The crisis in the global political balance, coupled with the increasingly shifting power dynamics among imperialist forces, has become ever more apparent in the latest military developments unfolding in the Middle East and Ukraine. After a long stalemate, these past two months—at least in the Middle East—have seen pivotal events occur. These developments have significantly turned the tide of war in favor of one side, making the re-establishment of a relative balance of forces unlikely.

Until recently, the prolonged stagnation of the conflicts and the difficulty of any contenders to assert a decisive and quick victory underscored the distance we are away from a general war—a war that, with the persistence of the international regime of capital, us Marxists view as inevitable. Nevertheless, the recent spiraling of the Middle East conflict, alongside the involvement of new actors and a rise of warlike developments, including Israel’s military successes in Lebanon, has profoundly altered the broader picture. Yet, despite these conspicuous battlefield achievements, the prospect of translating them into lasting political outcomes remains uncertain.

In the space of a few weeks, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah suddenly upended, concluding in a tenuous ceasefire that ultimately favors Israel. This ceasefire confirmed the considerable reduction of Hezbollah’s military capacity, the primary political and military organisation of the Lebanese Shiites.

The consequences of this phase of the war, alongside the fragile truce that is frequently violated by Israel air raids, laid the foundations for a renewed escalation in the never-ending Syrian war. This escalation indirectly resulted from the substantial weakening of the Lebanese allies of the Damascus regime.

The Assad government has concluded its inglorious trajectory after 54 years. Born from the “Corrective Movement,” the Assad regime supported the Jordanian monarchy in its fight against the Palestinian fedayeen, all in the name of pan-Arab “progressivism.” Hafiz al-Assad’s support for King Hussein during the massacre of Palestinian refugees was a Ba’athist blessing upon the decrepit bourgeoisie of Jordan, thus consecrating the monarchical and dynastic republic on the throne of blood.

It is not always easy to trace the complex tangle of causal links that determined the lightning advance of the jihadist forces. In just 11 days, they succeeded—almost without a fight—in seizing control of Syria’s second-largest city. From here, they made their advance on the road to the capital, Damascus. In the wake of the regime’s overthrow, jihadist forces ascended to take control of the state. In the space of a few days, we saw what couldn’t be done in the last 13 years. 

This happened, if we may say so, through a blitzkrieg—or at least a parody of one. Exploiting the incompetence of the ruling military powers, the resulting power vacuum gave rise to an unexpected and, in many respects, surreal reality.

For the Salafist rebels of Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its jihadist satellites, conquering Aleppo, then Hama (Syria’s fourth largest city), and finally Homs (the third largest) was all a triumphal march.  

Now, the new masters of Syria—officially listed as a terrorist organisation by the US, the EU, the UK, and Canada—have become a force that all the powers in the Great Game of the Middle-East must negotiate with and, in some cases, even officially recognize.

This epilogue of civil war comes at the start of a new phase beginning in late September. The international positions of Israel, the US, and Turkey, have all substantially strengthened beyond Syria’s borders.

From Lebanese Prologue to Shi’ite Defeat

Until last summer, the game primarily centered on the direct confrontation between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, leading to the massacre of Palestinian civilians. Meanwhile, the exchange of missiles and airstrikes between Hezbollah and Israel near the Lebanese border remained relatively limited in a low-intensity conflict. 

Certainly, one couldn’t overlook how Hezbolla’s attacks on Galilee prevented tens of thousands of Israelis from returning home, even more than a year after the war in Gaza began.

Meanwhile, the Houthis’ efforts to disrupt Red Sea shipping triggered wide-ranging repercussions for global trade. They forced a reconfiguration of existing trade routes, caused a drastic decrease in shipping through the Suez Canal, and prompted a reassessment for the circumnavigation of Africa in order to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—the critical gateway to the Red Sea. 

Meanwhile, the incursions of the Israeli Air Force into Syria had never ceased. They sought to weaken the presence of Hezbollah and the pro-Iranian militias, which constituted the support of the dying Damascus government. Thus, the reciprocal missile attacks between Israel and Iran, however spectacular, did not seem to have had any substantial repercussions on the balance of forces between the two regional powers. 

The name of the game changed when Israeli intelligence carried out its attack on September 18th. Israel destroyed the paging devices used by Hezbollah’s militia. The next day, a similar attack targeted the two-way radios vital for internal communications within the Lebanese Shiite organization.

This was an extremely effective and carefully prepared move. But it was a mere prelude to the full-scale attack against Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon: large-scale bombings across all regions of Lebanon. This new phase of the war on the Lebanese front has led to a sharp downsizing of Hezbollah’s military strength. It has also resulted in the repeated decapitations of new political and military leaders, who had just succeeded those killed, in a series of attacks that were as ruthless and precise as they were unconcerned with avoiding “collateral damage.”

Meanwhile, the war in Lebanon was conspicuously underreported in various countries’ media outlets, chiefly because it constituted a humanitarian disaster in which the militarily preeminent faction was a steadfast ally of the US and NATO. As a result, so-called “public opinion” in Europe remained largely oblivious to the deaths of some 4,000 people in Lebanon. These casualties came from bombings and ground skirmishes between the Israeli armed forces and Shiite militias. Moreover, approximately 1.4 million Lebanese civilians have been displaced, and only a fraction have returned. 

Israel has also paid a bloody tribute, with several dozen civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets targeting Galilee and other areas. Scores of soldiers have died in close-quarters combat on Lebanese soil. Even if the official figures of Israeli losses were manipulated—thus obscuring the true extent of the death toll—it is hard to dispute that the Israeli armed forces have achieved considerable successes at a relatively low human cost, given the intensity of the military clash.

Further evidence for this asymmetry is the November 26th agreement for ceasefire. This forced Hezbollah to abandon huge swathes of territory near Israel’s border, and to withdraw north of the Litani River. Although bearing Israeli and Lebanese signatures, it, in practice, mainly applies to Hezbollah.

Moreover, the truce has been violated several times by the Israeli forces and only symbolically by Hezbollah. More proof that Israel is in such a clear advantageous situation is how it has announced that it will not hesitate to kill Lebanese soldiers should they exhibit any complicity with the Shiite militias.

Meanwhile in Gaza, the war shows no signs of abating: hardly a day passes when Israeli forces don’t inflict dozens more civilian casualties, adding to the over 44,000 individuals already killed since October 2023. Even in the West Bank, Israeli forces have killed around 800 Palestinians in the same period. These are all signs that whatever goals Israel sets for itself, Israel wields the specter of ethnic cleansing and the threat of massacring civilians as powerful weapons of propaganda. This is designed to weaken and eradicate its enemies, and to induce the Palestinians to emigrate elsewhere.

Russia’s Overall Weakness

The latest phase of the great Middle East conflict, emerging after the Lebanese ceasefire, has pivoted toward the Syrian scene. Here the assemblage of interests and military might—from global powers like the US and Russia, to regional actors such as Iran and Turkey—has proved decisive.

The precarious balance of military and political power in Syria was destabilized in the wake of Hezbollah’s defeat, and the resultant erosion of the broader Shia axis. This deterion also owed much to the numerous airstrikes by Israel against the pro-Iran Shia militias in Syria for the better part of the past ten years.

This sustained attrition, which has been in effect for several years, has substantially undermined Iran’s regional influence and sapped its military capabilities. As a consequence of the Shiite axis weakening grip in Syria, the Assad government found itself having to reposition after years of tentatively, but not entirely fruitlessly, searching for new partners in the Sunni Arab world. 

The first significant result of this new direction was the tenuous rapprochement with the UAE. In 2018, this had resulted in the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and the reopening of the Emirati embassy in Damascus.

Regarding embassies, it should be noted that last summer, Italy—virtually alone among major European nations—also reopened its diplomatic office in the Syrian capital. The official reason was to “prevent Russia from monopolizing the Middle Eastern country’s diplomatic efforts.” This was complemented by the fact  that the Assad regime was supposedly stable and claimed to control 70% of Syrian territory. It was almost hilarious when, immediately after the fall of the regime, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced that armed men had broken into the Italian ambassador’s Damascus residence.

“No one has hurt the ambassador or the carabinieri there,” said the minister, who then added “they took three cars.” 

Syria’s rapprochement with some of the Gulf Arab countries was also pushed by pressure Moscow placed on Damascus. Russia wanted Syria to loosen its strong ties with Iran and to start negotiating with Turkey–which is now the greatest sponsor of jihadist militias in Syria. This subtly reveals Russia’s weakness: it can’t feel the void created by America’s partial disengagement, but is reduced to a mere “arbitrator of the poor.”

This also explains why Russia was indifferent to Israel’s constant attacks against its allies in Syria, especially when one considers Russia’ strong military presence in the country. Even under the protection of great powers such as the US and Russia, the entire contradiction of the crisis of imperialist balance of forces is concentrated in the fragmentation of Syria.

The Kremlin’s acquiescent stance toward Israeli air raids in Syria—targeting Hezbollah, Iraqi pro-Iranian Shiite militias, and even units of the Syrian army—had already demonstrated Moscow’s tacit tolerance of a shared presence in Syria with Iran. This relationship, however, was deliberately kept from growing too close, allowing Russia to maintain open channels with several rival nations. Meanwhile, the creeping Turkish presence in Syria during the civil war—whether through its directly controlled militias of the Syrian National Army (SNA) or those of HTS itself—also posed a significant challenge for Russia.

The Syrian question continues to be part of the complex negotiations between Moscow and Ankara, but with a different weight since it has to take into account the changed balance of power to Russia’s disadvantage.

The question thus arises as to whether Turkish support for the victorious jihadist advance might blow up all the work that Ankara and Moscow have woven after over two and a half years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps not, to the extent that Moscow would be forced, due to its weakness, to negotiate down.

Moscow’s game of pandering their ally Assad’s reconciliation attempts with the Arab world has already born fruit. In fact Lebanon, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, and Oman had already developed an interlocutory—at least, non-hostile—attitude towards the Assad regime. Until the beginning of the jihadist invasion, they all seemed to converge towards a full normalization of relations with Syria—so long as it distanced itself from Iran. Furthermore, Russia and the Emirates also agree on the Libyan question since both—albeit for different reasons—have good relations with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the chief of staff of the Cyrenaic government in Tobruk.

Yet, Russia develops bilateral relations with unlikely interlocutors, heedless of the real or apparent contradiction that arise from talks to its allies’ sworn enemies. This was evident even during the harshest years of the Syrian civil war. 

At the same time that the Kremlin provided Assad strong military support—enabling him to survive against the virulent offensives of the Syrian armed opposition—it was simultaneously strengthening its relationship with Israel. 

Netanyahu flew to Moscow four times in 2016 alone, while in 2018 he even appeared on the Red Square alongside Putin for Russia’s World War II Victory Day parade. All of this would have been followed up on in subsequent years if the Israeli government had refused to adopt the economic sanctions imposed on Russia.

The Biggest Losers: Russia and Iran

At this point, one wonders what Moscow’s attitude will be in the face of these developments. First of all, Russia will have to resign itself to playing a much reduced role in Syria after the fall of its strategic ally. The Tartus naval base is the only stable foothold for the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. Only some fifty kilometers further along the Syrian coast lies the Hmeimim air base—another essential element of Russia’s military presence in the Middle East. Moscow cannot accept the loss of these military outposts, without which it would risk losing all influence in the Middle East, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean and Africa.

Perhaps Russia could try to foster the emergence of a quasi-Alawite republic encompassing the entire Syrian coastal strip. This hypothesis was aired during the Syrian civil war when the Assad regime seemed weaker. At the time, it seemed to guarantee some form of survival for the Alawite religious minority, which has had a prominent position in Syrian politics since the second half of the 1960s.

But even if such an accommodation were possible, it would be very precarious. It would deprive the rest of Syria, as well as the Salafists of HTS, of an outlet to the Sea. Moreover, despite the reassuring statements of HTS’s leader, al-Jolani, the future does not bode well for the treatment of the Alawites in a ‘new’ Syria dominated by Sunni jihadists.

Even before Damascus fell, the jihadist rebel penetration into  the Homs district managed to strike an important strategic junction—the last thread stitching together the government’s remaining territorial corridor between the Syrian capital and the coastal region. As the fall of Homs approached, elite Hezbollah units from Lebanon were dispatched in a final attempt to bolster Assad’s faltering defenses. The jihadist pressure in this region was bound to undermine arms supplies to Hezbollah. These supplies, primarily delivered by Iranian and pro-Russian forces, mostly crossed through Syria’s border with Lebanon.

There is no benefit for Moscow in the fall of the Damascus regime. Assad’s overthrow is a political earthquake of immense proportions, one that not only reconfigures the power dynamics of the Middle East but also stands to affect the global balance of power. In this sense, Syria has become the link between the Middle East conflict and the Ukrainian conflict. 

As far as the Islamic Republic of Iran is concerned, the Assad regime was crucial—one could even say “existential,” were it not for the way that term has been misappropriated by capital’s propagandists in the context of Israel’s war in Gaza. Now that Assad has been toppled, Iran finds itself significantly weaker, and has lost the main channel by which it projected influence westward.

Since the beginning of the blitzkrieg against Assad, pro-Iranian Shia Iraqi militias had rushed into Aleppo to try to stem the advance of the HTS jihadists.In the process, they also suffered airstrikes from the US. This demonstrated that Washington’s Syria policy sought the destabilization of Damascus and its eventual collapse.

Further confirming that this is more than a hypothesis were the attacks by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the Syrian army. The SDF, a predominantly Kurdish group backed by the US, is evidently attempting to expand its control over the large area it occupies in the northeast of the country.

On December 6th, government troops withdrew from the key city of Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria, which was subsequently captured by the SDF. This development further complicated Iran’s ability to retain political-military influence in Salafist-controlled Syria and to enable the transit of its militias with aid from Iraq.

This aspect, together with the fall of the Homs junction into the hands of the Syrian jihadists, put a tombstone on the so-called “Shiite corridor” that connected the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Mediterranean.

Now Syria is no longer an ally of either Iran or Russia. Moscow finds itself having to plead to the good offices of Turkey to protect its bases in Syria. In return, Ankara holds sway over the new Damascus government. When Ankara leverages this influence, it would be in view of the big business of post-war reconstruction.

The broader picture, beyond the short-term progress of the war, anticipates new clashes between powers. The repercussions will inevitably echo in the Ukrainian conflict. A wounded Russia will search for any way to finish its game as quickly as possible, if only to limit the damage it has already take

Below is the leaflet distributed by the Party during the general strike demonstrations of November 29, where we welcomed the participation of numerous rank-and-file organizations.

The railway workers did not participate in this strike, in compliance with the imposed rule of a 10-day no-strike period after a previous abstention from work by maintenance workers (the so-called „rarefaction” of struggles in union jargon). Furthermore, Salvini, the Minister of Transport, had ordered local transport workers to not exceed 4 hours of abstention per day and respect guaranteed deadlines under any circumstance. The Regional Administrative Court, to which the various organizers had appealed, had not even considered the appeal.

Other strikes in the maritime and air transport sectors are planned for December, as well as in the railway sector, including the general strike called by the rank-and-file union USB (which did not join the one on November 29). Again, Salvini is threatening to order them to work.

In addition, a „security decree” will be passed, which will prohibit pickets as well as all other forms of unauthorized protests, such as marches, roadblocks, and blockades of goods in the logistics sector.

It is clear that the so-called „right” to strike is invalidated for these kinds of workers, but this will soon become the case for others too, perhaps with the excuse of safeguarding the „national economy.” It is equally clear that a weapon of struggle that the working class uses for its defense can’t be safeguarded by appealing to the judicial system.

The strike is not a right that is granted, but a weapon of battle that workers appropriate to fight the class enemy! If the class does not wish to succumb to the increasing pressure on its living and working conditions, we must counterpose its increasingly widespread mobilization against the repression created by increasingly stringent regulations.

FOR THE DEFENSE OF LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS

AGAINST COLLABORATIONISM

LET A UNITED CLASS-BASED TRADE UNION FRONT GAIN STRENGTH!

November 29, 2024

Fellow workers,

The living and working conditions of the working class have been under a heavy assault for some time. The government, supported by the employers, is preparing to pass further anti-strike measures and other repressive regulations against workers’ mobilization. The conscription of transport workers implemented on this occasion and the proposed „security law” that would prohibit pickets and „unauthorized” marches, after the strike regulation passed some time ago, are further acts aimed at rendering the struggles illegal.

These measures can be fought against not with appeals to the courts, but with a strong and organized mobilization of all sections of the working class!

The union confederations are not moving in this direction. The CGIL and UIL were instead forced to call this strike at this date—set by some rank-and-file unions—in order not to lose their grip on the workers or risk being overtaken by a movement that might develop at the base.

Today we welcome the fact that numerous rank-and-file union organizations, rather than withdrawing, confirm their participation in this day of struggle. They bring the attack on the collaborationist policy of the Confederal unions to the striking workers and agitate class demands to push for the radicalization and extension of the struggle towards a united union front. This will be the basis for the reconstitution of the Class Union against the collaborationism of the tricolor unions.

Following this path, the working class will also be able to counter the prospect of an inter-imperialist conflict that is emerging on the international scene. They will be able to pose class alignment in the international revolution as an alternative to the alignment of workers on the opposing fronts of the war between states.

This path can only be undertaken if accompanied by the reunification of the class with its historic Communist Party, which represents the program of its emancipation from capitalist society through revolution.

FOR THE REBIRTH OF THE CLASS UNION AGAINST THE REGIME UNION!

FOR A RETURN OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY TO THE LEADERSHIP OF THE WORKING CLASS IN ITS STRUGGLE FOR EMANCIPATION FROM CAPITALISM

FOR THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION!

Rio Tinto’s record of ruthless, destructive practices extends far beyond Serbia, where we covered the current controversy around lithium mining in the previous part of this article.

One of the most infamous historical stains on the company’s reputation was the February 4th, 1888 massacre in Spain, when at least 13  workers and farmers were murdered for protesting against the lethal fumes emitted by the company, inhaled during their grueling days of work.

Ever since, the company has remained notorious for its “excesses” in pursuit of profit, both abroad and at home. In fact, some of the most notable recent controversies have involved Rio Tinto’s activities in Australia and broader Oceania.

The Juukan Gorge Incident

Rio Tinto’s operations in Australia, particularly in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, are central to its global iron ore and bauxite extraction activities. The Pilbara mines are among the largest in the world. Their further expansion risked the destruction of the Juukan Gorge, a site of immense cultural and historical importance to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) peoples.

In May 2020, Rio Tinto made extensive use of explosives to expand its Brockman 4 iron ore mine, causing the destruction of two rock shelters within Juukan Gorge, despite the company’s full awareness of the site’s 46,000-year-old history, which included numerous artifacts and DNA evidence of ancient human occupation.

The PKKP peoples sought to protect Juukan Gorge through Australia’s heritage protection mechanisms, specifically the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 in Western Australia. This Act requires companies to obtain permission from the state government before disturbing sites of Aboriginal significance.

In 2013, Rio Tinto obtained Section 18 consent under this Act to proceed with the destruction, despite growing awareness of the site’s significance through subsequent archaeological studies. The PKKP, supported by the Puutu Kunti Kurrama Land Committee, engaged in direct communication with Rio Tinto, presenting further evidence of the site’s importance and urging the company to halt its plans. Despite these efforts, the Section 18 consent was not revoked, and the destruction of the site proceeded.

The decision to grant Section 18 consent was made by the Western Australian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, based on recommendations from the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee (ACMC). The ACMC had initially recommended granting consent based on the information available at the time, but later archaeological findings were insufficient to have the decision reversed.

The incident triggered a parliamentary inquiry in Australia, which exposed systemic failures in the cultural heritage protection framework and highlighted Rio Tinto’s inadequate engagement with the PKKP. Following the inquiry, several senior executives at Rio Tinto, including the CEO, resigned, and the company pledged to review its cultural heritage management practices, although these measures were insufficient in addressing broader issues.

The Panguna Mine in Papua New Guinea

The Panguna copper mine, located on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea (PNG), was one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world during its peak. Operated by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, the mine began operations in 1972 and quickly became a significant source of income for PNG, contributing substantially to the country’s export revenue.

Between 1972 and 1989, the mine generated approximately $2 billion USD in revenue. The PNG government, which owned a 19.1% stake in BCL, received around 5% of this revenue which, during the mine’s peak years, constituted about 12-15% of the country’s total national income. However, most profits went to Rio Tinto and its shareholders, while local communities in Bougainville received minimal benefits.

However, the environmental and social impact of the mine has been severe. The mining process produced vast amounts of waste material, which were routinely dumped into the Jaba River, leading to widespread contamination of the river system. This pollution destroyed local fisheries, poisoned water supplies, and rendered large areas of land unusable for farming, devastating the livelihoods of thousands of Bougainvilleans.

This growing resentment culminated in an armed uprising against the PNG government and Rio Tinto in 1988, signaling the beginning of the Bougainville Civil War. The conflict, which lasted nearly a decade, was initially sparked by landowners’ demands for compensation and better environmental management but quickly evolved into a broader struggle for Bougainville’s independence. The Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), composed mainly of local landowners, began sabotaging the mine’s operations and attacking government forces, leading to a violent crackdown by the PNG military.

The conflict resulted in the deaths of an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people and widespread displacement.

The PNG government, with tacit support from Rio Tinto, maintained a blockade around Bougainville for much of the conflict, cutting off essential services and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.

Rio Tinto certainly bears a significant responsibility for both the environmental and social impact of the Panguna mine and for the unleashing of the conflict.

Despite the conflict’s end in 1998, Rio Tinto has largely been unresponsive to calls for compensation or reparations from the population of Bougainville. The mine has remained closed since the outbreak of the conflict, and Bougainville has since been granted greater autonomy, with ongoing discussions about full independence from PNG. The environmental damage caused by the mine persists, and efforts to rehabilitate the land have been minimal.

Australia’s Regional Involvement and Complicity

Australia’s relationship with PNG is rooted in a colonial past that has evolved into a dynamic characterized by significant Australian influence over PNG’s political and economic affairs. Australia, which had administered PNG under a League of Nations mandate following World War I, continued to exert dominance even after PNG’s independence in 1975, through foreign aid, military assistance, and economic investments. Australia’s economic involvement in PNG is heavily focused on the extraction of natural resources, particularly through Australian mining companies. This involvement has resulted in significant environmental and social costs for PNG’s Indigenous communities, as evidenced by the Panguna mine.

Beyond economic exploitation, Australia’s foreign aid program exerts considerable influence over PNG’s domestic policies. This aid is often tied to conditions that promote the interests of Australian businesses, such as the privatization of public services and the encouragement of foreign investment. Australian consultants frequently shape PNG’s economic and development strategies, further entrenching Australia’s control over PNG’s internal affairs.

This pattern of imperialist involvement is mirrored in Australia’s complicity in the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and the subsequent Timor genocide. Following East Timor’s declaration of independence from Portugal in 1975, Indonesia invaded and annexed the territory. Australia’s position was one of broad complicity, motivated by a desire to maintain good relations with Indonesia and secure its economic interests in the Timor Gap, an oil-rich area of the Timor Sea.

The genocide, which occurred during Indonesian occupation in 1975 to 1999, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people. This figure includes those who were killed directly by military actions as well as those who died from starvation, disease, and other consequences of the conflict. East Timor’s population at the time was around 600,000 to 700,000.

Despite this, Australia provided diplomatic support to the occupation, recognized Indonesia’s annexation of East Timor, and signed the Timor Gap Treaty with Indonesia in 1989, allowing for joint exploitation of the region’s oil and gas resources.

Australia’s complicity extends further back to its involvement in Indonesia’s anti-communist purge during the mid-1960s, where an estimated 500,000 to 1 million people were killed. Following an attempted coup in 1965, the Indonesian military, led by General Suharto, launched a campaign against suspected communists. Australia, along with other Western powers, tacitly supported these actions, viewing the eradication of communism in Indonesia as crucial for containing workers’ movements in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. Australian intelligence provided covert assistance, including information used to target suspected communists, and refrained from condemning the mass killings. This support was driven by a desire to align with U.S. strategic interests and protect Australian investments.

An International Solution to an International Problem

Rio Tinto uses its entire productive and political force to upset territorial sovereignty for the sake of profit, and to destroy the most backward forms of national capitalism as if determining the destiny of entire states and peoples. It is a form of imperialism, that of production and trade, to which the political and military imperialisms of involved states are in concordance with. This is a distinctive trait common to large multinationals, all capitalist structures that have overcome the narrow limits of national productive economies. They represent an extreme form of capitalism, its most advanced and definitive structure.

These multinationals appear to place themselves above states, and above imperialist blocs themselves. In our doctrine, they are the definitive point of capitalist development, the latest historical end of this system that reigns on a world scale. There is no other possible development for capitalism. After this phase there can only either be the catastrophe of a third world war, or the overthrow of the capitalist states by the antagonistic class and its world party. For this reason, their operation in apparent contempt of every law and regulation gives the impression of being limitless. It’s often said that the States themselves must bow to these giants of profit because they cannot defend national capital in the face of their excessive power.

But this is only an illusion. Behind the multinationals there is always the State. It is not that the State is subjugated by them, but rather, defends and supports them. It is also able to express a certain degree of control over their operation and growth and to keep them within established tracks. Beyond this, the State itself does not hesitate to intervene when in its interest. During wars these hypertrophic producers of profits are dismembered in favor of national capital.

In this sense, the petty bourgeois beautiful souls, sincere democrats who would demand „fair profit” and stringent legal rules from capitalism in its highest form, presume that its excesses could be curbed by following these same holy principles. Or that limited and local struggles against capitalist excesses can bring to „reason” what is by its nature inhuman and limitless.

The multinational Rio Tinto, with all its wickedness and violence, as well as its unscrupulous indifference to human needs and the preservation of nature, operates in the way that the extreme rules of capitalism allow it to operate. But on the other hand, it is a striking example of the petty-bourgeois illusion of being able to change capitalism’s actions either by law, or by popular pressure, or by any of the other tools that democracy makes available.

The absolutely anarchic and anti-human nature of capitalism, due to its intrinsic need to produce profit, does not hesitate in its rape of nature and wage workers in the face of any social crime.

To believe that rationality, or the law, can stop the deadly march of capitalist development with all its tragedies, set it on a human scale, or to realize only the „just” profit, is the other side of the petty-bourgeois ideology that ardently hopes that things can be „fixed” without breaking that form of production, and above all without overthrowing its state.

For once, the US presidential elections have given us a spectacle actually worth noting. An extreme thing for us to say, as we have been abstentionists for over seven decades, not by principle but by strategy. Yet the facts speak for themselves.

The victory of a billionaire poised to return to the White House ushers a considerable number of extremely wealthy individuals into the president’s „inner circle.” A phenomenon that is not entirely surprising: oligopolists are increasingly set on governing states directly, as if they were at the helm of their own companies. This demonstrates well how the political class, which the bourgeoisie had maintained throughout the centuries as a buffer between itself and so-called „civil society,” has now become completely redundant. Lenin, more than a hundred years ago, was already speaking of state-monopoly capitalism. At a certain stage of development, an industrial company must plan its production in ways that interfere with the functions of the state. Today more than ever, a handful of flesh-and-blood capitalists are stepping onto the stage of political spectacle as the collective capitalist “in person”—or rather, “in persons,” even if they are few in number.

And what about Elon Musk? After investing around $130 million in Donald Trump’s electoral campaign, he saw the value of his companies’ shares increase by $70 billion in just two weeks. He’s no longer just the richest man in the world. He’s now the person who managed to turn an investment in a worn out democratic ritual into a return rivalling the jackpot.

Now, Mr. Musk has a net worth of approximately $330 billion. If, without accounting for new earnings, he decided to live on just one million dollars a day (and who doesn’t do that nowadays…) he could go on for over 900 years before ceasing to be a billionaire. When you think about his companies, it’s hard not to be fascinated (so to speak!) by such magnificence.

Tesla produces almost two million electric cars a year, half a million of which are manufactured in China at the Gigafactory in Shanghai. Starlink is a satellite constellation capable of providing worldwide internet access, even without relying on terrestrial or undersea fiber optic cables. It reminds us that the center of gravity for high-tech human activities is shifting to the skies. Meanwhile, Neuralink connects the human brain to machines, reminding us that in a society centered on a deranged economy like capitalism, the machine can increasingly do without the human.

And yet, despite all that Musk possesses, he is always missing something. He’s only a man, not superman. He retreats into his mind and ventures into the hyperbolic implications of the labyrinthine ideology of transhumanism. Here, humanity will be surpassed by the post-human: a being whose DNA is engineered at will and connected to the global cybernetic mind. Thus, capital, incarnated in the person of Elon Musk, pioneer of the post-human, finally reveals its dream—and nightmare—of a hyper-technological world stripped of humanity, because it has been stripped of human beings altogether.

The process of the capitalist mode of production’s general crisis has several facets: economic, social, military, and political. Each of these facets consists of many layers of complexity which, in turn, are influenced by other developments. Crises are often portrayed by the bourgeois narrative as “exceptions” over the linear course of history, perturbing the “unchanging and eternal” categories of democracy and market economy. In truth, history doesn’t unfold in a linear manner. 

Some evidence suggests an acceleration of events in the Asian, or, better, in the “Indo-Pacific” quadrant. We must look at Japan under this very lens. Japan is bearing the brunt of the deconstruction of the infamous US-led system of alliances, which started with the Obama administration. The “pivot to Asia” strategy brought strategic, diplomatic, and economic focus on the entire region. Years later, it is now coming to an end. The priorities of US intervention are undergoing a reset, as envisioned by the budding Trump administration. In this respect, Japan is no longer seen as a bulwark of the so-called free world against traditional enemies such as China, Russia, or North Korea, but rather as just another US competitor.

* * *

The Kishida government invested huge sums into the defense sector, consequently depriving the national healthcare and welfare system of resources. Regardless, it was the cabinet’s task to face the difficulties related to the inflationary pressures, the consumption stagnation, the abysmal demographics, and the unsustainability of the current policies in regards to immigration and housing. 

The stage for Kishida’s demise was set by his involvement in a “scandal”—one set into motion, at the precisely right time, by the bourgeois press. The coverage of the scandal snowballed: the story portrayed by the news consisted of a textbook case of corruption, enacted by three factions of the conservative wing of the Liberal-Democratic Party. These factions had allocated campaign money into a set of slush (“dirty”) funds, for a gross total of $4,000,000 (¥600,000,000). 

The role of corruption, in every bourgeois government, is to facilitate the succession of the heads at the top of institutions and enterprises, as happened after Kishida’s resignation. First, Kishida sponsored his former Chief of Cabinet Hayashi Yoshimasa as a suitable leader. He then switched endorsements to Ishiba Shigeru, who ultimately prevailed over Takaichi Sanae to become the next chairman of the bourgeois government of Japan. Although it may have hid its image of a failed government—in office from October, 4 2021 to August, 14 2024—Kishida’s cabinet fell short to put in place an efficient recovery policy from the economical and financial damage caused by the Biden’s administration so-called “friendshoring” (the strategy aimed at investing in allied countries, enabling them to invest in their own territory while maintaining privileged business relations with them). The last act of the strategy was the  US President’s veto against the acquisition of US Steel by Nippon Steel. Ishiba tried to reopen negotiations and is currently seeking to close the deal before the Trump administration enters office. 

The Committee on Foreign Investments in the US, however, has yet to green-light the deal. Nevertheless, the latter is seen as profitable by US Steel, which was one of the highest-level worldwide players in the steel industry. The potential trade-off between profits and security was the reason why the US Steel leadership had opted to close the deal with Nippon. However, the Biden administration saw the deal as disadvantageous for the integrity and freedom of American capitalism, effectively disavowing its “friendshoring” demagogy and its promises. For a country fully involved in a multi-level confrontation with China, the government’s red line was its inability to close the acquisition of a company from a supposedly “friendly” country.

On the other hand, Japan didn’t officially confirm any involvement in the anti-Houthi’s campaign. Japan tried to preserve its role by not further enforcing sanctions against Russia, preserving its chances to continue receiving Russian-generated LNG (liquefied natural gas) from the Sakhalin-2 pipeline. Furthermore, it has tried to crawl out of the Middle East mayhem. Japan effectively maintains its relationship with the Israeli economy. However, it is also opening itself to the financial and military opportunities offered by Saudi Arabia, which will potentially enable it to make deals with BRICS countries and companies.

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The Japanese economy is unlikely to see any further improvement in the regulation of interest rates and inflation. The latter has fallen below 2%. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has been proven wrong in its hypotheses that higher wages would have pushed consumption rates forward, which would in turn pave the way for the public acceptance of a more aggressive policy of interest rate hikes.

The price formation in Japan is computed with  two different indexes. The first is the Tokyo consumer price index (CPI), while the second is the so-called “core-core” index. The latter does not include the updated prices of fuel and fresh foods, and is the index BoJ looks for to define the outcomes and scope of its policy. The amount of public spending was a result of subsidies, reintroduced by the government to help pay utility bills. These price forecasts benefit from a wide-range review process that Japanese firms put into effect once in two years. Service inflation is highly regarded as an indicator in particular. The slowdown from the +1.2% increase in September to the +1.1% in October suggests consumption is not as high as needed for businesses to compensate for the rising labor costs, thus hampering BoJ’s ambitions of preserving businesses profits while still continuing to raise rates.

The data from October reveals a continued inflationary pressure on prices, signaling a contraction that was particularly pronounced between September and October.

The breadth and depth of this measurement has made the relationship between manufacturing and services decline pretty evident, with the latter following the former.

Forecasts that use another index—such as PMI New Orders Index which focuses on the forecasts on future orders to businesses—indicated a sharp decline in June, which in turn was the highest from February 2022. According to this, the growth expectancy for the subsequent 12 months saw the largest drop in October, after a three-months shrink, the lowest since August 2020.

Pressures from large private capital, which define the State’s economic and financial policy,  combined into a strong push on the BoJ to force it to delay its next moves at least to the second quarter of 2025.

Wage hikes in October, as well as pension spending, followed the trend, which was already developing under the Kishida cabinet. After endless negotiations, small sums were “delivered” to workers or retirees.

Additional measures to sustain Japan’s crippled demographics were also set up, with a raise in child allowance to ¥30,000, with payments starting in December.

Retirement coverage for part-time workers (kosei nenkin) has been extended from firms with 101 employees to those from 51 up, signaling a significant shift of the labor force to more “insecure” forms and conditions of work.

These gloomy “improvements”—which have already lost momentum since the very moment they took place—are deemed unlikely to effectively increase the buying power of the workers and the retired, further hampering consumption, fiscal revenues, and supply chain economy. 

In order to properly understand Ishiba’s hopes for forming a new cabinet under these difficult conditions, it is useful to look at the process that took place for the 50th House of Representatives election. 

Kishida’s resignation cannot be reduced to just a reputational issue, of course. The bourgeoisie’s approval of the cabinet plunged to its lowest just as the tension with North Korea and China soared up, as Japan became the target for business restrictions—posed by a leaving Biden administration—on the subject of expansion in the US steel industry. 

Above all, it is of utmost importance the current difficulty the country faces in sustaining its huge military expenditures—for naval buildup—without them weighing on other sectors. A consequence of this has been the bolstered demand for new industrial subsidies by the industry, which had built a relative advantage in terms of production for export over the years.

The Kishida cabinet was still too embroiled in a losing strategy on prices and monetary policy it shared with the BoJ to decisively intervene on inflation. This made the already implied fact that the Japanese economy was experiencing the same downsides of Bidenomics in the US. Ishiba’s appointment was fraught even more apparent.  It came in the context of increased rivalry between factions of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), ultimately leading to a reconstruction of the same balking coalition that brought Kishida into power in the 2021’s general elections (a set composed by the LDP and the Buddhist-inspired Komeito party). The election was preceded by the nomination of representatives, serving both as an intermediate step and a testing ground for discussing policies among the various factions of the bourgeoisie, before agreeing on a common blueprint.

The so-called “lawmakers faction” was tasked to put the “challengers” to the test. In the first turn, conservative Takaichi had fostered a further increase of military pressure against the neighboring countries. Ishiba was defeated, scoring only 46 lawmakers and 108 party members votes, for a 154 total. The outcome was however reversed in the second turn, when Ishiba won the nomination with 215 votes against the 194 votes of his opponent. 

Analysts argued that Takaichi’s loss was due to fears about the international consequences that would have followed her appointment. These analyses, however, do not take the economy into proper account. They are therefore biased by the bourgeois line of thinking portraying politics as a free sphere, independent from the bare necessities of class power preservation. 

On October 1st, Ishiba’s nomination was formalized. However, the political climate was far from consolidated. The short-lived nomination was put to a halt on October 9th when Ishiba made the government resign, so as to pave the way for the dissolution of the Diet and the proclamation of new “snap” elections. In the eyes of some Western sources, these elections were done solely to give Ishiba’s mandate some form of public legitimacy. 

At least on paper, the LDP initially had the upper hand over the other participants in the electoral farce, such as the Constitutional Democratic Party with its new elected leader, Noda Yoshihiko, and the Communist Party. However, the LDP did not end up achieving its goal of gaining significant ground for stabilization into power. In this sense, it experienced a catastrophic loss of majority against the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), falling from 288 representatives to 215, well below the 233 threshold required for the majority to be officially recognized. The CDP gained 148 seats, 50 more than in the 2021 general elections. Already weakened by internal rivalry, the LDP and its Komeito allies (whose number of seats went from 32 to 24) had to consider the possibility of a minority government, scaling back their goal of being the cornerstone of bourgeois politics in Japan—a role they have enjoyed over the past decades. 

The country’s standing and its ambitious military expansion program are now hang in the balance, leaving Ishiba with no option other than replicating the 2009 situation when the LDP lost the majority.

The strategy now implies scrapping the constitutional revision (for the absence of a clear majority) and creating on-the-fly alliances with opposition forces, in order for specific bills to be approved. Among these opposition forces are  the CDP and the JIP (Japan Innovation Party). The latter is a political formation run by the lobbyists of edge technology and energy businesses, an expression of the influential „stakeholders” movement. In this context, with demands from both the US and China unlikely to ease, and the prospect of military confrontation looming ever closer, the stage has been set for further instability.

Historical Roots

In order to fully grasp the developments of the current events and the brutal civil war—which, as of October 2024, has claimed over 15,000 lives and displaced 8.2 million people—it is essential to briefly trace the thread of the relatively recent history of the troubled region now known as Sudan.

Ottoman Conquest

In 1821, Mehmet Ali, the viceroy of Ottoman Egypt, launched an invasion of the Sultanate of Sennar, following a series of military campaigns that expanded Ottoman control across the region. The objective of the invasion was to seize a territory both rich in gold and crucial to the slave trade, while also reinforcing the Ottoman army with fresh recruits. Although the Shaigiya tribe initially resisted the invasion, they were eventually subdued and were later used in raids on the Nuba Mountains and southern Sudan (in order to expand the slave trade). The Egyptian invasion played a significant role in the regional balance of power, bolstering the Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslim tribes of the Nile Valley at the expense of the tribes in the country’s peripheral regions.

The Mahdist Regime

In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad spearheaded a nationalist uprising that resulted in the creation of the Mahdist State. Confronted by this threat, the Egyptian Khedivate, led by Pasha Tawfiq, sought assistance from the British Empire. The united forces attempted to fortify their position in Khartoum, but the city ultimately fell. The Mahdist State succeeded in bringing nearly all the tribes of the region under its control, implementing new slavery laws that deviated from traditional Islamic practices. These laws permitted the enslavement of Muslims who refused to pledge their support to the new state, while offering protection to non-Muslim tribes—who had historically been targeted by Egyptian raids—on the condition that they swore loyalty and accepted the Mahdi’s protection.

The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium

Following the death of Muhammad Ahmad, Anglo-Egyptian forces, under the command of Lord Kitchener, occupied Sudan. In 1899, the country was officially established as a shared colony between Egypt and the United Kingdom, though it effectively remained under British control until 1956. Kitchener oversaw the construction of a railway linking Wadi Halfa to Abu Hamad, a strategic initiative designed to address logistical challenges posed by the Nile’s frequent flooding. It is worth noting that, during this period, the railway network was used solely for military purposes. In 1906, Port Sudan was established to serve as a key logistical hub for the region. Positioned on the Red Sea coast, it was designed to replace Suakin, the former primary port, which faced challenges due to its location and limited accessibility for modern steamships. Port Sudan was equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure for the time, including a deep harbour capable of accommodating larger vessels with direct rail connections to major inland cities such as Khartoum. This new infrastructure not only facilitated the export of goods, such as cotton and gum arabic, but also played a strategic role in strengthening British control over Sudan. Port Sudan’s strategic location along the Red Sea routes increased its value, turning it into a crucial hub for trade and military operations. In the early 1900s, British industry struggled to secure enough cotton to keep the textile mills of Lancashire running.

This shortage was worsened by the United States’ move to drastically cut cotton exports to focus on its domestic needs. Facing this crisis, the British Empire turned to Egypt, funding the construction of the “Old Aswan Dam.” This project enabled the expansion of extensive cotton plantations along the Lower Nile, helping to partially satisfy the demands of the British Empire’s market. In 1911, the colonial period witnessed one of its most significant economic and social transformations when the Sudan Plantations Syndicate (SPS), a private enterprise, began constructing a vast system of dams in the Gezira region. This irrigation system enabled large-scale cultivation of premium-quality cotton. Completed in 1925, the project brought about a significant reorganization of the region’s landscape.

At the same time, the Sannar-Port Sudan rail line was built, facilitating the transport of cotton to international markets. This work of agricultural engineering transformed Gezira into Sudan’s most densely populated region, attracting a population of about 150,000 people. Cotton, which had become the main product of the local economy, quickly established itself as the country’s primary export. As early as 1924, it accounted for 76% of Sudan’s total exports, cementing Gezira’s central role in the national economy. To understand the impact of the Sudan Plantations Syndicate (SPS), it is necessary to analyse the social structure introduced during this period. The British government radically transformed the artificially irrigated area, expropriating land traditionally belonging to local tribes. Traditional smallholder farmers were forced into a sharecropping system, where they were tied to a rigid allocation of the cotton harvest: 40% was allotted to the sharecroppers, 25% to the SPS, and the remaining 35% to the Sudanese government. In addition to managing agricultural production, the SPS also acted as a banking institution for the development of the territory.

However, the loans provided to sharecroppers came with strict conditions: the funds could only be used for cotton cultivation, effectively barring investment in essential food crops like dura, an essential grain. Although the villages in the region had experienced moderate economic development from 1925 to 1929, a series of failed harvests severely affected dura production. The inability to access food loans, coupled with famine and the subsequent global economic downturn, triggered severe social crisis, exacerbating the indebtedness of sharecroppers. In the early expansion phase, Gezira became a magnet for immigrants from nearby regions, many of whom found work as wage laborers in the fields. However, the economic crisis drove numerous sharecroppers to abandon their lands, while the displaced laborers, left destitute and starving, resorted to banditry as a means of survival. This phenomenon generated extensive social unrest, exacerbating tensions and igniting conflicts among various ethnic and tribal groups. The Great Depression of the 1930s brought significant changes to farming practices.

A standard sharecropping farm, spanning 30 feddans (approximately 16.5 hectares), was originally divided into three sections: 10 feddans for growing cotton, 5 for cultivating dura and lubia (green beans), and the remaining 10 left fallow to recover the soil. However, intensive farming practices and irrigation systems caused severe land degradation, frequently leaving it overrun with weeds and plagued by disease. This led to the complete replacement of lubia production with dura. Moreover, as soil degradation issues became more acute during the economic crisis, the SPS imposed new management of the rotation system that required the fallow period to be doubled to one year⎯a fact viewed with suspicion by the sharecroppers, who considered the new policy designed to further disadvantage dura production. A slight recovery would only occur in 1934, but the social and economic scars left by the system imposed by the SPS continued to disfigure the region.

Nonetheless, the recovery period would see a significant rise in agricultural mechanisation. The economic crisis of the 1930s forced the British Empire to reevaluate its policies in Sudan. By 1939, nearly four decades after the occupation, the colony’s economy remained precarious. Despite substantial investments in the Gezira region, British capital acknowledged that the project had fallen short of expectations. British imperialist policy, geared exclusively towards satisfying its own economic needs through cotton production, systematically ignored the structural needs of Sudan. This policy, which lacked incentives to modernise the production of essential consumer goods, contributed to the fragility of the Sudanese social system.

Positioned between Egypt and Ethiopia, Sudan played a pivotal role in World War II. On one front, Egypt faced the threat of Axis forces, while on the other, the British Empire used its foothold in Sudan to help restore Haile Selassie to power just five years after the Italian invasion. The war’s aftermath saw Port Sudan emerge as a key military and logistical hub. Sudanese officers would also be integrated into the colonial army—but of course from the most influential northern families. The need to sustain both the army and the civilian population, necessary to prevent uprisings, prompted the Sudanese colonial government to introduce a new model of agricultural production in the Qadarif region, located east of Gezira.

Renowned for its fertile clay soil, Qadarif became a key hub for dura cultivation, essential for feeding much of Sudan, especially the cities, which were undergoing rapid urbanization during the war. Traditionally, dura farming relied on rainwater and a rotation system that allowed land to lay fallow. However, the introduction of mechanization transformed this dynamic. Wealthier farmers, equipped with the first government-financed agricultural machinery, adopted a more advanced form of rotational farming: they cultivated specific areas intensively, only to abandon them for untapped virgin lands when yields began to drop. This practice led to severe soil erosion and, in some cases, outright desertification. While the new production methods sought to maximize agricultural yields by exploiting the country’s extensive reserves of unused arable land, they showed little concern for long-term sustainability.

With the war over and the British cotton industry in decline, Sudan’s economic significance to the Empire greatly diminished. In response, the British sought to cultivate a sense of nationalism among the local elite, aiming to lay the groundwork for a decolonization process that, while unavoidable, would remain at least partially aligned with their own interests (favourable to the alternative).

Independence

The 1952 anti-colonial revolution in Egypt was a crucial stepping stone in Sudan’s journey towards independence. Egypt’s new leaders, Mohammed Naguib—whose mother was Sudanese—and later Gamal Abdel Nasser, recognized that ending British rule in Sudan required Egypt to formally renounce its claims of sovereignty over the country. Historically, Sudan has always been viewed as a “Lesser Egypt,” occupying the southernmost reaches of the Nile.

Naguib and Nasser recognized that relinquishing Egypt’s claims over Sudan would bolster their efforts to counter British influence in the region. To this end, they pursued a favorable strategy that framed Sudanese independence as a means of undermining British colonial control. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, though mostly uninterested in retaining direct rule over Sudan, sought to curtail Egyptian influence by backing local leaders like Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, a key figure and descendant of the Mahdi.

In light of these developments, both sides agreed on the need for a free and transparent referendum to decide the future of Sudan, setting the stage for its formal independence. As we wrote in 1971: “The oldest power in the world supported—what might seem a paradox—the independence of countries previously under its political and military control, convinced that in doing so, it could maintain and perhaps strengthen economic and financial dependencies. After all, it is well known that in the imperialist phase, historical colonialism becomes a contradiction.”

As we conclude this paper, we have learned about the injunction Salvini issued against the transport workers who participated in the strike called by the USB for Friday the 13th of November. This measure mirrors the one issued during the November 29th general strike, and has been submitted to Parliament for ratification alongside the “security bill.” In Il Partito Comunista #439, we condemned this as a repressive move against picket lines, factory protests, demonstrations, and workers’ marches.

Furthermore, an even more burdensome piece of legislation (when compared to existing legislation passed by previous governments) regarding strikes is currently under consideration. It is evident that the politicians who have chosen to take this repressive turn against worker’s struggles are doing their job. They are preparing appropriate regulations designed to stop struggles, which will certainly not be overturned by any “progressive” government that might follow. 

Similar to how we acted in the face of fascism in the 1920s, we are not crying “they are trespassing on democracy.” It is our job to show the workers that relying on bourgeois institutions, like commissions or courts, is nothing but delusion. The only response is to generalize and extend mobilization. If Capital and its State criminalize struggle, the working class must either accept this battleground or perish.

For the umpteenth time the great line of “democracy” and the “state for all people” has been unmasked. It has revealed its true face as a machine of organized violence, erected exclusively to defend the interests of Capital and the ruling class.

The housing question is a problem that the bourgeoisie will never be able to solve. Lack of affordable housing, tiny apartments, the spread of slums, lack of green space, infernal traffic, unbearable pollution in cities, and the hasty construction of buildings (which, due to shoddy materials can quickly fall apart) are constantly recurring social ills that capitalism cannot get rid of.

For these reasons, the housing question affects society as a whole, and is expressed differently depending on class. Both the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat are greatly harmed by the rising cost of living, but their interests and solution to the housing question diverge significantly. For many proletarians, a dwelling that meets their most basic human needs remains an unattainable mirage. Meanwhile, the petty bourgeois is lulled into the incongruous, reactionary dream of turning everyone into a landlord. The working-class aristocracy strata partake in this petty-bourgeois illusion. For the bourgeoisie, housing is an excellent source of business, where profit and rent are intertwined, embracing each other in pompous and solemn nuptials.

But once the veil of the dominant ideology is torn away, an elementary truth emerges: the class interest of the proletariat does not consist in the aspiration to turn all members of society into homeowners. As Engels taught us, the solution to the housing question will be found only after the revolution, through the process of abolishing private property and overcoming the antithesis between town and country.

“The housing question can only be solved when society has been sufficiently transformed for a start to be made towards abolishing the antithesis between town and country, which has been brought to an extreme point by present-day capitalist society. Far from being able to abolish this antithesis, capitalist society on the contrary is compelled to intensify it day by day […]; it is not the solution of the housing question which simultaneously solves the social question, but only by the solution of the social question, that is, by the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, is the solution of the housing question made possible To want to solve the housing question while at the same time desiring to maintain the modern big cities is an absurdity. The modern big cities, however, will be abolished only by the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, and when this is once on the way then there will be quite other things to do than supplying each worker with a little house for his own possession.” (Engels, The Housing Question)

The Peculiarities of the Housing Question in Romania

Romania has had a peculiar history when it comes to the issue of housing workers who migrated to the cities in search of a better life. In the days of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceauşescu, recently urbanized proletarians were crammed into cheaply built apartments, which often lacked basic services like heating. Although many large buildings with numerous apartments were built, many workers worked in the city yet lived in the countryside, forced to commute every day. In the final years of the nationalist regime, which tried to pass itself off as “socialist”, electricity, heating, and TV programs were provided for only a few hours each day.

Following the regime change brought about by the 1989 coup, there has been no state policy aimed at modernizing the cheap apartments inherited from Stalinist capitalism, which remain in a deplorable state to this day. Thanks to the post-1989 privatizations, most Romanians were able to buy the apartments they lived in at low prices, making Romania third in the world for homeownership rates. It is common for many countries that have passed through self-styled “socialist” nationalist regimes to occupy the top spots in this ranking; in general, t home ownership is far more common in Eastern European countries than in Western Europe. Romania’s homeownership rate in 2023 was 95.3%, surpassed only by Kosovo (97.8%) and Albania (96.3 percent). The situation is radically different in much more economically prosperous countries, such as Germany (49.1%) and Switzerland (42.2%) which have the lowest homeownership rates in Europe. Reading these statistics, one gets the distinct impression that, in the current stage of capitalism, both a country’s housing quality and its economic prosperity are inversely proportional to the percentage of homeowners.

The mass sale of apartments at below-market prices by the Romanian state after 1989 has been justified by bourgeois specialists as follows:

“Although selling public housing stock to former tenants at token prices—often below the market level—was thought to be a form of reducing the state’s expenses with these homes, it was also perceived as a ‘shock absorber.’ By turning more households into properties, the negative social impact of the transition period was reduced. As with all avoided crises during the 1990s, these legislative moves ‘bought time.’ The negative effects, however, were thrown into the future, both at the level of the public housing sector and at the private level. Regardless of the sector, be it public or private, local public authorities have abdicated their responsibilities. […] In the private sector, shifting the costs of maintaining a stock of poor-quality housing onto a low-income population—severely impoverished by the transition to democracy and made owners overnight without any support—created a recipe for the rapid degradation of housing in Romania.

The “damage relief” provided by shock therapy proved to be short-lived. It did not take long for low-quality apartments to further degrade, as the state stopped investing in them. As one paper states, “in 2001, approximately 2.5 million homes (35% of the total stock) were in a state of advanced degradation that required the rehabilitation of the infrastructure and equipment urgently.” But the state has not taken any responsibility. The state no longer owned these buildings, so it did not have to use funds to repair them and provide services, as was the case before 1989.

Currently 50% of Romanians live in overcrowded dwellings. In fact, the high rate of home ownership combined with overcrowded housing has earned Romania the nickname “Country of Paradoxes.” We quote from a news article on the subject:

“In the EU, the recommended living space is 30 square meters per person. In our country, however, it is reduced by half or even less. Almost half of Romanian families live in one or at most two rooms. [..]

“Grandparents, parents and children live together in many homes. Romania has one of the highest proportions of young people still living with their parents. In fact, 4 out of 10 young Romanians up to the age of 34 live under the same roof with their parents. Living in overcrowded houses is not the only problem. 1 in 4 Romanians live in severe poverty. Statistics show that a third of homes have no sanitary facilities, and 40% of households need current or capital repairs. [..]

“The majority of Romanians live in houses built between 1919-1980, even though around 50,000 new homes are built every year. Housing market studies show that there is a shortage of one million homes in Romania.”

It is important to note that, due to the significant reduction in industrial production since 1989, millions of Romanians have left the country, and the population of most cities has decreased over time. There are only three cities that have a larger population than in 1992: Iași, Cluj-Napoca, and Bragadiru. Cluj-Napoca, also known as Cluj, is located in the northwest of the country. The city grew with the booming IT industry, while Bragadiru developed due to its proximity to Romania’s capital Bucharest. Many towns that depended on one industry (such as mining towns) became severely depopulated within 20 to 30 years.

Many capitalists greatly benefited from the post-1989 situation, as land where old industrial centers once stood was sold at such low prices that shopping malls, apartments, and offices could be built. In 1995, the state passed a law that returned land expropriated between 1945 and 1989 to its former owners The consequence was that many workers who had been relocated to live on land expropriated by the former “socialist” nation-state were evicted and forced to go elsewhere. Corrupt state officials handed forests and natural parks over to capitalists, who then used these lands for large-scale real estate speculations by building large-scale apartments. And thus, the so-called “housing mafia” emerged.

Urban Gigantism and Debasement of Living Conditions

Bucharest is a prime example of what the housing question presents itself as in the capitalist regimes. Romania’s capital ranks second in Europe for time lost in traffic due to road congestion.

“Driving in the city’s dense urban area lost 143 hours yearly to traffic. People driving on Bucharest’s roads spent 277 hours commuting at peak hours.” The heavy traffic is partly due to the large number of commuters, as 700,000 of Bucharest’s workers reside in surrounding counties within a 100-kilometer radius. In 2020, 136,700 people commuted daily using their personal cars. Traffic is also the leading cause of air pollution in Bucharest, resulting in multiple fines from the National Environmental Guard. The most recent fine, issued on October 25, 2024, amounted to 100,000 lei (approximately 20,000 euros) for “failing to implement measures to reduce air pollutant concentrations in Bucharest’s congestion zones, as required during the previous inspection.”

This situation, which renders the city unlivable in part due to the persistent traffic congestion largely driven by private transportation, is not alleviated even by the extensive public transportation network. The Bucharest Transport Company’s (STB) network is the fourth largest on the continent. It transports 2.15 million passengers a day, includes 130 bus lines, 17 trolleybus lines and 26 streetcar lines, while the STV (Transport Company of Voluntari, a city in Ilfov County, which surrounds Bucharest) uses more than 200 buses (purchased with European funds) for regional transport. Yet, public transport is still very crowded, especially during peak hours. The subway also transports at least 800,000 people every day (2019 figures). There are 83 trains, 13 of which were recently purchased.

The deterioration of the state of housing, especially in recent years, has been dramatic; thousands of apartments have been left without heating and hot water, and damages occur daily in the 60-year-old network.

This demonstrates that widespread homeownership, even among workers, is by no means synonymous with prosperity, as maintenance once covered by the state now falls on the meager wages of the proletariat. Meanwhile, real estate speculation is rampant. Thanks to this process, opportunistic businessmen are able to appropriate substantial portions of surplus value by turning parks and forests into concrete buildings. All of this occurs under the banner of the mineralization of the biosphere, driven by the reckless, relentless pursuit of capital in search of its own valorization.

There are countless instances of new apartments being built illegally, without permits from the authorities or safety inspections, making them potential death traps in the event of an earthquake or fire.

Large areas of natural parks were transferred to a single heir of the boyar family, who sold them to their current owner. One such example is Titan Park, which is 12 hectares. Once again, the “flexibility” of bourgeois law in favor of capital’s interests has proven itself. Although public green spaces were not normally eligible for “retrocession” (a practice in which property ceded during the old regime is returned after 1989), through backstage maneuvers, many parts of Bucharest’s parks have been returned to the heirs of the expropriated. These include portions of Titan, Bordei, Verdi, Tineretului, Plumbuita, Herăstrău, and many other green areas, totaling over 200 hectares. In the case of Titan Park, several trials were held to reverse the decision to return it to its former owners, but with no positive outcome. On top of it, over the last 4 years, 21 fires have been set in this area by unknown individuals, as well as illegal deforestation, poisoning of trees, etc.

In the capitalist regime, speculation and the plunder of land by “cement lords” often arise as essential aspects of the housing market. But the performance of that market is affected by the overall performance of the economy, which is ultimately dependent on industrial accumulation cycles. In Romania, the housing price index has experienced a sharp decline due to the 2008 global crisis. This drastic decline was followed by a phase of substantial stagnation that continued through 2015, and was marked by further declines. Finally, there was fairly sustained growth, although punctuated by slowdowns and episodic setbacks, which has continued its ascent to the present. The trend is described by the graph below, which showcases the evolution of the housing price index:

The rapid urbanization of rural populations and internal migration to more economically prosperous areas in large cities is often accompanied by the appearance of slums. Many Romanian cities have their own “bad neighborhoods,” as is the case with the Pata Rât area in Cluj, which is located right next to a landfill. In Bucharest, the Ferentari and Rahova neighborhoods are generally considered to have a high crime rate, notorious for drug trafficking and abuse. There is also a racial component to this problem, as these ghettos are generally populated by Romani people, who are discriminated against in every social aspect. This is an old script staged a thousand and one times by bourgeois society: discriminate against an ethnic minority, push it to the outskirts of the city, where proper infrastructure is lacking, and then blame the „degradation” and spread of crime on the minority.

Homelessness is another well-known phenomenon. In Romania, the number of homeless people is estimated at around 15,000, with 5,000 in Bucharest alone, and about 350 of them die each year due to exposure to the terrible living conditions. 65% of them have no identification cards, so it is impossible for these people to find a job or request social services. In Bucharest, there were only 420 shelters for homeless people in 2020.

The Eternal Deception of “Public Housing”

“Public housing” is housing built at state expense and rented to those who cannot afford to buy housing at market prices. Houses must meet certain minimum requirements for electricity, running water, toilets, space for resting and cooking. Available space is calculated based on the size of the tenant’s family. For many Romanians, even these minimum requirements constitute a privilege.

Public housing rent is set at about 10 percent of the tenant’s income, and therefore, employment is required for a tenant to be eligible. The tenant must also have a wage below the average level, not be a current homeowner, and not have bought and sold a home after 1990.

Very few requests for social housing have actually been met by the Romanian state over the years. In the period spanning from 2010 to 2022, out of over 30,000 poor families making requests for such dwellings in Bucharest alone, only 1,095 dwellings have been allocated. To add insult to injury, government authorities from Bucharest, known for corruption and behind-the-scenes deals, did not allocate available housing to elements from the most deprived social strata, but favored the middle classes and state officials.

Of course, building public housing cannot be a solution to the housing question either. Capitalists would have to step in to build them and they would have to receive subsidies from the state in case the tenant is not paying the full price of the rent. As always, the class state of the bourgeoisie has as its primary imperative to secure profits and reproduce that “relationship between men mediated by things” called capital.

With this column, we intend to once more bring forth the fundamental studies and articles produced by the Party concerning its (and its militants’) constant labor union activity within the objective limits of the current forces. This pertains to both the battles that the proletarian movement has undertaken and to the organizations the class has equipped to conduct them. The Party always expresses a line aimed at sharpening these forces, generalizing and unifying all objectives and struggles in the perspective of the rebirth of class organization. The Party also denounces the defeatism and demobilization pushed by nationalist and collaborationist unionism, which has gone as far as sabotage in order to uphold the repressive action of the State, in this timid period of recovery and reorganization for the class struggle. 

In the course of its labor activity, the Party, in light of the general approach established in its program and fundamental theses, has always sought to identify the specific tactical lines to be followed in relation to proletarian struggles and organizations. It  disavows all those that are only nominally proletarian and are proponents of collaborationism. Instead, we affirm our perspective, and formulate indications and slogans addressed to workers, particularly to the most combative section of them. Communist militants have always endeavored to give life to bodies of struggle and to promote the prospect of their unification towards the rebirth of the class union.

The article republished in this issue was originally produced in the 1960s, a period when the cycle of the relative development of workers’ struggles was re-emerging in Italy. The Party, which had reaffirmed itself as a militant organization just ten years earlier, was engaged in the work of re-establishing the cornerstones of the doctrine, albeit with “even if slender layers of proletarians.” Nonetheless, it felt an urgent need to translate “into action as continuous and systematic as possible a task recognized as permanent.” 

The party’s activity in the union field was “not a turning point, but the strengthening of a work that has never stopped,” and this continues to this day with the vicissitudes that we will soon describe. This article follows the discussion that appeared in our 1982 magazine “Comunismo,” No. 10, The Unions in the Era of Imperialism, highlighting its salient points and continuing it to the present day.

Focusing on the Il Soviet group’s intense activity in the early post WWI period in workers’ economic organizations and in the heat of fierce class battles, the speaker of the History of the Communist Left (see the last issue of Il Programma) made a direct connection to the theme of the Party’s trade union activity.

This activity was outlined in June 1920, at the conference of the Abstentionist Fractions: 

“Communists therefore penetrate proletarian cooperatives, unions, factory councils, and form groups of communist workers within them. They strive to win a majority and posts of leadership so that the mass of proletarians mobilised by these associations subordinate their action to the highest political and revolutionary ends of the struggle for communism.”

We are alien to any improvisation, and obey a strict continuity of program that’s simultaneously a continuity of action. Despite the constraints of a situation far removed from the heated 1919-1920, we move on the same track today—the very track outlined in the Communist Manifesto of 1848 and the General Statutes of the First International Workingmen’s Association of 1864.

Recalling Theory

When it came time not to launch a „new activity” but to initiate the coordination of an activity the Party had always claimed as its own—albeit constrained by the narrow and occasional limits imposed by the broader external situation—our groups and sections were reminded of the classical Marxist formulations. These formulations trace the process by which proletarians, compelled by economic struggle and its imperious demands, overcome the artificial barriers of interest and category created by the capitalist regime of production. Through this process, the proletariat creates a general and unitary organization that finds its first historical expression in leagues of trade unions—the immediate embodiment of the „growing (but perpetually threatened by competition) solidarity of the workers.” The ultimate crowning achievement of this process is the political party: the „independent political party, opposed to all other parties constituted by the propertied classes,” through which, and only through which, the proletariat can act as a class.

This process is not the consequence of consciousness; it’s a real and physical fact rooted not in the „brains” of individuals or collectives but in the clash between classes. This clash originates from material economic determinations and continually suprasses them. Its content lies in the creation and refinement of weapons of struggle—instruments for open conflict against bourgeois society. This is evident not only in the tamed organization of today or those which are (and will be) forged in the fire of the great revolutionary battles but even in the struggles and organisms of the proletariat in the early days of the workers’ movement.

In those days, Marx could call workers’ trade unions „schools of civil war.” Engels would smile at bourgeois economists’ astonishment at workers sacrificing weeks and weeks of wages to defend, in the streets and in clashes with police and military forces, the organizations safeguarding wage levels—and, if possible, raise them. These immediate organizations, even in periods of relative calm, carried what today might be called an immense “revolutionary charge.” Yet this charge was never, even in moments of intense social upheaval, the result of a fully developed consciousness of the ultimate aims of the proletarian struggle. Instead, it emerged from the immediate material necessities driving its own unfolding.

This applies to the class but also to the individual. The formula is not consciousness first and action later, but rather economic drive first, action later, and then finally consciousness. Furthermore, this consciousness is not realized in the individual, but in the party. Militants, however few they may be (and they will always be a minority of the working class) join the party not because they have previously acquired a complete consciousness of the program, but by a selection process that took place in the struggle and through the struggle. Only in the course of their party militancy will they be able, again not as individuals but as an organized body, to “overthrow praxis” and make revolutionary theory the sine qua non in revolutionary action.

Just as it is not a matter of consciousness, the process of organizing the proletariat as a class is not a gradual evolutionary fact, a slow and progressive maturation. It’s a tumultuous succession of qualitative leaps corresponding to violent and often bloody clashes between classes. Through this, the proletariat—those without reserves—overcomes in a single stroke the more coarse and immediate forms of organization, which are divided by locality and sector and are discontinuous in time and space. The proletariat breaks through the narrow limits of the parochial and the company, subordinating the personal, local, and corporate interests of individuals and groups to ever broader interests and aims. This culminates in the political party, where every boundary of group, category, and nation is obliterated and every act obeys the imperatives of the ultimate and general aims of the class.

This is a dialectical process that has nothing to do with the idealistic interpretation of history, whereby each stage is annulled by the next and, having reached the summit of “consciousness,” humanity enters once and for all the “reign of reason.”

The party, itself a product of material determinations, is a battle line. As it possesses superior theoretical and organizational weapons, it is called upon not only to defend them against the converging attacks of capitalist society—and even against the persistent pressures of the material determinations to which it owes its existence—but also to carry them as instruments of decisive action within the immediate organizations into which they continually flow. This process is driven by the pressures of capitalist society and the relentless proletarianization of the middle classes, which produces new levers of wage-earners. The party is, therefore, called to radiate that which—in periods of the ebbs of class struggle—may be only the “light” of the historic revolutionary program. This is destined to become, in fiery periods of social conflict, the great “magnetic field” of polarization for all the subversive forces unleashed from the underground of the bourgeois social and political order.

The party is not the Spirit of biblical mythology, hovering above the waters and observing from on high the chaotic movements and struggles of a humanity bound by the chains of the flesh. Nor is it a Demiurge that descends into the arena at some decisive moment to single-handedly reshape the world. Rather, it is a material force whose decisive role in the grand unfolding of history depends entirely on its connection with a massive, driving force.

This force emerges „from below”—raw and „uncultivated,” like a natural and physical phenomenon—neither guided nor shaped by conscious ideologies or explicit concepts. As Engels remarked in 1890, “it will be the non-socialists who will make the socialist revolution.” This raw energy will inevitably be drawn to act within the framework of the program that the party, even in its darkest moments, has upheld and defended against all opposition, even within the ranks and organizations of wage earners in their struggle against capital.

There’s no contradiction (except for those who have understood nothing of the materialist dialectic) between the superb proclamation of the theses of the Third International on the role of the communist party in the proletarian revolution—“The Communist Party differs from the whole working class because it has an overall view of the whole historical road of the working class in its totality and because at every turn in this road it strives to defend not just the interests of a single group or a single trade, but the interests of the working class in its totality.”—and the task which the same theses assign to it of working within the proletarian economic organizations—“The task of communism does not lie in accommodating to these backward parts of the working class, but in raising the whole of the working class to the level of the communist vanguard.”—since “Every class struggle is a political struggle. The aim of this struggle, which inevitably turns into civil war, is the conquest of political power. Political power can only be seized, organized and led by a political party, and in no other way.” 

In other words, “The class struggle of the proletariat demands a concerted agitation that illuminates the different stages of the struggle from a uniform point of view and at every given moment directs the attention of the proletariat towards specific tasks common to the whole class. That cannot be done without a centralized political apparatus, that is to say outside of a political party.”

Practical Tasks of the Movement

The connection between economic struggle and political struggle—between wage‑ earning masses moving under the impetus of immediate interests and the party fighting for the ultimate goals of communist revolution—and, as a logical corollary, our active presence in trade union organizations and workers’ agitations, is thus a matter of principle. In reaffirming it we merely reiterate one of our Characteristic Theses, enunciated at the Florence meeting in December 1951: 

„The Party will never set up economic associations which exclude those workers who do not accept its principles and leadership. But the Party recognises without any reserve that not only the situation which precedes insurrectional struggle but also all phases of substantial growth of Party influence amongst the masses cannot arise without the expansion between the Party and the working class of a series of organisations with short term economic objectives with a large number of participants. Within such organisations the party will set a network of communist cells and groups, as well as a communist fraction in the union. […] Although it could never be free of all enemy influence and has often acted as the vehicle of deep deviations; although it is not specifically a revolutionary instrument, the union cannot remain indifferent to the party which never gives up willingly to work there, which distinguishes it clearly from all other political groups who claim to be of the ‘opposition.’”

Therefore, if we seek to extend and better coordinate this work today, it is not because some “new and original idea” has passed through anyone’s mind. Rather, it is because the general situation and development—however disorganized—of class struggles, along with the consolidation of the party network, require us to translate into continuous and systematic action a task we recognize as permanent. This remains true even when “events, and not the desire or the decision of militants,” limited it (as they still partly do) “to a small part of its activity.”

This was the necessary response to questions that arose, both on the periphery and at the center of the party, from ongoing agitations. We can now give this response on a larger scale than in the past, precisely because, during the long and not yet completed phase of the “re-establishment of the theory of Marxist communism” that occupied the last decade of our organizational life, the relationship between our ideologically strengthened network and the (still slender) strata of proletarians has been expanding and strengthening. This is not a “turning point” but a continuation of work that never ceased, even when external circumstances—beyond the will or desires of even the most combative and enthusiastic militant—limited its scope.

The infamous policy of fragmenting the struggles of militant groups, such as metalworkers or agricultural wage workers, has re-proposed—and continues to re-propose—the revolutionary party’s imperative to reaffirm the fundamental principles of class struggle. This task remains critical before, during, and after agitations that frequently escalate into open and direct clashes between proletarians and the forces of law and order, which are often backed by union piecards.

The party must remind workers that

• No economic victory is lasting, nor does it serve the general interests of the class, if it does not result in growing solidarity among the exploited. Therefore, the abandonment of the general strike—without time limits and without distinction of factory, sector, or category—not only fails to secure immediate economic gains but also undermines and destroys the future and general prospects for the proletarian assault on the capitalist regime of exploitation.
• The “tactics” of articulate bargaining, of demanding additional qualifications by category, of seeking productivity bonuses and company incentives, and of striking for ridiculously short periods, only increase—instead of reducing—the competition among workers and their isolation from one another. 
• So-called “apoliticism of the union” actually conceals the union’s abandonment of class politics in favor of backing central bourgeois power. 
• There are no “particular” issues to which a solution can be found outside the general vision of the historical interests of the working class.

For these answers to be—both now and even more so in the future—given by the entire party to the entire array of forces of opportunism, it became necessary to supplement the central party organ, Il Programma Comunista, with a central bulletin of programmatic and combative character, Spartaco. Meanwhile, in various groups and sections, the long work of connecting to proletarians in struggle bore positive fruit. This made it urgent to coordinate the general Party activity according to clear and uniform directives.

This coordination did not—and does not—set goals that the situation, not only in Italy but especially internationally, forbids. It does not aim to achieve rapid and radical shifts in the direction that a forty-year period of super-opportunism has inevitably imprinted on the—albeit lively—struggles of entire sectors of the industrial and agricultural proletariat. It does not dream of the short-term possibility of liberating the trade union from the tutelage of counter-revolutionary parties—even if, locally and for a short time, it does not exclude the possibility (which has actually occurred) that the leadership of agitations and even of workers’ economic bodies be taken and kept by our comrades. Its aim is to weave and strengthen our network of physical connections with the proletariat, taking advantage of a slowly recovering situation—but with full knowledge that the fruits of this methodical, stubborn work (as is our custom) can and must be reaped only at an advanced stage of the workers’ movement, certainly not in the near future.

At the meeting in Rome, on April 1st, 1951, it was reaffirmed that “[t]he correct Marxist praxis asserts that the consciousness of both the individual and the mass follow action; and that action follows the thrust of economic interest. Only within the class party does consciousness, and, in given circumstances, the decision to act, precede class conflict; but this possibility is organically inseparable from the molecular interplay of the initial physical and economic impulses. […] According to all the traditions of Marxism and of the Italian and International Left working and struggling inside the proletarian economic organizations is one of the indispensable conditions for successful revolutionary struggle; along with the pressure of the productive forces on production relations, and with the correct theoretical, organizational and tactical continuity of the political party.”

To separate these three inseparable terms—isolating the possibilities for success offered by the theoretical and organizational strengthening of the party on the one hand, and the work and struggle in economic associations on the other—from the objective reality of the maturing process of internal contradictions in capitalist society would be to undermine precisely the theoretical, organizational, and tactical continuity that the party has painstakingly reconstructed in recent years. We must, therefore, fight with the utmost energy against any attitude of aristocratic disinterest in economic struggles. Any claim—even if inspired by a healthy fear of taking opportunist paths—that the party should merely proclaim and defend “general” postulates and refuse to engage with “particular” questions must be vigorously combated. Such claims are based on the false assumption that “particular” questions can somehow be isolated from the “general” questions of the proletarian movement, or vice versa—the separation of these areas is precisely the dominant characteristic of opportunism.

Similarly, the opposite claim—even if inspired by genuine enthusiasm—must also be dispelled. We must energetically oppose assigning the party tasks that the real development of class struggle prevents from being fulfilled. The party must not set objectives for itself that can only take shape and substance due to events of international importance—which condition the development of the international revolutionary party.

Let’s then take care to carry out our work of penetration and proselytizing among the proletarian masses serenely, methodically, and continuously. Let’s not allow ourselves to be caught up either in discouragement over failures—failures that we must foresee and discount in advance—or in the hysterics of “action for the sake of action.” Above all, let’s not indulge in the illusion that the “times” of revolutionary recovery can be accelerated by means of tactical recipes or organizational expedients, which would isolate the work conventionally labeled as “trade union work” from the general and political work of the movement.

It’s a responsibility we are proud to finally take on. We must carry forward with the knowledge that we are fulfilling not a national but an international task. We are working for the future of a proletarian movement and a class party that has and recognizes no time limits or State borders.

Part 3

Introduction

When the Left saw fractionism and insubordination tearing the International apart, it didn’t draw the conclusion that improved organisational mechanisms or a stronger centre which was better at repressing the autonomist aspirations of the individual sections was needed. Instead it learnt the lesson that the splits, lack of discipline and resistance to orders were due to tactical norms not having been properly articulated due to a lack of consistency in the party’s methods of action, and due to the increasingly shapeless form the organisation was assuming by way of fusions, filterings and infiltrations of other parties, etc, etc.

The Left’s thesis was that unless the essential preconditions for any kind of organization were re-established on a firm basis, then no amount of ingenuity would establish a strong and disciplined organisational structure, or a strong world centre of proletarian action.

Chapter 1 – The ‘Model’ Organisation

The work of the party requires organs, instruments of centralisation, of co-ordination and of policy; these instruments, mechanisms, etc, are the expression of real demands that arise as a result of its activity. It is the party’s action which needs a suitable structure and which provides the impulse, the urge, to build it, to realise it. This isn’t, on the other hand, a specific structural type that can be imposed on living reality and shape the party as though it were distinct from its activity. To claim that the party, in order to consider itself as such, must possess at every moment of its existence a specific structure, particular organs, etc, is to fall back into the most abstract, anti-Marxist voluntarism. It’s not just us saying this, all our theses say it, and Lenin does as well, when he’s not being misread by philistines searching for sure-fire recipes for success. Because, as we’ve already said, presupposing an ‘organisational model’ necessarily brings in its wake another, even more serious, departure from sound materialism: it leads to recognising in the existence or achievement of this structural type the ‘guarantee’ that the party is pursuing the ‘correct revolutionary policy’. Our classic sequence is turned on its head and organisational structure ends up as the guarantor of tactics, programme and even principles.

66 – General Guiding Principles, 1949

The correct functioning relationship between the central and peripheral organs of the movement isn’t based on constitutional schemas but on the entire dialectical unfolding of the historical struggle of the working class against capitalism.

Chapter 2 – ‘Guarantees’

Arranged in date order from 1922 to 1970, the quotations in this chapter follow a continuous line in the communist conception of organisational questions. According to this line the centralised and disciplined organisation of the party is based not on democratic consultation of majority opinion, and less still on the edicts of leaders or group of leaders, but instead on the clarity and continuous clarification of its line on doctrine, principles, programme, aims and on the ever deeper acquisition of these positions by the organisation. It is based, as a consequence, on the demarcation of clear tactical norms, which all members of the organisation need to be aware of along with a clear understanding of all of their possible implications. The work of organisation-building is therefore an indispensable task whose constant aim is to render clear and unequivocal, to the whole organisation, the historical patrimony of experiences and dynamic balance sheets of which the existing organisation is but the current expression. If there exists homogeneity within, and the acceptance by all members, of the theoretical, programmatic and tactical foundations, then there will also necessarily exist, as a result, homogeneity within the realm of organisational discipline; namely, a general and spontaneous obedience to orders issued by the centre.

In the absence of such homogeneity, attempts to resolve differences by applying disciplinary pressure, compelling obedience to the centre’s orders, or through a strong central organ capable of forcing its decisions on the periphery will be entirely in vain. It will be necessary instead to rebuild the homogeneous base by sculpting and honing the party’s doctrinal, programmatic and tactical lines in the light of our tradition. Now this isn’t the same as saying, ‘the party should have no central organs with absolute and non-negotiable powers’; it means that the ensuring that the orders of the centre are obeyed rests not on the latter’s capacity to punish the disobedient, but on it operating in such a way that there are no disobedient people; and such a situation is obtained not by organisational sanctions but through continuous ongoing work on the part of the entire organisation to integrate its doctrinal, programmatic and tactical bases.

[…]

It is a cheap shot against the Left to state that having theoretical, programmatic and tactical homogeneity in place doesn’t automatically lead to centralised organisation. The organisation has to be built, for sure, but it needs to be supported on the foundations we looked at earlier. And then the building of the organisation becomes a purely technical matter; a logical consequence in terms of the acquisition of practical instruments that serve to coordinate, harmonise and direct the party’s activity. We will have need of an operational central organ which plans and issues instructions; we will need people to take responsibility for various areas of party activity; we will need a centralised and efficient communications network; we will need hundreds of operational instruments, and setting them up won’t be easy. Certainly! But it will all be for nought unless it rests on the aforementioned basis. But woe betides us if it is ever thought that these formal instruments bestow an ultimate guarantee of the good functioning of the party and of its internal discipline. It is a matter of technical instruments that the party has to use in order to act in a co-ordinated and centralised manner; but these absolutely do not guarantee the actions themselves, or centralisation, or discipline.

70 – Theses of the P.C.d’I on the Tactics of the C.I. at the IVth Congress, 1922

The authority and prestige of the centre, which relies on psychological factors rather than material sanctions, depends entirely on the clarity, firmness and continuity of the programmatic proclamations and methods of struggle. The assurance that the proletarian international is able to form a centre of effective unitary action rests solely on this.

A robust organisation can arise only on the sound basis that its organisational norms provide; by assuring each individual that these norms will be applied impartially, rebellions and desertions are reduced to a minimum. The organisational statutes, no less than the ideology and the tactical norms, need to impart a sense of unity and continuity.

82 – Supplementary Theses… (Milan Theses), 1966

7 – […] Within the revolutionary party, as it moves inexorably towards victory, obeying orders is spontaneous and total but not blind or compulsory. In fact, centralised discipline, as illustrated in the theses and associated supporting documentation, is equivalent to a perfect harmony between the duties and actions of the base and those of the centre, and the bureaucratic practices of an anti-Marxist voluntarism are no substitute for this.

Chapter 3 – Currents and Fractions

93 – The Left’s Theses at the 3rd Congress of the P.C.d’I (Lyon Theses), 1926

II, 5 – Another aspect of the watchword “Bolshevisation” is entrusting the guarantee of the party’s effectiveness to centralised discipline and a strict prohibition of fractionism.

The final court of appeal for all controversial questions is the international central organ, with hegemony being attributed, if not hierarchically, at least politically, to the Russian Communist Party.

Such a guarantee doesn’t actually exist, and the whole approach to the problem is inadequate… 

Chapter 4 – Ideological Terror and Organisational Pressure

[T]he role of party members, leaders and hierarchies. The latter are bound to exist as technical instruments to coordinate and direct the party’s work as a whole, but their existence does not guarantee the party against errors and deviations. Consequently, when mistakes and deviations occur, they won’t be resolved by judging what people have done, by selecting better people, or by swapping one set of people for another set of people. The solution lies in the collective organ of the party making an honest and rational attempt to reconnect with the historical line which the mistake or deviation caused to be broken. The men can remain the same (unless they are traitors) as long as the party organ gets back on track.

[…] The Left doesn’t view the party as a colony of human microbes. The Left believes the party should apply an organic, functional approach to allocating the various technical roles to its members, including that of the central role of leadership which, whether it is one person or more than one person, cannot be expected to provide an absolute guarantee that the party will remain on the correct path…

Chapter 5 – Political Struggle within the Party

The fact that at certain times a variety of answers can present themselves to the same question, with militants taking up different positions in a search for a solution, cannot induce us to forget the shared heritage on which the Party rests, and to which any and all answers must be bound. Thus the solution to a problem that the centre of the Party decides to apply should not come about as the expression of balances of power between different groups within the Party and of the prevalence of one over the other, but due to its compliance with the line laid down by doctrine, by the programme, and by the tactics of the Party, and this loyalty to the common tradition must be demanded for any formulation of any problem. The solution to the issues that assail the Party thus becomes delegated to a collective work carried out on a united foundation that everybody accepts and is thus susceptible to an objective and rational study.

Towards the centre there must be a total obedience and executive discipline, not insofar as it is the expression of a majority of individual viewpoints, but insofar as it proves to be along the lines of this continuity…

Part 4

Chapter 1 – The Party Structure

Since 1952 it has been based on the existence of a centre which issues instructions to the whole of the network in the form of “organisational circulars”; on frequent liaison between the centre and the various parts of the organisation engaged in various aspects of party work; on feedback from the territorial sections, groups and individual militants to the centre; and on periodic meetings of the whole of the organisation in order to take stock, via detailed reports, of the party work carried out, in both the theoretical and the practical fields, over a given period of time. The extensive material from these periodic meetings is published in the party press and forms an object of study and of further elaboration in the local and regional meetings

[…] Evidently as the party’s tasks intensify, and become more complicated, further instruments of co-ordination and centralisation will be required. As the number of party members increases along with the complexity of the tasks, militants will need to be screened more and more; there will have to be an ever greater specification of functions, of the appropriate organs to carry out those functions, and of the men who are allocated to those various organs. But this is something that happens organically, not voluntaristically; it is determined not by anyone’s volition but by the extent to which the party’s tasks have developed. The differentiated organs that the party possesses at any time should be the result of functional necessities arising from the party’s activity, not derived from an organisational scheme plucked from thin air, and considered necessary merely because it corresponds to an idea of a perfect party or perfect mechanism that exists in somebody’s head.

Chapter 2 – The „Phases” of Party Development

If the party maintains this continuity, this dialectical connection between the various tasks and functions that make up its organic life, the organization develops, diversifies, and gives itself a structure not because someone wills it, but due to the needs which arise from the carrying out, the extension, and the ever increasing complexity of Party activity. New organs are created because the party’s functions become increasingly complicated and require an appropriate structure for their needs; because the activity of the party requires the right tools to help it operate as best it can in all fields. They are not created for the childish reason that one day someone thinks it’s time to finally give an organised structure to the Party and decides, in his little head, to come up with a model of organization…

Chapter 4 – Democratic Centralism and Organic Centralism

The movement’s theoretical cornerstones have to be made clearer and clearer, its tactical lines have to be honed more and more and, in the light of the common principals, common tactics and examination of the situations in which the Party finds it has to act, complex problems regarding practical action have to be resolved and the most efficient organisational tools to co-ordinate the party’s activity as a whole have to be found. What is more, we have to work towards acquiring the entire practical and theoretical patrimony of the movement and transmit it to new generations of militants. None of this takes place by means of confrontations and congresses or consultations to solicit opinions; it occurs as a result of a rational and scientific search for solutions, it being clearly understood that whatever they are they mustn’t transgress the boundaries the party has set itself in all fields.

On this basis, even the mistakes which a particular party organ, including the ‘central’ organ, may make in the course of providing a solution to a given problem doesn’t entail that the individuals concerned have to be condemned or replaced, but rather a common search for what caused the mistake, in the light of our doctrine and our tactical norms…

135 – Introduction to the ‘Post 1945 Theses’ – 1970

Organisation, same as discipline, isn’t a point of departure but a point of arrival; it has no need of statutory codification and disciplinary regulation; it recognises no contradiction between the ‘base’ and the ‘summit’; it excludes the rigid barriers of a division of labour inherited from the capitalist regime not because leaders’ and ‘experts’ in specific areas aren’t needed, but because these are, and necessarily have to be, committed (in the same way as the most ‘lowly’ of its militants, only more so) to a program, a doctrine and to a clear and unequivocal definition of tactical norms shared by the entire party, known to each of its members, publicly affirmed and above all expressed in practice in full view of the class as whole. And just as leaders and experts are necessary, they are likewise dispensable as soon as they cease to fulfil the role which, via natural selection rather than by phony head counts, the party had entrusted to them; or when, worse still, they deviate from the path marked out for all to follow. A party of this type (as ours tends to be and tries to become, without however making any anti-historical claim to ‘purity’ or ‘perfection’) doesn’t adapt its entire internal life, its development, its—let’s just say it—hierarchy of technical functions to fit in with whimsical decisions made on the spur of the moment or decreed by a majority; it grows and is strengthened by the dynamics of the class struggle in general, and by its own interventions within it in particular; it creates, without prefiguring them, its instruments of battle, its ‘organs’, at all levels; it doesn’t need—except in pathological cases—to expel after ‘due process’ those who no longer feel like following the common, unchanging road, because it must be capable of getting rid of them in the same way a healthy organism spontaneously eliminates its waste matter…