workers to defend the Constitution and Parliament, using all possible means “up to and including a strike”. Vasily Romanov has been appointed acting chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Russia.

Immediately following the publication of Boris Yeltsin’s Decree No. 1400 of 21 September, the leadership of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (which represents over 18 million people) issued a statement condemning the President’s move and called on workers to defend the constitutional order. This firm stance by the trade union leaders immediately prompted a response from the executive authorities: the telephones in the FNPR building were cut off. 

The trade unions proved to be fairly “reasonable”, and on 28 September, at a plenary session of the Federation of Trade Unions, a “softer” statement was adopted, which effectively revoked the initial call for strikes. Nevertheless, even after this decision by the Federation, its chairman, Igor Klochkov, continued to demand the adoption of the “zero option” proposed by the former chairman of the Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin, which provided for the simultaneous repeal of Boris Yeltsin’s decree and all subsequent resolutions of the Congress. Mr Klochkov did not declare his support for the President’s actions until the morning of 4 October, by which time tanks were already firing on the parliament building. 

According to information from government circles, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Shumeiko demanded Klochkov’s immediate resignation. The Federation’s Presidium, having accepted Klochkov’s resignation, appointed Klochkov’s former deputy, Vasily Romanov, to act as chairman on an interim basis until the congress». (Kommersant, Change of leadership of the FNPR, October 9 1993)

Following Yeltsin’s ‘18 Brumaire’, the workers who had been called upon to defend the constitutional order were betrayed by their trade union leaders. Under its new leadership, the FNPR soon adopted the position of social partnership between owners, workers and the state (read: class collaboration), but unlike Western nationalist trade unions, the FNPR does not even pretend to protect workers in any way; even the aforementioned holiday trips, which mimicked socialism in the USSR, have been privatised! Since then, the FNPR has become a bureaucratic tumour attached to the Russian state, achieving nothing for workers except to skim a percentage off their wages, with union leaders chosen in sham elections, much like Russian democracy in general (which is not all that different from Western democracy). No strikes, but state-orchestrated demonstrations; no protection of workers’ rights, but fundraising for the imperialist war effort in Ukraine, and so on. Membership is generally considered compulsory, but is rarely even acknowledged during the course of employment, with many workers reportedly not even aware that they are members of the union! And trade union leaders are merely part of the state, with the entire FNPR apparatus intrinsically linked to the United Russia party. May the remnants of the trade unions established in the Bolshevik era rest in peace. But there is still hope. The material realities of Capital are ever-present, and no number of state bureaucrats can erase the spontaneous drive of workers to protect their own material interests. Following the repeated failures of state-controlled trade unions, during the era of liberal capitalism in Russia in the 2000s, genuine independent trade unions were formed to defend the concrete interests of workers, which we shall discuss in a forthcoming article.