The International Communist 4

The war in Ukraine Originated from the international economic and political crises of the capitalist mode of production which has pushed bourgeois states to rearmament and war.

If some skirmishes have happened in this part of the world and not yet in others, it is because war in Europe has been brewing since at least 2014. It began with the regime change in Kiev and later continued with the start of the war between Ukraine and the Donbass republics, which made Ukraine an area of contention between regional imperialist rivals.

In laying out the characteristics of the war in Ukraine, we have argued that since its outbreak the war was and is imperialist on both sides.

Ukraine is not fighting a war for its national freedom and independence. Rather, it has placed itself at the beck and call of American imperialism and, then, European imperialisms, both of which are using the conflict to strike at Russia.

For its part, Russia is waging a war in Ukraine in order to both conquer territory and wrest its neighbor from the Western sphere of influence. Redrawing the balance of power in Eastern Europe in its own favor.

On Ukrainian soil, a war is not being fought between only Russia and Ukraine. In fact, the real protagonists in this war are the American and Russian imperialisms. Europe also participates to some extent, with the enthusiasm of the British and Poles on the one hand. On the other the reluctance of the Germans, who had to adapt with American pressure.

The war itself was not only against Russia but also Europe, and Germany in particular. Contrary to its own national interests of maintaining excellent economic relations with Russia so as to ensure a supply of cheap energy products, Germany had to align itself with American dictates.

The only true casualty in this war, however, is the proletariat. The proletariat is always cannon fodder for imperialist wars. Even when not on the front lines, the proletariat still suffers the consequences of deteriorating living conditions and such other miseries. First and foremost to suffer, of course, have been Ukrainian and Russian proletarians.

The Situation on the Frontlines

In Ukraine, the conflict continues with its trail of massacres among soldiers, destruction of the cities, and misery. Millions of Ukrainians have been starving, cold and under shelling, or were forced to leave the country.

A war of unprecedented intensity since World War II is raging in the heart of Europe. It is driven by the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the deployment of vast numbers of armored vehicles, aircraft, and missiles. The war in Ukraine has served as a testing ground for new supplies from the war industry, merging modern technology with the past, including the resurgence of assaults on enemy trenches. This has resulted in high casualties on both sides, the numbers in the order of hundreds of thousands, which the political and military leaderships of the countries involved keep obscure.

How it has now come to nearly three years of war. This can be explained by misplaced expectations that have motivated the real protagonists of the current war.

Somewhat reasonably envisioning a short war, Russia launched attacks in several directions. One of these attacks was directed toward the capital, Kiev. This was an attempt to bring about a quick fall of the Ukrainian government and its possible replacement with one better disposed toward Moscow. On the other hand, the United States, together with the British, vetoed the negotiations that Russia and Ukraine had initiated in Belarus and continued in Turkey. This veto partially stemmed from the resistance put up by the Ukrainian army, which as early as April regained control of the Kiev oblast and drove the Russians back to the northern border. It also came from the effort to inflict a heavy strategic defeat against Russian imperialism.  Expectations were that Russia would be economically crippled by sanctions and mired in a fierce war against an enemy heavily armed and founded by the United States and other allies.

The Russian push toward Kiev ended in early April. The offensive then focused on the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, as well as the Kharkiv oblast. It achieved a major success in May with the capture of Mariupol, which allowed the Russians to join the territories of Crimea and the Donbass together.

A crisis in the Russian advance into Ukrainian territory occurred in September 2022. A counter-offensive by the Ukrainian army in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions overwhelmed the then-weakened Russian defenses and recovered territory from Russian armed forces.

However, the carnage that was the May 2023 capture of the important town of Bakhmut (which had a population of over 70,000 before the war) in the Donbass region demonstrated that Russia was still capable of sustaining a war effort.

In June 2023, a major Ukrainian counter-offensive began, which aroused great enthusiasm among Kiev’s allies.

The result was an enormous failure. The Ukrainian army failed to break through Russian defenses and suffered significant losses of men and vehicles on the ground.

Since December 2023, the Russian army’s advance has been slow but steady. They have taken one location after another in the Donbass. One strict example was the important town of Avdiivka, Which was contested until it finally fell to Russia in February 2024.

On August 6, 2024, Ukraine launched an attack on Russian territory in the Kursk region, aiming to ease Russian pressure on the Donbas front. Perhaps Ukraine also sought to use the captured territories as bargaining chips in a possible negotiation to exchange them for Ukrainian land seized by Russia.

This Ukrainian foray into the Kursk region achieved initial success. Since then the Russians have regained control of about 60% of the territory captured by the Ukrainian push.

For weeks now, the situation on the Ukrainian front has followed a pattern in which the Russian army advances across the front line, though this has been a slow process that has seen bloody massacres on both sides.

After the Nato comment in early December, according to top NATO sources, the pace of the Russian advance has been increasing. While previously “Russian forces were advancing by ten meters a day,” more recently they have been “gaining ground at the rate of ten kilometers a day”.

In recent weeks, Russia has taken other locations in the Donbass. This includes Toretsk, one of the main Ukrainian strongholds in the area (with a population over 30,000 before the war); Soon after moving to advance into the vicinity of another stronghold,Chasiv Yar.

Further southwest are Kurakhove, the village of Vremivka, and Velyka Novosilka.

Meanwhile, the assault on the important Pokrovsk junction continues.

In addition, the Russians have not stopped bombing “critical infrastructure,” particularly power plants.

The pace of the war suggests that the Russian army may continue its advance into Donbass toward the still Ukrainian cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

After three years of war, if left to the battlefields alone, no significant change should be expected – in the short-term – other than Russia’s advance toward the complete conquest of the Donbass. However, Trump’s inauguration has reignited negotiations. On Feb. 8 the American press reported Trump’s words:

“I talked with Putin, he wants to end the war.”

Imperialist Peace

Obviously the openness of a negotiation is not really due to the change of character in the White House. All heads of state play the part of a puppet moved by powerful social and economic forces. In this specific case it has already played its farcical role by initially promising peace in “24 hours” during the election campaign only –changing to peace in “100 days” once elected. 

The push for an agreement is rooted, both in the course of the war, and the broader context of inter-imperialist contention.

For the Western curators of Kiev, the situation on the ground is becoming more and more worrisome as time goes by. Despite the colossal influx of money and weapons from Western countries, Ukraine is struggling more and more to contain the Russian advance in Donbass. This negates any chance of regaining occupied territories.

The continuation of the war poses the problem of finding more cannon fodder to counter the Russian army. Already running the risk of a collapse on the frontlines, there is discussion of lowering the draft age from 25 to 18. This has not been totally ruled out because of the very low morale among Ukrainian troops and the widespread phenomenon of desertions.

The economic war with Russia isn’t going any better. Although weakened by 14 sanction packages against its economy, Russia has not suffered the meltdown Western capitals expected. Instead it found buyers for its raw materials in the East, enabling it to prolong the war effort.

In April 2022, the steadfast resistance of the Ukrainian army and the prospect of crippling Russia through sanctions led the Americans and British to order Kiev to continue its war with Moscow. However, those conditions have now changed from those key to securing a favorable outcome for Anglo-American imperialism.

The other factor that could form an agreement on the Russian-Ukrainian front must be understood in the context of the imperialist confrontation on the global scale. The real enemy of US imperialism is now China. The future that is being shaped is that of a general clash between these two great powers, around which opposing blocs will be formed.

The American attitude toward Russia must be framed in this context.

The previous US administration did engage in a confrontation with Russia, via Ukraine. Inflicting a heavy defeat on Russian imperialism would have further reduced its might, thus securing a NATO-friendly arrangement on the eastern front of Europe. The US would then be free to turn its attention to the quadrant they’ve termed the “Indo-Pacific.”

It is also possible that the US thought the best case scenario could be some sort of repetition of the best case scenario in 1989-1991. Bringing about a collapse similar to the USSR, including territorial downsizing, but never at the cost of compromising Russia’s counter-revolutionary role in the area. Such a result would establish in Moscow a political regime on the 1990s model. This would make Russia a docile friend to be hurled at China.

The war in Ukraine, however, is not heading toward a Russian defeat. Instead, it has led to closer ties between Russia and China. The prospect of further strengthening –even to the point of forming an anti-American bloc. This would be a serious threat to US global interests.

The change of administration in Washington could  lead to the abandonment of the prior administration’s path. By establishing a dialogue with Moscow, the US instead could attempt to distance Russia from Beijing.

Whatever the strategy imposed by Washington and, consequently, whatever Russia’s response will be, we should not expect the imperialistic clash on a world scale to ease off.

The very possibility of a peace or truce on the Ukrainian front, whatever its form, will be more likely to function as preparation for a larger-scale war. It will guarantee all contenders precious time to lick the wounds caused by their war efforts in Ukraine and proceed with vast rearmament plans.

One result of the war in Ukraine was also to reaffirm the alignment of European imperialisms within the predominant US one, the American position. Judging by what has happened so far, it will also assert itself in the European capital cities. Europe has been incapable of political and military autonomy–beyond the pro-European rhetoric, each state moving on their own. Nevertheless, all remain loyal to the United States.

Throughout all of this, Ukraine has played the part of the sacrificial victim. The Ukrainian bourgeoisie is selling the blood of its own proletarians to the West by sending them to die on the frontlines.

The proclamations of its leaders and their “plans” for peace are worthless.

They will simply have to obey Washington’s orders.

Meanwhile, the Americans have already presented the bill:

“I want the equivalent of $500 billion worth of rare earths,” Trump said, estimating the aid sent to Ukraine at $300-350 billion, which it will now have to repay.

Since the Russians also took Ukrainian subsurface resources with the conquest of most of the Donbass, the Americans also want to get their hands on Ukraine’s mineral wealth.

In this way, the bargain between the Russians and Americans appears in all its predatory nature. The former gets, along with the rearrangement of its own Western front. The latter receives the exploitation of the remaining riches of the Ukrainian subsoil. Setting itself up to further cash-in after bringing Europe’s energy supply to its knees by breaking the link with Russian supplies and selling its own at much higher prices.

Then again, Lenin wrote:

“The groups of capitalists who have drenched the world in blood for the sake of dividing territories, markets and concessions cannot conclude an ‘honorable’ peace..

They can conclude only a shameful peace, a peace based on the division of spoils.”

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died, not for the defense of their homeland against the Russian imperialist aggression, but for the interests of Western capitalists. Not for their national freedom from the Russian oppressor, or the other nonsense propagandized by the bourgeoisie. This same nonsense has also been decried by the myriad of “leftist” organizations as well as those falsely referring to communism.

On the other hand, Russian soldiers were not sacrificed in a supposed war against “Nazi-fascism,” as flaunted by Moscow and the remnants of Stalinism. Rather, they were expansionist aims and economic interests of bourgeois Russia.

On the bloodied battlefields of Ukraine, proletarians fall for a war that is not theirs. It is the proletarians that are really being assaulted, both by their own bourgeoisies and those of the other countries involved in the conflict.

Now the threat of a possible imperialist peace hangs not just over the Ukrainian and Russian proletariat, but the international proletariat as well. Such imperialist peace would only halt the war in Eastern Europe so that the imperialist powers could catch their breath and prepare for the next massacre.This future war will be of even greater proportions.

Only a proletarian uprising, with a strong movement of strikes in the cities and the organization of the soldiers on the frontlines, could stop the imperialist war and the equally nefarious prospect of an imperialist peace.

News From the Home Fronts in Ukraine and Russia

Unfortunately, the lack of class-based workers’ organizations and a true Communist Party capable of providing strong and resolute leadership leaves no alternative but a bourgeois solution to opposing the war. Nonetheless, opposition to the war persists in both Ukraine and Russia. It emerges despite the suffocating grip of brutal repression and rampant nationalist propaganda that oppresses Ukrainian and Russian proletarians.

In particular, internal discontent toward the war appears more widespread in Ukraine, and the phenomenon of desertions at the front is more significant.

According to Ukrainian state sources, over 17,500 new criminal cases for unauthorized unit abandonment or desertion were recorded in December 2024. This continued a trend from November, which saw nearly 19,000 cases.

This is nearly double the number recorded in October 2024. Yet in January 2024, such criminal proceedings were below 3,500.

From the start of the war in February 2022 to December 1, 2024, more than 114,000 criminal cases of desertion have already been registered.

As reported to foreign media by Ukrainian sources, the number of defectors in Ukraine may be around 200,000.

These numbers are so high that parliament was forced to pass a law addressing the issue. The new law allows those who have abandoned their unit or deserted to return voluntarily and serve without facing criminal penalties. It also extends the timeframe in which they can return to their units without legal consequences.

By now the training camps are composed almost exclusively of forcibly mobilized men. many captured on the streets. Many still who desert as soon as they get the chance.

The case of the 155th Mechanized Brigade, called “Anna of Kiev” is particularly scandalous. This unit was trained in France and was to be deployed in the defense of Pokrovsk. Before the brigade reached the hot front in the Donbass, 1,700 soldiers had already deserted. This is not to mention the dozens of desertions that had occurred during the brigade’s training in France.

Individual uprisings against the state and war have also become more frequent.

Although the scale of desertion raises concerns about the potential collapse of the Ukrainian army, there is currently no realistic way for this widespread and spontaneous rejection of the war to evolve into an organized movement. That is, laying arms down and abandoning the front to then turn those very arms against the bourgeoisie: transforming the war between states into class warfare.

That prospect is even more distant in Russia, although reports of defections also come from the Russian side of the front.

As for military conscription, the Russian regime has no difficulty in recruiting “contract soldiers” who are immediately sent to the front.

The situation in Russia is therefore quite different from the Ukrainian one, where bourgeois authorities have to catch men on the street to send them to slaughter.

In Russia, none of this is yet necessary, as demographics are clearly in its favor.

The harsh living conditions they face push thousands and thousands of middle-aged Russian men to the recruitment centers. They are crushed by low wages, steadily rising prices (9% inflation rate according to official figures), and huge interest rates on loans and mortgages. All the while, Russian workers are bombarded by relentless propaganda claiming that the “collective West” is to blame for this situation.

The situation is different, among young people undergoing compulsory service in the Russian army. Here, opposition to militarism is not insignificant.

Reporting on the completion of fall’s conscription, the Russian Defense Ministry, claimed a mobilization of 133,000 people that are presumably not sent to combat zones, annexed Ukrainian regions included.

Reality, however, shows a different picture from the government announcements. There are hundreds of detention cases and raids against conscripts. they have also significantly increased since the fall of 2023, with increasingly aggressive methods.

Thus in Russia too the bourgeois regime is performing a real manhunt, albeit on a smaller scale than in Ukraine. Conscripts are taken directly from their homes, caught in the street and loaded into a car and arrested in the subway. All taken to military registration and enlistment offices.

Relatives and lawyers are not allowed into the collection points, nor are ambulances. This is to prevent any recording of how conscripts are treated. Passports are taken away, and medical certificates are ignored.

Conscripts are forced –any means to wear a uniform.

They are beaten, threatened, and kept without food or water.

In many cases they are sent straight to the front after being forced to sign a contract.

Although class dominance is firm in Russia, reports coming out of the country show a situation in which there is some resistance from Russian workers to both military conscription and the Russian Capitalists.

In fact, according to labor unions, 294 collective labor disputes were reported in Russia in the 4^th quarter of 2024, while there had been 228 in the 3^rd quarter.

These disputes include both genuine strikes, albeit local and short-term, and completely “legal” attempts. Unsurprisingly, the latter fail to address the ongoing decline in living conditions and the delays in the payment of their already meager wages. Nevertheless, this is an indication that, despite the constant and ubiquitous nationalist and militarist propaganda that has appealed to much of the working class, the reality of capitalism forces workers to resist.

All of these labor disputes occur in conditions of relative weakness of workers’ organs. Such as the general repression of the unions. There are several cases of union organizers being subjected to criminal prosecution –not to mention the extremely moderate leadership of the unions themselves.

Against the Wars and Appeasements of Imperialism

The war in Ukraine is entering its third year. The calls from politicians and pen-pushers over the prospects of a diplomatic solution are as loud as ever.

Whether such a possibility materializes, and even if a truce is reached, any peace will retain an imperialist character. That is, it will be a moment of respite in preparation for the resumption of warfare.

No agreement can smooth-out the deep contradictions that have brought competing imperialisms into conflict over the territory of Ukraine. Nor can it eliminate the causes that make inter-state warfare inevitable among capitalist regimes.

Should an agreement be found, war will eventually return to that front. It will be in the context of inter-imperialist conflict, one that is step by step expanding on a global scale, involving both the major and lesser powers.

The possibility of a truce from the war should not fool proletarians, who will be dragged by their own bourgeoisies into the abattoir of war once more.

The only outcome of the imperialist war that favors the proletariat is not another imperialist peace. Rather this outcome would be revolutionary defeatism and proletarian solidarity across all fronts transform the war between states into a war between classes, leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

As is customary in the bourgeois world, the narration of events always needs someone to blame: the big boss who upsets the established equilibrium, destroys the status quo, makes imminent risks of war, whether military or commercial, flash before our eyes, and lays the foundations for other upheavals.

It was up to “Tsar” Putin—president for life of a weakened imperialism—to rise to this honor in the war fought in Ukraine. It was up to the cutthroats of Hamas and the warmonger Netanyahu. It was up to the hundred “chiefs” and sub-chiefs in a convulsing world. Finally, the former defendant Trump, implicated in a hundred financial scandals, a bankrupt and unscrupulous magnate who wants to “Make America Great Again” and threatens military and economic havoc, has comfortably appeared on the scene of the most powerful imperialism in the world. He is also ready to put them into practice.

We communists consider all these supposedly “great men” to simply be mouthpieces for other forces and political forms that are at the basis of—or behind the scenes of—world affairs.

But to summarize and simplify the explanation, we too will refer to the big names. That is, those who—for better or for worse—seem to be responsible for the dynamics between states.

In the United States the federal political personnel and president has changed after a hysterical electoral show. This show was staged by a very powerful publicity machine that has the sole purpose of disorientating and directing those who still believe in these liturgies towards the political solution that world conditions actually needed.

Because of the crises between the imperialisms, as well as the economic and financial crisis, the previous political group had to be changed. All these crises required a different attitude from the apparent and hypocritical benevolence of those who had previously managed them. A new mask was needed. This mask would show a ferocious face, hurl threats at enemies and allies, and it would impose the primacy of the United States without any sense of hypocrisy.

Whoever capitalism needed to succeed, succeeded.

There has long been a large collection of dossiers and critical issues on the desk of the American presidency.

These are the reorganization of geopolitical boundaries threatened by emerging powers, the control of raw materials essential for capitalism, the maintenance of the military power  absolutely necessary to sustain a stratospheric debt that can never be paid and therefore must increase year after year, and a commercial war to maintain or expand their markets and support national production.

Financial, geopolitical and commercial crises are the three roots of the creeping world crisis of capitalism.

The new tenant of the White House has made his allies and certain enemies alike feel the weight of his strength in a brutal and unscrupulous way.

In his first real decision, he threatened and then started a trade war between the United States and the rest of the world, confident that he could afford it.

The previous administration had taken a hands-off approach to tariffs on imported goods and left only a limited part of the duties that Trump had decided in his previous term in force. This was when he imposed duties of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum. The European Union reacted to this by increasing the import duties on alcohol and motorcycles produced in the USA.

Under Biden, a system of European quotas for access to the American market had been agreed to and the retaliations stopped.

Instead, Trump has openly declared for all signs of a real trade war.

He first announced a considerable tightening on steel and aluminum towards Canada, Mexico and China. Then, he granted a one-month moratorium, and finally on February 11th he signed an executive order for the rest of the world.

American imperialism has returned to wielding the tool of tariffs on steel and aluminum—strategic components for capitalist production.

Tariff increases on imports from Canada and Mexico have shaken the global steel industry, which was initially uncertain as to how this initiative would nullify the already negotiated trade agreements established in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

This was an agreement that President Trump renegotiated from NAFTA—made in the ’90s—during his first term, from 2017 to 2021.

At the present time, aluminum and steel imports into the United States have reached a value of 50 billion dollars.

The country imports aluminum mainly from Canada ($9.5 billion), the United Arab Emirates ($1.1 billion), and Mexico ($690 million).

Steel is imported from Canada (11 billion), Mexico (6.5 billion), and China (5 billion), and to a lesser extent from Brazil and other producers.

In general, the purpose of duties is to protect and strengthen national production at the detriment of imported products.

But aluminum and steel are basic products for many other industries, construction, transportation, aeronautics, and military equipment, and their availability is essential for capitalistic production.

These products are therefore particularly critical.

President Trump’s decisions were initially only threatened, but an additional duty of 10% has already been imposed on all Chinese imports. This will presumably be added to the 25% already imposed in the past on steel from China. China, however, did not immediately respond harshly. Instead, it limited itself to taxing imports from the USA to the value of 14 billion, against US duties that affect Chinese products to the value of 525 billion dollars.

There is also another underlying strategic objective that is implicit and connected to this clampdown on imports.

The American production system is in a slow but steady decline, and the recent policy applied under the Biden administration has imposed significant tax incentives on foreign companies to relocate their production to the US.

Important European companies have already started to take this initiative to escape the grip of duties and other commercial restrictions that the world’s leading military power is implementing to defend its economic system.

The punitive measures on trade—even towards reliable historical allies who should therefore be protected in some way—as well as the simple enunciation of further constraints and barriers by the president, also have the aim of threatening to cut off companies that do not produce directly in the United States from the huge American market.

It’s a brutal warning not only to European producers, but also to Canada. In Canada, many manufacturing companies are already American-owned but their imported goods compete with goods produced in America—even if their profits flow back to the States through other channels.

February’s executive order caused great concern in the exporting states, but the general response was in no particular order. Everyone basically called for negotiations in order to reach an agreement on the two products.

America’s closest allies, Australia and Canada, are even calling for the abolition of tariffs.

Of course, for Canada, the issue is more critical, since Trump is demanding that it be incorporated into the American federation, and the tariffs also serve as an element of political pressure.

Those who had already imposed duties on the import of American goods, such as India, proposed to lower their duties.

Europe has announced countermeasures, but has been careful not to make explicit statements about them.

It is already in a state of financial distress: Europe has had to buy Liquified Petroleum Gas from American tankers at a price considerably higher than what it paid for gas from Russia, excluding regasification costs. We should note that talking about “Europe in general” is an incorrect generalization because Europe is only a political-economic simulacrum of states that exclusively aim for their own political and economic advantage.

If there was ever a need to further evaluate the current state of subjection to the most powerful imperialism, this is the clearest demonstration.

But there is also another strategic objective in these decisions on trade.

Trump’s decisions are mainly aimed at hitting China, which produces a greater quantity of these two materials than the rest of the world.

China used to employ most of its steel and aluminum production in the domestic market, but recent difficulties in domestic demand had reduced consumption. This led to an increase in exports at reduced prices, even to Canada and Mexico. In turn, these two exported to the United States.

A typical mechanism of capitalism—perhaps fraudulent on an “ethical” level—but used in many other circumstances. Consider Russian gas, which after being sold to some countries that don’t recognize the sanctions imposed on Russia, then returns with a different “label” for European consumers.

This masked dumping maneuver (selling below cost because the purchase was made  below cost) by Canada and Mexico has put the American steel industry in serious difficulty. Moreover, the American steel industry is developing in regions that are politically critical due to electoral results.

If the industrial sector of transformation into consumer goods benefits from this import situation, another national sector suffers.

But this is the nature of capitalism.

Even if it is not yet clear how the trade war that the USA is starting against the rest of the world will evolve, when all is said and done, the world of Capitalism is showing tremendous difficulties in maintaining its global structure and indicating what its future will be.

Either war between states or social revolution.

From Il Partito Comunista nos. 76 & 77 (December 1980–January 1981)

The necessity of the proletariat’s class struggle in defense of its material conditions is not an original discovery of Marxism. Indeed, several bourgeois theorists before Marx observed this necessity. Its enunciation is part of our doctrinal heritage in the sense that it constitutes a physical, empirical fact. It is a simple description of a reality that takes place before everyone’s eyes, which does not need to be discovered or invented.

Our theory explains social relations and the economic laws that determine them. Our program defines the objectives which the proletariat must achieve for its final emancipation. Our tactics define the means—the practical course—by which the proletarian class must take to achieve the goals set by the program.

We reject defining our body of knowledge as an “ideology.” Our theory is a scientific theory that has been established after a series of historical experimental verifications. It is the only one capable of providing an explanation of economic and social reality. It is still valid, as its laws are confirmed by facts. A theory cannot be subject to revision or updating. It is either valid en bloc or must be rejected en bloc. The program includes measures to be implemented to remove obstacles to the achievement of communist goals: the end of wage exploitation, the liberation of humanity from the bondage of want, and classless society. These obstacles—the private ownership of the means of production, the state political power of the bourgeoisie—today remain standing a thousand times stronger than yesterday. Our program is nothing but their negation: first the overthrow of the bourgeois state and proletarian dictatorship, then the socialization of the means of production.

Following from these tactics is the range of possible means for the achievement of our ends. This range has become increasingly narrow. Means that might have seemed suitable in the past—such as participation in elections and parliaments—have proved lethal for communists. In the course of living historical experience, tactics become increasingly precise in the sense of excluding those avenues that practice has shown to be unsuitable or harmful.

Precisely because our positions do not come from the realm of ideas, but constitute a scientific doctrine, our ultimate aims do not negate the daily struggle in which wage earners must engage to defend themselves against exploitation. Our political objectives do not entail the overcoming of the economic struggle, but, indeed, its maximum extension and its bursting into revolutionary struggle. The idealist tendency, petit-bourgeois in origin, considers the economic struggle as a temporary phase, a necessary evil to be overcome when the masses attain “political consciousness.” This consciousness would first be acquired through a denial of the crude struggle for needs, counterposed to the exalted struggle for ideas.

Revolutionary communist consciousness already exists, impersonally and objective, in the historical theory, methods, and traditions of Marxism.

This consciousness can not be acquired spontaneously by the proletariat through its defensive struggle. Rather, it is the fruit of the living experience of a century of struggle and will not be acquired on the basis of the limited, local experience of factory or trade. The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848 after decades of struggle by the English, French, and German proletariat, after the Vienna Uprising, after the Paris Riots, after the German Civil War. The necessity of proletarian dictatorship was realized following the bloody experience of the Paris Commune of 1871.

This consciousness can be possessed collectively only by a body that transcends the limits of individuals, generations, and localities, that is, by the Party. The proletariat, says Lenin, can only receive this consciousness from outside. It is only to trade-unionism, that is, the consciousness of the need to organize in defense of its material conditions within existing social conditions by extracting wage improvements, reforms, and laws to protect wage labor, the proletarian can come spontaneously.

But economic struggle in itself does not affect the causes that generate exploitation and cannot break out of the framework of the bourgeois social order. In its imperialist phase, capitalism not only admits of economic struggle, but also anticipates it as a given and seeks to control it through its regime unions. By itself, the realization of the need to defend against exploitation can lead to movement in the direction of mitigating this exploitation, but not to removing its causes. The original contribution of communists is that, starting from this material fact, they want to eliminate forever the causes that generate exploitation and class oppression, and dedicate themselves to the revolutionary preparation of the proletariat. That is why the Communist Party organization must be separated from proletarian economic organizations.

Anarcho-syndicalist tendencies admit the necessity of the proletariat’s attack on the bourgeois state, but deny the necessity of a “special” organization separate from workers’ associations. They maintain that economic struggle will,  at any given moment, spontaneously evolve into insurrectional struggle against the bourgeois state. They deny not so much the Communist Party but the very concept of a Party.

Even if they refuse to admit it, they nevertheless constitute a definite party: the anarcho-syndicalist party. This party has its own vision of class struggle and its own program.

Economist and corporatist tendencies are characterized not so much by the rejection of the concept of the Party as by the rejection of politics in general. They argue that workers’ associations—in order to be autonomous from parties that would like to instrumentalize them—must be apolitical. They argue that workers have to think about the struggle with the bosses and should not be involved in politics.

This tendency starts from the absurd pretense of safeguarding the unity of the working class by simply denying the existence of political currents within economic organs. In this way, they relegate workers’ associations to dealing only with questions of the firm or industry without seeing their connection to political and social reality.

To deny the free movement of political tendencies in proletarian organizations is tantamount to saying that the proletarian class should not have its own political program or its own vision of social relations: the workers attend to the economic struggle, the intellectual petty bourgeoisie concerns itself with politics.

Economism is a very definite political position that stands in the way of a minority of proletarians securing themselves on the terrain of revolution.

Intellectualoid tendencies argue that workers must not fight for their material needs, but…for “communism” or for more general “political” goals.

Anarcho-syndicalists argue that communist workers must not have their own separate organization. Economists argue that within proletarian organizations there must not be political confrontation. We communists, while we are staunch defenders of the open character of economic organs, do not wish by this to argue that there is no talk of politics in them. On the contrary, we are for the free movement and clash of political tendencies precisely because we have an interest in exposing our class line, which, in being the description of the course the proletariat must necessarily take, is the only one that can find confirmation in the direct experience of the masses.

Our strenuous defense of the open character of proletarian economic organizations starts from the realization that it is only on the ground of the defense of living and working conditions that the proletarian class is objectively united. This and only this can be the basis for enlisting the proletarian army. Neither proletarian defense nor offense can ever disregard this objective premise.

The various tendencies—not the overtly bourgeois ones, but those that admit of proletarian class struggle—represent the possible strategic orientations according to which the proletarian army can move.

Let us not adopt the childish method of exorcising tendencies opposed to our own by denying them the right to exist. On the contrary, we think it good that they express themselves as fully and freely as possible, that they circulate and clash with the greatest freedom in the proletarian milieu. We entrust the evidence of facts with the task of exposing the correct course and of dismissing the others.

In this sense, we are for maximum proletarian unity in the field of action and maximum division on the terrain of political conceptions.

To us, class struggle and political confrontation between parties are separate, standing on two different planes. We don’t mean this in the trivial sense that movement is the prerogative of trade unions and that political struggle is the prerogative of parties; letting workers think about strikes, intellectuals think about politics. While we defend the open character to all proletarians of economic organs and the broadest unity in action, we also argue that proletarians themselves must freely discuss general political issues, freely divide, freely clash.

We have not forgotten that Capital was written not for university professors but for the working class, in a language that was as accessible as possible to proletarians—few of whom at the time could read—and that the International Workingmen’s Association officially thanked Karl Marx for clarifying the causes and mechanisms of class oppression. We have not forgotten that in the early 1900s in Russia—as Trotsky recounts—proletarians competed for copies of Capital and tore them apart so they could read them at the same time.

Precisely because we have confidence in the physical and intellectual energies of the proletariat, we communists do not fecklessly stoop to extol the spontaneity or simplicity of the masses. Instead, we want to elevate them to revolutionary consciousness.

* * *

Economic struggle is an objective fact arising from the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. No reforms, no concessions, no special laws, nor any police operations can eliminate it as long as private ownership of the means of production and wage labor remain.

After an initial phase in which the bourgeoisie absolutely denied workers’ struggle and organization, it was then forced to tolerate it. Then, under fascism, it attempted to give it a framework in its own legal system with the creation of labor organizations under direct state control.

During the period of the First International, the proletariat was still a tiny minority of the population. The nascent proletarian movement was developing in a direct and open clash with bourgeois legality: strikes and street demonstrations were prohibited. Worker and peasant demonstrations almost always took on the appearance of riots; looting, clashes with the police and army, mass arrests, shootings, deaths, and injuries. Workers always—even for the most limited claims—faced the state in its true essence as a repressive apparatus, with its militias and courts deployed in defense of property. Any assertion of demands led to a clash with the state because the state always responded with police repression, leaving no room for anything but mass action. Striking or participating in demonstrations could result in years or life in prison.

In the second phase, that of the development of the great socialist parties of the Second International, the bourgeoisie could no longer contain the movements of a proletariat—greatly increased in numbers—by purely police methods. Simultaneously, it had greatly increased its profits and could make concessions by bribing certain layers of workers.

Here rose the objective terrain for the development of reformism and trade-unionism that would result in the degeneration and passage into the bourgeois camp of the parties of the Second International.

Police methods alone would have brought an increasingly numerous and concentrated proletariat to the field of open confrontation. Hence, the bourgeoisie were more shrewd and combined repression with the haranguing of social-democratic leaders who channeled workers’ struggles toward partial gains within the framework of the bourgeois social order.

Because of the changed economic and political situation, worker struggles resulted in demands for reforms, wage improvements, and the amelioration of working conditions. These were no longer steps toward the assault on bourgeois power for the complete destruction of all forms of private property and exploitation. Rather, they were ends in themselves, perfectly compatible with a booming capitalist economy.

The economic movement of the masses proceeds firmly in this direction under the leadership of the reformist leaders of the big social democratic parties and the big class unions.

Of course, street clashes, shootings, and arrests did not cease, but there was a noticeable improvement in proletarian living conditions. This was fertile ground for democratic, pacifist, and legalitarian puffery.

Revolutionary political organizations no longer coincided with workers’ associations and became progressively isolated. They were reduced to small groups or factions within the parties of the Second International.

The movement of the masses was then driven onto the terrain of reformism and class collaboration, even to the support of the respective bourgeoisies in the imperialist war. Being a communist revolutionary then meant not following the masses onto this ground, but sharply distinguishing oneself to safeguard the prospect of revolution. This was done by Lenin, the Italian Communist Left, and a few others who declared war on war while the proletarian masses were led to the slaughter under their respective national flags.

The welding together of the revolutionary program and the spontaneous motion of the masses was realized in the revolutionary wave of 1917-23. This was not because one adapted to the other. It was because in that brief historical window the goals which the masses were moving toward could only be pursued with the realization of the revolutionary program.

The example of Russia is crystal clear: the exploited masses wanted an end to the war and the estates of the great landed proprietors. But neither peace nor land could be obtained without either an insurrection which would overthrow the bourgeois state and the formation of a workers’ and peasants’ militia.

The preparation of the Bolsheviks—not improvised, but done over decades of extremely hard trials and with iron discipline—was precisely this: readying themselves for revolution on the theoretical, programmatic, tactical, organizational, and military levels. The masses were with them in one of those very rare moments when action and consciousness, spontaneous movement and revolutionary organization became one and the same, coalescing to form a formidable army that routed the defending adversary.

Fascism, an expression of the modern capitalism of banks and monopolies, brought together the two methods of reform and that of open police repression. It realized the old reformist dream of juridically regimenting labor struggles and labor organizations by bourgeois legislation. The novelty it introduced is precisely the creation of state unions with compulsory membership by workers. These unions defended workers economically, even going so far as to call strikes, but they did so on the condition that the economic struggle never affected the national interest.

The trade union confederations that arose after World War II, although formally open to join and not legally subservient to the state, follow the fascist policy: open and avowed submission to the state. Economic struggle, yes, but only to the extent that this is compatible with the performance of the capitalist economy. This means fighting for wage and regulatory improvements when the economy is booming, controlling the working class to endure layoffs and increased exploitation when the economy is in crisis, and collaborating with the state for patriotic mobilization in the event of war.

In an economic crisis, we are in a period when workers’ demands become incompatible with the stability of the regime. Yesterday, it was a purely economic claim to demand wage increases or reduced working hours. Today, simply fighting to prevent aggravations from labor, to abolish overtime, to prevent layoffs, or to reduce working hours takes on an increasingly subversive flavor because these demands, compatible yesterday, clash with the bourgeois plan to dump the crisis on the shoulders of the proletariat. That is why we see the state, all parties, all unions, and all institutions arrayed in the defense of the national economy, against proletarian needs.

In this sense, today, economic struggle tends to become political because proletarians who want to move in defense of their needs are forced to acknowledge that:

1) the official trade unions are on the side of the bosses and the state

2) in order to struggle, it is necessary for workers to form their own organizations, independent of the state, bourgeois political parties, and regime unions.

The question then becomes exquisitely political not only because class demands would endanger the social order, but also because it is clear that the state defends its unions in every way. The state primarily does this by granting them the right to exclusive representation of labor. This means that workers’ organizations that spontaneously arise are de facto illegal, unless they submit to the state (as Solidarnosc has done). It also means that it is forbidden for all individual bosses, all corporate management, whether publicly-traded or privately-held, to enter into agreements of any kind with spontaneous workers’ associations that act outside the control of official trade unions.

This also means that, today, it is not enough to tell workers that one must fight against the bosses. One must also say that in order to fight against the bosses, they must free themselves of policing by regime unions and resurrect real class organizations. But even this is not enough. It must also be said that the resurgence of class organizations can never take place “freely,” but only in fierce struggle against the state, all the parties and unions that support it.

In this respect, the demands which yesterday perfectly fit into a trade-unionist policy take on a political character. This is not a result of inherent characteristics, but in relation to the changed situation in which the bourgeoisie—their room for maneuver shrinking and no longer able to make concessions—will soon have to openly resort to force by denouncing all those who struggle for housing or jobs as subversive and anti-social elements.

However, if economic struggles take on a distinctly political character, this does not mean that the nature of class economic organizations changes. The objective determinations that drive the proletariat to struggle and organize are always the same, even in moments of the most acute revolutionary struggle, and are material, not ideal, in character.

Economic organization, therefore, even in the rare moments when it is guided by genuinely classist politics, always retains its objective limitations. This renders it an organ suitable only for defense, not offense.

A revolution is not the “beau geste” of a handful of desperate people nor is it the uprising of crowds on a “big day.” All the experiments were performed in Italy. From the ridiculous Mazzinian efforts, to individual terrorism (which then reached the flattering result of killing Umberto I), from the action of bands of anarchists (who, in the Matese mountains, declared the monarchy deposed and private property abolished). From the peasant revolts to the Palermo uprising of 1866, to the great proletarian uprisings of 1893 and 1898 that simultaneously affected a large part of the national territory. From the agitations against the Libyan War, from the Red Week of 1914, to the armed occupation of factories in 1920; from the strikes of ’43 to the half-insurrection following the assassination attempt on Togliatti in ’48.

In Italy, there existed a party that identified itself with workers’ associations and which only proletarians could join. The Italian Workers’ Party, 30,000 strong, with a wide influence on the proletariat of Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria, was the first autonomous organization of the Italian proletariat that finally separated itself from the bourgeois left and the radical petty bourgeoisie. This party was, in practice, no more than an association of leagues. It claimed to be disinterested in general politics and was only concerned with proletarian struggles. In 1886, it was outlawed on charges of preparing for insurrection, its organization was virtually destroyed in a major police raid, and its remnants later merged into the future Socialist Party. The same fate befell the organization of anarchists—numerous and scattered throughout Italy—after 1888.

The history of these attempts is well-preserved in the police archives, which passed seamlessly from the Bourbons to the Savoy, to Fascism, to the democratic republic. Governments, parties, institutions pass by, but the essence of the state, the “seasoned detective” who knows everything about everyone, who has learned his lesson and knows when to cane and when to dress as a lamb, remains. No change of government, no uprising has made him leave his post.

The poor fools of today, who know nothing about nothing and claim with their stupid improvisations to “attack the state,” should reflect that, one by one, all their approaches have been tried.  Much more determined men, much more numerous, fierce, and exasperated masses, have failed there.

History has shown that in order to bring down the capitalist regime and to lead workers’ struggles in this direction, a dedicated organization specially created and prepared for this purpose is needed. This organization is called the Communist Party, an organization that treasures past experience so as not to repeat old mistakes, which can foresee situations and not be surprised. It is an organization which is able to resist repression because it does not feel that it has “spaces to defend” in this society. A Party that has a precise and proven plan in which the daily proletarian struggles, the assault on bourgeois power, and the political and economic measures to be taken after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie are framed. A Party that knows how to lead proletarian organizations not on the terrain of ephemeral partial achievements, but toward the final abolition of the exploitation of wage labor. A Party such as the Bolshevik Party tended to be, the Third International, or the Communist Party of Italy of 1921, which, we can proudly say, was defeated not by the fascist repressions which it resisted and to which it responded, but by the betrayal first of the socialists and then of the Stalinists. The proletariat lacks this today, and, without it, all the strikes, demonstrations, and riots in this world may come, but the power of the bourgeoisie will not suffer even the slightest cosmetic damage. Those who say they want to bring down this infamous regime must therefore be consistent and accept the instruments necessary for this purpose.

The recent political chaos that has plagued South Korea provides further confirmation of the lessons that communists have learned throughout the historical course of class struggles.

Both the democratic and fascist form of the state are nothing but a different masquerade of the essence of bourgeois power, which is constituted by its class domination over the proletariat. Even if widespread and combative, any descent by the proletariat into the terrain of political struggle that is not framed in terms of class organizations and led by the Communist Party can only have an outcome entirely compatible with the bourgeois order.

The Class Domination of the Bourgeoisie Is Still Firmly Established Despite the Internal Political Crises of Past and Present

On the night of Dec. 3rd, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol announced martial law as a measure to protect the country and “eradicate despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces.”

Meanwhile, the army was mobilized and any political activity—including both parliamentary activity and any form of protest—was prohibited.

The reaction to this attempted coup was manifested both through a growing protest mobilization in the streets and through parliamentary channels. The opposition went to parliament to vote on lifting martial law.

On the labor side, however, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) immediately called for an all-out general strike until martial law was lifted and the president resigned.

The measure was withdrawn within hours, as soon as 190 of the 300 deputies—including several from Yoon’s own party—were able to gather in Parliament and approve the lifting of martial law.

Immediately after the vote, the military abided by the parliament’s decision.

The street pressure continued in the days that followed. On December 14, a Saturday, the South Korean parliament voted in favor of impeaching the president.

The bourgeois press identifies the country’s political instability as the motivation behind President Yoon’s attempt at a coup. This instability began with the bitter clash over the passage of the budget law.

South Korea’s political system is essentially dominated by two political forces, the center-left Democratic Party and the center-right People’s Power Party (PPP). Although they oppose each other, they are both bourgeois parties that stand in defense of the class domination of the bourgeoisie. Both stand in the interests of national capitalism, though they sometimes have differing views on how to do this. Both take turns in leading the country’s government.

Since bourgeois political factions are bent on the interests of national capitalism, they are unable to improve the living and working conditions of the workers. This inability results in a general discontent that—in the absence of an extensive strike movement—reverberates in periodic vote counts.

President Yoon’s own narrow victory in the 2022 presidential election was due precisely to the discredit of the previously ruling Democratic Party, which used to be able to count on a large majority of votes.

But in a short time, widespread discontent was also directed against the new government. This was expressed through the vote for the April 2024 legislative elections that resulted in a parliament dominated by the Democratic Party.

The result has been that the PPP government is opposed by a National Assembly dominated by the opposition party, the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party holds a parliamentary majority and obstructs government measures. This was the case for the Budget Law for 2025, which produced a bitter confrontation between the two parties. As a result, the opposition significantly scaled back initial government measures.

One must also factor in the scandals, allegations of nepotism, and corruption which involve the president’s circle.

But recent Korean events cannot simply be explained by the country’s contingent political situation. Like the rest of the bourgeois world, this is systematically shot through with bitter fighting between bourgeois factions and scandals involving politicians of all parties.

The whole affair fits neatly into Korean political history.

Since its inception in 1948, South Korea has had alternating democratic governments and a series of military juntas. These juntas were always backed by the United States and took power in coups that led to violent clashes.

General Chun Doo-hwan led the last coup. He seized the government in late ’79 after an attempted transition following the end of General Park Chung-hee’s 18-year dictatorship since the 1961 coup, which imposed martial law throughout the country and unleashed a violent crackdown. Such violence culminated in May 1980 in the Gwangju massacre, where student demonstrations had triggered a workers’ revolt with the characteristics of a full-blown insurrection. This ended with the army occupying the city, which caused hundreds of deaths.

Following mass protests in 1987, the Korean political regime adopted a democratic form and direct election of the president was introduced. This succeeded in ensuring some internal political stability based on the alternation of the two main antagonistic sides.

The new democratic guise donned by the South Korean state is certainly more functional to the impetuous development of national capitalism that made South Korea one of the so-called “Asian tigers.” But democracy has not undermined the hard fist traditionally used by the bourgeois state to suppress workers’ struggles. All democracy has done is put all those emergency measures such as martial law back in the “toolbox.” Such measures  can be pulled out as soon as the need arises, and they will always be justified with the defense of the homeland, that the homeland is in danger, etc. Democratic trappings are erased, and the bourgeois can now unleash military repression against the labor movement.

The tendency on the part of the ruling class to drop the democratic form will be destined to develop with the rise of proletarian struggles, an inevitable consequence of the deepening crisis in the capitalist world.

For Now, the Korean Proletariat’s Combativeness Remains Channeled Within a Bourgeois Solution

There is one positive sign, however, and that is the belligerence expressed by the Korean working class.

Moreover, even here, the living and working conditions of the proletariat are constantly threatened by the crisis of the capitalist mode of production.

For example, the number of fatal accidents involving subcontracted workers and migrants remains high. Last June in Hwaseong, 22 workers—including 18 Chinese migrants—were killed in a lithium battery factory following a fire.

The government then worked to further extend working hours. They passed a reform that increased overtime to a total of 69 hours per week.

The attitude toward workers’ organizations was characterized by particular harshness. The labor movement and its militants were criminalized, the labor unions were smeared (they were called “a great plague that needed to be eradicated”), and they countered union activities with the judicial system.

Unsurprisingly, as soon as martial law was declared, the  KCTU president was immediately arrested.

But in addition to widespread discontent, the Yoon administration has also faced a growth in labor struggles.

Of particular importance was the strike at Samsung which lasted five weeks between the beginning of July and the beginning of August. Despite a limited membership in terms of numbers, it struck one of South Korea’s major “chaebols,” i.e., those industrial conglomerates owned by a single owner or family. It also undermined the compactness of the Samsung giant.

Continuous strikes have also involved doctors, whose struggle has been going on since last February and which. However, their demands express a certain defense of corporate interests, such as opposition to the government’s plan to expand the number of enrollees in medical courses. Nevertheless, this is a sign of the intolerable social tensions present in the country.

In fact, once martial law was proclaimed, the military leadership explicitly mandated that the strike be broken. They ordered that the workers return to work within 48 hours.

The attempted coup found strong opposition among workers and labor organizations.

In particular, the KCTU, which has 1.1 million members and has a history of leading numerous large-scale strikes on its shoulders, moved against martial law from the very beginning by proclaiming an indefinite general strike.

The willingness of the Korean working class to enter the terrain of struggle has thus been channeled into the defense of democracy, which in any case constitutes an epilogue aimed at bourgeois preservation of the political crisis that has hit South Korea.

The Korean events will have to serve as a further lesson, not only for the Korean working class, but for the entire international proletariat. In order to prevent its combativeness from being subjugated to bourgeois fronts in struggle, the solution can only be one that leaves the scaffolding of class domination intact.

It is not in the historical interest of the proletariat to defend democracy. Democracy is simply a political form that the bourgeoisie has already shown it can easily cast aside in favor of fascism as soon as it has the need to do so. Whatever it takes to better subjugate the proletariat.

Today democracy and tomorrow fascism:

The Korean chaos has shown this by sounding the sirens of national emergency in order to justify these exceptional measures. Martial law is contemplated by every bourgeois state.

The bourgeois state’s change of face is already heralded by the imperialist contention that will sweep the entire world and require the framing of proletarians to support the endangered homeland.

The Korean Peninsula on the Fault Line of Inter-Imperialist Confrontation

The political form of the bourgeois Korean state has alternately donned the fascist and democratic guise (which does not compromise its foundation of class domination over the proletariat). However, the Korean state, due to its geopolitical location, is firmly embedded in the system of US imperialism in the Far East.

Since the late 1940s, South Korea has been a trusted ally of the United States. South Korea still lets the US have a military contingent of nearly 30,000 soldiers in its territory. In terms of the number of American soldiers, Korea ranks third in the world, after Germany and Japan.

The American influence in the country is enormous, and neither of the two bourgeois parties questions the international position of the United States.

In this context, there could be no shortage of important signals from the American side even during the recent political crisis.

The US did not support Yoon’s venture because they could not afford to destabilize a valuable ally like Seoul. This lack of support led to some pressure to withdraw the measure and even influenced members of the president’s own party to take a stand against Yoon’s maneuver.

The Korean domestic political crisis is part of an international context in which inter-imperialist contrasts are worsening. This drags down all those states positioned on the fault line of the tectonic clash between opposing imperial blocs into the vortex of political chaos.

The violent aftershocks of the war in Ukraine have reached all the way to the Korean Peninsula. North Korea is sending its own contingent into the Russian-Ukrainian meat grinder, in support of the Russian military. The current government of the South is considering arming Ukraine, and, as a result of the Ukrainian conflict itself, it has seen its arms exports grow tremendously. There was a 39% increase (SIPRI data) in 2023, mainly due to purchases from European countries, such as Poland.

Note that the proclamation of martial law was justified as the fight against pro-North Korean Forces. The very issue of relations with North Korea marks a split in the South Korean home front as the democratic opposition has taken a less bellicose stance toward Pyongyang.

In contrast, since taking office in 2022, the Yoon administration has been aggressive toward North Korea. This has resulted both in political and military escalation on the Korean Peninsula.

On the other hand, in late December 2023, Kim Jong-un declared that he no longer considered the reunification of the two countries possible.

During 2024, tension between the two countries manifested when North Korea launched more than 2,000 “garbage balloons” in response to South Korean propaganda along the DMZ.

In June, South Korea decided to suspend the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement with the North, which was aimed at reducing military tensions. The South resumed military exercises near the border shortly thereafter.

During October, North Korea sanctioned the worsening of relations with the South by formally renouncing its policy of peaceful reunification of the peninsula through an amendment to its constitution. The North also blew up some road and rail links between the two countries.

In addition, during 2024, there has been a rapprochement in relations between North Korea and Russia through the recent ratification of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty. Among other things, this treaty provides for an immediate bilateral negotiating channel in the event of a direct threat of armed invasion against either party, and, if either party is in a state of war due to armed invasion, the other party will provide military and other assistance.

There are two reasons for Yoon’s party’s harsh backlash against North Korea. First, the close proximity of sectors of the South Korean bourgeoisie to the United States. Second, the escalating tensions between the imperialisms have led the various states to take sides as war approaches.

This prompted Yoon and his political supporters to pursue closer commercial and military cooperation with the United States.

This perspective is framed by the geopolitical situation in the Far East. US imperialism’s is interested in weaving an anti-Chinese front not only with Australia and the United Kingdom—as AUKUS implies—but by incorporating other powers in the region, such as Japan.

In this regard, under Yoon, South Korea has moved closer to the United States and Japan. This has strengthened trilateral coordination in anti-North Korean and anti-Chinese functions. Over the past year, there has been movement aimed at institutionalizing the structure of this cooperation.

This line is internally opposed by those bourgeois sectors that consider Korea too close to Washington and Tokyo. This position is grounded in the interests of the South Korean economy, which is nevertheless linked by trade interchanges with the enemies of US imperialism, like China and Russia.

Yoon’s fall might complicate the ongoing process toward closer ties with the U.S. and Japan. However, it will not challenge the country’s international position, which remains heavily subordinated to U.S. imperialism.

In such a framework of intricate struggles between domestic and international factions of the capitalist class, the South Korean proletariat has no choice but to fight for its class interests.

This implies the ability to avoid the bleak prospect of being used in the internal struggle between bourgeois factions which pushes the proletariat to take sides in the sham opposition between fascism and democracy.

South Korean proletarians, like those in all countries, must also reject the attempt by the domestic bourgeoisie and the most powerful imperialist giants to employ them as cannon fodder for the next inter-imperialist war on the horizon.

Framing these issues in genuinely classist organizations and the leadership of its Communist Party is the only way to remove the proletariat from the influence of opposing bourgeois forces and lead it to fight for its own specific class interests.

The focus and narrative of the situation in Myanmar in recent years has been on the events of war. Such events are highly complex, due to the variety of formations that oppose the central government, three of which have even established an alliance.

By now, these numerous armed formations collectively control an area of the country far greater than that controlled by the military junta (which calls itself the State Administration Council, or SAC).

In parallel with this war of military formations, another, equally bloody war is taking place; a war about which the international press gives scant reports.

This war is the struggle of Burma’s working class, concentrated in the industrial areas surrounding the former capital Rangoon.

When “free” elections were finally held in 2011, U Thein Sein, a former general and former member of the Military Junta, was elected.

The Junta thus wanted to give itself a semblance of democratic legality. In reality, Thein Sein ushered in a series of pro-development reforms which also sought to engage a proletariat that was intended to be motivated and productive.

The Junta started by authorizing the existence of labor unions for the first time in 50 years.

In 2013, another law introduced minimum wage, then an easing of censorship on the mass media, release of several political prisoners, and even a halt to a large dam and hydropower plant project in the north of the country, a project run by Chinese companies.

Then, the Junta improved Myanmar’s position in ASEAN, even securing the chairmanship in 2014. They also improved relations with the US. Finally, they released Aung San Suu Kyi and admitted her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), the main opposition party, in the next election.

These elections were held in 2015 and, predictably, saw the victory of the NLD.

But even if some had deluded themselves into thinking that the policy inaugurated by Thien Sein would be continued, the state changed its tune.

The NLD quickly narrowed workers’ room for maneuver, registering labor unions became difficult, and in case of disputes the Ministry of Labor sides with the bosses. They used COVID-19 as a pretext to get powers used to intimidate those who protested, and cancelled the two-year review of minimum wage that was scheduled for 2020.

Obviously, they attempted to make it profitable for foreign capital to invest in the country, especially in the mining and garment sectors.

Evidently, they didn’t do this by limiting profits or focusing on the quality of production. Instead, they followed the most convenient and obvious path, built on the backs of the industrial proletariat.

The World Bank supported the government in this endeavor, which led to the government’s passage of a tailor-made law in 2016.

Workers, peasants, and students had no shortage of protests, strikes, and marches. But once it was confirmed that the “democratic” regime could not verify law and order, in 2021 the Junta took back power by launching a coup d’état.

Unfortunately, international media reports focus on the armed struggle. This is a particularly complex picture because of the multiplicity of actors, many of which do not always agree even with each other.

But what matters, and what has basically brought about this unstable situation, is what happens in the clash between the working class and capital.

This is what Le Monde Diplomatique reported in January (Italian edition):

“The situation has worsened since February 2021 and the military coup, but the repression has not dampened the combativeness of the people.

On the contrary.

Since Feb. 6, 2021, the streets of Yangoon, the country’s economic lung and ancient capital, have been lined with large demonstrations.

At the head of the marches are women workers in garment factories. Industrial zones surround the city, and women workers come mainly from the countryside.

A few days later, officials began a general strike.

By the end of the year, some 400,000 workers, including teachers and other civil servants, were on strike, and were soon joined by truck drivers, miners, laborers. […]

The colossal movement largely contributed to an 18% contraction of the country’s economy during the year following the coup.

“But a large proportion of strikers were forced to return to work because the SAC represses public demonstrations.

Union activists sit In the crosshairs.

As of February 26th, sixteen of the most important unions have been declared illegal.

On March 14th, soldiers and policemen killed at least 65 protesters in the Hlaing Tharyar industrial zone, in the suburbs of Yangoon, one of the epicenters of the workers’ struggle.

The next day, SAC proclaimed martial law there, as well as at many other production sites.

On April 15th, some 40 soldiers raided the offices of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar (STUM) and arrested its director, Daw Myo Myo Aye.

Many union leaders and activists are going into hiding or are fleeing abroad in order to avoid arrest.

Meanwhile, the bosses take advantage of the obstacles erected by the SAC to any workers’ mobilization to worsen working conditions and make unions more fragile.

Many companies tear up existing labor contracts and rehire workers on call and for wages below the legal minimum.

On March 16, 2021, factory boss Xing Jia called the police because six workers were disputing the wages they were paid.

Law enforcement kills protesters.”

But in the workplaces the struggle continues, particularly in the export factories scattered in Yangon’s outlying industrial areas, where a section of workers continue to struggle—some even reporting some successes.

To those workers, who risk their lives to defend their living and working conditions, goes the communists’ unfortunately only verbal solidarity.

This situation will not fail to make this young working class experience firsthand how illusory the promises of capitalism are, and how vulnerable achievements can be when they clash with the lust for profit of international capital.

We internationalist communists cannot but note that the tune doesn’t change.

The bourgeoisie can divide and even militarily clash over market competition, over membership in one or another camarilla that sells itself to international capital, as happened in former Burma between the Junta and NLD.

But when it comes to crushing the working class for the usual extortion of profits they are all the same. And if they come to power one day, we have no doubt that this behavior will also inspire the various armed formations of today.

There is only one road left for the proletariat: use this experience to reconnect with the political strand of revolutionary communism. This view is not only necessary for the conquest of power, but also for an effective strategy and organization of the economic struggle.

On January 25th and 26th, the Party’s general meeting took place. It has become a tradition for the past few decades that the last weekends of January, May, and September are set aside for these general meetings. At these meetings, comrades take stock of the study and work of the various working groups of the party.

Both because of the large geographic extent of the Party’s network and the availability of computerized communication, the party has for years held its meetings in a mixed manner. Comrades can either travel to a physical party office or connect online.

Thus, comrades and sympathizers from numerous countries in Europe and beyond were brought together.

The purpose of the Party’s general meetings is to carry out the work according to the method the party gave itself when it was reconstituted in 1951.

The Characteristic Theses state:

“Today, the party registers social phenomena scientifically in order to confirm the fundamental theses of Marxism. It analyses, confronts and comments on recent and contemporary facts, repudiating the doctrinal elaboration tending to found new theories or to indicate the insufficiency of Marxism as an explanation of the phenomena.

The same work, demolition of opportunism and deviationism as accomplished by Lenin (and defined in What is to be Done?) is still at the basis of our party activity thus following the example of militants of past periods of setback of the proletarian movement and of reinforcement of opportunist theories, that found in Marx, Engels, Lenin and in the Italian Left, violent and inflexible enemies. […]

Although small in number and having but few links with the proletarian masses, the party is nevertheless jealously attached to its theoretical tasks which are of prime importance, and because of this true appreciation of its revolutionary duties in the present period, it absolutely refuses to be considered either as a circle of thinkers in search of new truths, or as “renovators” who consider past truths insufficient. […]

In spite of the small number of members which corresponds to the counter-revolutionary conditions, the Party continues its work of proselytism and of oral and written propaganda, it considers the writing and the distribution of its press as its principal activity in the actual phase, being one of the most effective means (in a situation where there are few and far between) to show the masses the political line they are to follow and diffuse systematically and more widely the principles of the revolutionary movement.”

On Saturday the 25th, the meeting was initially reserved for discussion of organizational issues, as well as an update on the work of the comrades.

Then the review of ongoing study began, with detailed expositions of reports.

This session was open both to sympathizers and those readers who specifically requested to attend.

In this issue, we will begin to summarize those reports.

The Civil War in Germany

The second chapter of the “Foreword to the Study on the Civil War in Germany (1918–1923),” titled “The Birth and Parallel Growth of the Second Reich and German Social Democracy: The Roots of the SPD’s Betrayal of the Working Class,” was presented.

The first section, “The German Bourgeoisie Renounced National Unification Under Its Aegis,” and the beginning of the second section, “The Significance of the Franco-Prussian War for Marxists—Last Progressive Bourgeois War in Western Europe,” were read.

The first section describes how the German bourgeoisie, which faced defeat in 1848 and was terrified by the proletarian threat, renounced the unification of the German state under its own banner. Instead, they took refuge under the protective wing of the Prussian militarism of the Junkers, leaving to them the task of national unification.

What made German unification unique was that it did not originate from a popular uprising led by the bourgeoisie—like in England, the United States, and France—but was carried out from above, by monarchical power.

Consequently, Germany witnessed a situation with a character unlike that of other modern nation-states.

There was a stunted unification, which lacked real national character, whereby the Prussian latifundist military aristocracy and bourgeoisie would stand side by side in the inevitable transition from feudalism to capitalism via a continuous compromise between the two sides.

Despite the fact that the German proletariat was very ideologically mature and strongly combative, the lack of a unification that had true national characteristics had significant consequences because it adversely affected the maturation of the proletarian struggle.

The second section was devoted to the Franco-Prussian War. It dwelt on several aspects, one of which—presented at this general meeting—pertained to the significance of this war for Marxists.

In our doctrine, this war marks the watershed between the common struggle of the bourgeoisie and proletariat against feudal regimes, and the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

The wars that took place in Europe up to 1870 are considered by Marxists to be progressive wars because they took place in an area and epoch when the cycle of bourgeois revolution was not yet closed. Thus it was still possible that, by participating in the bourgeois uprisings, the struggle of the proletariat would be driven to its ultimate end.

After this point, nationalism loses its progressive connotation and becomes reactionary.

Thus the direct confrontation of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie began. The proletarian confrontation seeks to destroy the bourgeoisie’s state and the bourgeoisie’s economic and social system in order to move to a higher stage of existence: communism.

The Middle East and the Conflict in Syria: The Chessboard of the Great Imperialist Powers

Syria is currently at the center of a confrontation between the major imperialist states. This conflict has emerged from the now fully-parasitic phase of the capitalist mode of production which followed World War I.

In this work, we trace the clashes that have occurred in the race for world markets between different states since World War I up to the current situation in the Middle East. The Middle East is a strategic region rich in raw materials that are indispensable to the capitalist monster in its ineluctable and nearly-mechanical race to produce goods and profits.

In this race, the ruling classes are more and more openly set against the workers, who are the only force capable of arresting the current criminal drift.

The tempo of wars, destruction, attacks on civilian populations, and deterioration of workers’ living conditions to extract maximum profit is accelerating and can only result in a third world war.

The old imperialist states that dominated in the early 20th century—England, France, and Germany—are now secondary imperialist powers. Russia has been in a similar situation since the late 1990s.

The only superpowers are the United States and China.

The former is in decline and uses military force while the latter relies mainly on its economic power. Regardless, both are slowly but surely preparing for physical confrontation.

Syria shows that all the small and medium sized states in the region—including Russia—are nothing more than pawns in the game of the two great powers. The only goal that these two have at the moment is to use the terror and chaos of bombing and murderous destruction to prevent a popular uprising. They especially want to prevent the masses of workers from organizing and paralyzing the gears of the great capitalist machine.

Never mind the chaos and suffering caused, never mind the need to use dictatorships, jihadist terrorists, religion in all its forms, to make a temporary pact with yesterday’s enemy, because the only enemy that frightens the capitalist monster must be defeated!

American, European, Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and jihadist leaders all agree on one point: to maintain the oppression of the proletariat. They will never forget what really drives them: the struggle for world markets and the accumulation of their capital, endangered by the menace of an economic crisis!

The United States brands the planet with its military might. Meanwhile, China quietly advances its economic pawns around the world, just as quietly arming itself to the teeth.

History of the Australian Labor Movement

This history continued by detailing the early period of working-class formation in Australia. This part describes how the early Australian labor movement was forged in the crucible of the gold rush and the nascent proletarian class struggle.

After its discovery in 1851, gold encouraged a vast influx of immigrants and capital, which transformed Australia from a penal colony with relatively good working conditions into a hotbed of capitalist development. The gold deposits not only enriched the colony, they also imbued it with a young proletarian spirit. Agitators and seasoned radicals—many of whom carried with them the legacy of British Chartism—merged with the “currency lads” (the first generation of natives) in a solidarity that had been absent in the penal colony period.

In a land where democratic ideals had begun to blossom as early as the 1820s, the gold rush further accelerated the awakening of a labor consciousness—though it was not yet fully proletarian.

With the advent of the gold rush, the population grew from 34,000 in 1820 to over a million in the 1860s. Although many of the arrivals were not suitable for mining, the lure of gold diminished the supply of labor. Thus, many felt entitled to demand a progressive democracy. However, the squatters (largely wool ranchers), with their aristocratic leanings and reactionary ideals, tried to preserve an outdated dominance and did not take kindly to the new wealth and democratic fervor of the prospectors. In this context, Eureka Stockade fostered this antagonism.

In their uprising, prospectors violently challenged both the colonial bureaucracy and the entrenched aristocracy of wealthy squatters and settlers. Although the revolt was suppressed, it left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness and helped galvanize the labor movement into the 1890s. However, the defeat of the Eureka Rebellion was inevitable.

The workers were reduced to obedience and the urban bourgeoisie began to consolidate its power. The bourgeoisie marginalized colonial bureaucrats and landowners so that they could establish themselves as the ruling class.

Parallel to these overt rebellions, the first labor unrest developed, especially in the construction industry. Inspired by British trade unionism and Chartist ideas, workers fought for the eight-hour day. In Sydney and Melbourne, stonemasons and skilled artisans organized and obtained their demands. This was the first such movement, and it also served as an example for British and American workers in their struggles 20 years later.

In this way, the gold rush, which contributed to the formation of the workers’ self-identity, not only reshaped Australia’s economic-penal landscape, but also set in motion an agitation that would not let up in the following decades. Hence, it was a prelude to the rise of manufacturing, the great strikes, and the political growth of the labor movement which will be developed in the next section.

After the international overproduction crisis of 2008-2009—the first post-war deflationary crisis—there was a vigorous recovery in the United States thanks to decisive intervention by the State and the Federal Reserve with its quantitative easing. In China, the state relaunched the production system thanks to large infrastructure projects. This recovery was followed in the United States and China by a recession in 2015-2016, which for China resulted in a large capital flight and a currency haemorrhage.

There was an economic recovery on an international scale for two years, from 2017 to 2018, but this was again followed by a recession in 2019-2020, aggravated by the COVID epidemic.

The vigorous recovery that followed in 2021, after the sharp increase in demand on the world’s manufacturing systems due to just-in-time economic practices that reduced stocks to the bare minimum, led to high inflation in most countries, except for Japan.

This inflation has been exacerbated by years of under investment in the energy and raw materials sectors. The large energy and industrial monopolies have taken advantage of this to increase their profits by raising prices and compensating for the drop in consumption by shifting production to high-end products.

And, of course, there is speculation on raw materials, producers of which took advantage of this gain by pushing up prices.

The initial response of the central banks to the 2019-2020 recession was to flood the banks with liquidity in order to enable them to support businesses and avoid a general collapse. Then, with the return of inflation, they discontinued their policy of quantitative easing and gradually increased interest rates to make money expensive and put pressure on demand to reduce inflation. This led to a real decline in inflation towards the 2% target.

Despite the general chaos, this dying system of production can resist titanic shocks; in particular the devaluation of 20-30% of trillions of dollars in bonds in the accounts of banks and various financial institutions.

This devaluation will certainly lead to sensational bank failures in the United States and Switzerland. And the sharp rise in interest rates, following the reckless economic policy of the short-lived British Prime Minister Liz Truss, very nearly bankrupted British pension funds.

Despite various economic recoveries—particularly that of 2017-2018—the manufacturing systems of the major imperialist countries will not return to the peak reached in 2007 and there is little chance that a new cycle of capital accumulation will exceed that level. Instead, we are heading towards a trade war, which will then lead to a third world war.

Keeping this dying monster on its feet comes at the cost of considerable debt, not only for businesses and families, but also for governments and public services. Global capitalism has entered a spiral of indebtedness, economic stagnation, and endless chaos. This is reflected on a global scale in political and military crises: the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine, the massacres in the Middle East at the hands of the Israeli state with the support of the United States and the complicity of various imperialist powers, the looting and massacre in Sudan by two armed factions supported by imperialist states, and so on.

Now let’s turn to the current situation, based on the usual statistical data.

This may not always be possible, because the bourgeoisie, sensing that everything is slipping through their fingers, is less and less interested in statistical work. They are particularly less interested in the calculation of industrial production indices and prefer GDP, which is much vaguer and more questionable.

Similarly, the statistical study of the indebtedness of governments, non-financial corporations, and households is not always rigorously conducted.

We have therefore made use of the work of researchers who have conducted an exhaustive investigation of indebtedness to establish a complete time series of debt. This work is made available by the Bank for International Settlements, whereas the admirable statistical work of the United Nations has been reduced to a mere trifle.

For most of the data we now must turn to the OECD.

Inflation

The sharp slowdown in inflation is very evident: in the United States, after reaching a peak of 9.1% in June 2022, it is now between 2.4% and 2.7%. In Europe it is around 2%. In France it has dropped to 1.3%, as it has in Italy, although in Italy it is on the rise again, given that since October 2023 it has been around 0.8%.In Germany, inflation is around 2%.

In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, inflation is still high, at 3.5% in November 2024, much to the discomfort of the British proletariat.

Surprisingly, China, which was experiencing a period of deflation, sees inflation hovering around 4%.

In view of the decline in inflation and the economic difficulties of the Eurozone, since June 2024 the ECB has eased its monetary policy by lowering the deposit rate four times by a quarter of a point, bringing it to 3% and the refinancing rate to 3.15%.

The Federal Reserve has cut rates only once in the same period, and with Trump’s more lax economic policy, there is little chance of another rate cut in the short term.

The international recession and the trade war that is likely to break out will only exert deflationary pressure, which will lead to a drop in prices and the ruin of many industrial and commercial companies. Then, it will affect the banks with an increase in non-payments.

International Trade

International trade is a good indicator of the economic situation of world capitalism. This is because in order to accumulate capital, it must first realize its value in the form of commodities on the world market. To get a more accurate picture of the situation, we have expressed world trade in 2019 dollars, taking into account wholesale price inflation.

If we look at the export curves of the main imperialist countries, we see a strong recovery in 2021 after the drop in exports in 2020, followed by an equally spectacular drop in 2022 and weak growth in 2023.

Looking at our two tables, if we compare the volume of exports in 2023 with that of 2018, the year in which exports peaked, we see negative growth for all countries except China: -23.1% for Japan, -20.8% for the United Kingdom, -17.4% for Korea, -13.7% for Germany, -11.6% for France, etc.

The best performance is that of Italy, with a small -2.6%, while the rest of the world is in crisis. The big winner, however, is China, with a surplus of 8.1% compared to 2018.

But all these years, despite the appearance of economic recovery in 2021 and 2022, are years of recession, as they remain below the 2018 level.

This conclusion is confirmed by the imports table, where all countries—except Italy with a small +0.5%—are clearly in negative territory, including China with -5.1%, which clearly confirms a recession. If imports are falling, it means that domestic demand has decreased and therefore there is a recession.

Ultimately, the two years of economic recovery—2021 and 2022—have not managed to erase the recession of 2019-2020.

In terms of exports, China is in the lead, followed by the United States and Germany.

On the other hand, in terms of imports, the United States is at the highest level, so if Trump imposes tariffs, as he promises to do, we will see a global recession and a trade war. And this situation is completed by the fact that the US trade deficit is huge: $830 billion, which is more than the total exports of Japan, the fourth largest exporter in the world.

The debt of the main imperialist countries

We report two types of debt, that of the non-financial private sector and that of the public sector.

For the non-financial private sector debt, we used the very comprehensive data provided by researchers in the field, available on the BIS website.

It appears that, with two exceptions—Japan and Spain—the overall private sector debt has increased sharply. Comparing 2024 levels of debt with those of 2019, it was +39.4% for China, +26% for the United States, +18% for Germany, +14% for France, +11.7% for Korea, and so on. The average increase in the Eurozone’s debt over the last four years was 11.3%. For Italy, the overall increase was only 1.5%.

As for Russia, its debt has increased by 23%, which can be explained by the war effort that has and is challenging its economy.

One country that stands out is Japan, which, after increasing its debt by 13.5% in 2020, then steadily reduced it, achieving an overall reduction of 20.2% in four years, compared to 2019, which represents a repayment of $1,725 billion in four years!

It’s hard to believe, except when you consider that Japanese monopolies produce part of their output in South-East Asia, where wages are very low and social security contributions almost non-existent, thus making huge excess profits.

The other country that has reduced its private debt compared to 2019 is Spain, which saw a reduction of 4.5%. This is equal to a repayment of $125 billion in four years.

In conclusion, after the great international crisis of 2008-2009, virtually all countries have become heavily indebted, and this indebtedness is only increasing.

It is at this price that the world bourgeoisie has so far managed to maintain its mode of production and avoid the great crisis of overproduction that will ruin it and bring the return of the class struggle, from which it will not emerge.

Industrial Production

For the sake of simplicity, we have summarized the industrial production increases of the main imperialist countries in the table below.

China and Russia have not been included due to the lack of data on their industrial production. However, we know that the situation in Russia is particularly serious, with an official inflation rate of 9%, but in reality, double that, and a discount rate of 21%. This prevents any investment and makes it difficult to borrow or renew debt, which means that many Russian companies are on the verge of bankruptcy.

As for China, we will examine physical data, such as electricity production.

In this table we have added three younger capitalisms: Poland, Brazil and Turkey.

What emerges from this table is that after the strong recovery in 2021, which followed the recession of 2019-2020, production is decreasing in all the old imperialist countries.

The United States is something of an exception, with an increase of +3.4% in 2022, followed by a negligible 0.2% in 2023 and then -0.1% in 2024. This means that if we compare the production achieved in 2024 with that of 2018, the peak year, we get -0.4%. However, compared to 2007 the increase remains positive, equal to 1.3%, thanks to oil and gas production, which has replaced much of the Russian gas in Europe.

But if we look at the index of manufacturing production, the result is quite different: for 2023, compared to 2007, the figure is -7.5%, and 2024, which marks a recession compared to 2023, will be even worse.

Thus, the United States, despite the huge investments made to relocate production and develop new technologies, is not doing any better than the old European countries, which are all in recession: growth in 2024 range from -0.5% in France to -4.4% in Germany, with the sole exceptions of Spain and Portugal, with +1.3% and +1.5% respectively.

But if we compare 2018 and 2024, they are all in the red with negative increases, if we look at the last column, ranging from -21.3% in Japan to -8.8% in the United Kingdom.

The only exceptions to this gloomy picture are Turkey and Poland, which are younger capitalist countries, and the imperialist country of Belgium (Flanders).

What emerges for the old imperialist countries is a situation of crisis and recession. This has been confirmed by the record level of business failures affecting the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France, with a loss of 65,000 companies for 2024, a record!

Italy remains relatively unscathed.

The United States, like all the old imperialist countries, is on the road to decline. This is reflected in a relative decrease in its industrial weight and its exports in world trade. In 2000, US exports still accounted for 15% of world exports; today they have fallen to less than 11%.

Furthermore, American imperialism is afflicted by two major problems: a monstrous federal budget deficit, which in 2024 will exceed $1.8 trillion, and a record trade deficit.

Since 1976, the US trade balance has been in persistent deficit, reaching $1,202 billion in 2024. This trade deficit is offset by capital inflows, but this has fuelled concerns about economic dependence on foreign investment. The trade deficit translates into a monstrous balance of payments deficit. Hence Trump’s determination to tax imports at all costs and cut federal government spending.

So far, the United States has not been able to reduce its trade deficit despite the increase in taxes on imported Chinese goods, because the deficit, as in France, is structural: the fall in the rate of profit has led monopolies to relocate part of their production to China, where labour is cheap, and the infrastructure offered by China is perfectly adequate.

This situation led to a law that reduced inflation in order to relocate industry and the heavy investment in infrastructures that had been neglected for years. But all these investments and tax incentives made under the Biden administration are expensive and are worsening the deficit and public debt.

It is in this context that Trump wants to deregulate everything and impose significant tariffs on the entire import market, while cutting public spending that does not generate future profits.

This is good news for us. The unbridled use of import duties can only trigger a trade war and deregulation will accelerate the chaos.

We are on the road to another 1929 and the return of class warfare!

In our journal Comunismo we have briefly outlined the history of the Indian region up the first half of the nineteenth century. We discussed the most significant moments, particularly during the early colonial period. We referred both to the texts of Marx and Engels, and we supported our work via recent academic studies.

In this report, we aim to explore the impact of colonial rule in India on the British economy.

In fact, trade with colonial India contributed greatly to the Empire’s economy, fostering development of agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and, more generally, all British industry.

Marx and Engels pointed out that Britain’s role as an industrial and commercial power originated with early industrialization and thus with the intensive exploitation of the British proletariat. At the same time, colonial trade also brought considerable benefits to the British bourgeoisie.

Through the appropriation of local wealth, facilitated by both coercion and unequal exchange agreements, the British bourgeoisie consolidated its economic position.

However, it is crucial to remember that the wealth derived from these practices still takes the form of value.

This was surplus value, gained from exploiting the underpaid labor of the subjugated proletarian masses and by forcing the propertied classes in India to enter into unfavorable trade agreements.

The British economy benefited extensively from draining value from the colonies, a process that required less effort than those needed to earn equivalent profits domestically.

This drain of value also helped maintain relative social peace between the English bourgeoisie and proletariat.

In fact, the empire was able to shift the cost of its internal stability onto the colonies, ensuring social peace at home. This allowed the English proletariat—the first to challenge the bourgeoisie with independent class organizations—to enjoy some improvement in their conditions, as well as the growth of the working-class aristocracy and the so-called “middle class.”

Moreover, it should be noted that Britain, which often ran a trade deficit, was able to balance this chronic situation precisely because of the massive drain of value from the Indian subcontinent.

But let us summarize some key points of colonial history, so we can see the turning points more clearly.

The Battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the moment when the British took control of Bengal, wresting it from the French.

The main difference between French and British colonialism was the private character of the East India Company.

While France managed the colonies through the central government and restricted colonial shipping based on national finances, Britain left the East India Company a monopoly on overseas trade.

This system allowed Britain to finance expansion campaigns without drawing on the state coffers;

The Company incurred costs by drawing directly from the resources of local people.

The Company, moreover, so deeply embodied the spirit of privatism that it even granted its employees permission to trade on their own account in overseas regions.

In Comunismo No. 94 we already examined the role of the East India Company, known for “indiscriminate looting” and “extorting money from members of the Mughal ruling class,” actions that symbolize the predatory nature of British colonialism in India.

The East India Company’s voracity reached such levels that the British government had to intervene in order to safeguard its dominance over the region.

In 1793, the Permanent Settlement Act formalized the division of revenue between the Company and landowners (zamindars).

Later, the Charter Act of 1813 attempted to open the market through a licensing system, while the Charter Act of 1833 ended the Company’s monopoly. This marked the beginning of the official colonization of India.

Finally, in 1857, following the violent Sepoy Revolt described in Comunismo 97, the Crown took direct control of the subcontinent in order to protect its strategic interests.

On the end of the Company, it is worth quoting directly from Karl Marx, who wrote an effective epitaph for the East India Company:

“They do not die like heroes, it must be confessed; but they have bartered away their power, as they crept into it, bit by bit, in a business-like way. In fact, their whole history is one of buying and selling. They commenced by buying sovereignty, and they have ended by selling it. They have fallen, not in a pitched battle, but under the hammer of the auctioneer, into the hands of the highest bidder. […]

In 1858, after having solemnly pledged themselves to the Court of Proprietors to resist by all constitutional “means” the transfer to the Crown of the governing powers of the a East India Company, they have accepted that principle, and agreed to a bill penal as regards the Company, but securing emolument and place to its principal Directors. If the death of a hero, as Schiller says, resembles the setting of the sun, the exit of the East India Company bears more likeness to the compromise effected by a bankrupt with his creditors.” _{(New York Daily Tribune, July 24, 1858)}

Beyond the East India Company, it is necessary to analyze the process of transformation of the Indian market that began with the Charter Act of 1813.

This reform marked a real transformation for India.

In fact, starting in 1813 the destruction of the local manufacturing system took place.

After all, “[h]owever changing the political aspect of India’s past must appear, its social condition has remained unaltered since its remotest antiquity, until the first decennium of the 19th century. The hand-loom and the spinning-wheel, producing their regular myriads of spinners and weavers, were the pivots of the structure of that society. From immemorial times, Europe received the admirable textures of Indian labor, sending in return for them her precious metals, and furnishing thereby his material to the goldsmith, that indispensable member of Indian society, whose love of finery is so great that even the lowest class, those who go about nearly naked, have commonly a pair of golden ear-rings and a gold ornament of some kind hung round their necks. Rings on the fingers and toes have also been common. Women as well as children frequently wore massive bracelets and anklets of gold or silver, and statuettes of divinities in gold and silver were met with in the households. It was the British intruder who broke up the Indian hand-loom and destroyed the spinning-wheel. England began with driving the Indian cottons from the European market; it then introduced twist into Hindostan, and in the end inundated the very mother country of cotton with cottons. From 1818 to 1836 the export of twist from Great Britain to India rose in the proportion of 1 to 5,200. In 1824 the export of British muslins to India hardly amounted to 1,000,000 yards, while in 1837 it surpassed 64,000,000 of yards. But at the same time the population of Dacca decreased from 150,000 inhabitants to 20,000. This decline of Indian towns celebrated for their fabrics was by no means the worst consequence. British steam and science uprooted, over the whole surface of Hindostan, the union between agriculture and manufacturing industry.” _{(Karl Marx, New York Daily Tribune, June 25 1853)}

The liberalization of the Indian market reduced the power of the East India Company. In addition, liberalization also accelerated the process by which India was transformed from a historically manufactures-exporting region to a manufactures-importing and commodities-exporting region.

We find this trend well summarized in the following table.

Export shares of the global manufacturing sector (Bora, Kabeer).

We need to better define how the system of value drainage from India worked and how it evolved from the period of the India Company to the properly colonial period.

Beginning with the Charter Act of 1833, as the East India Company’s stranglehold on the region loosened, Indian exports to Britain declined dramatically while imports grew significantly.

From 1857, with the complete liberalization of trade in India, without passing through British ports, exports departed directly from India to countries with which the British Empire maintained a trade deficit.

The British government required foreign importers of Indian commodities to make transactions only after converting foreign currencies—in gold or silver—into special bills called special Council bills issued in London.

This system ensured there were sufficient gold deposits to cover the issuance of this paper money.

So Indian commodity producers were paid with these special bills by going to a colonial office in charge in the various locations in India, which converted these bills into rupees.

The conversion was not for the amount of the value of one’s own goods, but for a value corresponding to about one-third of the taxes collected in the region. In fact the conversion of Council bills into rupees depended on the colonial budget.

In other words, instead of paying for Indian goods out of their own pockets, British traders “bought” them from farmers and weavers with money taken from them through the taxation system.

Gold, in the form of foreign currencies, was exchanged for Council bills and remained in England.

It is estimated that the drain of value obtained through this system from 1765 to 1938 amounted to about $44.6 trillion.

This is how unequal exchange technically worked in India.

Furthermore, precisely because of value drainage, Indian producers found themselves increasingly in debt. Thus, another major source of wealth was from interest on loans, which to varying degrees was levied on a largely indebted population.

To this value-draining system, one must add the simple superprofit obtained because “the rate of profit is higher there due to backward development, and likewise the exploitation of labour, because of the use of slaves, coolies, etc.” ^{(Capital, Vol. III, Chapter 14, Part V)}

In the second half of the 19th century, India finally transformed from an exporter to an importer of manufactured goods. Thus, it became an exporter of cheap raw materials and an absorber of British exports.

By 1870 an estimated one-fifth of Britain’s exports were going to India, which made it the leading importer of British goods.

From a Marxist point of view, it would be insignificant to try to trace the origin of every single penny obtained through colonial trade in India to understand how the British bourgeoisie benefited.

Such a study would not only be difficult to implement but would also prove to be of little use.

Indeed, it would not allow us to understand its reality through the lens of class struggle.

Instead, the Marxist approach ignores individual details and focuses instead on collective dynamics. This is somewhat similar to how Gibbs approached statistical thermodynamics, which demonstrated the futility of studying the behavior of each individual particle in order to understand the general laws of matter.

Of considerable interest, is the very recent study by academic Kabeer Bora _{(The Drain Gain)}:

An investigation into how colonial drain helped keep British economy buoyant) which analyzes the role of British domination of India as a counter-trend to the fall of the British rate of profit.

Before going into the merits of what this study finds, we find it necessary to reiterate in the most general terms the counteracting effects to the fall in the rate of profit given by British colonialism.

The more extensive and populated the economic domain, the greater the unit of operation and proportionately lower the costs of production. The greater the degree of specialization and division of labor may be, the greater the relocation of industries to places where natural conditions are more favorable, and the greater the productivity of labor.

“Due to mass production British industry, which was the workshop of the world down to the 1870s, could carry through a division of labour, increases in productivity and cost savings to a level that was unattainable elsewhere.” _{(Henryk Grossman, Law of the Accumulation and Breakdown)}

We know that the rate of profit is an inverse function of the price of raw material, and we have seen how the British colonial system systematically underpaid for goods imported from India under the value drain system as India became a commodity exporting country.

A classic thesis of our school to assert that world trade affects the rate of profit. In Chapter 4 of Capital Vol III, Marx reproaches Ricardo for misjudging this influence.

Elsewhere Marx says that Ricardo “does not see how enormously important it is for England, for example, to secure cheaper raw materials for industry, and that in this case, as I have shown previously, the rate of profit rises although prices fall, whereas in the reverse case, with rising prices, the rate of profit can fall, even if wages remain the same in both cases.” _{(Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 16, Section II, Part b)}

Just as within capitalism in general, entrepreneurs with an advanced technique above the social average who sell their goods at average social prices will achieve superprofits, at the expense of those entrepreneurs whose technique remains below the social average. In the same way, countries with high technological development will achieve superprofits at the expense of those countries whose technical and economic development is backward.

However, this should not lead one to believe—as Rosa Luxemburg did—that the industrialization of the primary sector in the colonies constitutes “the beginning of the end” of the capitalist mode of production.

Of course, such a claim has now been refuted by history.

However, in order to anticipate some useful arguments for understanding the post-colonial phase, it seems useful to us to quote Grossmann again “if an agricultural country switches to the production of textile fabrics that it had hitherto imported from Europe, then European export of this article will decrease. However, the export of cotton thread, machine tools, dyes will also grow. Alongside these the export of numerous other articles, for which there was no need before and which develop as the purchasing power of the new countries increases:

all complex machines, pulp machine production, printing machines, …”

Now that we’ve established the general terms of this issue, we can analyze Kabeer Bora’s results.

For obvious reasons, we cannot go into detail about the methodology he used to analyze the rate of profit and value drain from India to Britain. We will not be going into how this was calculated or statistically validated. Instead, we are interested in grasping the meaning of this analysis.

In the figure below we can visualize the trend of the British rate of profit and value drain.

Using the statistical tool of regression analysis, Kabeer Bora reveals that by increasing the rate of profit extracted from India by 1% would allow a 9% increase in the British rate of profit.

The leverage colonialism allowed could not have been better explicated.

The following text was written at a decisive moment for the Italian labor movement:

Two months earlier, tens of thousands of workers, the “famous” 40,000—mostly managers and white-collar workers—had marched through the streets of Turin, effectively ending a season marked by impressive struggles.

The proletariat of the “Great Country” thus recorded one of the greatest defeats of the 20th century. Conversely, the bosses and their state could soar on the wings of enthusiasm as they carry on, annihilating the gains achieved by the workers in the previous two decades.

It was necessary to draw up a balance sheet. As usual, the Party promptly went to work. We went in search of the source of the red thread that binds the glorious past, moving from the miserable present to the radiant future.

But a balance sheet of what?

First, it was necessary to investigate the situation within the main counterrevolutionary agent within the working class: Tricolor unionism.

The stinging defeat would surely have brought back all the coryphaei of opportunism. At the forefront of this were those who deny the importance of defending the immediate economic conditions of the workers by trade unions. This is why in the first part of the text the Party repeated the principles of the work of communists within the trade unions: theses that distinguish and differentiate us from all other, more-or-less “extremist” rabble.

1) “Our political objectives do not entail the overcoming of the economic struggle, but, indeed, its maximum extension and its bursting into revolutionary struggle”

2) “Revolutionary communist consciousness already exists, impersonally and objective, in the historical theory, methods, and traditions of Marxism [and] can not be acquired spontaneously by the proletariat through its defensive struggle.”

3) “[E]conomic struggle in itself does not affect the causes that generate exploitation and cannot break out of the framework of the bourgeois social order.”

It was already necessary to derive tactics from these rock-hard principles. In order to properly elaborate upon this, a historical peak into the changes that the relationship between the trade unions have undergone—both in the democratic and fascist forms—was necessary.

This is the topic of the second installment of the article. The argument will be explored more deeply in a text to appear in Comunismo No. 10, The Party Facing the Trade Unions in the Era of Imperialism.

Thus, we sketch the thesis that unionism follows a parabolic trajectory, dividing it into three major periods:

1) Prohibition; 2) Tolerance; 3) Subjection

In this second installment of the column, we offer our readers a work to carefully ponder so as to properly approach the union question. This is a text that concludes with a warning that will always ring like a hammering bell against opportunist immediatism:

“Those who say they want to bring down this infamous regime must therefore be consistent and accept the instruments necessary for this purpose.”

The recent school shooting in Sweden—the first since 1961—is yet another tragic manifestation of the social decay of Swedish capitalist society.

Ten people were killed by a lone gunman, a social outcast abandoned by the state, whose social benefits had been revoked, leaving him to fend for himself in a hostile system.

In an act of desperate alienation, he turned his frustration into a massacre before taking his own life.

Yet the bourgeoisie and its lackeys scramble to obscure the reality of this event.

The media downplay the incident with empty rhetoric:

Calls to ban AR-10s and AR-15s, despite the fact that these weapons were not used in the attack; demands to improve mental healthcare, coming from the same state that has systematically dismantled it.

Appeals to end racism, even though it is unclear whether the attacker specifically targeted migrants.

The ruling class, feigning concern, has announced a grand “one-billion-krona investment” in mental health services—an illusion, since the figure does not differ from previous allocations (but is presented as if it were), now further eroded by inflation.

This is not an increase in spending, but a calculated reduction, wrapped in the deceptive packaging of reform.

The bourgeoisie has long mastered this trick, applying it to education, healthcare, and now mental health—presenting the decline of social services as progress.

This attack is not an isolated tragedy, but a symptom of a decaying mode of production.

Sweden, once held up as a model of capitalist welfare, is now seeing its social fabric unravel.

More than 30 explosions rocked Stockholm in January 2025 alone; the streets are witnessing an escalating war between criminal elements born of economic desperation, and now, public attacks against numerous unsuspecting citizens have entered the scene.

The bourgeois state, unable to address the root cause—capitalist exploitation—offers nothing but illusions and repression.

The crisis is worsening.

The degeneration of the welfare state is not a policy failure, nor the result of mismanagement:

It is simply the inevitable course of capitalism.

Only the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode of production can put an end to the misery, alienation, exploitation, and senseless violence it generates.

The Romanian Bourgeoisie’s “Solution”

The housing question has caught the eye of some Romanian politicians, who are poised to transform it into a new tool of exploitation—lulling both the proletariat and middle classes into futile illusions.

The most well-known proposal from the Romanian capitalist class is the so-called “Simion Plan,” whose namesake is George Simion, the far-right presidential candidate.

He asserts that “Romanians must have their own home” and proposes constructing up to one million (sic) dwellings. Prices would start at 35,000 euros for a two-room, 50-square-meter apartment.

These homes would be built outside major cities, accompanied by the accompanying necessary infrastructure: kindergartens, schools, shopping centers, pharmacies, and sports centers.

The plan also includes constructing roads with at least four lanes in these areas.

To finance these homes, the plan lays out that:

“In addition to the option of paying with personal funds, financing will be provided through a special program exclusively for these apartments, offered directly with zero interest for buyers, for a period of 10 to 25 years, depending on demand.”

Under the plan, a 50–55 square meter apartment would require a down payment of 1,000 euros and a fixed monthly installment of 120 euros for 25 years. This means that the final price remains the same as the initial one, regardless of inflation.

In contrast, a similar two-bedroom apartment in Bucharest currently costs between 75,000 and 120,000 euros, averaging about 1,770 euros per square meter.

In Cluj-Napoca, the price of a two-bedroom apartment would increase to 280,000 euros—roughly 3,000 euros per square meter.

Naturally, the finite number of homes will require specific conditions for their sale:

“Eligibility will be based on factors such as age, number of children, number of properties owned (none, one, or two or more), marital status, etc.”

Even those who own multiple properties might be eligible for such a “generous” offer!

As for who will build these homes, Simion and his party (AUR) seem to have all the details figured out.

He contends that the state will try to attract investors by providing the land and permits, whilst offering a “modest profit” to the capitalists who construct these apartments.

Simion adds, of course, that we live in a “free market,” so no capitalist will be forced to participate—only those willing to accept a below-average profit margin will take part.

“In this program the land is paid for by the state. We don’t give free money, we don’t give free houses, but we are offering them at the production cost plus a lower profit rate for those who will build them.”

Naturally, if capitalists are not compensated in one way or another by the state for selling these homes at a lower-than-average profit margin, they will simply invest their capital elsewhere.

We know from Engels that “in the case of commodities with a long period of wear, the possibility arises of selling their use value piecemeal and each time for a definite period, that is to say, to let it out.

The piecemeal sale therefore realizes the exchange value only gradually. As a compensation for his renouncing the immediate repayment of the capital advanced and the profit earned on it, the seller receives an increased price, interest, whose rate is determined by the laws of political economy and not by any means in an arbitrary fashion.” _{(Engels, The Housing Question)}

Thus, even for the capital invested in constructing these apartments—which will only gradually appreciate as the exchange value of the homes is realized—the capitalist should be compensated through interest.

“But no,” Simion asserts, this will not happen, because a “zero-interest loan has been established.”

Let’s listen to Engels once more:

“Nothing is therefore easier for Proudhon than to issue a decree—as soon as he has the power to do so—reducing the rate of interest to one per cent.

And if all the other social conditions remained as they were, then indeed this Proudhonist decree would exist on paper only.

The rate of interest will continue to be governed by the economic laws to which it is subject today, despite all decrees. Persons possessing credit will continue to borrow money at two, three, four and more per cent, according to circumstances, just as much as before, and the only difference will be that the financiers will be very careful to advance money only to persons from whom no subsequent court proceedings might be expected.

Moreover this great plan to deprive capital of its “productivity” is as old as the hills; it is as old as-the usury laws which aimed at nothing else but limiting the rate of interest, and which have since been abolished everywhere because in practice they were continually broken or circumvented, and the state was compelled to admit its impotence against the laws of social production.” _{(Engels, The Housing Question)}

To this we must add that since the buyers would pay for these houses over a period of 25 years, they would be sold with a loan.

Hence, the state would have to compensate the banks which provide these zero percent interest loans.

As far as the future owners of these houses are concerned, as the infrastructure near the flats is developed, the land rent (which constitutes a large part of the rent paid for a house or flat) will increase accordingly. As a result, these new homeowners could profit immensely by renting them out or reselling them.

Naturally, the capitalist class (and we know that the bourgeois state is nothing more than a committee managing the common affairs of the entire bourgeoisie) will only choose to invest in low-profit sectors if they foresee a long-term benefit as a class.

However, since this is only the outline of a plan—lacking crucial details and likely never to be implemented—a complete analysis of the program is not currently possible.

Having examined these absurdities, we must nevertheless prove that this very limited “solution” would in no way resolve the housing issue.

This project wouldn’t even come close to meeting the current demand for housing.

The very limitation on the number of apartments to be built (capped at one million) clearly demonstrates how inadequate this project is.

Moreover, Simion fails to mention any plans to improve the infrastructure of slums and degraded urban areas. Building homes outside of urban centers will not prevent the housing shortage from reemerging in these new communities, once people move there to find work in services such as shopping centers, sports centers, hospitals, and newly constructed schools.

As for Simion’s slogan:

“every Romanian should have his own home”—should the proletariat embrace it as a means of improving workers’ conditions?

In reality, this slogan isn’t an original stroke of genius by Simion; rather, it reflects the class interests of the petty bourgeoisie, as exemplified long ago by Proudhon.

Our utopian, together with his disciples, decried the plight of workers and the petty bourgeoisie who did not own their own home.

This is a condition we see as a regression to pre-capitalist production methods, in which the producer owned his home and even some tools or a small plot of land.

The worsening situation for small producers—after being expropriated and subsequently crowded into factories and working-class neighborhoods with deplorable living and working conditions—was viewed as a detrimental outcome of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism.

Thus, a plan aimed at restoring pre-capitalist conditions would be nothing short of a reactionary attempt.

The Proletarian Solution to the Housing Question

Capitalism did not develop by turning every worker into a homeowner. Instead, it disowned petty-producers of their property, converting them into proletarians.

Proletarians, in turn, are condemned to live precisely where capital dictates.

If all workers were to own their homes, their redeployment would be severely checked.

Capital induces the movement of workers to move from one location to another in search of employment where demand is highest. It encourages highly-educated young people to relocate to cities where their skills are more in demand.

Wherever capital goes in its accumulation process, workers are driven to follow it.

Yet it is precisely this dynamic that liberated the pre-capitalist small producer from the stagnation and misery of village life. Free from personal servitude to a lord, he was compelled to join the ranks of the proletarian masses.

Unlike the scattered serfs, today’s urban proletariat is far better positioned with modern communication and organization to confront the forces that terrorise them.  As such, the seeds of a new mode of production are laid—one destined to conclude class antagonisms and, with them, exploitation.

Engels confirms this.

Small producers’ conditions will inevitably continue to worsen as a result of their expropriation. However, calling for an end to this process completely repudiates the social progress it represents—the only means of developing capitalism and laying the groundwork for communism.

The communist revolution will never be led by the petty-proprietors. Their greatest desire is to preserve however little property they have to the bitter end:

“The hand weaver who had his little house, garden and field along with his loom, was a quiet, contented man ‘in all godliness and respectability’ despite all misery and despite all political pressure; he doffed his cap to the rich, to the priests and to the officials of the state; and inwardly was altogether a slave.

It is precisely modern large-scale industry, which has turned the worker, formerly chained to the land, into a completely propertyless proletarian, liberated from all traditional fetters and free as a [jail-]bird; it is precisely this economic revolution which has created the sole conditions under which the exploitation of the working class in its final form, in the capitalist mode of production, can be overthrown.

And now comes this tearful Proudhonist and bewails the driving of the workers from hearth and home as though it were a great retrogression instead of being the very first condition for their intellectual emancipation… The English proletarian of 1872 is on an infinitely higher level than the rural weaver of 1772 with his ‘hearth and home.’

Will the troglodyte with his cave, the Australian aborigine with his clay hut, and the Indian with his hearth ever accomplish a June insurrection and a Paris Commune?” _{(Engels, The Housing Question)}

The inherent contradiction of the Proudhonian and petty-bourgeois dream—to grant everyone home ownership within a bourgeois system—proves even more futile precisely when it appears closest to realizing this regressive utopia.

Romania’s extremely high rate of homeownership is clear evidence of this contradiction, as its housing conditions are far worse than those in Switzerland, where the rate is less than half that of Romania.

This occurs because there isn’t, and never will be, a solution to the housing problem within capitalism.

The only solution will emerge from the proletarian revolution!

From the outset, merely stripping the bourgeoisie of political power will not immediately solve the housing issue.

However, a process will begin with the expropriation of the comfortable homes of capitalists and the occupation of the hundreds of thousands of vacant houses—in Romania and everywhere else—by the proletariat.

Only the revolutionary dictatorship of the working class, within the framework of an international revolution, will abolish capitalist relations of production and pave the way for a society without classes or private property.

In this process, major cities—and the very divide between urban and rural—will slowly but surely vanish, consigned to nothing more than the refuse of history.

The idea of Sweden as a historically ethnically homogeneous country has long shaped discussions about immigration.

particularly amid the surge in the 21st century caused by imperialist wars in the Middle East.

Although this is the view that bourgeois media presents, it is important to note that it misrepresents reality.

In reality, Sweden has experienced several different waves of immigration as the modes of production have developed.

We should also say that this idea that Sweden has always had ethnic homogeneity has zero historical evidence behind it.

Sweden as a whole has always been characterized by different dialects and ethnic groups. In fact, the country was founded when the king of the Swedes tribe (in today’s Mälardalen) conquered and subdued the Götar tribe (in today’s Västergötland).

As it is the advent of the modern Swedish state which is typically of interest, the history of the Swedish tribes is usually not discussed. The ethnic origins of the Swedes are largely considered irrelevant to the Swedish national identity.

Whatever the “culture” of Sweden was, it certainly changed under the influence of later modes of production.

The average worker in Sweden has always had, and always will have, more in common—culturally and in terms of interests—with his class brothers from other countries than with the “culturally similar” bourgeoisie.

Although the constitution departs from historical reality by claiming that the Sami people of the Norwegians are the only indigenous people of Sweden, the fact is that both Sami and Germanic cultures arrived in what is now Sweden at about the same time, hybridizing with prehistoric cultures already present in Scandinavia at the time.

The first wave of migration—following the arrival of the two “indigenous” groups—arrived in Sweden at the end of the Viking Age.

This was due to the end of the Viking tribute system—a system in which Vikings raided, kidnapped, and pillaged or, more commonly, extorted tribute from medieval coastal societies—that often caused considerable upheaval in affected societies.

In response, the rest of Europe was forced to improve naval technology and build stronger fortifications. These advancements in defense ultimately led to the disappearance of the tribute system.

This sealed the fate of Viking seamanship.

It was then that the feudal mode of production was established in the Nordic countries.

However, some feudal norms such as serfdom never took hold north of the province of Scania (in the southern part of the peninsula).

Although the dates are not exactly certain, it was around the time of the Christianization of Sweden that the conquest of Finland began.

While the precise catalyst is not known,  it is certain that it was caused by the abundant harvests of the Medieval Warm Period, around the end of the millennium.

This was also when the Swedes began to move toward Sapmi in the north, while the Germans moved toward the Baltic.

There were multiple motivations for these settlements.

First, the tax advantage for individual settlers:

Christian settlers in pagan Finland received a four-year tax exemption.

Second, the early Swedish state had an imperative to stop pagan incursions from Estonia, Finland, etc.

The development of Sweden’s power, especially the Baltic trade, immensely changed the dynamics of Swedish relations with the continent.

As a result, the first period of voluntary migration to Sweden began in the form of German-speaking merchants interested in the iron ore trade.

This meant the start of the systematic exploitation of the Bergslagen iron ore mine.

This is why German-speakers (specifically, Low German) made up the majority of Stockholm’s inhabitants in 1350.

In 1434, miners, led by Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, rose up against the Kalmar Union, freeing Sweden from the Danish feudal yoke.

In 1434, miners, led by Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, rose up against the Kalmar Union, freeing Sweden from the Danish feudal yoke. In the early 16th century, the Hanseatic Germans’ trading monopoly in the Baltic Sea region was broken by the Dutch, ending the influx of North Germans.

The noble Gustavus Vasa continued—in a certain sense—the Engelbrekt rebellion when in 1523 we finally overthrew the Union and declared himself King Gustavus I. Thus, the first hereditary monarchy of Sweden was created.

This was made possible by the alliance Gustavus had established with the German merchant bourgeoisie in Stockholm.

Gustavus I Vasa and his government unified Sweden through reform and expropriation of the Catholic Church, and this state later became a military power under the rule of his sons—in particular, his grandson Gustavus Adolphus.

Thus, the unification of the state and the expansion of the empire caused a second wave of migration.

The empire-building effort was possible mainly because of Finnish peasants from the conquered territories in the east, Dutch merchants, Walloon blacksmiths, and, to a lesser extent, Jews from various professions.

By and large, this situation continued throughout Sweden’s “Age of Greatness” (1611-1721).

Later, especially during industrialization, an emigration of Swedes to the United States began.

Simultaneously, middle class industrialists from Scotland, England, Central Europe, etc also began to immigrate to Sweden.

This influx of investment, among other things, was the basis of Swedish industrial development during this period, a development that continued during the era of imperialism, when Sweden once again became a great power.

Thanks to a steadily growing accumulation of capital, undisturbed by the carnage of the world wars, Sweden had transformed itself from a backward country to a world leader in several industries, especially steel, and with Volvo and Saab for the automobile industry.

Industrial development in Sweden led to significant immigration of workers.

This importation of workers began during the interwar period. However, it was not until after World War II that Sweden began to represent a true melting pot.

In the early days, when economic activity was booming, it was natural for the old Finnish colony, newly independent thanks to Lenin, to lend its proletarians as a labor reserve.

We should note that many Finns worked at the pharmaceutical company Astra AB and in the factories of the vehicle manufacturer Scania in Södertälje.

When there were no more Finns to employ due to the development of Finland itself, the Swedish-Finns (not to be confused with the Swedish-speaking Finns, the former settlers) and the Meänkieli-Tornidals (Finns indigenous to northern Sweden) were joined by a mass of proletarians from all over the world.

Other ethnic groups such as former Yugoslavs, Assyrians, Turks, Greeks, and Italians came to make up a substantial part of Swedish cities in the 1960s.

The latest wave of immigration, said to have begun in 2015, has received particular attention amid Sweden’s extreme media frenzy over the past decade.

However, refugees from the conflicts in the 1990s in the Western Balkans, Turkey, and Iraq should be considered part of the current wave.

Those arriving in Sweden are, as always, proletarians looking for work.

The migration wave of 2015 is not much different from the previous refugee waves of the 1990s:

as all of them came from countries at war.

However, there are two main points of disagreement:

the number of migrants and their young age.

It should also be added that immigration policy since the early 1990s has been a cynical attempt by the right wing of capital to increase the labor reserve army.

In the mid to late 1980s, the Swedish population was expected to decline—immigration, together with the rising birth rate, stopped this.

This cynical import of lower wages was openly declared by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprises at the time.

Since then, however, it has become more fashionable for the right wing to protect the domestic market from “incompatible cultures,” while the left wing of capital, i.e., the Social Democrats and leftists, have taken up arms to defend the previous view of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprises (how the tables are turning!).

Both blocs of capital are united in their sub-goal:

the division of the working class into different but equally controlled camps of the bourgeoisie.

One could feel the backlash simmering beneath the surface against this influx of refugees, especially after then moderate party prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said “we must open our hearts [to refugees].”

The Sweden Democrats, who took the baton from the Social Democrats’ slowly but surely declining migration policy which demanded both:

that the border should be a wall against economic migrants and a defense of “Swedishness.” But that is not what we mean by backlash.

Rather, we mean the way in which capital turns from one wing to the other when the quota for the reserve army goes against the interests of the working-class aristocracy, which is represented precisely by the Sweden Democrats.

Being a turncoat is as much a bourgeois political habit as electoral promise, and it is no surprise.

Bourgeois society reaffirms its principle that it has no principles.

Therefore, criticizing the bourgeoisie for not respecting principles makes no sense; the problem is not that the bourgeoisie are amoral, stupid, etc., but that it is the class of Capital.

Talking heads complain that the integration of migrants is doomed to “failure.”

Actually, integration has not failed so much as it has not been attempted.

The lack of integration serves the purpose of having a cheap reserve army, which is highly effective when there is no opportunity to “integrate.”

On the one hand, Capital wants to give out as low a wage as possible, on the other, it demands the passivity of the labor aristocracy. The result is an unintegrated (unorganized), foreign-speaking—in a word, outside—group of the working class.

The consequences for the working class are exacerbated.

The goal from the beginning is to crush and exploit the working class by any means, wherever it can be exploited.

In this respect, integration has been remarkably successful; the working class is sharply divided.

The method of integrating refugees was to first put them all in camps wherever it was possible to build them, where capitalists could extort millions from the state by housing refugees in unworthy housing. We saw this in the infamous case of Bert Karlssons, who made tens of millions of euros by building shoddy housing in Skara.

Later, as tried and tested between the 1960s and 1990s, the plan was to segregate immigrant workers from Swedish-majority workers (majoritetssvenskar) in the suburbs—mainly in the three big cities, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.

In the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby, for example, 62.2% of residents were born abroad and 92% have a foreign background (at least one parent born outside Sweden), while in Spånga, on the border with Rinkeby, only 29.4% have a foreign background.

This is also the case in most medium-sized Swedish cities.

Usually the majority of the city is predominantly Swedish, but there are special areas where those who are foreign-born or have a foreign background are a marked majority.

Widespread segregation is not simply an indication of racism, as it is often misinterpreted.

The neighborhoods where immigrant workers and their children make up the majority were once also the neighborhoods where the poorest Swedish workers lived. Sweden has always segregated its inhabitants by class, and today is no different.

However, it is only now, when the poorest have recognizable skin color, that segregation statistics have become apparent to scholars.

The consensus of socialists, leftists, and others—who all agree when it comes to identity politics—seems to be that the class point of view is best left to the International Communist Party.

We are thankful for this privilege.

In the 20th century, Sweden was so class-segregated that Stockholm had 3-4 sociolects.

Today, there are mainly two, Stockholm Swedish and suburban/immigrant Swedish (which, incidentally, should perhaps be classified as a working-class sociolect rather than an immigrant dialect, since it is prevalent among “blue-collar” people, who live where it is spoken regardless of ancestry).

Since the Swedish welfare system was not built for inclusion and cohesion, but to pacify the working class and suppress its more “subversive” elements, it is no wonder that newly arrived workers had difficulty finding a stable place in Swedish society.

Then, with the successful passivization of this welfare state, they began to demolish it, leaving the most disadvantaged to fend for themselves, which again favors capital.

The limping Swedish economy has, since 2008, set the stage for the ruin of not only parts of the petty bourgeoisie, but also of many proletarians. In turn, many proletarians have turned into a vast reserve army. Unemployment, petty crime and gang violence are the results.

This forms the basis for segregated suburbs to become increasingly impoverished and violent.

It is true that violence has increased and that Sweden has unfortunately become an epicenter of criminal networks, both compared to the past and to other Scandinavian countries.

But the figure is greatly exaggerated, because the rate of organized crime is much lower than Russia, Italy, and Turkey, and it is on par with that of Switzerland.

The idea that this has to do with the prior culture of the masses in the suburbs is a lie.

The proletarians in the misery of the suburbs are the product of the very foundations of the society of capital.

In 2023, the number of reported crimes per capita was highest in the Stockholm region, where there were 183 reported crimes per thousand inhabitants.

This is twice as many reported crimes as in the Northern region, which had 109 per capita.

London’s crime statistics, often labeled as a dire situation, show 105.8 crimes in 2023, Berlin’s 141.35, etc, more comparable to Sweden’s national average of 143.

Lethal violence has begun to spread across borders to Norway and Denmark under the auspices of Swedish crime networks.

In Norway, Swedish crime networks are now active in all districts and have been listed as the main threat to the northern district of Troms, although the main crime in Norway so far is mainly drug-related.

Denmark decided to tighten border controls with Sweden after the cross-border crime wave that began in August 2024.

Other crimes have also increased.

Since 1975, the share of drug crimes (+363%), robberies (+193%) and fraud (+242%) has increased, while burglaries (-52%) and vehicle thefts (-78%) have decreased.

The largest increase is in sexual offenses (+529%) and rape (+900%).

The overall increase in crimes since 1975 is +64%.

It is clear that Sweden as a model country is in decline.

Hate crimes have also increased in Sweden in recent years.

Because statistical methods have changed, it is not possible to compare post-2020 statistics with earlier ones, so we will look more closely at the latter rather than the more recent statistics, in the absence of a longer time frame.

Between 2012 and 2018, the number of race-related hate crimes increased from 3,979 to 4,865.

The total number of reported hate crimes was 5,518 and 7,090 respectively, which means that in 2018 the number of racially motivated hate crimes accounted for about 70% of all hate crimes.

Ethnic hatred is not only directed against New Swedes.

It has also become clear that anti-Semitic crimes have increased since the start of the war in the Middle East in October 2023, with statistics showing a 500% increase in reported cases.

Crime has become the most debated political issue, and this has led to a tougher stance by the state on crime, with harsher punishments and more powers—especially arrest and search zones (visitationszoner) and secret wiretapping—given to the police.

These new police powers affect not only criminal networks but also labor organizations. Although the stated target is criminal elements, repression also reaches the class.

One thing that is almost never mentioned by the Swedish media when it comes to crime is the growing poverty in Sweden.

Although throughout the country there is only one percentage point more people living in relative poverty than in 2011, this poverty has spread to more areas, especially where immigrants have moved in.

To use the examples of Rinkeby and Spånga again, in 2021 45% of Rinkeby residents were living in relative poverty, while in Spånga it was only 7%, even though relative poverty in Rinkeby decreased by 8% points between 2011 and 2021.

The same poverty figure is repeated in most areas where those born abroad or with a foreign background constitute a large number or the majority.

The crime problem in Sweden should be seen as an effect of the united bourgeoisie’s offensive against the working class. Wherever there are reports of serious crime we find the most ruthless abandonment of the proletariat. It is the capitalist mode of production that creates misery in the suburbs, not the “culture of the suburbs”—this is its consequence. The two sides of the bourgeoisie are never interested in solving the real problems of the class, neither are the left or the socialists. They no longer talk about structural reforms, and when they did it was a cynical way of establishing the subordination of the working class. The line of the social democrats is indistinguishable from that of the moderates, there are the same harsh penalties and police powers. They are two sides of the same state.