The article we are republishing here originally appeared in our newspaper in April 1975, after a “dirty split”, as we called it at the time, that is, one imposed from above by a diktat from the Center through an expulsion decree, had compromised the Party’s organizational integrity.

“Let’s come together, after all, we share the same principles and say the same things”, that was the refrain that accompanied that disaster, which, whether in good faith or not, emerged during that painful turning point.

We are republishing it in the same spirit as when it was written, with the firm and serene conviction that the path taken after every rupture must always be the same.

The name “Clover” stems from our tradition, which has always opposed political alliances between different organizations, alliances that seek to bring together diverse traditions with a common origin, much like the leaves of the small meadow clover, which would unite multiple leaflets, all on the same level and carrying a message that, in their view, might be different but compatible. Our sarcastic definition has forever denied such projects any political legitimacy.

When a rift occurs that tears apart a once-intact fabric, the disillusioned or bewildered reappear; seeing the fragments of what was once a cohesive and unified whole, they strive to establish a theoretical and organizational framework upon which to reunite those who have not accepted the split and are willing to rally once more under the same banner.

The reasoning is very simple, and it is always the same: if, under the given historical conditions, we were a tiny minority before, we are now an even tinier one, a constellation of micro-organizations that are all nearly identical, how seriously can we even think of presenting ourselves to the revolutionary class and claiming to lead it?

There is, of course, a fundamental misunderstanding, which our long-standing movement has denounced and clarified. We are not afraid of being a minority among minorities, and organizational splits have been a painful constant throughout our history.

Of course, if one believes that crises or splits occur because of personal animosities or for reasons related to misunderstandings among comrades, or simply because of some “grumbling”, then an attempt at reconstruction by appealing to the Left and its tradition might actually make sense.

But the dynamics of interpersonal relationships among comrades are never the cause of splits and separations.

Those who say this have forgotten the painful lessons inflicted upon us by the pressure of this rotten society and the rigorous doctrinal corrections of our teachers. Behind issues that appear to stem from clashes among comrades, there are always, though sometimes not immediately apparent, principled motivations that almost always revolve around the nature and form of the party organization, which exists and operates under specific historical conditions and which, with the exception of revolutionary situations, are not subject to its will.

The abandonment, or, worse, the rejection, of some of these principles, which the historic Party has formalized in its set of Characteristic Theses and in its organizational tradition, may, as we said, not be immediately apparent or may be mistaken for trivial incidents resulting from the normal dialectic among comrades; but it is only with time and under the pressure of concrete facts that their effects become apparent and that organizations which seemed identical are distinguished from one another.

The subsequent emergence on the scene of the ruthless “saviors of the Party”, who, in the name of a misguided discipline imposed on individuals or the leader, act against our principles, represents the final, notarized act that seals the organizational disaster. At this point, the existence of two different but seemingly similar, or even indistinguishable, organizations may be perceived as a mere hiccup, one that can be remedied through an act of “revolutionary” will; and, in perfect good faith, we can strive to reconstitute a unified whole.

But since the violation of fundamental principles persists, even while acknowledging the good faith, naivety, or spirit of forbearance of many comrades, it is a futile, idealistic exercise to think that we can keep the party united or try to rebuild it.

What we wrote back then has been confirmed yet again today.

* * * * *

The colorful underworld of “Party rebuilders” is nothing new. The premise is always the same: let’s get together, discuss, and exchange experiences, we are all on the same side. The need for the Party, these gentlemen assert, has been felt by a great many comrades; and there are quite a few groups that call themselves the “Party”: the experience of recent years has shown that these groups tend increasingly to close in on themselves and become entrenched in their positions, with none managing to “swallow up” the other, thus remaining sectarian minorities. Hence the need to begin discussions, on a common basis accepted by all, toward the formation of something that, being larger in number, is not merely a group, whose tactics, born of an “exchange of experiences,” are more palatable to the working masses, and which finally resolves the confusion that can arise from various quarters proclaiming “almost” the same things. In short, the watchword would be to overcome this “fragmented phase of the communist movement.” Without wishing to cast doubt on the good faith of those who have taken on this thankless task, one must ask whether this person, or these people, has fully understood what the Party is, how it is formed, what laws govern its development, and what its aims are. For otherwise, why the call to rebuild the Party today? Was this need not present in the aftermath of the so-called “liberation,” or even further back, in the dark years of Stalinism? It is not difficult to admit that an unprecedented counterrevolutionary storm destroyed at its roots a fighting organization that seemed permanent; however, what the consequences were for a “tradition”, for the guiding thread and programmatic line that binds and marks all the stages of the movement’s development, appears less clear; indeed, it is not at all apparent to these proponents of “comrades, let’s reunite.” What, in fact, is the Party that these people intend to reconstitute, and how should it relate to the entire past experience?

Marx clarifies in a letter to Freiligrath what is meant by “party”:

“The ‘League’, like the société des saisons in Paris and a hundred other societies, was simply an episode in the history of a party that is everywhere springing up naturally out of the soil of modern society”, and further: “I have tried to dispel the misunderstanding arising out of the impression that by ‘party’ I meant a ‘League’ that expired eight years ago, or an editorial board that was disbanded twelve years ago. By party, I meant the party in the broad historical sense.”

That is, as a foreshadowing of the future society, of the future Man, of the human Being, which is the true Gemeinwesen of humankind. It is the attachment to this Being, which in periods of counterrevolution seems to be denied by history (just as today the revolution seems to the general public to be a utopia), that allows us to resist. The struggle to maintain this position is our action.

Thesis 12 of “Considerations on the Organic Activity of the Party When the Situation Is Historically Unfavorable” (dated 1965) reiterates the same concept:

“Historical party and formal party. This distinction is in Marx and Engels and they had the right to deduce from it that, being with their work on the line of the historical party, they disdained to be members of any formal party. But no one of today’s militants can infer from it he has the right to a choice: that is of being in the clear with the “historical party”, and to care nothing about the formal party.” Or to do the opposite, one might add. Then, further on: “Marx says: party in its historical meaning, in the historical sense, and formal, or ephemeral, party. In the first concept lies the continuity, and from it we derived our characteristic thesis of the invariance of doctrine since its formulation made by Marx; not as invention of a genius, but as discovery of a result of human evolution.”

An organization, then, of men, based on a program not invented or borrowed by them, but chosen, and definitively so, by history. That organization no longer exists, but the continuity of the program has not been broken, precisely because of the Left’s staunch defense of it on all levels, theoretical, programmatic, and tactical. The programmatic principles have been organized into a set of theses, not with the pretense of having discovered anything new to be attributed to some brilliant mind, but to strengthen the ancient “chain of revolutionary Marxism,” so that the traditional common thread might condense the experience of events and generations, to be passed on to younger generations, and to establish the permanent tenets of the program, which new events have only confirmed. The stages of this struggle, after 1921, are also known as the Rome Theses, the Lyon Theses, The Work of the Overseas Fraction in the Interwar Period, Nature, Function, and Tactics of the Revolutionary Party of the Working Class, Characteristic Theses of the Party, and Theses on the Historical Task, Action, and Structure of the World Communist Party, According to the Positions Forming the Historical Patrimony of the Communist Left for More Than Half a Century. In this historical continuity of positions and orientation, unchanged despite shifting times, people, and situations, revolutionary Marxists clearly see the party, the party of all time. Throughout the entire course of the class struggle, there is evidence that the proletariat abandons its program during periods of defeat: this program is then steadfastly upheld by a small minority, but it does not emerge from this weakened or negated in any way; on the contrary, it is precisely in such situations that it is strengthened and confirmed, and this is proven by the struggle waged from 1926 to the shitty present day. The core of militants who remain steadfast—whatever their number!—on these positions knows full well that the foundations for the movement’s rebirth on a global scale, and for the reconstruction of the party as a broad-based organization, do not depend on mere will or on strange hodgepodge schemes based on the “let’s meet” formula, but precisely on an intensification of social tensions, until they erupt, until broad masses of people rise up under the pressure of material facts, the determinism of which communists have no doubt, since the understanding of the development of the productive forces and the certainty of capitalism’s cyclical general crises, a theoretical and practical achievement of materialist determinism in the face of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois schools, is the source of our revolutionary catastrophism. It is precisely through these crises that broad masses will be set, whether they like it or not; it is not a matter of “consciousness”, on the path to revolution, where they must rediscover their traditional positions, their party, and their tradition of struggle. Such determinism does not, however, imply a fatalistic waiting for events to unfold, because the Party’s fundamental task is to instill within the body of the class the positions of the revolution, which have been supplanted by the distorted doctrines and practices of opportunism. From the Characteristic Theses of the Party dated 1951 (nos. 8 and 9):

«In spite of the small number of its members, determined by distinctly counterrevolutionary conditions, the Party continues its work of proselytism and of oral and written propaganda, even though its meetings are attended by only a few people and its publications have a limited circulation.”

And then 9:

“It is events, and not the desire or the decision of militants, which determine the depth of the Party’s penetration amongst the masses, limiting it today to a small part of its activity. Nevertheless, the Party loses no occasion to intervene in the clashes and vicissitudes of the class struggle, well aware that there can be no revival until this intervention has developed much further and become the main area of Party activity.”

Historical events have selected, shaped, and reaffirmed, not through theoretical debate, but in the heat of struggle, a whole series of facts that only our current, the Communist Left, has been able to interpret in a manner consistent with Marxist theory. Historical events have charted a course for the proletarian class that only our current has been able to follow. This is the actual historical path of the class party, codified in texts and theoretical theses, because theory is nothing other than the codification of the experience of the proletarian class struggle on a global scale. The party is this body of doctrine, and therefore of the historical experience, of the proletariat. And with regard to this unified body of doctrine, theory, program, and tactical norms, there can be no “distances”, whether great or small. Either one accepts it all, or one accepts none of it. The figure of the “partial” communist, or one who is “on the way” to becoming a 100-percent communist by virtue of educational enlightenment, has never existed, much less does it exist today.

“The party, therefore, differentiates itself from all the others, whether declared enemies or alleged kindred spirits, and even from those who claim to recruit their followers from the ranks of the working class, because its political praxis rejects the maneuvers, alliances and blocs that are traditionally formed on the basis of postulates and slogans common to several parties.

This party position has an essentially historical value, which distinguishes it in the tactical domain from all the others, exactly as does its original vision of the period that capitalist society is currently going through.” (From “Nature, Function and Tactics of the Revolutionary Party of the Working Class”, 1945).

These are the definitive conclusions for the Party, which our organization has adopted as its own, and which are not to be “discussed” with anyone; either you accept them and take a very clear stance, or you are perfectly free to follow your own inclinations and go with the flow.

Just how far removed from the only conception of the party that is acceptable to a revolutionary Marxist is the person who publishes those impassioned appeals to “let’s come together”, every line of our texts makes this clear, and “let’s discuss it” is the epitaph that the Party has inscribed on the tomb of all the reconstructors: past, present, and future.

“There are no ready-made recipes that will accelerate the resurgence of the class struggle. No manoeuvres and expedients exist that will get proletarians to listen to the voice of the class; such manoeuvres and expedients would not make the party appear to be what it truly is, but would be a misrepresentation of its function, to the detriment and prejudice of the effective resurgence of the revolutionary movement, which is based on the situation having really matured and the corresponding ability of the party to respond, being fit for this purpose only because of its doctrinaire and political inflexibility.
The Italian Left has always fought against resorting to expedients as a way of keeping its head above water, denouncing this as a deviation from principle which in no way adheres to Marxist determinism.
Along the lines of past experiences, the Party therefore withholds from making and accepting invitations, open letters or agitation slogans aiming to form committees, fronts or agreements with other political organisations whatever their nature.”  (From  “Characteristic Theses of the Party”, 1952).

If the line defining and distinguishing the class party from all other political groupings, even those that claim to represent the proletarian class, the revolutionary struggle, and even the tradition of the Communist Left, is the one we have outlined, a consequence follows in the realm of practical action. Just as the class party, a “compact and powerful” fighting force “indispensable to the conduct of the revolution”, will not be reconstituted through the convergence of multiple groups, all more or less self-styled Marxists and self-styled revolutionaries, onto a “common platform,” but exists today solely and exclusively within the very small core of those proletarians who are active on the basis of the positions contained in the texts we have cited, thus the strengthening of this core, its return to contact with and to the forefront of the proletarian masses, will not occur through maneuvers, overtures, or contacts with supposedly like-minded groups and forces that do not exist and cannot exist, but through the convergence of the current party’s coherent theoretical, programmatic, and tactical framework with the “simmering of social reality”, that is, the proletariat’s return to the class struggle, a return that will be determined not by anyone’s “will,” but by the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production that will drive the proletarian class to act and struggle. But if one believes in this and advocates it, and all our theses state this, it follows that the party excludes any joint action, front, or maneuver with other political groupings, even on the practical and immediate level. A wretched distortion of the united-front tactic adopted by the Left is the idea that one can diverge on the level of theory, program, and principles, and converge on the level of practical action, even regarding immediate demands. Since 1921, the Left has fought against the tactic of the “political united front”, alliances between forces of different political persuasions on any front. The Left has opposed, and continues to oppose, this aberrant and stupid view, which would have political forces maintain their distinct principled characteristics while acting together in practice, with the tactic of the “united trade-union front”, also known, for the forgetful, as the “united front from below”, through which it called not on other parties or political groups, but on proletarians who were members of other parties or of no party at all and who were active in the unions, to unite around specific demands affecting the lives of the proletarian masses. The aim of this tactic, advocated and implemented by the Left, was to demonstrate in practice to the workers in struggle that the other parties were not only against the revolution but even opposed to defending the workers’ living and working conditions, and that only the Communist Party was capable of leading the class struggle, even for their immediate interests. The aim was therefore to wrest the proletarian members away from the other political parties by demonstrating to them, through practical action within class-based organizations, that the policies of those parties ran counter to even the most limited interests of the workers themselves. The Communist Party led by the Left never issued an appeal to the PSI or the anarchists to join forces with the Communists in some form of “practical action” “without prejudice to differences of principle.” We knew all too well, and this was the basis of our struggle from 1922 to 1926 against the tactics advocated by the International, that in this way we would have endorsed, in the eyes of the workers, the idea that these parties had anything proletarian or revolutionary about them; and we knew just as well that, sooner or later, even the “difference in principles”, reduced to a purely cultural matter, would go out the window. It was the militant communist workers in the unions (the communist union faction) who proposed to the socialist and anarchist workers, also active in those same unions, that they unite their respective forces for joint practical action on the union front, that is, in the union struggle, which by definition involves workers affiliated with any party or with no party at all. Everyone is free to follow “any path other than ours,” but no one is permitted to misrepresent, under the guise of the Communist Left, positions and attitudes that have never had, and have nothing to do with, the Left. Everyone is free to think that the Left “was wrong” and to accuse our tradition of abstract thinking and pedantry, but no one is free to smuggle, under the banner of the Left and the International Communist Party, which is its current expression, the tainted goods of political united fronts. A wretched parody of the very positions of the Communist International, which dealt with political forces that had a real following among millions of workers whom the situation was driving into the arena of struggle (the overwhelming majority of the proletarian masses in all European countries), and not with fanciful splinter groups whose ties to the class are less than nonexistent, and in a situation where Stalinist opportunism still manages to block any struggle, even a partial one, on the part of the proletariat.

“The party, therefore, differentiates itself from all the others, whether declared enemies or alleged kindred spirits, and even from those who claim to recruit their followers from the ranks of the working class, because its political praxis rejects the maneuvers, alliances and blocs that are traditionally formed on the basis of postulates and slogans common to several parties…”

“Along the lines of past experiences, the Party therefore withholds from making and accepting invitations, open letters or agitation slogans aiming to form committees, fronts or agreements with other political organisations whatever their nature…”

Everyone is free to stay or leave, but the decision to stay or leave must be tested not by labels or promises, but by these precise, clear, well-known, and universally understandable statements of our Party’s tradition.

Exactly a century has passed since that fateful 1926, which marked the worldwide defeat of the revolutionary communist movement and left the proletariat a victim, delivered entirely into the hands of its betrayers. The defeat was so total and so powerful that after a hundred years the international proletariat still gives no appreciable sign of recovery or of a resumption of the class struggle on a large scale, but only sporadic flare-ups.

Besides a political guide present across the class and the various countries, there are no true class unions to organize and lead intransigent action in defense and in attack. Class unions will have to rise again, and without doubt they will; but today they do not exist. Let us always remember the two alternatives put forward by the Communist Left.

If the defense of the proletariat’s material and economic interests can be guaranteed by truly class-based unions, it is nevertheless necessary that within them the influence of the communist party be strong, so that the proletariat can make the necessary leap in quality from the defense of bread and work to the struggle for the conquest of power.

The guidance of a strong party, rooted in vast layers of workers, through whose action the union becomes a «transmission belt» between the party and the proletarian masses, is therefore an indispensable factor.

And not even such a party exists today.

For the resumption of the class struggle it would have been preferable had the defeat been caused by direct clash with the reactionary armies of the bourgeois States. Instead this defeat, all the more bitter, which struck so hard and for so long, was the effect of the degeneration, from within, of the highest organization of revolutionary communism: the Moscow International, Lenin’s own.

1926 moreover represents a crucial aspect of the victorious battle of the Communist Left alone against every kind of degeneration and contamination of revolutionary Marxist doctrine. We can say with pride that it was a true victory: the battle fought in 1926 against the degeneration of the party and the International, and the documents and programmatic theses of that time, constitute a unitary body of doctrine, program, tactic and tradition, on the basis of which the communist party of the international revolution will necessarily have to come back to life.

At the present moment the task of our small organization is to keep intact the continuity of that red thread which will link the past experience of the Communist Left to what must be the future and powerful international communist party. No easy task, if we consider how many present-day political groupings, though contaminated by petty-bourgeois ideologies, disguise themselves as heirs of the Left.

But let us return to 1926, a crucial year in the history of the international communist movement, when the degeneration of the revolutionary communist movement had by now infected the highest leading organs.

As for Italy, the question a militant might naively ask is: «How was it possible that the Party born at Livorno, founded on such cornerstones, degenerated so?» The answer is that it was not a national problem but an international one. The parties of the Third International were born spurious, for historical reasons, from splits more or less to the left of the old social-democratic parties, from unions of non-homogeneous groups, and not even the Communist Party of Italy could wholly escape this congenital defect. The degenerative process depended in large part on the weaknesses that had historically marked the formation of the new international organization, which, when the revolutionary ebb arrived, weighed on its capacity to react to the unfavorable situation.

The tactical errors of the International had led to a long series of defeats, beginning with that of the revolution in Germany, paid for with the impossibility of winning a second great country to the revolution after the first, a country of decisive importance for the development of world victory.

Naturally the degenerative phases of the Third International could not fail to be reflected within the Communist Party of Italy as well.

As we wrote over half a century ago: «the history of the Third International is, unfortunately, also the history of its gradual departure from its main road; it is therefore also the history of how a party is killed. […] 1926 is the year of ‘socialism in one country’ with all its necessary trappings (bolshevization, the crushing of the Russian Left Opposition under the steamroller of discipline-for-discipline’s-sake). […] It is the true year of the death of the Comintern: the rest will be no more than a macabre dance around its coffin.»

The degeneration matured on different levels which, intertwining and developing together, led first to the corruption and then to the destruction of the true unity of the international communist movement, replacing it, in 1926/27, with a purely formal and militaristic unity, fit only to endorse and mask the freedom of the leading center to trample to the last shred the program, tradition and doctrine.

«We had insistently demanded that the formation of the communist parties (better still, of the International as a single world communist party) be based on a theoretical and programmatic platform defined once and for all, to be taken or left. […] By virtue of this theoretical and programmatic barrier there were to be irrevocably excluded not only the doctrines of the ruling class […] but also the schools enjoying a certain following in the working class: from social-democratic, pacifist and gradualist reformism, to syndicalism, which devalues the political action of the working class and the necessity of the party as the supreme revolutionary organ; from anarchism, which repudiates on principle the historical necessity of the State and of the proletarian dictatorship as means for transforming the social order and abolishing the division into classes, down to the spurious and equivocal ‘centrism,’ synthesis and condensate of analogous deviations sheltered behind a pseudo-revolutionary phraseology.»

The barrier was never erected and, little by little, there regained ground within the International French-style syndicalism, German-style workerism, and a whole internal practice typical of parliamentarism. In this atmosphere there could not fail to appear that mixture of Sorelianism and Crocean idealism typical of the «Ordine Nuovo.»

When the Third Congress of the PCd’I was held at Lyons, the 14th Congress of the Russian communist party had just ended in Moscow, where nearly the whole old guard had risen up, by now in vain, against the prevailing and suffocating internal climate. Another month would pass, and then came that 6th Enlarged Executive where the Italian Left fought its last battle. A last battle which, in spite of all the official interpretations, did not end in defeat but on the contrary represented the victory of revolutionary communism, incarnated by this one and only current. Unfortunately, a similar balance on the historical scale could not be drawn even by the Russian Opposition, for the very fact that the degeneration had followed a course begun long before 1926, in which the Opposition had had its share of co-responsibility. Not so the Italian Left, which alone, for many years, had warned against what would be the inevitable consequences of the tactical eclecticism of the Comintern, and which therefore had the possibility and capacity to draw the overall balance of the preceding six years.

The Party will have to resume a thorough study of the degeneration of the International starting from the internal crisis that broke out in the Russian party. For now, without wishing to enter into the heart of the problem, which would lead us away from the purpose we have set ourselves, we nevertheless wish to sketch the situation lived by the comrades inside the Russian communist party, where the Stalinist counterrevolution was by then registering its definitive victory over what remained of the revolutionary and internationalist tradition.

Through falsification of documents, invention of plots and other similar expedients, the new chiefs of the Russian party managed to get the better of the true commanders of the revolutionary 1917. The roads of deportation opened, before Trotsky, to many other comrades, while the Russian party and the International, by now Stalinized, imposed as the condition for remaining in the International the acceptance of the new opportunist theory of «Socialism in one country.»

It is well known that during the 14th Congress many delegates preferred to keep silent so as not to run the risk of being deported to Murmansk or Turkestan. «These ‘transfers,'» declared Krupskaya, «create in the party the impossibility of speaking sincerely and openly. If we create conditions such that a party member can be ‘transferred’ elsewhere for having openly expressed his opinion, all the good intentions about internal democracy will remain on paper.»

Besides this we also wish to cite an excerpt from another intervention by Krupskaya, at the 14th Russian congress, in which she protests against the abuse of appealing to the authority of so-called «Leninism» and of majorities: «I think it is out of place to cry that this or that is true Leninism. I have recently reread the first chapters of ‘State and Revolution.’ […] He wrote: ‘There have been cases in history in which the teachings of great revolutionaries were distorted after their death. Harmless icons were made of them, and, while honoring their name, the revolutionary edge of their teaching was blunted.’ I think this bitter quotation obliges us not to hide this or that conception of ours behind the label of Leninism, and makes it necessary to examine all questions in their essence. […] For us Marxists, truth is what corresponds to reality. Vladimir Ilyich was in the habit of saying: ‘Marx’s teaching is invincible because it is true.’ […] The work of our congress must be to seek and find the right line. […] Bukharin said with great emphasis that whatever the congress decides will be right. Every Bolshevik considers the decisions of the congress unappealable, but […] one must not console oneself by thinking that the majority is always right. In the history of our party there have been congresses in which the majority was wrong.»

The congress ended with the adoption of the reports of Stalin and Molotov by 559 votes to 65.

In February-March 1926, inside an International not yet counterrevolutionary but by now in full decay, the Italian Left fights alone in Moscow and remains «defeated.» In November-December, at the 7th enlarged session of the Comintern Executive, triumphant Stalinism liquidates the Bolshevik Opposition.

1926 was «the year of the supreme test, since upon the outcome of the titanic struggle of the Chinese workers and peasants and of the British proletarians there depended, in the last instance, the destiny of Soviet Russia and of the International. The Russian Opposition will feel in the course of that year the terrible urgency of the knots come to the comb of history and, overcoming old quarrels, Trotsky and Zinoviev (to name only two) will desperately form a bloc against the pressing forces of counterrevolution. […] The Chinese revolution will emerge beaten, together with the Russian Opposition, and, the grandiose British strike defeated, the entire international communist movement will emerge destroyed.» The International brought to completion that degeneration long foreseen and denounced by the Left.

But of this we shall treat at length in the continuation of this work; this part will instead be devoted to how the 3rd Congress of the Communist Party of Italy was arrived at, and to the theses presented by the Communist Left, our current.

First of all we wish to premise that those theses, although presented to the congress of a «national» communist party, in reality concerned the whole problem of the tactics of the international communist movement, of which the «Italian question» was nothing but a secondary reflection, soluble only within the general one.

Those theses represented a true watershed in the history of international communism: they were a point of arrival, seen against the background of the six lived years of the Third International. For us, however, they have represented much more: the point of departure of our independent existence, as a current first and as a party afterwards, and of the perspectives of the revolutionary movement to come.

If we were to represent the evolution of the international communist movement from the standpoint of pure material events, we would have to admit, in agreement with official historiography, the defeat without appeal of the Left, crushed under the weight of enormously unfavorable relations of force. We, on the contrary, proudly claim for the Left a victory at the international and historical level, as well as the theoretical one, because it was the only current able to maintain the uninterrupted and uncorrupted continuity of the doctrine, tactic and tradition of revolutionary communism. Only thanks to the Left has the red thread joining Marx, Lenin, Livorno 1921 suffered no break. And when the revival of the world revolutionary movement finally comes, this movement, if it is at last to bring its victory to completion, can only base itself on the clear-cut positions of the Left.

Not even the Russian Opposition, fallen heroically in defense of proletarian internationalism, can, because of its participation in that tactical eclecticism on which the degeneration rested, represent a basis for the restart of the party of the future triumphant revolution.

What at the 5th Congress of the International had represented an abrupt «turn to the left» had not in the least excited our current. We have never regarded «turns,» with their oscillating course from right to left and vice versa, as positive.

In what, in fact, the «turn to the left» consisted can be well understood from the fact that the 5th international congress, in place of the one elected by the Congress of Rome, had appointed a Centre composed of representatives of the old Ordinovist group.

After the disasters of the German 1923, the International, instead of drawing a sober balance of its tactics, had found it much easier to make fall the heads of the leaders accused of right-wing deviationism.

From that moment on, the danger of deviation into opportunism became ever more evident and, as we have written on other occasions, proofs of this now rampant orientation were not lacking:

• The rapprochement with social-democracy, with the project of dissolving the Red Trade Union International in view of a fusion with the Amsterdam international.

• The theorization of the «left government» as an intermediate stage favorable to revolutionary development.

• The return to equivocal formulas of united front extended even to bourgeois left parties. • The attempt at noyautage (entryism) within left factions of the social-democratic parties.

• The tendency to attenuate every differentiation between the communist parties and the peasant or national-democratic parties, both in the colonial and semi-colonial areas and in the heart of fully capitalist Europe.

• The system of resolving the internal problems of the parties by reshuffling their respective leaderships, a system typical of bourgeois democracy.

• The refusal to bring the discussion of the Russian question into the International.

• The system of humiliation and corruption by which confessions and abjurations were demanded of the «reprobates.»

The 5th Congress of the Comintern had established that the Communist Party of Italy should convene its next congress within the following six months, and already gave a glimpse of what the «freedom» granted to the Left to take part in the pre-congress discussion and to set out its positions in party assemblies would be: «In the discussion on the press organs, the opinions expressed by the Left must always be accompanied by adequate replies from the leadership. The party must strengthen and centralize its organizational structure by adopting various measures.»

And the «various measures» could be none other than those adopted by the communist party of Russia, certainly within the limits allowed by the Italian situation, but with the same unscrupulousness, dishonesty and, as far as possible, use of force. After 1924 the Ordinovist group, installed at the head of the party, began a most violent campaign against the Left. In preparation for its 3rd Congress, the voting procedures imposed were so fraudulent that the Left, which a year earlier at the Como conference had obtained the adherence of nearly all the delegates, was confined to a derisory minority.

In the Party born at Livorno in 1921, now on the way to complete Stalinization, a veritable internal repression against exponents of the Left had begun as early as 1925: expulsions, suspensions, denigratory press campaigns, and openly provocative actions became ordinary practice.

The 3rd Congress of the Italian party was to bring about the defeat of the Left; such were the directives from Moscow, and therefore every means would be good for the purpose. Besides, how could the party «learn to maneuver skillfully among all obstacles» if it did not rid itself of the Left?

To uproot from the base of the party the influence exercised by the Left was, for the International and the centrist leadership, a priority task. They could not have afforded a consultation of the party conducted on an honest confrontation of the respective programmatic positions; too recent was the rebuff suffered at the illegal Conference of Como. Neither the alliance with the heterogeneous elements of the right, nor the entry, with full honors, of the «terzini» repudiated by the PSI, nor the new levy of members of 1924, none of these expedients had modified the internal balance all that much.

With the attempt to reabsorb the PSI into the ranks of the Comintern having failed, the conquest of the «terzini» faction was regarded as proof of the correct tactic of the International: «The fusion with the third-internationalist faction must be carried out immediately and in the most clamorous form. It must then be exploited to the maximum in order to provoke a movement of unification towards the communist party, to show the proletariat that it will be the PCd’I that realizes proletarian unity, and to weaken the influence of the socialist party among the masses of the workers.» (who says so?)

The «terzini,» welcomed with every honor into the PCd’I in 1924, after being expelled from the socialist party, had entered as an organized faction, and as such they behaved. What was the result of this great conquest is confessed to us by an exponent of the new party himself, who we can be sure never had great sympathy for the Left: Gramsci, compelled to admit that the «terzini» co-opted into the party were nothing but a group of opportunists.

«The general situation was aggravated last year by the entry into our ranks of the third-internationalist faction […] which for two and a half years had lived in autonomous form inside the maximalist party, creating internal bonds among its adherents which were bound to persist even after the fusion. […] It was wholly absorbed by the internal struggle […] which was predominantly personal and sectarian in character and only episodically dealt with fundamental questions, whether political or organizational.»

Indeed, in a report to the International, in November 1924, Togliatti wrote: «The position of the various tendencies in the party is as follows: the right has no influence, it is limited to the individual action of a few comrades. […] the two groups in which the party gathers are the centre and the Left. It is not possible to say at this moment what the balance of forces is. In the recent federal congresses the party has in general approved the resolutions of the 5th Congress and the policy followed in Italy. But this approval cannot be considered a definitive shift, because the great mass has not yet become aware of the real divergences between those directives and the attitude taken by the Bordiga group at the 5th Congress. For this reason the solidarity still possible of a fraction of the party with comrade Bordiga has only a relative importance, because it represents only to a small extent an effective adhesion to his thought and his political attitude, but is rather the effect of the personal influence that Bordiga exercises on the party, an influence which is fatally destined to diminish […].»

If we purge these contradictory and embarrassed statements of their «official optimism» we can note:

1. That the centrists have to admit the persistence of a strong influence of the Left on the party, and since they cannot confess to themselves and to the Moscow leaders that they have failed to «conquer the masses» of the party, they are forced to remain vague, asserting that they «cannot say at this moment what the balance of forces is.»

2. That even in the federal congresses they had taken good care not to clarify the real points of contrast between the Left and the official policy of the Comintern.

3. That their battle against the Left would take on the character of personal attack and denigration.

But Togliatti himself, on the following 15 February, was forced to confess that in the traditional strongholds of the party the Left kept the majority: in particular at Turin (home of the Ordine Nuovo), Alessandria, Novara, Biella, Milan, Pavia, Como, Bergamo, Trento, Modena, Rome, Naples, Ancona, Teramo, Macerata, Aquila, Foggia, Taranto, Cosenza, Cremona.

It would have been very difficult to wrest from the base of the party the predominant influence of the Left through a correct and honest confrontation of program and tactics. It was a terrain on which centrism knew well it would be defeated, but the solution adopted was that of the «political struggle» to be conducted inside the party.

As for the method of «political struggle inside the party,» the not-so-young comrades will not be able to forget its reappearance as a theorized doctrine over half a century ago and, recently, its renewed practice.

The warhorse of centrism in its slanderous struggle against the Left was the question of «discipline.»

«Discipline» is the hypocritical resource to which, every time, a degenerate Party Centre appeals to muzzle all those who recall it to its duties.

A much-trumpeted example of indiscipline, committed by the comrades of the Left, was supposed to be, for the centrists, the refusal to sit on the C.C. and the C.E. of the party. Even had this been true, it would have been an act of authentic and full discipline toward the party leadership, as the Left had made quite clear, holding it necessary that the central organs of the party have as homogeneous a composition as possible and not a hodgepodge of currents which, creating internal contrasts and antagonisms, would in fact compromise their functioning. Moreover these were also the directives of the International: «The leadership of the party shall be made up of comrades determined to apply the tactic of the International and to undertake the struggle, on the ideological as on the organizational plane, against the anti-Marxist revisionism of the extreme right as against that of the extreme left, in order to direct the mass of the party’s members onto the road of the Communist International.»

We wrote: «even had this been true,» and in fact it was not true «that the 5th Congress invited comrades of the Left to take part in the Centre of the party. With its conclusions against us […] the 5th Congress de facto ratified our removal decided at the Enlarged Executive of June 1923, against which, for that matter, we never raised any objection in point of procedure, even though it remains the only case of its kind in the history of the International. Moreover the 5th Congress unanimously voted the conclusions of the Italian Commission, which […] resolved to constitute the party Centre without us.»

It is plain, then, how the invitation to take part in the central organs of the party was entirely instrumental, since the International itself ordered the newly appointed Leadership to fight the Left on every plane.

In the course of the pre-congress «debate» the Left was prevented from carrying out any activity whatsoever. It began with the suppression of the review Prometeo.

Sections in which the Left is dominant are dissolved, comrades of the Left are removed from leading posts, their articles and documents censored or not published; if published, they are flanked by ample editorial prefaces, sometimes longer than the articles themselves, in which, falsifying their content, an attempt was made to discredit them by presenting them as factionalists, taking special pleasure in attributing to the Left opinions and attitudes openly contrary to reality. Within the party a regime of suspicion and intimidation is established, of barracks-style and bureaucratic discipline. A climate of veritable ideological terrorism.

But shortly afterwards the Centre would be able to obtain its «proof» of the factional and disruptive work carried out by the Left: the formation of a «Committee of Understanding.»

On 1 June a group of comrades of the Left sent to the C.E. of the party a letter informing it of the constitution of a «Committee of Understanding.» The letter, after reaffirming the necessity of a debate as wide as possible and free of any form of prejudice, ended by putting forward the following requests:

«a) That the discussion be given a span of time commensurate with the state of unpreparedness of the party’s masses and the importance of the questions;

«b) That the provincial congresses be held only after an exhaustive discussion has taken place in the party press;

«c) That at the provincial congresses the recognized representatives of the various tendencies be given the right to speak in contradiction;

«d) That the delegates to the Party Congress be appointed by the respective federal congresses; should, however, such appointment be made by other systems, the provincial trustees of the various currents be given the right to choose the elements called to sit on any committees;

«e) That, finally, the right be recognized to appoint and regulate the speakers who will illustrate at the congress the thought of this or that current.

«It is evident that the work of congress preparation is such as to require activity and discipline from all.

«The undersigned comrades therefore bring to the attention of the Executive Committee the constitution of a ‘Committee of Understanding’ among elements of the Left.»

In an internal communication of the CdI, of 6 June, the comrades of the Left were notified that «the Executive has already taken disciplinary measures against all the comrades who signed the letter sent to the central organ of the party, a letter in which some comrades of the Left asked how, in their view, the pre-congress campaign should be conducted in order to arrive at a true clarification in the party.»

Indeed, the following day the party daily informed comrades and adversaries (fascists and police included) that «the C.E., unanimously, has judged that the comrades of the Committee of Understanding, comrades Damen, Repossi, Lanfranchi, Venegoni, Manfredi, Fortichiari, have made themselves guilty of an attack on the party which could be sanctioned by their expulsion, and has decided to refer them to the judgment of the next session of the Central Committee, suspending them in the meantime from all work or office.» On 4 June, by circular to the interregional secretaries, instructions were given to «strike down without further ado those who criminally […] weaken our ranks. The members of the C.E. have the absolute necessity to crush radically every attempt and every activity aimed at crumbling the solidity of the party, diminishing its strength, transforming it into a masked social-democratic party.»

The circular speaks of the «criminal responsibility of the constitutors of the faction,» of the «work undertaken by a group of enemies of the party,» of the necessity «to carry out a work of purification of our ranks.»

But, bless them, the centrists hoped that «the few comrades responsible for the scandal […] will be induced to recognize the criminal content of their fault and to repent […] under the banners of Leninism.»

The order to dissolve the CdI by the representative of the International in Italy bears the date of 3 July, but is published in l’Unità only on the 19th, together with the document of acceptance by the Left, which the Centre had had for about a week. This delay in publication allowed the Centre to continue in the paper its slanderous campaign of accusation against the repeated factionalism of the Left.

Thus appeared, on the 19th, the third page of the party daily.

Across the full page, over six columns, towered the headline in giant type: «The members of the Committee of Understanding against the International,» and below, over three columns: «Political degeneration and moral wretchedness.»

Over the document of the Committee of Understanding, again over three columns, was placed the following headline: «A document unworthy of communists.» This was the climate breathed in the «party founded by Gramsci and Togliatti» (as it was once said. And in this case the attribution of paternity was correct!).

Of the Left’s document we shall report only one significant passage: «Communists will judge our conduct. We care not to win their superficial adhesion or sympathy and to pile up votes for the congress, but to bring the debate and the consciousness of the party a little further beyond the superficial and petty attitudes on which people speculate when they want to rid themselves with little effort of the nuisance of being discussed and criticized. If it is wished to go on organizing demagogic deceit and industrializing confusion and bewilderment, let it be done, but let no one think to build anything stable: the harm to the party will remain, but the position of the groups and groupuscules, artificers of so politicking a method, will not be saved, a vulgar scenery destined to fall soon enough, revealing the dangers of opportunism and of the degeneration of the party.» Let the comrades reflect how timely these words are.

In its work of denigration centrism has always played on the fact that the mass of comrades refuses to believe that wholly false and groundless things are asserted from the centre of the party, and this genuine instinct plays into the hands, every time, of factionalism from above.

Moreover the C.E. of the Comintern, with a view to the 3rd Congress of the PCd’I, had already in April 1925 unleashed its attack against the Italian Left. At the 5th Enlarged Executive a «resolution on the Italian question» asserted «that the main obstacle to the bolshevization of the party is constituted by the Bordigist ideology and that therefore the greatest effort must be directed to eliminating this obstacle.»

In this resolution it will not be possible to find any indication of the tasks and tactics the party should carry out; it consisted entirely of an attack on the «ideology» of the Italian Left, declared a «by-product of the second international» and in contrast with «Leninism» on three fundamental points: abstentionism, the role of the party, tactics.

«The urgent task of the party,» the resolution said, «is to arrive, within its own ranks, at a complete ideological clarification and to combat all deviations, above all those of comrade Bordiga, which at the present moment are the most dangerous for the movement. The national congress will have to decide whether it approves the policy conducted by the Central Committee of the party since the 5th World Congress, in agreement with the International. At the same time it will have to express its choice between Bordigan tactics and Leninism. Only if it has understood the necessity of placing itself without reservations on the Leninist platform will the Communist Party of Italy be truly strong and truly able to fulfil its historic role as guide of the masses in the proletarian revolution.»

As for Leninist tactics the document specified: «Leninism represents a supple tactic, which continually adapts to the changing economic and political situation in the world, in order to mobilize all anti-capitalist forces and to seize the favorable moment for the intervention of the party, while the latter, consequently, is ready to modify rapidly its slogans and its attitude, in order to remain in contact with the masses and drag them along with it.»

In the intentions of the centrists the 3rd Congress «was to close a whole epoch in the life of the party,» and so it was.

Even the decision to hold the congress abroad was a move owed less to questions of security than to a political maneuver.

Paolo Spriano in his «History of the PCI» wrote: «The Executive decided some time ago to hold the congress abroad; Vienna is chosen first, but the person preparing the organization there […] falls gravely ill. Lyons is then decided upon.» Lyons was therefore a last-minute makeshift.

On this point it is well to highlight something always passed over in silence by official historiography, namely that, as Bruno Fortichiari recalled, «the Milan federation, whose organization was still efficient and some of whose leaders were members of Office 1 of the party, offered the centre to secure a suitable venue in Milan for a clandestine meeting, guaranteed and defended. The centre refused the offer without checking its seriousness. It had decided on Lyons also, or rather precisely, because it was easier to ‘filter’ the delegates who would have to go there clandestinely. To refuse a convocation in a metropolis of great movement in every quarter, with constant exchange of thousands of people in transit even from abroad, with besides dozens of premises suited to controllable meetings and hundreds of trained and trusty comrades […] was proof of sovereign ineptitude or of a caution suited to an evident end.»

The delegates had to reach France by crossing the frontier illegally by eleven different routes. The congressists had left Italian territory illegally, but just as illegally they entered French territory. The congress was held moving among various secret premises since the French police, alerted, were on the congressists’ trail. Thus illegal was the expatriation, clandestine the congress, illegal the return of the congressists to Italy. As can be seen, the percentage of risk was quite high (and some fell into the net of the French police), but it allowed the Centre to have total control and choice of the participants in the congress.

Giuseppe Berti himself, notoriously rabid toward the Left, of which he was a turncoat, was nevertheless forced to state: «Objectively […] it must be said that if the Como conference was prepared little, indeed not at all, and gave, therefore, the well-known results, the Lyons congress […] was, perhaps, prepared a little too much, in the sense that preliminarily the December conference […] saw to it that at Lyons the extreme left […] was represented in a manner not adequate to the forces it still counted in the party.»

That democracy represents an element of deceit through which the ruling class exercises its dictatorship is entirely natural for communists. That the democratic method may also be used by the party of the working class, in a phase of its development, is likewise natural and scandalizes no one. But that this method be used inside the party, by those who hold its leadership, to crush internal currents is truly shameful; yet, once «political struggle» is admitted, this too becomes a weapon which factionalism from above uses to keep a power it has acquired.

The official results of the congress awarded 90.8% of the votes to the centrist theses and 9.2% to the Left.

The maneuvers of the Centre grotesquely falsified the majority of the Left, always dominant in the party, also by exploiting the impossibility for many sections of getting their votes through. Now, the centrists’ idea was highly original: it was established that all membership cards for which no vote was recorded would be counted in favor of the theses of the centre. But this democratic mechanism reached such refinement that even Amadeo’s vote turned out to have been cast in favor of the theses of the Centre.

On the scope of the battle sustained by the Left at the 3rd Congress of the party we shall return in depth in a forthcoming article.

A full year after the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, which marked the high point of negotiations regarding the fate of the war in Ukraine, that attempted agreement between the two great powers who, through Ukraine, have been facing off in a conflict now dragging on for four and a half years, has given way to a continuation of hostilities.

Since the very early days of the war in Ukraine, there has been a succession of diplomatic meetings and negotiations aimed at finding a solution to the conflict.

Russia, having failed to bring about a change in Ukraine’s leadership, and to install a puppet government through its invasion of the country, immediately attempted the path of negotiation. First in Belarus and then in Turkey, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had come very close to an agreement just two months into the war, but the process collapsed due to the opposition of Kiev’s true masters, primarily American imperialism, followed by the British, who sought to defeat Russia by sacrificing the Ukrainian pawn in a conflict designed to bring Russia to its knees, not only on the battlefield but, above all, economically, through a war waged via sanctions. The change of administration in Washington had initially led to a resumption of talks between the Americans and the Russians, culminating in the Anchorage meeting.

Yet, beyond any political will to reach some form of agreement, economic interests ultimately prevail, ranging from the need to recoup the billions already spent on the war to the prospect of a more favorable division of the spoils, and including the continuation of a war that is always a lucrative business for the bourgeoisie and a breath of fresh air for the rotten world of capital as a whole; for in the age of imperialism, war is fundamentally economic in nature, driven by the capitalist mode of production’s need to overcome its profound crisis of overproduction through the massive destruction of surplus commodities and proletarians.

Therefore, the tragedy unfolding on Ukrainian soil, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers slaughtered at the front, the suffering of the civilian population, and cities gutted, does not appear to be heading toward an end in the form of a cessation of hostilities, whether in the near future or otherwise. Indeed, the course taken by the imperialist struggle in Europe, barring profound economic upheavals capable of precipitating the collapse of the major powers involved in the Ukraine war (Russia on one side or Kyiv’s backers on the other), is leading to a direct conflict between the great imperialist powers in Europe. Once the Ukrainian cannon fodder runs out, there will be either surrender to Russia, though that is not an option for the voracious, bloodthirsty bourgeoisies of the so-called West, or an expansion of the war that tears the mask off Kyiv’s backers; having thus far waged war against Russia by flooding Ukraine with weapons and billions, they will inevitably find themselves forced to send their own soldiers to fight the Russian enemy.

Russia is winning on the battlefield

The fact that the war in Ukraine is increasingly turning in Moscow’s favor can be seen in at least three elements: the Russian advance in the Donbas and on other fronts, the blockade of Ukrainian ports, and the clash between the political and military leadership in Kyiv. Following the fall of the Konstantynovka stronghold into Russian hands, the Russian army is within sight of the fortress cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major urban centers in the Donbas still controlled by Ukraine; capturing them would mean achieving one of Russia’s primary objectives: the seizure of the entire Donbas region. Russian advances are also being reported in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, while Ukrainians also fear that the Russians might open new fronts, such as the one in the Chernihiv-Kyiv area.

Regardless of the specific axes of the Russian advance, reports confirm a gradual Russian takeover of Ukrainian territory, particularly in the Donbas, which is heading toward the final battles for the major hubs of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, as well as the difficulties facing the Ukrainian army, which continues to lose ground and suffer from an increasing shortage of manpower; indeed, Syrsky himself, recently removed from the top army command, had stated that defending the last two Ukrainian strongholds in the Donbas would require at least another 150,000 to 200,000 soldiers.

The situation in Ukraine deteriorated further in early July due to Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea and the Dnieper. Russian attacks have devastated the port of Odessa and other ports, effectively halting Ukraine’s port operations and leaving the country facing immense difficulties in exporting grain and other goods. Not only port infrastructure and silos but also several merchant vessels have been hit. Consequently, the devastation at the ports and the unwillingness of shipowners and insurers to risk operations in this environment have caused Ukrainian maritime trade to collapse. Alternatives for exporting Ukrainian goods, whether through Romania or by rail to the west, present logistical challenges but could also lead to serious tensions with neighbors due to competition from Ukrainian agricultural products.

The intensification of Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports is a severe blow to the Ukrainian economy, already battered after more than four years of war and heavily dependent on financial aid from its Western backers, and also marks an escalation of the conflict itself, representing Russia’s reaction to the lack of any prospect of an agreement and to Ukrainian strikes deep within Russian territory.

The systematic economic, infrastructural, and military destruction of Ukraine is triggering a backlash within the political and military leadership, driven by the need to find a scapegoat to shoulder the blame for the disaster and to prevent the population’s anger and suffering from turning against the Ukrainian bourgeoisie and its political rubber-stampers. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and Army Chief General Syrsky bore the brunt of the consequences. The two were portrayed by the bourgeois press as being in conflict with each other over how the war should be conducted. On the one hand, there was the «Soviet» vision of General Syrsky, linked to a way of fighting where different types of weapons, ammunition, logistics and above all soldiers predominate, so much so that the general is also known as «the butcher», for his willingness to comply with the wishes of the political leaders, never willing to make the soldiers retreat even in desperate situations, causing a large number of losses; on the other, the more modern vision of Fedorov, who is credited with having developed the massive use of drones. Such reconstructions serve only to pull the wool over the eyes of a population ravaged by war. Figures like Fedorov serve a narrative in which fighting can take place without the need for a constant manhunt through the streets of Ukraine’s cities and villages to find men to throw into the meat grinder of war. But it is precisely a narrative: the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, bankrolled by Western bourgeoisies, needs hundreds of thousands of soldiers to continue playing its role as a combatant against Russia. Ultimately, Fedorov’s dismissal stems from his attempt to overhaul the Ministry of Defence’s procurement system, a point he himself made in an interview: “The reason has to do with procurement and tenders, and the fact that we began restructuring processes in this area; this caused significant dissatisfaction.” He added, “I never imagined that, at the Ministry of Defence, people could be appointed to head departments by private companies.”

War is excellent business for the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, and interference by political personnel is not tolerated!

Who calls the shots, who pays, who dies

Given the difficult economic and military situation it faces, the only thing enabling Ukraine to continue fighting against Russia is the support of Western imperialist powers. However, to continue the war, Ukraine needs to constantly address the shortage of equipment and manpower.

As for military supplies, it has no choice but to rely on financial support from allies in Europe and on the United States’ interest in profiting from defense contracts. This reliance on foreign support was starkly illustrated by the Patriot Missile affair, as the United States backed away from the idea of ​​licensing the production of these missiles directly in Ukraine (the recent Russian strike on a US-owned drone factory in Ukraine was, in all likelihood, a decisive factor in this shift in the American stance).

Instead, the shortage of men is met in the only possible way: through forced recruitment, or rather, the outright capture of men to be sent to the front. Ukraine’s alleged “resistance” exists only in the contortions of the worst kind of opportunism. The Ukrainian bourgeoisie has sold its country and its proletariat to the interests of Western bourgeoisies, turning the nation into a battleground against Russia and its people into cannon fodder.

Now, four and a half years into the war, it is not only the role of sacrificial victim played by Ukraine that is becoming increasingly clear, but also the relationship between the imperialist powers involved in the Eastern European conflict alongside Kyiv.

The start of the Trump presidency was marked by an attempt to move closer to Russia, a move intended to drive a wedge into the relationship between Russia and China, thereby seeking to undermine the advantageous ties China (the principal adversary of American imperialism) maintained with its Russian neighbor. The lack of progress in negotiations has pushed the United States toward the only viable path, namely, continuing the war against Russia via Ukraine, while introducing a substantial difference compared to the Biden administration: the fact that the costs of the war have been offloaded entirely onto the compliant Europeans.

European countries that were compelled by the US to use Ukraine as a pawn in the war against Russia, thereby forfeiting the benefits of Russian energy supplies and plunging their own economies into decline, now find themselves in a state of subordination to American imperialism, forced to serve US interests on that front through massive economic support, alongside the purchase of American weaponry and a reliance on the US for energy.

The NATO summit in Ankara, held on July 7 and 8, 2026, merely confirmed the current state of relations within the diverse anti-Russia front, refuting the accounts of certain “experts” regarding the demise of NATO. It is the nature of imperialist rivalry that pits even allies against one another in the division of the spoils, a process that occurs not only at the expense of enemy imperialist powers but also involves a struggle among colluding brigands to secure a larger share of the loot.

The Ankara summit first and foremost confirmed Russia as the Alliance’s adversary; the final declaration speaks of a “long-term threat” that must be countered.

It is precisely the abandonment of that attempt at rapprochement with Russia on the part of American imperialism. The price to be paid by European “allies” consists of increased financial and military commitments: “For 2026, the Allies pledge to provide Ukraine with 70 billion euros in military equipment, assistance, and training, and reaffirm their sovereign commitment to maintain at least equivalent levels in 2027,” according to the final declaration.

In this way, the Europeans’ acceptance of the burden of increased defense spending has eased the transatlantic tensions that preceded the summit, and the American threat to disengage from Europe has also receded. The United States has thus secured the continuation of the war against Russia, not only at virtually no cost, given that no American contribution is envisaged for the €70 billion package, but also by striking a lucrative deal for its defense industry, since a large portion of the €70 billion to be funded by European countries (and Canada) will be spent on purchasing weaponry manufactured by American companies. This marks a departure from the early years of the war, introduced by the Trump administration, which eliminated U.S. spending and shifted the costs of the conflict onto European nations. Furthermore, there remains another demand from the American master to be met: he wants the Europeans to also take on the goal of increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035.

NATO remains standing, with all its internal divisions, but also with the explicit confirmation that the United States is the master of the Alliance. Internal tensions are the inevitable backlash resulting from American imperialism’s need to disengage from Europe, not in the sense of relinquishing its grip on the continent (maintained through the subjugation of weak and divided European nations), but rather by redirecting financial and military resources toward other fronts: the Middle East today, and East Asia tomorrow, where a decisive clash looms with China, American imperialism’s principal rival for global dominance. The decline of American imperialism, driven by the rise of new imperialist powers, China above all, no longer allows the US to play the role of global policeman it has held since its victory in World War II. The United States needs to redefine its global supremacy by shifting resources to those regions of the world, specifically Asia, where its dominance is being challenged by the growing expansionism of rising imperial powers; consequently, it must cut spending on Europe, forcing its European subordinates to shoulder the costs of confronting Russia while reducing them to mere purchasers of American weapons and energy.

Billions in European funds for the war

Having endured the war against Russia, which, as we established from the outset, was itself a war against Europe, European nations, economically weakened by high energy prices and drained by the costs of supporting Ukraine, have obstinately pursued this military campaign against Russia. For the European bourgeoisies, Russia’s defeat represents the only way out, offering a much-needed lifeline through the imperialist plunder of Russian resources and the carving up of Eastern Europe currently under Russian influence.

Defeating Russia is therefore the only way to emerge from the economic crisis, and given that Russia is winning the war on the battlefield, European support for Ukraine must be viewed within the perspective of a long-term war. So far, Russia has held firm; using Ukraine has failed to bring Russia to its knees, just as sanctions have, but the path is set: once Ukraine’s resources have been fully drained, it will fall to the Europeans to plunge directly into war against Russia. However, this perspective requires time for rearmament, and that time is bought by flooding Kyiv with billions and weapons, turning Ukrainians into cannon fodder. In essence, arming Ukraine today serves to rearm Europe for the war of tomorrow.

It is against this backdrop that the 70 billion in support for Ukraine, agreed upon at the NATO summit in Ankara, came into play. The European Union will provide approximately 30 billion euros as part of the so-called Ukraine Support Loan, a financial aid package for Ukraine allocated by the EU for the 2026–27 period, set to reach a total of 90 billion euros. Of this amount, 30 billion euros are earmarked for 2026 to fund Ukraine’s rearmament, thereby integrating these funds into the plan established at the Ankara summit. The remaining 40 billion will be funded by individual states, specifically, those countries in Central and Northern Europe that are providing the greatest support to Ukraine.

The halt in US financial flows to Ukraine in early 2025 has been almost entirely offset by increased contributions from the EU and individual European countries. According to data from the Kiel Institute, funding for Kyiv reached one of its peaks last June, the third-highest since the start of the conflict, at €7.2 billion; when added to the allocations from May, the total reaches nearly €11 billion. Data provided by the institute also reveal a trend of maintaining military aid at the previous year’s levels, while financial and humanitarian aid are declining, alongside a reliance on US arms supplies, with Europeans allocating at least €3 billion in military aid between January and June for weapons manufactured by American companies.

In essence, the withdrawal of US financial backing is not fully offset by increased contributions from Europeans; given this reduced availability of economic resources for Ukraine, priority tends to be given to military aid, with American weaponry forming the backbone of that support, at the expense of other Ukrainian budgetary needs and humanitarian supplies, confirming that the role assigned to Ukrainians is to fight and die against Russia in the interests of Western bourgeoisies.

Europe needs all these billions to buy the time required for its rearmament, a process that relies primarily on individual European countries.

German imperialism will come out on top, its economic power far surpassing that of the other European countries. This is not a matter of political choice, but an unavoidable course of action to halt the country’s deindustrialization; rearmament plans are serving to revitalize German industry, which had been stifled by the loss of access to low-cost Russian energy and had ceased to be competitive on the global market.

The costs of European rearmament are being shifted entirely onto the shoulders of the proletariat, which will pay the price through a deterioration in living and working conditions.

Faced with rearmament plans and the imperialist war, which is threatening to expand beyond Ukraine, the proletariat will be called upon to shed sweat and blood for the bourgeois fatherland.

Only if united in genuinely class-based organizations that reject any appeal to national sacrifice, and under the leadership of the Communist Party, will the proletariat be able to fulfill its historic task of seizing power and destroying the bourgeois rule that is preparing a new, gigantic massacre.

The slain so-called Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamene’i, has been put to rest in his coffin, adorned in the national banner, and surrounded by the other members of his family, killed alongside him in his compound. This convocation has seen groups and delegates of different persuasions, from all around the world, come together to extend their respects to the late leader, who helped grow Iran into the imperialist force it is today. It is said that a nationalist fervor has swept across the whole of the country; while the workers yesterday struggled against and were executed under the Iranian bourgeoisie’s rule, today, these bourgeois lackeys and sycophants would like us to believe, the proletariat congregates and cries mournful tears for their Rahbar! Fairy-tales aside, there is no doubt that such a tumultuous time, as befell Iran during these long and desperate weeks, has only resulted in the suffering of workers’ to increase tenfold. The proletariat, at its most vulnerable, and without their party, often rallies to the bourgeoisie as it sees no other evident recourse. The bourgeoisie gladly accepts any bodies that they can utilize to carry out their interests and other shrewd calculations, especially if it is extracted under the veneer of voluntary service, or worse, a “common interest” against a “common enemy.”

But there is another burial ceremony, one which has not yet convened, but whose corpse still flounders about, whose death throes and thrashing gives the false impression that it has not lost so much of its power. The United States, with its title as the financial world hegemon, has had its hegemony slowly yet assuredly wrung from its fingertips for several decades now. That American section of the bourgeoisie, whose intention is to reassert the United States back onto the global stage by warhawk means, through their desperate jingoism, and with the optimistic cheerleading of Israeli leadership, led to this new military episode. The initial stated purpose was supposedly “regime change in Iran,” but was later revised to simply, “seizing oil and gas”. The true rationale is of course the further division of the world market in favor of American and Israeli joint interests. This is why, when the strike to political leadership did not effectively give them a willing puppet, the American government instead was compelled to seize Iranian cargo ships, all in order to acquire said oil and gas for themselves.

This whole event does not come to us unexpectedly. To showcase the unchanging nature of imperialism, we shall quote in full from our work first printed decades ago in Comunismo n. 53’s “The Shift in Imperial Balances: Between Economic Crisis and Rumors of War,” released in December 2002:
“Anyone who thinks that the fact that bourgeois states take up arms against—or in defense of—“rogue states” is proof of, or a triumph of, power is sorely mistaken. The triumph is forced, and the display of power is historically defensive and compelled. There is no unexpected “end of history” with the definitive triumph of the American Empire, nor is there the disappearance of nation-states into a single empire without borders or a center, as some pygmies delude themselves into believing. On the contrary, we are on the eve of processes that Marxism has long awaited. America’s loud voice is an expression of the decline of its hegemony over the world. Smaller capitalist states such as Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and others are demanding their share, seeking influence in their own regions, and snarling through clenched teeth at the Yankee mastiff. Washington would like to unify the bourgeois world under its interests, but that world is already unified—in the overflow of its all-too-jarring and uncontrollable contradictions.”

Today, not only do we see that these smaller capitalist states are necessarily continuing to “demand their share” as a byproduct of the capitalist mode of production, but that this “American Empire,” however limited it was before in its rallying cries, most assuredly diminished to an even greater degree! It has gone to the extent that the American state apparatus’s frequent criticisms and lambastings against their “European Allies” for not joining the war is treated as nothing to be taken seriously at all. America’s foreign policy, its hyper bloated military apparatus, is indeed not proof of its supremacy; rather, this frequent fighting, this gamble to try and put itself back on the map, shows just how much America has declined. Now, it must desperately vie for its position on the world stage.
Iran, whatever is to be said of their perceived “victory,” and whether or not it will ultimately prove pyrrhic, nonetheless had most European states ceaselessly demanding an immediate end to the war, lest their economies fall into deeper recesses, and their stockpiles of oil and gas reserves run dry. This fragility of the world economy allowed for Iran to have favorable conditions be agreed to in the “Iran Deal.” It is to nobody’s surprise however, that these terms will forever remain a bourgeois formality. There has already been constant zigzagging and disagreements regarding the deal, further missile strikes and threats have resumed and ceased and so on. This instability is only aiding the decline of American hegemony, the Israeli state, which many on the “left” falsely prescribe as being leashed entirely to American interests, has routinely taken their own paths, and made their own military maneuvers, in spite of what is desired by the Americans for the procurement of this so-called deal.

What is certain though, is that these post-war conditions must not equate to an undying loyalty to one’s bourgeois leadership. The proletariat cannot feel satisfied by this alleged defeat of their enemies, operated by a fully capitalist country to the detriment of the world’s most stately imperialism. It mustn’t fall to further nationalism, nor the desire for revenge against the workers of these other nations. The proletariat must identify their strife, “the depopulation caused by massacres, sickness, hunger, etc., and the immense destruction of wealth, with the consequent economic crisis, and the impossibility of developing industry and agriculture through lack of capital and labour”, with the bourgeoisies of not only their nation, but of all others!

The Iranian workers who suffer terribly under the yoke of capital ought to consolidate their strength within a fighting force that is truly their own, that which is truly proletarian, under the leadership and discipline of the International Communist Party. American workers must likewise see the cracks in the hull, and assert that they will not go down with the bourgeoisie who captains the ship of American financial interests; they must embark on the difficult path of all workers in advanced countries, and bring about the total destruction of their nation’s hegemony, establishing instead the merciless scythe of the proletarian dictatorship, which is the only answer to imperialism, and the only force which can bring an end to war.

Amid chants of “Foreigners out!”, violence against the immigrant population broke out in Belfast on the nights of June 9 and 10. It was a full-scale hunt for foreigners, carried out by racist groups whose members, with their faces covered, attacked immigrants’ homes, smashing doors and windows and setting fire to houses, cars, trash cans, and even a bus. They also set up makeshift checkpoints to search for foreigners among the drivers and passengers of stopped cars.

The attack on immigrants in Belfast was certainly not a sudden outburst of violence following the June 8 stabbing of a local resident by a migrant, but was carried out through careful organization and coordination, to the extent that, before the violence began, the addresses of homes occupied by foreigners had been posted online, thus identifying the targets to be attacked, and men were present during the violence to direct the terror operations.

Nor was this an isolated incident, as early as June 2025, in Ballymena, near Belfast, attacks on the homes and shops of Romanians had occurred following an incident similar to the one on June 8. Meanwhile, in 2024, there were numerous arson attacks on shops and homes belonging to foreigners, particularly those of the Islamic faith. Furthermore, a week before the events in Belfast, following another news story, Southampton had been the scene of racist and anti-immigrant demonstrations.

In such a context, the hypocritical condemnations of violence against immigrants by the major political parties must not mislead the working class. Nor must they allow themselves to be drawn into the thoroughly bourgeois charade that tends to play out across various political formations, in particular, by identifying openly anti-immigration parties and movements, such as Reform UK, as the danger to be fought. The entire British political class and all the bourgeois “media” are responsible for this violence, having supported anti-immigration campaigns for years in the service of their own bourgeoisie, which needs a cheap labor force but keeps it in a state of constant blackmail precisely through anti-immigration policies and the spread of hate campaigns against foreigners. In the United Kingdom, forced and “voluntary” repatriations, which are effectively deportations, totaled 39,000 in the 12 months ending in March 2026, representing a 7% increase over the previous year.

To the working class, the events in Belfast must not appear to be confined to the local level and explained by specific dynamics, as a certain segment of the left tends to do by emphasizing the role played by loyalist paramilitary groups. The degree of organization behind the Belfast pogrom may also have stemmed from the deep roots of loyalist paramilitary groups in certain neighborhoods, groups that have accumulated considerable experience over the years in fighting the Irish Catholic population and maintain a degree of control over some neighborhoods in Belfast, but the phenomenon of the “hunt for foreigners” and, more generally, the spread of anti-immigrant attitudes and practices is rooted in the history of bourgeois domination, which is closely linked to the ruling class’s need to divide the oppressed, in order to create barriers that prevent the formation of a united proletarian front capable of overcoming religious, ethnic, and national divisions and rising up against the bourgeois order.

… to South Africa

Capitalism, which has spread on a global scale, reproduces its characteristics in the same way across all latitudes, without taking into account the supposed specificities of local populations, dragging all countries, each with its own national, ethnic, and religious particularities, into the same barbarism.

And so, shortly after the atrocities in Belfast, the Global South, too, witnessed its own hunt for foreigners. This refers to South Africa, where the terror directed against foreigners far exceeded the scale of the Belfast pogrom.

It is worth remembering that South Africa, which, for certain noble souls, represents a model of coexistence and respect for human rights, having abandoned the white racist regime in the mid-1990s, is now part of the BRICS group, part of the so-called Global South which, according to modern anti-imperialists, is building a multipolar world by challenging the nefarious dominance of American unipolarism.

In South Africa, too, capital’s need to keep the working class fragmented has given rise to its own anti-immigration movement, called “March and March,” one of whose goals is the expulsion of illegal immigrants, with a specific deadline set for June 30. Together with other similar movements, such as Operation Dudula, anti-immigrant demonstrations were organized in major cities, which then degenerated into violence and outright terror against foreigners, particularly against workers, complete with raids on industrial plants and other businesses, even leading to the closure of some of them. In addition to several murders of foreign workers, the result has been a massive wave of repatriations, which, according to government data as of July 11, totaled over 53,000!

It’s truly laughable to suggest that these are “voluntary or assisted returns,” as if a foreign worker under attack, whose life is at risk, were in a position to choose whether to stay or leave!

The rhetoric of “voluntary repatriation” serves to mask the scale of this mass expulsion, but in reality, the South African government is responsible for the deportation of thousands of foreigners, riding the wave of anti-immigrant protests while managing them from above: the triumph of the so-called rule of law! Of course, the government has condemned the violence, after all, the monopoly on violence is the prerogative of the bourgeois state!

In any case, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has publicly acknowledged that concerns regarding irregular immigration, border control, and the challenges facing public services must be addressed. Moreover, the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has been in crisis for years and cannot afford further declines in support. Although it won as much as 40% of the vote in the 2024 elections, the ANC, which has been in power since the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, fell below an absolute majority for the first time, and, lacking the numbers to govern alone, was forced to form a coalition. But even more serious for the stability of the entire framework of bourgeois democracy is the collapse in voter turnout, which hit an all-time low of 58%.

This is a sign of widespread discontent, not only toward the ANC but also toward an economic situation that is plunging tens of millions of South Africans into poverty. The country’s economic development in recent years has made South Africa one of the wealthiest economies on the African continent, thereby attracting migrant workers not only from other countries in Southern Africa but also from those in the Gulf of Guinea and the Horn of Africa. Today, however, the country’s economy is grappling with an unemployment rate as high as 32 percent, with rates exceeding 60 percent among young people. In such a context, social anger is being channeled by the South African middle class into hatred of foreigners, making migrants the target against which to unleash the unrest brewing in the country.

As in Europe, so too in Africa, and everywhere under bourgeois rule, the advancing revolution can be stopped only by shattering the international unity of the proletariat, pitting the proletarians against one another under bourgeois leadership.

Workers of the World, Unite!

The events in Belfast and South Africa are merely the most striking recent examples of the persecution of immigrants. These are not phenomena exclusive to recent times; rather, the issue of immigration has been present since the dawn of the capitalist mode of production, whose fundamental characteristics were already well established, even with regard to aspects that may seem relatively recent, as is indeed the case with the phenomenon of migration.

A few years before the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, Engels had accurately described the conditions of the modern proletariat, also identifying the close link between capitalist development and migration:

“The rapid extension of English industry could not have taken place if England had not possessed in the numerous and impoverished population of Ireland a reserve at command. The Irish had nothing to lose at home, and much to gain in England; and from the time when it became known in Ireland that the east side of St. George’s Channel offered steady work and good pay for strong arms, every year has brought armies of the Irish hither.” (The Condition of the Working Class in England).

Even at that time, our class doctrine had a clear understanding of the issues at hand and the tasks facing the Party of the proletariat in light of the presence of migrant proletarians alongside the native proletariat. Marx discusses this in a letter from 1870:

“And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.

This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this” (Letter sent by Karl Marx to Sigfried Meyer and August Vogt, 1870).

In a speech in August 1919, Lenin addressed the issue of anti-Semitism and framed the issue from a broader perspective:

“The landowners and capitalists tried to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants who were tortured by want against the Jews. In other countries, too, we often see the capitalists fomenting hatred against the Jews in order to blind the workers, to divert their attention from the real enemy of the working people, capital. […] It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. The enemies of the workers are the capitalists of all countries. […]  The capitalists strive to sow and foment hatred between workers of different faiths, different nations and different races” (Anti-Jewish Pogroms, 1919).

From these few brief quotations, we can see that, for Marxism, the current issues surrounding migration and its consequences for the ethnic composition of populations in various countries around the world are not new developments we must grapple with, nor do they require us to revise or update our positions. Our doctrine is rooted precisely in the conviction that the proletariat, though divided by the barriers of bourgeois states, is an international class whose historical interests transcend national borders and any ethnic or religious differences. “Workers of all countries, unite!” we proclaimed in 1848. Nothing has changed since then.

Only proletarian internationalism is the antidote to the poison of racial hatred and a barrier against the persecution of foreigners.

On so-called remigration

Today, the issue of combating immigration is being touted with particular vigor by far-right, if not openly neo-fascist, organizations, which carry out their mission of sowing hatred against foreign workers even through seemingly new tactics, such as the aberrant theories of so-called “remigration,” that is, the forced deportation of migrants, a veritable ethnic cleansing. This absurd theory reflects nothing more than the attempt by petty-bourgeois strata to save themselves from the economic and social ruin into which they are destined to plunge, a ruin exacerbated by the current crisis of the capitalist mode of production, which has taken the path of imperialist war and is forcing every bourgeois state to engage in an arms race, diverting ever-greater resources toward strengthening its own army and thereby destroying that, albeit meager, welfare state built on the crumbs of imperialist plunder. The theory of remigration stems precisely from the narrow-mindedness of the petty bourgeoisie, which deludes itself, as in Germany in the 1930s, into believing it can save itself from its own historical ruin by sacrificing a portion of the population, namely the foreign population.

In this context, the risk is that opportunism will succeed in diverting the proletarian struggle toward the fight against fascism, against far-right parties, in defense of democracy, and in support of rights and the state.

The bourgeoisie will continue, using every means at its disposal, to keep the proletarian class divided. The international proletariat must not be deceived either by those positions that sow division between native and migrant workers, an old bourgeois tool for keeping its historical enemy subjugated, or by opportunism, which is always ready to divert the proletarian struggle toward an outcome compatible with the maintenance of bourgeois order.

(Summary of the presentation at the Party General Meeting on May 30–31, 2026)

To properly understand the Soviet-Polish War, also known as the Russo-Polish War, we must go back to 1918, when the Central Powers were in the process of disintegrating and Soviet Russia was waging an exhausting civil war on fifteen major fronts, in addition to various pockets of Cossack uprisings. The Red Army, formed through a titanic effort under the leadership of Comrade Trotsky, had, despite a shortage of weapons, ammunition, and capable reinforcements, essentially defeated the White armies on all fronts, though the southern front remained unresolved, where Wrangel still posed a serious threat.

Pilsudski’s plan was much broader: he intended to establish a “Greater Poland,” that is, a federation comprising Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, which would form a series of semi-independent buffer states, with the possible aim of creating a buffer against Russia to the east and a second one against Germany to the west.

Essentially, he intended to create a regional power modeled on the old 14th-century Polish-Lithuanian Confederation, which survived until the final decades of the 1700s, when its territories were gradually partitioned among Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

A map showing that confederation in relation to current modern borders was presented.

In this way, Pilsudski believed that Poland, as the largest and strongest of the new states, could easily establish its own sphere of influence extending from Finland to the Caucasus at Russia’s expense; thus deprived of its southern and southeastern lands and mineral resources, Russia could easily be reduced to the status of a second-rate power.

In April 1919, the relatively small Polish army (10,000 men) had captured Vilnius and, in August, Minsk, an operation made easy by the Red Army’s lack of troops on that front, and the government of the Lithuanian-Belarusian Socialist Republic was overthrown.

Pilsudski’s “Greater Poland” dream, although financed and supported militarily by the Entente, was still too ambitious given the general instability of the fronts and the shifting alliances, especially since the newly formed states had no intention of giving up their independence, much less submitting to Polish influence. A map illustrated the border situation.

Pilsudski’s plan also revealed a clear anti-Soviet agenda, even though the Soviet Republic had immediately recognized the new Polish government. The Soviet Republic was willing to reach an agreement with Poland at any cost, just as it had done with Germany in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In that situation of civil war, waging a war against Poland as well was to be avoided at all costs; peace had to be achieved.

All attempts by the Soviets to reach an agreement were not even considered by the Poles. Nor was there any response to the official statement to the Polish government dated January 28, 1920, in which Lenin himself outlined the dangers for Poland inherent in a war against Soviet Russia and in which the recognition of the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Poland was “unconditionally” reaffirmed.

This is stated in the Political Report of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist (Bolshevik) Party to the Ninth Conference (September 22, 1920): “We offered peace on the basis of the Pilsudski line, that is, the borders within which the Poles were situated before the start of their offensive on April 26 of this year, a line that would have granted them all of Belarus and a substantial portion of Ukraine, (…) We agreed to sign the peace treaty on this basis because we believed that the peaceful economic work to which we had redirected the lives of the army and those of tens of thousands of workers and peasants was far more important than the possibility of liberating, through military successes, Belarus and a part of Ukraine or Eastern Galicia.”

The Bolsheviks’ various attempts to reach an agreement were interpreted by the Polish bourgeoisie and the Entente as a sign of weakness on our part, since neither believed the Soviet Republic was likely to survive in the long term, even though it had endured more than two years of extremely brutal civil war.

The expansionist ambitions of the Polish bourgeoisie intensified on April 1, 1920, with the signing of an alliance with the forces of the Ukrainian People’s Republic led by the nationalist Symon Petliura, who, having been driven out of Ukraine by the White Army general Denikin, had taken refuge in Poland. The war then continued with the annexation of Lvov (Leopoli) and all of Eastern Galicia.

From a general strategic standpoint, the launch of the military operations ordered by Pilsudski had the effect, favorable to us, of preventing the Polish forces from joining with Denikin’s forces in his attack on Moscow. In that scenario, Denikin’s attack on Moscow, supported by the Polish offensive in the west, would have had extremely serious immediate consequences for us, forcing the Red Army into a titanic military effort with an outcome that would have been difficult to predict.

In the spring of 1920, nearly all available Red forces were deployed to the western front against the Polish White forces. Young communists arrived at the front as part of the new mobilization; members of the professional unions were mixed in with this mass of newly recruited men and instilled a spirit of courage and daring in the struggle against “the lords” of Poland, boosting the morale of our troops.

In April 1920, the Polish army had about 120,000 men at its disposal, half of whom were deployed to invade Ukraine. The Polish bourgeoisie, encouraged by French imperialism to adopt a more aggressive policy toward Soviet Russia, launched an offensive by invading Ukraine, encountering only weak resistance from the few remaining Soviet troops, which allowed the Poles to capture Kyiv on May 8.

The outbreak of war with Poland in May 1920 reignited the civil war in the South against the “White” forces led by Wrangel, who had taken refuge on the Crimean Peninsula, creating serious organizational difficulties and strategic concerns among the Red Army’s top leadership.

Kamenev, the Supreme Commander of the Soviet Army, reorganized the Red Army forces in the west into two fronts totaling about 160,000 men.

On April 29, 1920, command of the Northwestern Front was entrusted to Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was just 27 years old at the time. Command of the Southwestern Front was entrusted to General A. Egorov, with Stalin serving as political commissar.

It should be noted that the main task assigned by the Party’s Central Committee to the political commissar on the military fronts was to authorize or reject the actions of military commanders by assessing their conformity with the general political and strategic objectives of the Bolshevik Revolution, without interfering in the organizational aspects of military operations. This resolution became absolutely necessary, especially after the introduction of compulsory conscription, because most conscripts had no military training whatsoever, and it became necessary to rely on former tsarist officers. On July 29, 1918, Trotsky issued Order No. 228, which mandated the general mobilization of former tsarist officers; this was subsequently expanded to include the recruitment of noncommissioned officers and administrative personnel. By August 1920, as many as 48,000 officers, 214,000 non-commissioned officers, and 10,000 administrative personnel from the disbanded Tsarist army were now serving in the Red Army. To ensure the loyalty of the former tsarist officers, a centralized system of control was introduced, consisting of “political commissars” selected from among the most trusted members of the Bolshevik Party to ensure adherence to Bolshevik revolutionary objectives at the front.

The plan devised by Kamenev called for a pincer maneuver, followed by the joining of the two fronts, which would come under the unified command of Tukhachevsky. The Western Front was to play the leading role with a decisive attack toward Belarus and northern Poland, and for this purpose it was assigned over 90,000 men. The Southwestern Front was to support the main attack with a simultaneous offensive toward Rovno-Brest-Litovsk. By cooperating as efficiently as possible, the two forces were then to converge on Warsaw.

Unlike the steppes of central Russia, let alone the open tundra of Siberia, military operations would have taken place in present-day Belarus and eastern Poland, areas dotted with a myriad of small lakes, marshes with extensive swamps, and forests of tall pine trees, all of which hinder the movement of large troop formations and the necessary communications between various units. Roads were scarce, and bridges were insufficient to support heavy traffic. The local railroads faced the major problem of differing track gauges. Essentially, it was a theater of war that favored the defenders, who, among other things, had greater knowledge of and familiarity with the terrain. On December 8, 1919, the Entente decided to designate the “Curzon Line” (roughly along the Niemen and Bug rivers) as Poland’s eastern border as the basis for a territorial agreement between the two countries.

Essentially, we can divide the war of 1919–1920 into three phases:

First phase: The course of the war was favorable to Poland; the occupation of Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 8, 1920, marked the culmination of the Polish advance.

Second phase: The Red Army’s effective counterattack allowed us to advance to the outskirts of Warsaw.

The third phase, the Battle of the Vistula, marks a shift in the situation with the defeat and retreat of Soviet forces to the other side of the Niemen River.

First Phase

The Soviet-Polish War was foreshadowed by a few minor skirmishes along that uncertain border in early 1919. The war continued with the Polish army’s advance toward Vilnius (occupied in April), from which the Soviet government of the Lithuanian-Belarusian SSR was expelled, and toward Minsk (captured on August 8). By the spring of 1920, the tide of the Russian Civil War was decisively turning in favor of the Bolsheviks, so Pilsudski believed the time had come to act and deal a decisive blow to the Red Army before it could reorganize and transfer massive forces to the western front.

The war expanded and intensified as the Polish army, flanked by the Ukrainian troops of Ataman Simon Petliura, advanced into Ukraine and captured Kyiv. Pilsudski thus found himself with forces scattered across a very broad front where the Ukrainian population had not risen up against the Bolsheviks, as the Poles had imagined, while, conversely, the Poles did not inspire any enthusiasm.

Second Phase

While we were concentrating our forces on the western front, the Poles launched continuous attacks on the southwestern front. To hold our positions and prevent the Poles from drawing our main force into operations that were not of our choosing, it became essential to shift from defense to offense.

Tukhachevsky’s plan for the offensive in the northwest called for crossing the Smolensk Gate into Belarus, destroying the left flank of the Polish army, and driving the rest of its forces back into the Pinsk Marshes. An overview map of the two fronts was displayed.

The offensive was launched on May 14 before Soviet forces were fully deployed, with the divisions that had not yet arrived considered part of the reserve. The offensive took the Poles by surprise: for two weeks, Soviet troops advanced, driving the Polish forces back. Tukhachevsky, having thus thwarted the threat of a major Polish offensive in Belarus, decided to halt the advance, consolidate his positions in safer areas, and reorganize his units.

The orders sent by Kamenev to Egorov for the southern sector called for an attack along two axes, north and south of Kyiv, respectively, while Budeniy’s First Cavalry Army would lead the frontal assault. The link between the two fronts was entrusted to the meager forces of the Mozyr Group, consisting of 6,000 light troops, tasked with holding a section of the front near the Pripyat Marshes, an area ill-suited for the movement of large units.

May 31: The attack organized by Egorov began, with Budenij’s cavalry tasked with breaking through the Polish lines south of Kiev and cutting off their lines of communication. The Red Cavalry’s first assault did not yield the desired results because it was repelled by the well-entrenched and disciplined Polish troops.

June 5: The final assault began, and after only four days of fighting, the Soviet infantry managed to break through the Polish lines, opening a 40-kilometer gap into which Budenny’s cavalry quickly poured. Converging on the Kiev-Korosten railway junction, the cavalry’s objective was to cut off the Poles’ retreat.

June 13: The Red Army entered Kiev, which had been abandoned by the retreating Poles, who were forced to withdraw significantly over the course of several weeks; by the end of June, Ukraine had been liberated. As a result of this rapid and extensive advance, Egorov’s three armies had become somewhat spread out across the vast Ukrainian plain, losing their cohesion. The Cavalry Army, moving northward, had become bogged down in the marshy areas separating the two main fronts. Furthermore, Romanian troops, taking advantage of the situation, had occupied Bessarabia, thus posing a threat to Egorov’s rear, forcing him to keep one of his armies further south.

July 4: Tukhachevsky launched his four armies in the northwestern sector against the two Polish armies deployed along the Smolensk-Brest-Litovsk railway line, forcing the Poles to retreat 25 kilometers that very day.

July 7: The Poles began to retreat along the entire front, and by July 10 they had fallen back to the line they had held in August 1919 before their invasion. Tukhachevsky’s partial success in outflanking the Polish forces and attempting to destroy their lines of communication was largely thwarted by the lack of sufficient mobile reserves to penetrate deep into occupied territory.

Between July 4 and July 20, the Polish army was forced to retreat more than 300 km, allowing the Red Army to enter Minsk on July 11, Vilnius on July 14, and then Grodno. The Polish forces nevertheless managed to withdraw beyond the Bug and Narew rivers.

August 1: The Red Army enters Brest-Litovsk.

August 12: The Soviet 3rd Cavalry Corps reaches the eastern bank of the Vistula, just 50 kilometers from Warsaw.

CONTINUE

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The corporatist model of relations between trade unions, employers, and the state, which has long inspired so-called “concertation,” had already been initiated by the General Confederation of Labor in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. It was brought to completion and made the rule with the advent of fascism, following the defeats suffered by the proletarian movement and the destruction of its organizations, which had been led to capitulation by the counterrevolutionary leadership that had held sway until then.

The corporations brought together representatives of the trade union, the employers, and the State. They became part of the state machine and served as the clearing house in which concertation took place (precisely!), with the aim of preventing conflicts between wage earners and capital. A result that could not always be achieved, however, sometimes forcing even the fascist trade union, under pressure from the proletariat, to take up conflicts in defense of workers’ demands. Indeed, there can never be a regime that can abolish class struggle by decree.

The organizations were then rebuilt after the Second World War with no break in continuity with fascist trade unionism, under the aegis of the parties of the Resistance (CLN), the Church, and American and Russian imperialism (Pact of Rome of June 3, 1944). The aim was to immediately rein in the proletariat, which, in the tragic conditions in which it found itself, could have set about its economic defense independently, as had been shown in the strikes in northern Italy in ’43, later those of the agricultural laborers in Puglia, and then the struggles in the South that had led to the reconstitution of the red CGL in Naples. In effect refusing the terrible sacrifices demanded for postwar reconstruction, to which the false communist and socialist Parties intended to bend it.

In our organ, “Battaglia Comunista,” we then described the resurrected CGIL, which had emerged from the Pact of Rome (which added the I, standing for “Italian”), as an organization “tailored to Mussolini’s model” (“The Trade Union Splits in Italy” — May 1949).

This founding characteristic of the CGIL, reborn after the war, has revealed itself ever more clearly as the period of economic recovery and the scope for substantial action in support of workers’ demands have drawn to a close. As capitalism moved toward an ever deeper crisis, a policy of increasingly abandoning the defense of workers’ conditions and accepting the sacrifices imposed in the name of the “national economy” was forced upon the collaborationist unions.

In a corporatist vein, as early as 1983, with the bargaining round about to begin and in order to establish from the outset the conditions under which the platforms of demands would be drawn up, an agreement was signed between the Government, CGIL–CISL–UIL, and Confindustria, entitled “Comprehensive Protocol of Agreement on Labor Costs,” in which, while the government undertook to contain the tax burden on wages, the trade union undertook to concede flexibility in working hours, mobility between companies, part-time and fixed-term employment, and stricter controls on absenteeism. Even the compatible limits on wage increases were set, and these had to be respected in the platforms of demands.

Subsequently, faced with the growth of rank-and-file unionism, which had already emerged as a reaction to confederal collaborationism in public employment and the services (hospital workers, railway and tram workers, flight attendants, school workers, employees of the State and local authorities, etc.), the need arose to block the development of these movements in industry as well and to lock in the Confederations’ representative role, establishing them as the sole interlocutor designated to represent the workers.

In June 2011 and January 2014, agreements were drawn up between Confindustria and the confederal unions, establishing as the benchmark for representation the weighted average of the membership figure that each company would supply on the basis of the authorizations signed by each worker for payroll deduction of union dues for payroll deduction of union dues, and the votes obtained in elections to the unitary workplace union bodies (RSU). Only the trade union organizations that signed these agreements — concluded with the three confederations — would be entitled to represent the workers. Thus, to be considered “representative” (so-called “certified representation”), the rank-and-file organizations opposed to the confederal line would have had to sign the agreements and accept the system of payroll deduction of union dues, making their membership data known and thereby exposing their members to repression by the employers. It should be noted that, for precisely this reason, our Party firmly opposed the authorization system — that is, joining the union through the boss — from the moment it was introduced, insisting on direct membership.

Thus concertation between the unions and Confindustria arrives at the agreement of February 28, 2018, which defines the so-called “Pact for the Factory.”

Here, the preamble declares the intention to pursue “balanced governance of collective bargaining” and “increased productivity in enterprises,” in order to “close the competitiveness gap and the disparities that persist relative to the other major competing economies.” It would therefore be a matter of establishing “an autonomous, innovative, and participatory model of industrial relations that supports the competitiveness of sectors and production chains.” It should be noted that, when “productivity” is spoken of, this must be understood as “greater exploitation” of wage labor.

And so we arrive at the question of representation, reaffirmed in the terms already defined in the previous agreements to prevent so-called “contractual dumping,” that is, agreements concluded with parties “without certified representation.”

The national collective agreement “will retain its function as a regulator of industrial relations […] directing company-level agreements […] toward the recognition of pay provisions tied to real and agreed targets for growth in company productivity.”

The agreement then addressed other points, likewise guided by collaboration aimed at increasing company productivity and competitiveness, which we will not comment on here.

What we want to bring out is the attempt to safeguard and assert the exclusivity of trade union action managed by the Confederations, against any prospect of the formation and growth from below of trade union organizations that oppose the confederal line, and, by appealing to the workers’ rank and file, win its support and call on it to mobilize, breaking the pact of collaboration established by the confederal unions with the employers on the opposing side and with the State that safeguards their interests.

And so, remembering the struggles over workers’ demands in the years of economic recovery, we find that bargaining rounds proceed quietly, even for the traditionally strongest and most combative groups of workers, such as metalworkers. The platforms drawn up in the name of “compatibility” are presented in workplaces in an unobtrusive manner, and the few strikes are a formulaic ritual that involves the workers in the sector to no great extent, still less in solidarity with other groups of workers who are also awaiting ratification of their agreements. The conclusion of the negotiations, on the terms provided for by concertation, also takes place without fanfare. Nor does ratification any longer follow a real “consultation of the rank and file,” which we already knew was steered toward securing approval, but which nevertheless allowed dissent to be expressed in factory assemblies, leading in some cases to outright rejection.

It will not, however, be possible to stop class struggle through the pacts and dozens of agreements that the confederal unions proceed to establish in order to assure Capital of social peace. Capitalism, moving toward a structural crisis, will once again bring the working class to repudiate all the pacts made at its expense and the forums for concertation.

By rebuilding its organizations of economic defense and finding its political leadership once again in the Communist Party, the working class will again express its full potential for action. In this case, “representativeness” will not need to be “certified,” but will be imposed by the strength expressed by the genuinely class-based organization.

Last April, the Indian industrial city of Noida saw large-scale revolts and a series of strikes that brought daily life to a standstill and led to the erection of barricades.

Pent-up anger over the new labor law, which came into force in November 2025 and allows working hours to be extended to 10–12 hours, erupted on a massive scale, with wage disparities providing the spark.

This working-class revolt began with a sudden strike by contract workers at the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India plant in Haryana, a state bordering Noida. They were demanding a wage increase.

On April 8, around 3,000 workers from a dozen companies in Haryana had gathered at IMT Manesar to support their fellow workers’ struggle.

On April 9, when the Haryana state government yielded to the struggle by raising the minimum wage by 35%, Noida workers, mainly in the garment, hosiery, and light industry sectors, doing the same work as workers in Haryana but earning almost 6,000 rupees less a month, immediately grasped the situation and took to the streets to demand higher wages.

The demands of Noida’s workers, who are literally fighting for survival, can be listed as follows:

• A minimum wage of 20,000–26,000 rupees, compared with the current wages of 10,000–15,000 rupees in Uttar Pradesh, which have not been revised since 2014;
• A maximum working day of 8 hours, against the current norm of 12–16-hour shifts on all seven days of the week;
• Overtime paid at twice the regular rate for hours worked beyond normal working hours, a legal requirement systematically violated in practice;
• Payment of the unpaid wages owed by various employers;
• Equal conditions for temporary and permanent staff, including written contracts, paid annual leave, and social security entitlements; implementation of rights of which 58–67% of the workforce in Uttar Pradesh is entirely deprived;
• Repeal or withdrawal of four new labor laws that, according to the unions, have legalized 13-hour working days and stripped workers of their collective bargaining rights.

The protests in Noida began with work stoppages and mass peaceful sit-ins at more than 82 factories.

On April 9 and 10, workers gathered near the NSEZ metro station in Phase 2 (a major industrial hub and officially designated industrial area in Noida) and took to the streets, demanding a minimum wage of at least 20,000 rupees to survive. Tensions between workers and management intensified on the second and third days.

The protests began spontaneously, without the leadership of the established unions, as workers were spurred into action by the impact of the wage increase in Haryana.

At the grassroots level, the labor organizations present from the outset included Mazdoor Adhikar Sangharsh Abhiyan (MASA), an umbrella organization bringing together 16 small unions, alongside Bigul Mazdoor Dasta, IFTU Sarvahara, Mazdoor Ekta Committee, All India Labor Reform Sangharsh Abhiyan (AILRSA), and Naujawan Bharat Sabha.

These unions operate outside the main trade union federations, focusing particularly on unorganized workers and contract workers.

The strike and protests in Noida served as a point of reference for workers’ struggles in various Indian states. The Noida strike sparked solidarity strikes at Motherson Group plants in Faridabad and Bhiwadi.

Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, described the incident as a “conspiracy” aimed at derailing the workers’ actions.

On the fifth day, April 13, the struggle degenerated into violence; around 45,000 workers blocked all the main roads, including NH-9, Sector 62, and the access routes to Akshardham.

In Sector 84, some vehicles were set on fire, and reports emerged of stone-throwing and other violent incidents; the police used tear gas against the workers.

Large security contingents, including the PAC and the RAF (the State’s police force), were deployed in the area, and all police leave was canceled.

The workers pouring into the streets denounced the harsh conditions of the class struggle against capital; they were rebelling against 12- to 16-hour shifts, unpaid wages, and the systematic denial of their needs by the bourgeoisie, which left them without any security.

During the protests, one worker summed up the plight of their class: “Rent is 5,000 rupees. Once you add food, transport, and the children’s education, it is impossible to survive on this wage.”

Police violence peaked on April 13–14; more than 350 workers were arrested. Those detained were subjected to ill-treatment.

This violence will remain etched in the memory of the proletariat. Like every counterrevolutionary force, the police will sooner or later pay for it.

By April 16, most factories had resumed operations, and the protests had become scattered, localized gatherings. The intense phase of the revolt therefore lasted about a week, from April 9 to 16.

Outside the industrial areas, Noida’s domestic workers officially joined the protests, demanding wage increases and better working conditions.

This shows how, with a more organized and militant core at the forefront, the entire working class, even workers who are more dispersed and disorganized because of their working conditions, can unite in struggle.

On Saturday, April 17, the Uttar Pradesh government officially announced revised minimum wages for specific jobs throughout the state. These wages were published in accordance with Section 3(b) of the India States and Union Territories Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 and replaced the previous wage decision dated March 25, 2026.

Although the protests were suppressed, the wage demands were taken into account in order to placate the protesters, and substantial wage increases were implemented. The increases varied according to workers’ skill levels and are well below the 20,000–26,000 rupees demanded by the workers and unions.

Deeper structural problems, such as the absence of written contracts, the lack of social security, the four labor laws, and the criminalization of protests, remain entirely unresolved.

At the end of April, more than 350 workers were still in custody. Seven First Information Reports (FIRs) had been registered, and lawyers reported that various additional charges had been brought to prevent their release on bail.

From April 30 to May 8, Section 163 of the Indian Penal Code (restrictions on public assemblies) was enforced throughout Gautam Buddh Nagar district, covering the May Day period. The restrictions affected International Workers’ Day in order to prevent workers’ demonstrations on that day.

Although bourgeois left-wing organizations were not very effective during the strikes, they tried to influence the workers with their opportunist political lines.

Rising oil and gas prices will lead to higher inflation in the coming months, leaving the wage increases won through these struggles, which were already below what had been demanded, insufficient to meet the needs of the Indian working class. Together with workers around the world, it will once again take up the struggle for its immediate interests.

The only way for workers to overcome these strike bans and police violence and confront the capitalist economic crisis is to organize in militant class-struggle unions under the leadership of the Communist Party and overthrow bourgeois rule in India and throughout the world.

On Wednesday, more than 10,000 healthcare and social services workers from across the country gathered in Bucharest to protest. Their main concern is the proposed wage law, which, according to members of the SANITAS union, could result in a wage freeze or even a pay cut for more than half of the sector’s workers. The protesters marched from Victoriei Square to the Palace of Parliament to make their voices heard. The workers are dissatisfied with the new wage law, particularly the proposed cuts to bonuses and allowances, which will significantly affect their overall income. According to the protesters, the changes could lead to substantial pay cuts, which in some cases could amount to as much as 3,000 leu per month.

The bourgeoisie is cutting back everywhere except on its own profits and exploits wage labor at the lowest possible cost. Healthcare work in Romania is very stressful, and workers often face abuse, excessive workloads, and few days off. With this new law, they will receive yet another slap in the face from the bourgeoisie. Romania ranks among the countries with the lowest minimum wage in the European Union, with a gross minimum wage of 795 euros. Romania’s annual inflation rate reached 9.5% in April 2026. Everything is getting more expensive, and wages are being cut. One of the striking workers says, “Our main complaint is the severe staff shortage and the wage cuts, (…) we feel truly humiliated. During the COVID pandemic, we were heroes; now we’re at the bottom of the pay scale,” she adds. “We’re exhausted both physically and mentally, so we work overtime just to cover our shifts. Everyone expects quality service from us, and we do our best, but to make ends meet, we’re forced to work constant overtime.”

The reduction in bonuses affects the real income of workers who labor under difficult conditions, work shifts, and pressure.

At 2:30 p.m.: The protest was declared over, and the struggle died down. But this is the limit of mere spontaneity. Without the action of a union committed to genuine class positions and led by the Communist Party at this historical juncture, the workers will struggle even to achieve the most minimal results. Communists must be the most advanced elements of the working class, establish contacts with the workers, and organize them into the Communist Party. The Communist Party, which embodies the most advanced and resolute section of the proletariat, unifies the efforts of the working masses and transforms their struggles for particular group interests and immediate gains into the general struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat.

The attack was the latest in a series that have come after the end of the Iran backed rebels’ ceasefire with Saudi Arabia. Houthi militants hit the Aramco oil refineries in the Red Sea towns of Yanzu and Jizan, which have both operated as major ports after Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz in March. The ceasefire, which had been in effect since 2022 and was already shaky, officially ended on the 13th of July when Saudi forces attacked the Sana’a airport in Yemen, and escalated when the Houthis retaliated by launching a ballistic missile attack on the Abha airport in Saudi Arabia. This comes in the context of the broader Yemeni civil war between the Houthi controlled north and the Saudi-backed and internationally recognised south.

The Houthis are part of the ‘axis of resistance’, an Iranian (and former Syrian) network of militant organisations that includes Hamas, the P&DFLP, Hezbollah, among others. This wide reach has led many of the so-called “left” to support the network, and claim that they are fighting a righteous war against Western/Saudi imperialism. Let us not forget that this escalation comes during calls that wages are being unpaid (and have been for some time), in addition to independent workers’ organisations being shut down with both sides of the conflict being actively hostile to the Yemeni proletariat. The workers are left with two options: to support Iran or to support Saudi Arabia, one bloc of capital or another. The only thing that changes is the colour of the flag.

The struggle against imperialist wars and for revolutionary defeatism has been waged by the party since WWI. We reaffirm Lenin’s statement from 1915 that “the only policy of actual acceptance of the class struggle is for the proletariat to take advantage of the difficulties experienced by its government and its bourgeoisie in order to overthrow them” (Lenin, The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War). The conflict shows no sign of stopping. The Houthis have repeatedly attacked refineries and cargo ships in an attempt to blockade the Red Sea and prevent Saudi Arabia from moving oil through it. So far the death toll is over 60, and if the Saudis act with their regular brutality it will only grow higher. The imperialist war does nothing to advance the class struggle. The only path forward is revolutionary internationalism, where all workers fight for liberation, for freedom from the chains of capitalism.

Proletarians of all countries, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!