As we enter a period of intensified capitalist exploitation and new imperialist conflicts, it is essential that class-conscious workers and communist activists fully understand the current state of capitalist society. In “Militarism, Imperialism, Competition, Capitalist Pressures, and Responses Within the Working Class,” we continue the analysis provided by Law 4 regarding the dynamics of international capitalism. Although we observe that certain trends in the economy point toward a generalized crisis of overproduction, we find no evidence that the world is entering a period of permanent economic instability. Far more relevant to the lives of the working class is the intensification of interimperialist rivalry, which manifests itself in the growing development of the international war economy.

We cannot say whether the capitalist world will immediately degenerate into a Third World War or lead to a more protracted series of power struggles. What is certain is that if workers do not unite their individual struggles to form a general internationalist movement, capitalism will eventually devolve into a generalized conflict. Unfortunately, the objective need for an internationally united working class has been hindered by the resurgence of social-democratic and populist movements. In “Neo-Kautskyism” and “Communism Cannot Defend Liberal Democracy,” we offer two critiques of these anti-proletarian movements, emphasizing the need for workers to transcend their position in society by developing their capacity for independent action outside the established unions and parliamentary parties—and without allowing themselves to be absorbed by petty-bourgeois populism.

As for the impact of LAW magazine itself, unfortunately we have received very little response from both within and outside the internationalist sphere. Of the positive responses we have received, the most notable has been that of the Colectivo Obrero Comunista and Agrupación Unidad y Lucha, two Mexican groups who have consistently republished our articles and offered their own insightful critical analysis. For this reason, we are publishing several texts in which we engage in a dialogue with these groups to clearly elucidate revolutionary theory. We encourage all our readers to read their recent articles “The Unions, the Working Class, and Reactionary Forms of Struggle,” a self-critique of their experience working in independent unions, and “Manifesto.” We also include a public response to our only critic to date, former contributor Fredo Corvo. We also include in this issue and in all subsequent issues the list of basic texts on council communism published in Issue 4, as well as a brief critique of an erroneous position on a hypothetical and impossible “national communism.” 

Salut,

AN, MS, SS

Last year saw 40 armed conflicts, the highest number in a decade. (1)

Right now, major wars are ongoing between Russia and Ukraine, as well as those in the Middle East, Sudan, Myanmar, the Sahel, the DRC, Somalia, and Mozambique…There is talk of a resurgence of the war in Tigray… etc., and other concurrent conflicts are also unfolding where there are armed clashes, from Libya to Pakistan… We can read:

“More than 110 armed conflicts are active worldwide in 2026, according to international legal monitoring. From Ukraine to Sudan, including Gaza, the Sahel, and Myanmar, the international system is experiencing its highest level of violence in decades. The problem is no longer the existence of isolated wars, but their simultaneity, expansion, and structural interconnectedness.”

○ Middle East and North Africa: more than 45

○ Africa: more than 35

○ Asia: 21

○ Europe: 7

○ Latin America: 6” (2)

This amounts to at least 114 simultaneous conflicts.

In 2024, there were already 61 active state-sponsored armed conflicts and 11 high-intensity wars (more than 1,000 deaths per year). Some appear in the news, others do not, but the results are nevertheless gruesome. In Myanmar, at least 100,000 dead; in Sudan, 150,000 killed, 500,000 starved to death. (3)(4) More conflicts occur than can be comprehended. 

Worldwide, bourgeois forces are competing intensely with one another, and on the imperialist military front, this translates into an alignment of blocs, in which the U.S. and its allies, and China-Russia and their allies, are confronting each other in various regions, often through intermediaries, as in the case of the Axis of Resistance in the Middle East and the U.S.-allied states, with Israel serving as the offensive spearhead in the region, which is once again very evident in Lebanon as well as in Gaza and the West Bank, among other fronts. 

What begins as the unconscious compulsion of mutually repelling forces increasingly turn into the conscious policy of militarism. We read in the bourgeois press:

NATO agrees to allocate 70,000 million in military aid to Ukraine this year (5)

Redefining the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, the foreign ministers of the United States, South Korea, and Japan have solidified a trilateral alliance to contain North Korea and counter China’s growing influence. (6)

Europe and Canada are moving forward with a naval mission to fill the U.S. void in the North Atlantic and the Arctic (7)

NATO reaffirms its “unwavering” commitment to Article 5 and “the transatlantic bond” (8)

The bourgeoisie is increasingly uniting, increasing military expenditure and coordinating itself for the wars to come. The U.S. focuses on China and the Pacific, and the EU on Russia and Belarus, with others complementing the NATO framework. The EU is increasing its spending to achieve greater “strategic autonomy,” but must continue to rely on the US for its military defense. 

“Rutte once again displayed his sycophantic manner and, as he did recently at the White House, credited Trump with the increase in defense spending in Europe. ‘This is, of course, because of (Vladimir) Putin and Russia and Ukraine, but also because President Trump has been extremely forceful in encouraging us to do so,’ he said amid his boisterous laughter. Hours before welcoming Trump, he boasted that Europe and Canada had increased military spending by 20% in 2025 alone—a total of 285,000 million over the past two years. And it could be much more, as he anticipated that new multibillion-dollar contracts would be announced this Tuesday at a parallel defense industry forum (...) The Dutch official even characterized the readjustment of the U.S. presence in Europe—which Washington is evaluating in order to focus on other global theaters of operations—as a “rebalancing” rather than a direct blow to the organization. In his view, “NATO, as it was three, four, or five years ago — was not sustainable” because it is untenable to “ask a country with 350 million inhabitants, located an eight-hour flight from here, to defend against the Russians, while 600 million people living in this part of NATO territory are overly dependent on the United States,” he explained.” (9)

An agreement to replace the aging aircraft was announced on Tuesday. Swedish manufacturer Saab will supply up to 10 new GlobalEye surveillance aircraft to a consortium of 10 countries, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced.

“This is a moment of great pride,” he said, noting that the twin-engine aircraft would be “manufactured within the alliance for the entire alliance.”

Some of the projects are expected to be financed with funds from a low-cost defense lending scheme created by the European Union, which provides for up to $170 billion raised on the capital markets.

“We have to make sure we’re translating our economic strength into military capabilities, putting the money to work: from defense plans to drones, from money to missiles and interceptors,” Rutte said.

Trump has described NATO as a “paper tiger” that would cease to function without U.S. weapons and leadership. At Tuesday’s forum, Michael Duffy, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense, said that “the reality is that we need production increases across the board.”

“We will seek to increase our exports to those who want to buy our equipment, and we will also seek to partner with efforts to expand production capacity here in Europe,” he said.

Representatives from 15 nations shook hands and patted each other on the back on a massive stage beneath the NATO logo as they announced a multinational effort to purchase in-flight refueling and transport aircraft from Airbus.

Rutte then announced a four-country effort to purchase up to five new Triton surveillance drones to add to NATO’s small fleet.

“It’s genuinely made in NATO, and it’s creating jobs on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.

On the eve of the military alliance’s two-day summit in Turkey, Rutte told reporters, “We will announce tens of billions in new contracts that will provide the crucial equipment we need to deter and defend.”

However, no dollar figures were provided at Tuesday’s event, and the showcase included some projects that had been agreed upon long ago.

The defense industry showcase comes a few weeks after Rutte attempted to allay U.S. concerns about military spending within NATO with a new presentation backed by a chart titled “Trump’s Trillion,” which shows $1.2 trillion in spending by European allies and Canada since 2017.

Far from being impressed, Trump appeared unfazed and stated that he remained disappointed by the refusal of some NATO allies to join the war with Iran, which he initiated alongside Israel without consulting them.

“We don’t need their money; we don’t need anything,” Trump said. “I just want loyalty.” (...) On the morning show “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the United States not to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, stating that Erdogan “openly calls for the annihilation of Israel.” (...) Netanyahu stated that selling F-35s to Turkey “would upset the balance of power in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority and also, I believe, by the U.S. stance in the Middle East.”

(...) 

The focus of the summit is a stronger Europe for a stronger NATO. The Trump administration has warned allies that they must take responsibility for Europe’s security on their own, while the United States focuses on China and the Indo-Pacific region.

The Pentagon wants a reset and is promoting what it calls “NATO 3.0,” a vision of the alliance in which Europe assumes greater responsibility for its own defense, freeing the United States to focus on other priorities.

But increasing defense spending means raising taxes or diverting resources from other priorities. UK Defense Secretary John Healey unexpectedly resigned last month, noting that the government was unwilling to spend at a time of growing threats.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a new appeal on Tuesday for his country to be allowed to join the alliance, praising the extensive experience and resilience of his armed forces and asserting that they would only enhance the alliance’s defense capabilities. (10) (11)

In short, the growing development of capitalism’s imperialist militarism continues on its course, feeding off the surplus value extracted from the working class, issuing debt, and seeking to secure budgetary funds to expand the conventional and nuclear capabilities of the contending powers more and more, alongside new forms of arms buildup that are developing under these specific conditions. When they pushed through the measures, bourgeois governments and ideologues launched their campaign: “Don’t worry, all this effort won’t lead to cuts in government assistance.” Today, the deception has been revealed: state assistance is being significantly eroded, which is fueling social unrest.

“Between 2000 and 2024, global military spending rose from ~$1.24 trillion to a historic high of $2.71 trillion, driven by geopolitical tensions. In contrast, social spending (education, health, and social protection) has faced proportional cuts, with defense budgets taking priority, according to reports from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the United Nations.”(12)

The United States, China, and Russia account for more than half of global military spending

Europe continues to increase its defense spending, up 14% from the previous year, to 737,000 million euros. (13)

“Overall, the world currently spends nearly $2.9 trillion a year on defense, a figure that represents the largest economic outlay on armaments since the end of the Cold War.” (14)

In the heat of this cauldron, numerous states and bourgeois forces swarm the global arms market. (15)

This is the terrorist path of imperialist capitalism in motion. 

To this end, capital exerts ever greater pressure on the proletarian working class, and news stories like these appear:

“The mass layoffs threatened by the Volkswagen Group mark a new phase in the ruling class’s global campaign to cut industrial jobs and reorganize production in preparation for the trade war and rearmament. The plans call for up to 100,000 layoffs across the group and the closure of four German plants that employ some 40,000 workers.

These closures would come on top of the elimination of 35,000 jobs in Germany—an agreement already reached between Volkswagen, IG Metall, and the works council in December 2024. Across the entire group, management now wants to double the current target of 50,000 layoffs by 2030.

In Canada, Stellantis has indefinitely shut down the Brampton plant; Ford’s Oakville plant has been inactive for years; GM has halted production at CAMI; and Oshawa has lost its third shift. In the United States, automakers are using automation to eliminate jobs across production and logistics.

Corporations are forcing workers to bear the cost of electric vehicle sales, which have fallen short of expectations. Volkswagen completely rebuilt its Zwickau plant to turn it into its showcase for electric vehicles. It now faces closure. GM promoted Factory Zero as the centerpiece of an American electric vehicle renaissance. It currently operates with a minimal workforce as management introduces about 50 additional robots to the plant.

(...)The union had already agreed in December 2024 to reduce production capacity in Germany by 734,000 vehicles and annual labor costs by 1.5 billion euros. It allowed for real wage cuts of up to 20 percent, reduced working hours without full compensation, and the elimination of more than half of the apprenticeship positions. Approximately 28,000 workers have already been pressured to voluntarily leave the company.

(...) Defense spending in Germany will increase by nearly a third next year, reaching 109,000 million euros, and 130,100 million euros when including military aid to Ukraine and other security expenditures.” (16) 

Under these conditions, some proletarian resistance and reactions from labor unions and the state are emerging:

United States: 

“Thousands of workers are protesting to demand an increase in the minimum wage. The working class’s share of U.S. wealth has fallen to its lowest level since the postwar era.

A Federal Reserve report confirms that workers have never received such a small share of the value they generate.

Labor’s share of U.S. national income has fallen to its lowest level in the entire post-World War II era, according to an analysis published this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on its Liberty Street Economics blog. The indicator, which measures the share of economic output paid to workers in the form of wages, has fallen 1.6 percentage points below its pre-pandemic level, reaching an all-time low. Economists Richard Audoly, Miles Guerin, Srinidhi Narayanan, and Rachel Schuh, the authors of the report, note that after a long period of “stability” around 63% for much of the 20th century, the labor share began a sustained decline shortly after the end of the Cold War, with particularly sharp drops during the global financial crisis and, more recently, in the post-pandemic period.

The Federal Reserve’s analysis places this decline in the context of previous recessions. The authors argue that the post-COVID trajectory follows “cyclical” patterns similar to those observed in recessions prior to 2000: labor force participation rises during the recession, falls during the recovery, and, in previous episodes, recovered later. However, the report acknowledges that, unlike in cycles prior to 2000, during the dot-com bubble and the global financial crisis, labor force participation “did not recover significantly.” Despite this, the Fed concludes that the current decline is “typical” and that “there is no evidence that it will unfold differently from past episodes”—a conclusion that normalizes the systematic transfer of income from labor to capital. (17)

Germany:

“...the IG Metall union and the works council called for protests at all VW locations in Germany. In late June, it emerged that the group planned to cut up to 100,000 jobs—twice the initial projection—and close four factories in Europe, although the final figure has not yet been officially announced.

In Wolfsburg, the protest took place right in front of the executive board’s skyscraper. Other rallies were also organized, for example, in Emden, Zwickau, Hanover, and at the Audi plant in Neckarsulm, in front of the gates of the various factories. All of these locations are considered to be in a precarious situation, and their future is under threat. In recent weeks, it had been leaked to the media that the supervisory board was indeed debating massive cost-cutting measures. According to IG Metall, this is not a strike, but rather informational or protest events.

The message from works council chair Daniela Cavallo and IG Metall president Christiane Benner, along with their colleagues, is that if an additional 50,000 jobs are actually to be cut and four plants are to be closed, the group will face strong opposition from the workers. However, a growing number of voices are asserting that, as it stands now, VW will not be competitive in the long term, as it faces very high production costs, Chinese manufacturers flooding the market with cheaper models, and U.S. tariffs. For many experts, this is the largest restructuring of the automotive industry in German history.(18) 

Equally important is the capitalist drive to increase productivity through new tools, which reveals the place of technology within the class struggle. Until the benefits of AI become apparent, capitalists must cut costs and leverage debt and investments.:

“The massive wave of layoffs is hitting the industry in Europe and the tech giants on Wall Street hard. Microsoft has just confirmed one of the largest workforce reductions of the year, laying off 4,800 employees, drastically affecting its Xbox division and restructuring its video game studios. The reason? Wall Street is demanding immediate returns on the massive investments made in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Compounding this technological landscape is the crisis in Europe’s automotive and industrial sectors: Porsche is considering cutting up to 4,000 additional jobs in Germany, on top of previous cuts in the sector.” (19)

“In the United States, social unease is growing over the rapid deployment of AI in factories and offices. Many people fear losing their jobs. Opposition to data centers is on the rise. Protests have already forced the cancellation of projects valued at $42 billion due to concerns about energy and water consumption, according to The Economist. Significant sectors of the Democratic Party are shifting to the left, and the MAGA base is beginning to chant slogans against tech executives. Steve Bannon is promoting the Human First movement.” (20)

“Union Protests in Argentina Social movements grouped under the left-wing Union of Workers of the Popular Economy (UTEP), affiliated with Territorios en Lucha and militant unions, are preparing to confront the government of Javier Milei with a plan of action that includes marches and picket lines, culminating in a Federal March and a so-called “ ” general strike—which the CGT has not yet confirmed or announced.” (21)

South Korea:

Seoul, July 15. South Korea’s main labor confederation is holding a demonstration this Wednesday in downtown Seoul, with an estimated 10,000 people expected to attend, to demand that major companies negotiate directly with subcontracted workers, in accordance with a labor reform that took effect in March.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) began the rally at 3:00 p.m. local time (6:00 a.m. GMT) near the iconic Gwanghwamun Square, from where participants plan to march toward the presidential office, according to a statement from the union.

The dispute centers on the implementation of the so-called “yellow envelope law,” which took effect in March and expanded the right of subcontracted workers to negotiate with parent companies when those companies exercise substantial control over their working conditions.

The KCTU reports that, despite hundreds of requests, most companies continue to refuse such talks and that effective negotiations have taken place in only four cases.

The organization also estimated that around 100,000 workers participated in protests across the country.

Among the groups mobilizing is the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, which called for at least four-hour strikes per shift and protests in eleven regions this Wednesday, according to a statement released on Monday.

The metalworkers' union did not disclose a specific number of workers who participated in the strikes, although it noted that 21,200 members from 77 local chapters had demanded negotiations with major companies.

The unions are also calling for greater government intervention to prevent companies from evading negotiations.

At the start of the demonstration, KCTU leader Yang Kyeung-soo denounced the fact that major companies continue to ignore subcontracted workers’ requests for negotiations and warned that “the time for patience is over,” according to the local news agency Yonhap.”(22)

Most of the workers’ protest is organized through the labor union movement, with some isolated instances of workers’ struggle like this one in Turkey: workers at the Sedef shipyard in Tuzla, Istanbul, expel a union leader who signed an agreement with management in an attempt to end a strike. (23)

This healthy worker response to the attitude of this union boss occurs from time to time, given that the union’s involvement in actions that harm workers is direct and obvious—it is blatant. But it is a different matter altogether to understand the role of trade unionism in the maintenance and reproduction of the system of wage labor. That is why the labor movement still has plenty of “capital in its bank account,” even though the relative gap between the incomes of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is widening significantly.

There are clashes between the state and its police and leftist groups, as in the case of Noida, India, where they are accused of instigating the violent disturbances and demonstrations which have now subsided.

There is a surge of labor protest movements in the face of evident—and in many cases severe—pressure from corporations and the state, linked to imperialist competition and the development of the war economy in general. There are breaches of agreements, delays in signing union-management agreements, and budget cuts by the state and in bourgeois welfare programs (state, associative, and private). Many workers join these calls to action but generally do not cause problems for the unions. 

The deterioration—in many cases slow but sustained and effective—of wage conditions and, above all, of purchasing power (inflation, rising costs of reproducing proletarian existence, taxes, real estate rent-seeking, etc.) is on the rise and is becoming increasingly urgent for millions of proletarians. Precariousness is on the rise; the erosion of indirect and deferred wages is progressing and creating discontent. All of this contributes to creating certain conditions for mass discontent to manifest itself in a certain tension with bourgeois forms of containment and diversion, and with the increasingly eroded attempt to adapt to a changing situation in which capital lays bare its needs before the exploited class, which still exhibits not only divisions but also glaring deficiencies in self-organization and self-aware lucidity. This has implications for communist analysis and intervention.

It is evident that there are procedures and forms of organizing protests that either enhance or diminish the vitality of the working class. We advocate for methods and content that foster the radicalization, expansion, and assumption of control over these struggles by the self-organized proletariat, something which requires breaking from the petit-bourgeois elements within these movements. The deterioration and the rise of imperialist militarism places the exploited class before the choice of yielding or resisting, and in this case, the question arises regarding the form and content of such resistance. In a situation of general weakness and skepticism, many proletarian sectors—forced to defend themselves—continue to resort to union forms and rituals, which are proving less and less effective. But the formidable wall of bourgeois business and state power cannot be circumvented, nor is it easy to confront. It is necessary for the process of degradation to continue, accumulating experiences and proving that skepticism does not lead to a better life or stop one from being an exploited class. 

The ways in which the affected individuals themselves mobilize—and do so with demands recognized as favorable to their needs—are what we are most interested in defending and promoting: assemblies where all of this takes center stage, rather than mere representations of union management of conflicts and forums for expressing competition between well-established unions (supported by the capitalist state in return for their role in controlling the workforce) and alternative grassroots movements. Struggles with demands that go beyond the corporate and isolated framework and take into account the sectors in the worst situation are necessary. To achieve these demands, it is necessary to extend and broaden the conflicts, and therefore for them to be led only by genuinely proletarian elements and to demonstrate that the proletariat wants something specific beyond democratic reforms — and that it wants it to become the new social norm. 

These are lessons drawn from recurring workers’ movements and from the activities of bourgeois forces aimed at containing and channeling the workers’ struggle; they are not a proclamation into the void, filled with formulas extracted from doctrinal dogma. Therefore, to defend them, one must understand which trends are favorable and which counter-trends are unfavorable, and likewise assess and explain as thoroughly as possible the effects of following the path of passivity or union conformism. Obviously, the increasingly evident bourgeois demand for resources to fund imperialist militarism places us on a path where the common situation of millions of workers is becoming increasingly recognizable as such.

In some cases, a sector of the proletariat does derive some benefit from supporting the bourgeoisie—for example, with regard to energy and hydrocarbon prices, investments, and the workload in certain civilian or military enterprises. Obviously, these improvements are often limited and even insignificant, and they are repeatedly eroded by capitalist dynamics themselves. But it is not true that they cannot exist. In a region of Spain where there is an arms factory, the unions have signed a collective bargaining agreement that ranks among the best compared to others. In the shipyards where warships are built, there is notable acceptance among workers of the orders—all of which are intended for war and state control of territory—whether because there is more work under conditions similar to those of previous years, or because only a sector is improving while the rest remains at the previous level. Within these realities of adaptation, a significant portion of the labor movement’s operational capacity continues to function.

In Spain, for example, all attempts by the left to mobilize workers at companies that directly or indirectly work for Israel have failed.

The promise of 120,000 jobs in the military sector has earned the left-wing government strong support among the unions and their members.

This is the grim situation facing a large part of the working class, which is obviously under pressure to accept faster work rhythms and higher productivity, readjustments to the forms of division and organization of labor that favor capitalist management, greater silence in the face of accidents and everyday problems at work, and which suffers certain indirect and deferred wage cuts — wages that are eroded by inflation, taxes, etc. (24)

“Hamas, the radical Palestinian group that three years ago sparked the war with Israel in Gaza after carrying out the October 7 massacre, will announce its transformation into a “technocratic political movement,” according to the influential Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat, which has had access to the Islamist movement’s meeting in recent days. Hamas’s plan is to present itself as moderate in order to be represented on the so-called National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the mechanism approved by the countries mediating the truce to initially take charge of governing the Strip.

According to the Saudi media outlet, the strategy of Hamas’s current leadership—which remains anonymous due to Israel’s relentless policy of eliminating all those who assume leadership roles—is to delay the commitment to disarm as long as possible and, in the meantime, infiltrate the technical local governing body established for the transition period. The NCAG meetings took place last week in Cyprus and concluded with “positive steps toward forming the cabinet.” (25)

Let’s broaden the scope of our analysis

It appears to be a tactic by Hamas to avoid surrendering its weapons and to try to integrate itself into the new political authority in Gaza. But in any case, it means that Hamas is clearly on the defensive, maintaining a certain internal and external organizational structure, but with its military factions focused more on surviving as best they can and on intimidating those sectors of the Gazan population who want them to leave. The IDF controls 70% of Gaza’s territory, continues to carry out killings on a daily basis, and uses its terror to pressure for, at best, a Trump-style committee (involving the Egyptian, Turkish, and other bourgeoisies) to gain some leverage and confront what remains of Hamas to force them to surrender their weapons. The State of Israel is blocking the Fatah-led PNA and the PLO, confining them to areas of the West Bank. In short, this is a model of “peace” that combines militarism in the form of underhanded actions with diplomacy based on the balance of power created through effective militarism. The allied forces of Iran and the imperialist capitalist bloc led by China and Russia—the so-called Axis of Resistance—are reconfiguring themselves after seeing their capabilities—such as the Iranian government itself and its military bodies—deteriorate but not eliminated; for the moment, no serious divergences have erupted between the political “reformist” wing and the recalcitrant military wing, although such differences do exist and the U.S. and Israel are attempting to exacerbate them. Saudi Arabia sent a delegation to Khamenei’s recent funeral, a propaganda stunt by Iran’s bloody bourgeois-clerical-military regime.

***

1. https://www.agenciasinc.es/Noticias/El-ano-pasado-se-registraron-40-conflictos-armados-la-cifra-mas-alta-en-una-decada

2. https://www.periodicovas.com/guerras-activas-en-2026/

3. https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/la-guerra-en-birmania-dej%c3%b3-ya-m%c3%a1s-de-100%2e000-muertos/91680039

4. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercera_guerra_civil_sudanesa_ (2023–present)

5. https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-otan-acuerda-destinar-ano-70000-millones-ucrania-ayuda-militar-20260708151651.html?tbref=hp

6. https://www.escenariomundial.com/2026/07/08/ee-uu-corea-del-sur-y-japon-buscan-contener-a-corea-del-norte-mientras-crece-la-presion-china/

7. https://www.escenariomundial.com/2026/07/08/europa-y-canada-avanzan-con-una-mision-naval-para-cubrir-el-hueco-de-ee-uu-en-el-atlantico-norte-y-el-artico/#google_vignette

8. https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-otan-reafirma-compromiso-inquebrantable-articulo-vinculo-transatlantico-20260708144921.html

9. https://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20260706/11585988/cumbre-otan-disenada-complacer-trump.html

10. https://apnews.com/article/otan-cumbre-contratos-defensa-trump-aviones-3c2e7270878a4062c0d5ea237a3e030a

11. On Fredo Corvo’s website, there is this article that captures quite well what is at stake: https://leftdis.wordpress.com/2026/07/11/ankara-2026-natos-unity-parade-and-the-bargaining-behind-it/. 

12.  https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex

13. https://www.laregion.es/lri/empresas/estados-unidos-china-rusia-concentran_1_20260427-4252659.html

14. https://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2026/05?utm_source=chatgpt.com. More specific data: https://www.escenariomundial.com/2026/03/16/cuales-son-los-paises-que-mas-invirtieron-en-defensa-en-2025/. 

15. Detailed data can be found at: https://database.centredelas.org/bbdd/?lang=es

16. https://www.wsws.org/es/articles/2026/07/11/fdb8-j11.html

17. https://inter-rev.foroactivo.com/t4734p25-eeuu-miles-de-trabajadores-protestan-para-pedir-una-subida-del-salario-minimo#143079

18. https://elpais.com/economia/2026-07-09/cientos-de-trabajadores-protestan-a-las-puertas-de-las-fabricas-de-volkswagen-contra-posibles-recortes-de-plantilla.html

19. https://inter-rev.foroactivo.com/t15115-la-gran-oleada-de-despidos-que-esta-pasando-con-la-industria-europea#143143

20. https://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20260707/11586038/thiel-rey-patagonia.html

21. https://www.infobae.com/politica/2026/07/15/movilizaciones-marcha-federal-y-piquetes-el-plan-de-lucha-de-los-movimientos-sociales-contra-el-gobierno/

22. https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/sindicatos-surcoreanos-realizan-una-manifestaci%C3%B3n-masiva-en-defensa-de-los-subcontratados/91748648

23. https://inter-rev.foroactivo.com/t2788p475-turquia-protestas-malestar-social-democracia-represion-del-gobierno#142836

24. See: https://leftdis.wordpress.com/2026/07/04/labor-strikes-since-the-beginning-of-the-iran-war-an-overview/

25. https://www.abc.es/internacional/hamas-anuncia-disolucion-organo-gobierno-gaza-20260706120355-nt.html

Editor’s note: The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is an American strand of democratic socialism which promotes trade unionism and direct democracy. The national organization rose to some degree of fame when it began sponsoring democratic senators and the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign. Currently, the DSA sponsors members of the US house of representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. Within the DSA there are multiple self-described Marxist caucasus, including the Marxist Unity Group (MUG) — a neo-Kautskyist caucus which is increasingly gaining traction within the DSA’s internal life. They advocate for building up an independent movement along the lines of the 2nd international; and yet,they do not support breaking from the democratic party, positioning themselves between the left of the DSA which wants to break from the Democrats, and the right which wants to remain attached with them. In their 2026 program, they describe their approach to politics as making the DSA “independent in content” and yet “surrogate in form.”(§49) Currently, MUG holds 3 of the 27 seats within the National Political Committee, the organization’s highest political body.

The recent surpassals of 120,000 members within the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has garnered the attention of US media, marking a new period of the organization’s relevance. On July 14th adoption of a new national platform, patterned after a Kautskyist minimum-maximum program, clearly demonstrates the idea of a revolutionary parliamentarianism is gaining widespread appreciation within the national organization. This can be explained in large part by the increasing success of the Marxist Unity Group, a neo-Kautskyist caucasus which has revitalized the influence of Kautskyism for perhaps the first time in 100 years. This success has been temporarily checked by the possibility of Alexandria Occasio Cortez's 2020 campaign. Since 2016 the DSA has faced persistent issues with the practice of endorsing democratic candidates. Occasionally, the DSA will endorse a democratic or politician, and in many cases this results in the politician violating one or another of the DSA's espoused principles. This poses an immediate question: should the DSA expel the politician for their activity, or let it slide? On one hand, the left caucuses argue that without a strict adherence to the principles of the organization, it risks becoming an adjunct of the democratic party. On the other hand, the center and right wing of the organization insist that without working within the democratic party, the influence of the organization will be lost; the indiscretion or political errors of the sponsored candidates cannot allow a schism. In the past, this has almost always turned out in favor of the center and right, while the left is relegated to the role of unhappy lover.

Whether or not the DSA or MUG ever resolves the discrepancy between their occasionally revolutionary rhetoric and their reformist practice – a dialectic of word and deed which was an absolute staple of Kautskyism of the 2nd International – is besides the point. That content of their respective minimum-maximum programs, which is thoroughly petit-bourgeois, is likewise not our concern. That practically, their program most closely resembles the policies of the Weimar Republic which were instituted to quell workers' discontent should barely give us pause: all these maladies find their origins in the notion of revolutionary democracy, and it is precisely the conception of revolutionary democracy which we must attack first and foremost.

What is revolutionary democracy? For the democratic socialists of today, it signifies it is building the power of the independent proletariat through elections and the struggle for democratic rights. But while this approach yielded dividends for workers at the end of the 19th century, its performance in the 20th century has yielded quite different results. Since the collapse of the 2nd International in 1914, where and when workers have successfully rallied to elect officials the effect is that workers transfer power to their elected representatives. Far from teaching the proletariat its power as a revolutionary class which can seize the means of production, it has taught workers to be impotent and subservient. Today, the circus of government can only serve to pacify the working class.

This does not mean that the working class does not avoid fighting state policy or for moderate demands; on the contrary, the struggle for concessions over living conditions is always how the class struggle starts. The decisive question is whether after the struggle workers succeed in maintaining their independent power after the struggle, or cede it back to capitalists by integrating themselves into the state. 

During the last global upsurge of class struggle in the, it was precisely the distinction between winning power through defensive struggles and losing it through integrationist reforms which proved a stumbling block for the working class. To take the example of Britain, the 70’s represented a high-point of independent labor struggles. Miner strikes in 1969 and 1974 miners strikes were hailed as a victory for the working class, and ushered in almost a decade of Labor dominance. But the victory they achieved in terms of social amelioration was annulled by landing workers squarely within the ranks of the Labor party. Once workers understood their victory not in terms of working class power, but the power of Labor, the social state and the trade unions, they saw no need to maintain the independent capacity to fight for their one position, and consequently were stripped of their capacity to fight their own interests. In no short order, their hardfought reforms were not only repealed, but the British working class routed. What began as a resounding victory in the form of state concession had actually laid the groundwork for a resounding defeat, from which British workers have never recovered. A close study reveals the same process playing out in many countries: in Italy, a “hot autumn” was diverted into labor arbitration; in the United States, a series of wildcat strikes in both the industrial and public sector reincorporated into the industrial unions.

The failure of the class struggle of the 1970s was not that the working class had failed to fight for its own interests when the time came: it was that when those struggles did occur, it was successfully captured and neutered by the unions and parliamentary parties. The social reforms instituted the world over took the working class away from its base of power, disorganized it, retarded its consciousness by conflating real class power with seats in government and contracts, and prepared the ground for its wholesale liquidation in the form of the neoliberal revolution. But by the standards of revolutionary democracy, the struggles of the 1970’s had been a resounding success: increased social security, wage increases, left wing governments — what bitter fruit such ‘success’ bought in the form of Reagan and Thatcher!

Indeed, the same factors which defeated the working class in the 70’s was the undoing of the original Kautskyists who, failing to recognize the changes in the capitalist world since the development of imperialism, put empty faith in the improved performance of the German Socialist Party to increase the power of the class. The outbreak of war in 1914 shattered these illusions when the majority of the party apparatus turned out in support of the war and the workers fell into a chauvinistic frenzy. Not only were the unions and parties in support of the war, but 40 years of supposed socialist tutelage by the party and unions was demonstrated to be totally vacuous. Social democracy's institutional support of the first world war illustrated the absolute poverty of social democracy in the face of imperialism, something which the Kautskyists and their Leninist disciples have never connected to social democracy practice. Instead, they have consistently limited their criticism to social democracy’s ideas and the social democratic leaders betrayal of their own class. They mistakenly maintain that social democracy could have gone right (and by extension, still can go right) if it is better led. In doing so, these leaders-in-waiting treat the workers as an impotent mass who, like an obedient army, is to be commanded by a general staff. They set out to reconquer their lost unions and parliamentary seats, dooming themselves to replicate the failures again and again. Each time a new set of leaders submits to the essence of the bodies they command – as they necessarily must – they are denounced as corrupt, revisionist and opportunist, and the process is repeated. After 100 years of this one would think that social democrats would begin to smell a rat.

In the case of the original Kautskyists, even when they did break with their previous leadership, they did so in the incomplete form of the Independent Socialist Party, which after the German Revolution consistently sought reconciliation with the thoroughly rabidly pro-war (and even pro-monarchy) Socialist Party. It therefore typical of Kautskyism to oppose certain chauvinist measures with its rhetoric, but remain decidedly attached to a great mass of bourgeois socialists. But unlike the original Kautskyists, who did eventually gather enough courage to eventually break with the SPD two years into the First World War, MUG cannot even separate itself from the center and right wing of the DSA, and thus finds itself condemned to be an adjunct of the democratic party. 

According to Marx in the 18th Brumaire, while each successive generation parodies their elders with its words, it expresses a new social content with their deed. The same is true of the various stages of the class struggle: a form which previously expressed the power of the working class can, owing to changed circumstances, lose its revolutionary significance. So it was that the struggles for cooperatives and communes at the turn of the 19th century, some of the first forms of working class resistance to capitalism, by the end of that century had been used by Proudhon and later within the social democratic movement by Lasalle to justify a reformism. And while MUG and the DSA dress themselves up in the robes of the social democracy of the 1870's, a period when the term revolutionary parliamentarianism still deserved its adjective, we see that in reality neo-Kautskyism represent the interests of the left wing of the bourgeoisie. (1) Having understood this, we therefore find it impossible to expect that neo-Kautskyism will disappear merely because the ideas it espouses are historically antiquated: its fate as an adjunct of a bourgeois parliamentary party will only be sealed when the parliamentary system itself has been torn down by the council dictatorship and relegated to the museum of antiquities, besides the spinning wheel and bronze axe.

Therefore, we can see that the root of the pro-capitalist demands of the MUG and the DSA lies in their practice, which is not proletarian or anti-capitalist — a fact that no amount of verbal radicalism can negate. In fact, for the Kautskyites, for whom the revolution is always a distant prospect, verbal radicalism is precisely the excuse they need to justify their functional integration into the status quo. As workers around the world struggle against the escalating attacks on their living conditions, they must develop an ever-greater understanding of their situation, which they can then channel into mass action directed not only against the bosses, but also against the trade unions and parliamentary parties, which are inseparable from capitalism. When proletarian movements emerge, it is the innermost contradictions of capitalism which shift the balance of power towards the proletariat. It is then that the quantitative and qualitative expansion of the struggle, even in the face of counter-tendencies and the repressive and integrationist tactics of bourgeoisie, provides the best conditions for an expansion in class consciousness. Today, the only valid communist tactics are those that raise the class consciousness of the entire proletariat, which is a necessary prerequisite for developing the material power and critical clarity required to guide the open struggle to overcome capitalism. 

We use the word overcome because we understand that the working class cannot immediately separate itself from capitalist parties or trade unions. The struggle arises when the conditions guaranteed by these institutions no longer satisfy the needs of the workers, and, as a result, they turn to new means of exercising control over their social lives through strike committees, public assemblies, and embryonic proletarian democracies of this kind. This struggle may or may not extend beyond a specific conflict; therefore, if it ends, the expression of class power disappears and life returns to normal. Only when the conflict of one sector of the class becomes a general conflict and is embedded in a broader network of conflicts does the development of an alternative to capitalism become a concrete possibility; only then can the proletariat organize itself into permanent organizations separate from capitalism, in the form of revolutionary workers unions and workers councils. But what is indisputable and has been proven is that, whenever and wherever these struggles, mass actions, and workers councils have developed, they have always fought against the trade unions and the parliamentary parties. We thus oppose both the trade unions and the parliamentary parties, but we do not advocate the maximalist demand for the immediate creation of workers councils.

Returning to where we began, we can confidently say this: the fact that the DSA has 120,000 members only signifies that a new barrier of bourgeois has been erected against the emancipation of the working class, which will not continue only continue to immobilize and pacify the 120,000 workers who belong to it, but whatever struggles those 120,000 might manage to neuter. For those workers within the DSA, it is time to wake up to the impotence of their organization. Many have already decided to save their revolutionary honor as a class struggler, and left a group whose existence impedes the development of proletarian power. 

***

1. And here we are being charitable when we say that they are merely pretending to be Kautskyists. In fact, these bourgeois socialists shamefully appeal to populism in the form of slogans such as “finishing reconstruction” and “continuing the american revolution.”

A misapprehension regarding the historical development of class struggle and the part that the proletariat's activity has in it has led to an assumption that a national transition from illiberal democracies toward liberal democracies accompanied by a defense of its civil liberties can and has strengthened ‘popular organization’—and even permit the radicalization of demands for the “raising of class consciousness” toward communism. 

This assumption frames such history as a path constitutive of workers’ power. Assumingly, this is a power that comes from a desirable proletarian collaboration with their bourgeois nationalist counterparts—perhaps, immanently, through capitalist contradictions, it even enables a basis for communist activity. Such collaboration, or rather, the disciplinary consolidation of the proletariat, is already a feature of what enables class society to manifest itself in the self-expansion of the major sectors of the ruling class—the petty, middle, and big bourgeoisie—as they vie for and negotiate their place in the overall domination over their proletariat. This is an interclass alliance, an alliance of domination. The large-scale mobilization becomes an open option for these sectors of the bourgeois class to find their strategic opportunity for accumulating capital in the interest of an already globalized accumulation among a stronger global bourgeoisie; in other words, it is not a communist tactic. 

Therefore, to understand the demands that arise spontaneously within the interclass pro-democratic protest movements, and those that incorporate political, unionist, or civil tendencies of the bourgeois left, we must analyze what happens when the proletariat or sectors of it take up such demands. 

Let’s take the current example of Iran’s "Woman, Life, Freedom" (Zan, Zendegi, Azadi): demanding rights for women is not the same as demanding rights for proletarian women that address their exploitation alongside men of the proletariat, as well as other issues affecting all women, such as access to education and jobs, clothing, and social activities that are barred to women of all classes. This does not mean aligning with the bourgeois left, with feminism (also another tendency strictly bourgeois-dominated as its ‘male counterpart’) and the like; rather, it means that the proletariat prioritizes its own specific class demands, while also including others that would arise in a communist revolution (such as women’s right to dress as they please, or to work or study, etc.). This is very different from forming a united front with the bourgeoisie, which is fighting to reform the regime of the ayatollahs and the military. And the same can be said about democratic freedoms such as freedom of opinion or association. Here the Iranian proletariat, following the tensions of class competition, make pleas toward their class rulers, rather than making direct demands to their fellow proletariat.

Leftists of the petty-bourgeois movements indignantly argue of the necessity in establishing a coalition between the proletariat and these bourgeois democratic sectors, in order to achieve a system of freedoms that they imagine will allow future stages for a supposed final socialist revolution. This is a convenient rhetorical design of petty-bourgeois competition that not only affirms but arrives at consolidating interclass activity for another configuration of capitalist domination with turnovers of its political leaders. The working class has not taken any steps forward in terms of its self-organization, instead they’re made into tools for the petite bourgeois competition within such movements.  

Alongside these leftist petty-bourgeois movements, minor sectors of the proletariat manage to leave the class organizing themselves as ‘popular organizations’ to arrive at institutions that deepen the reproduction of class society for mere negotiations by cooperatives, unions, populist political campaigns, NGOs, etc. whose activity and formation belongs to the competition of class society. Despite the occasional permit-approved popular rallies, the proletariat's assembly becomes something to summon, divided and captured, maintaining the class exposed to the discipline of these petty-bourgeois collations that deliver its campaigns to the state and bourgeois institutions, in part, using the proletariat’s energies. It's just as often with such mass mobilization of demonstrations and protests manifested without those coalitions but can remain so unorganized, these coalitions are able to arrive, varyingly successful in making yet another spectacle of popular motion, which reduces subsequent mobilization to another campaign strategy for a new set of petty-bourgeois organizations. Across this, the proletariat stays dissipated, limited to minor appeals and slogans, and not alone but among the other classes who occupy these movements with their respective control (privileged too) over it. Such institutions assume this role as legal negotiators, fostered by its agents through financial, political, and economic instruments sanctioned by the capitalist state. Thus, these leftist petite bourgeois movements and their popular organizations can only modify their access to the proletariat to be mobilized for campaigns whose reach can only modify the movements’ capacity to accumulate for the control of a portion of class society.

What typically unfolds when these liberal-democratic alternatives come to an end is the institutionalization of democratic union structures, which are tasked with channeling the discontent and protests of the working class within the sphere of company-state relations and unions, without any intention of overcoming this state of apparent mediation between the bourgeois and proletarian poles. Even Spain’s transition from Francoism to democracy had prevailed over proletarian protests and channeled everything toward the new framework of labor relations, with works councils elected from among workers based on union slates, with union apparatuses subsidized by the State and protected by the new laws regarding labor negotiations. The result is evident right now, with a working class that is fragmented, taking blows from all sides, and unable to find the path to its own strength and clarity.

The development of a liberal democracy is an activity that does not belong exclusively to the proletariat, and the proletariat’s role in them will not lie in the struggle for its own power, rather the development belongs to a power derived from the experience and decisions of other sectors of the ruling class. This power relationship already exists within the dynamics of class society; it does not alter it, but rather simply gives rise to realignments of power and capacity for political management within the general class system—a system aimed at maintaining the exploitation of the working class. 

Many illiberal regimes experienced massive dissenting mobilizations that involved the proletarianized classes failing to develop their own independent global movement—separate from the political, union, and social interests and activities that seek to replace politically dictatorial governments with governments that promote a multiparty system and its arbitrary democratic freedoms—where the only remaining proletarian organization found in a portion of the class supporting those movements led by the interests of those same bourgeois factions. This portion of the proletariat is whose self-activity was most neutralized and was historically the most disciplined in interest of the factions and thus biased to survive. Such organization and activity by the proletariat neither promotes the defense of the exploited class nor promotes a future in which that independent movement against capital—which we need—will finally develop. 

The contradiction of class society is expressed through the proletarian class struggle, but that contradiction does not necessarily imply communism; it may simply lead to the resurgence of the dynamism inherent in class society—for example, that typical of and characteristic of capitalism—in which the proletariat remains the proletariat, generating surplus value that can be capitalized. That contradiction persists as the class struggle consolidates and becomes organized; it occurs in both liberal democracies and illiberal regimes, but other contradictions arise among the other classes of society who also organize. These classes and its sectors are granted additional powers by their stronger or like-minded counterparts, and the proletariat—already divided—is co-opted and categorized by these other classes, which define and control the means of organization. A nation’s civil institutions—national sovereignty, civic freedoms, and (il)liberal democracy—are therefore concretely identical to this dynamic of power among these sectors of the bourgeoisie who calibrate their control within and among their nations. 

This is the subjugated position of the proletariat, which requires that existing discipline—that is, the control exercised by those dominant bourgeois sectors—be maintained or developed, and that these sectors use them against one another and against the proletariat itself. Either in armed militarized war or the secular and civil peace, both, with proletarian subjugation, find basis in this bourgeois control.

The activity of bourgeois control, or the historical control belonging to classes that have emerged or remained, make the conditions that define how the classes strategize, for today’s proletariat this means its weakening and discipline. The proletariat simply does not have a share in this control. The only means of engaging as a proletariat in class society is to participate under and for the control of those classes. Decisions made by the proletariat within this bourgeois control are decisions for class society and are decisions whose arrival necessitates a process that disciplines and divides the proletariat and keeps the proletariat as a proletariat—even beyond their workshops but their personal lives and communities as shared with their petite bourgeoisie and leaders of campaigns whose destination are the civil institutions. This is a domination of class society—social production, financial, fiscal, monetary, policing, employee or state welfare, justice, family, race, etc.—where, for the bourgeois activity, it is a personally advantageous strategy that they view as an obstacle in the hands of their fellow class opponents in their collective, but not shared, control for competitive accumulation; for the proletarian activity, it is the site they navigate as disciplined lives that the other classes can access, manage, and dispose. 

Thus, either in Iran or the US, any question of benefit for the proletarian in an united front with the liberal-democratic or leftist bourgeoisie (sometimes there may be other tendencies involved like the Iranian monarchists) is terminated with the repeated experience that this is not the case anywhere; the proletariat is subordinate and is treated as such. These bourgeois sectors do not defend the struggle for the world revolution against capital, for obvious reasons, but rather defend forms of political and social governance with some differences compared to the illiberal bourgeois sectors. 

The nature of the proletariat’s ‘self-activity’—both defensive and revolutionary—stems from its own capabilities, a vital criterion for defining communist participation, which does not involve participating in a way that favors interests and dynamics that benefit the bourgeoisie. The only thing that truly belongs to them is the moment when they refuse to freely sell their labor power. When this translates into a total refusal within their social life in class society globally—a generalized and organized total refusal—then it is something that belongs to them as a communist activity against their proletarian condition. 

The historical example of the workers’ councils, their independent wildcat strikes with their independent committees, and the temporary communes have had short lifespans due to the particular divisions and weaknesses in the class during each respective instance, but they insist that the international proletariat independence here means not a control over class society—either civil and secular or barbarous and warring, class society has basis in both—but an independent control that can refuse class society, i.e. eradicate its control. 

But if they organize in such a way that the sale of their labor-power continues as proletariats, then the very relationship within which they act remains beyond their control and forms part of the proletarian condition that defines them. The conditions governing the sale of their labor—and their lives in general—are not in their hands; it is the general condition of class society that dominates them.

In an article published July 3rd, previous LAW contributor Fredo Corvo raised a series of accusations about the practice of our publication. For FC, what started out as an attempt to unite various anti-war groups and individuals on the basis of clarifying our present moment has, since his departure, increasingly transformed into a political sect. 

In order to substantiate his claims, FC resorts to speculation – quite often false – about the operating practices of LAW, and attributes to us problems of his own invention. For example, we read, regarding LAW 3 and 4:

“It should be noted that the poor selection of article topics aligns with Aníbal’s preferences, even though he is not a member of the current editorial board.”

Currently, LAW has no “editorial board” of which to speak; our articles are decided collectively, debated, and finally drafted by consensus, based on drafts that are reviewed. Previously, LAW had a more rigorous division of tasks, something which we discarded when FC departed for being overly cumbersome. Instead, now we have specific days for proposing articles, others for drafting and discussing them, and another for finally editing them. This is how issues 3 and 4 of LAW were put together.

FC is filling the gaps in his understanding with erroneous speculation. This is not fair play.

FC asserts:

“Instead of promoting cooperation in the fight against war based on minimal points of agreement, LAW4 emphasizes issues that are difficult to verify with historical facts.”

When, in fact, our conclusions are drawn precisely from historical facts.

FC continues:

 “However, according to Corvo, [third person?] this type of article does not fit into LAW’s joint project. LAW needs accessible articles on war and the struggle against it. Yet Issue 4 lacks precisely these articles: those dealing with the consequences of war and the preparations for war as they relate to workers, labor conflicts, and social struggles; and those addressing how revolutionaries can actively participate in them. 

LAW’s shortcomings stem not only from a different conception of its tasks but also from the functioning of both past and present editorial boards. It is worth noting that the poor selection of article topics aligns with Aníbal’s preferences, even though he is not a member of the current editorial board. It is no coincidence that Aníbal has written almost all of the articles, which are recognizable by his style. This, along with the absence of an “editorial” article in LAW 4, suggests a lack of collective functioning linked to an insufficient understanding of the tasks of the LAW project. Instead, LAW is becoming yet another political sect centered around a dominant leader.

Unlike previous issues of LAW, which included articles from other publications, LAW 4 now publishes only articles written by its members, as many sects do.”

We will address the claim of our transformation into a sect later.

FC writes:

“LAW reverses this process. It starts from supposedly shared political positions. These positions have been important in the debates with MS and SS, culminating in those discussions. However, they run the risk of obscuring deep political differences that manifest themselves in practice. The sectarian response to the contradiction between principles and actions is false unity and artificial leadership.”

FC claims that the positions we ironed out collectively in issues 1 and 2 of LAW we only “supposedly shared,” only to go on to say: 

“‘Our basic political positions” continue to be shared by MS, SS, Aníbal, and Corvo. These positions can serve as a basis for further debate and clarification with other groups and individuals, without pressure, without time constraints, and without sectarianism.”

So, which is it? Do we share the same positions or do we not? It cannot be both at the same time. The issue arises from a basic problem: when FC split, it was not over a fundamental political divergence. He has maintained the attitude of holding our previously mutually held positions. So, in order to portray his break as something more than it is, he sees it fit to cast aspersions about our own political commitments, methods and structure. 

FC is spinning his own story, his fictional narrative, where the problem isn’t who’s breaking away and leaving us hanging (him), but rather that Aníbal, followed by MS and SS (who must be mindless followers of an aspiring charismatic leader of a political sect) wants to create a political group that emerges as a sect centered around his personality.

FC says:

"LAW should publish texts by other internationalists and invite them to participate. A basic agreement on war and revolution must be defined and redefined according to the situation."

Issues 3 and 4 mentioned texts by internationalist groups. In our “Appeal to the Worker-Internationalists of the World,” we wrote:

“We call on all members of the working class and every internationalist who recognizes the below facts to write to us and contribute to this project.”

FC ignores this, to reinforce the idea that we have become a political sect.

Our open stance to cooperating with other groups, our polemics notwithstanding, is something we’ve held since LAW #1. If more people haven’t participated in LAW, it’s not because we’ve closed our doors; in fact, we’ve maintained contact with new collectives that have emerged, and there are positive exchanges. Likewise, on CCC (Discord and Telegram), there are contributions that help clarify a way of understanding the situation — one we consider necessary — as well as the needs and elements of a critical assessment of the past that are appropriate. FC prefers to ignore this and stick to his self-constructed narrative to make himself look good and portray the rest as deluded sectarians, claiming that he doesn’t know whether what we’re doing is conscious or unconscious: “Aníbal, MS, and SS — whether consciously or unconsciously — set out on the path toward forming a political group.”

We do in fact hope to one day help establish a political group, but LAW isn’t and won’t be this group. Any international group would have to be established on an international basis far wider than what LAW can provide. LAW is merely an attempt to build a circle of internationalist workers and organizations that could one day constitute a group, something which takes time and patience. 

FC — despite himself being a council communist — further rebukes us by contrasting LAW as a pluralistic internationalist publication with its metamorphosis into “political group, based on a program strongly influenced by council communism (the German-Dutch Communist Left.”

Well, if LAW were ever merely a pluralistic platform for fighting against war, why do we devote ourselves to drafting, debating, and publishing “Our Fundamental Political Positions” and the “Notes on Proletarian Consciousness, Capitalism, Imperialism, and the Autonomous Struggle,” in which the council communist approach is clear?

FC says:

“When Aníbal invited MS and SS to LAW on his own initiative—without anyone seeing any problem with it—the confusion began between a publishing platform on the war and a political group. Corvo insisted that LAW should be solely a platform for articles and debates on the struggle against the war, based on a few shared viewpoints.”

In other words, no one saw a problem with inviting MS and SS — meaning that FC and Aníbal agreed on it — but then “confusion began between a publishing platform on the war and a political group.” While during FC’s tenure, there were disagreements and clashes, none had to do with becoming a political group. 

LAW is a collaborative project which addresses many complex topics — crisis, war, workers struggles, communism — and as internal disagreement is not only regular, but expected (and, we might add, healthy). When he was part of LAW, FC was able, like anyone else, to put forward his positions and debate them, as well as to publish whatever he deemed appropriate in his own circle. But FC left.

For FC, questioning certain positions and his account amounts to pressuring him in an abusive and sectarian manner. He puts it this way:

“Faced with Aníbal’s persistent pressure and barrage of messages, as well as his personalization of the debate, Corvo accepted with some relief the creation of a new editorial board composed of MS and SS. Although they likely had less political experience, they remained on the sidelines of the heated controversies. However, before the publication of Issue 3, Corvo withdrew from LAW upon realizing that the new editorial board did not understand that his differences with Aníbal regarding LAW’s direction were political in nature and not personal. Aníbal took advantage of this attitude to try to impose his minority positions on our basic principles, such as his infamous play on words regarding a ‘transition period.’

This is a distortion of what happened. And when he speaks of Aníbal’s “infamous wordplay” regarding a “transition period,” what is at stake is his position that the transition period can begin without the proletariat holding political power internationally, and what is maintained in LAW 4, according to which the proletariat must hold power on an international scale for such a transitional period to begin. Aníbal has expressed his positions both publicly and privately, has presented arguments, and has criticized FC’s arguments when he disagreed. This is what is needed. 

In fact, he continued to discuss both the capitalist crisis and the transitional period. 

In LAW 2, an article on the capitalist economic crisis was published, signed by Aníbal, about which FC says: “Instead of addressing the consequences of the economic situation for the working class, the article veers off into economic theory.”

In the introduction to that issue No. 2 of LAW, we stated:

“This has led us to wonder how close the world economy is to a global recession. A second article helps provide an answer.”

We spoke in the plural, FC alongside us. Analyzing the economy while relating it to the class struggle cannot be considered “economic theory.” We read there:

“On the one hand, we are facing a turbulent trend heading toward a general crisis, with symptoms of sectoral and national crises already manifesting themselves. These symptoms are limited in scope but undoubtedly significant, such as the current one due to the military situation in the Strait of Hormuz. The blockade particularly affects trade in hydrocarbons and raw materials… All these economic difficulties significantly undermine working conditions, as well as the direct, indirect, and deferred wages of the proletariat, and thus alter the conditions that determine the development of class struggles … The war economy is a decisive pillar of a general attack on workers’ conditions, and not merely a manifestation of inter-imperialist tendencies toward World War III … It is evident that many hopes are under pressure and will be subjected to even greater pressure by this shockwave triggered by the militarism of imperialist capital. The class struggle this will generate finds broader and common ground among numerous segments of the proletariat, and reduces the room for maneuver through limited concessions negotiated by the tandem of government teams, business leaders, and the wage-system unions …These struggles often begin as defensive struggles: for higher wages, better conditions, and cheaper transportation, food, and housing. But if they remain confined to the local level or are controlled from above, they can be neutralized. True strength emerges when workers organize through mass assemblies, elected delegates, and committees that they can control and remove.

All of this, for FC, is mere “economic theory.”

FC states:

“Instead of addressing the consequences of the economic situation for the working class, the article veers off into economic theory, ultimately concluding with the well-known thesis that the working class cannot liberate itself without an economic crisis. The article replaces this cliché with an analysis of the consequences of war for the working class.” 

What are we supposed to make of this?

In issue 4 of LAW, following the publication of data on the rate of profit of capital, we presented various significant data to demonstrate that it is false and inappropriate to assert that capital is in a general economic crisis due to the fall in the rate of profit. This is important because certain proletarian elements, alongside the left wing of the bourgeoisie, have gone and done what FC has accused us of. This article was an attempt precisely at pushing back on the dogma that only a crisis can revolutionize the working class in favor of a more nuanced approach. 

As to the charge that we fail to actually connect the economy to the everyday life of the working class, one look at our publication history can disprove it.

In No. 3, we devoted space to what happened at Samsung (South Korea), as well as to other movements (labor or interclassist). The fact is that we disagree with some of what FC has argued regarding Samsung and the call to form a struggle committee. The evolution of that conflict shows that we were right and that the hopes it raised in FC and in the group it referred to were misplaced.

And in No.4 we can read

“The figures for the war economy are significant and on the rise, with record levels of investment, production, and arms sales … This effort diverts investment away from non-military sectors and thus tends to slow the pace of capitalist growth … All of this inevitably requires capital and its states to exert strong pressure on the proletariat … Similarly, numerous petty-bourgeois sectors, both in cities and in rural areas, are facing difficulties and frequently express their outrage, whether by leading or supporting right-wing social-populist movement … In the workplace, we see how capital employs methods to extract absolute surplus value (by extending the workday) and relative surplus value (by increasing productivity). The erosion of the welfare state (where it exists) is evident. So-called “precariousness” is spreading everywhere. Retirees and older workers are forced to work, even if it is off the books, and the so-called “informal economy” continues to grow. In short, the hopes and conditions of the proletariat are under pressure, and imperialism’s increasingly militaristic course—which is on the rise—will subject them to even greater pressure.

There are reactions from workers who can no longer easily settle for previous forms of adaptation, and this gives rise to certain conflicts still dominated by trade unionism and workplace democracy. Discontent is spreading, but neither is proletarian self-organization against capital nor the clarity that it demands and generates. The tendency to cling to passive or opportunistically adaptive attitudes is gradually eroding, albeit slowly and painfully, and in an uneven manner.”

Regarding the criticism we offered in LAW 4 concerning the involvement of Barbaria, Balance, and Avante in the teachers’ protests in various parts of Spain, there are two contradictory approaches at play, and FC tends to defend the one taken by Barbaria, Balance, and Avante. He says:

“We believe the criticism is greatly exaggerated. This may be due to frustration—or even a sense of relief among the councilists—that LAW, like the author of this article, is unable to distribute leaflets due to its small size.”

This is simply false. What we have here is a difference with certain approaches and guidelines of that publication, which is not secondary, but rather fundamental, and leads us to what kind of content is required for an appropriate communist intervention under the current conditions of the balance of power between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. 

FC writes:

“The final article, ‘War,’ offers an excellent explanation of the so-called ‘balance of terror’ or ‘nuclear deterrence.’ Unfortunately, it is the only article that fully addresses the current needs of the proletariat in its struggle to defend itself against the consequences of imperialist war.”

First, this is not the case; the previously cited article does discuss such needs, and second, this article emphasizes them. What we cannot point to are proletarian struggles against the war and against bourgeois pressures stemming from the war economy, because we have not encountered any such struggles this month.

In short, FC’s criticism of LAW’s direction is unfair and biased.

FC also says that it is a mistake not to include an editorial, but this is not always necessary, and the articles themselves, taken as a whole, are sometimes eloquent enough.

Dear Comrades of  AUyL,

In the context of a rapprochement and debate among   communists, and as a continuation of what has already been done by both sides, we would like to raise four points.

I.

Regarding  capitalist imperialism, we   defend  the analytical perspective  and the political orientations  emanating  from the  German-Dutch Communist Left, not those of  Lenin  and Bolshevism. Our reasons are  explained in detail  in various  texts (  see  below). 

A  summary, covering both past and present.

Herman Gorter, in  Imperialism, The World War and Social Democracy  written in  1914,  explains  precisely  what  imperialist capitalism consists of,  and  appropriately  levels  a  strong  criticism  against    Karl  Kautsky, theorist and leader  of the  socialist center:

“The true cause, the instigator, the author of this war is not, therefore, a particular state, but all the states that pursue an imperialist policy and seek to expand their territory: Germany, England, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Belgium, and Japan: each individually and all collectively are its cause.

Kautsky, of course, holds a different view. In his book The National State, the Imperialist State, and the League of Nations (pp. 62–65), he writes that the current war did not arise for imperialist reasons.

How can Kautsky reach this conclusion? He admits that the struggle between Germany and England over the overland route to the Indies through the Balkans, Turkey, Asia Minor, and Arabia was one of the main causes of their antagonism. But this cause—he says—no longer exists. Between Austria and Turkey there is now a barrier of independent states: Serbia, etc. For this reason—writes Kautsky—German policy in Turkey and Asia Minor loses its threatening character for England. “It is therefore permissible to say that the Eastern European starting point of the war is not imperialist.” Eastern European policy was not dominated by imperialist designs. And “at the outbreak of the war, Western Europe was not divided by imperialist rivalries. All had been settled.”

We ask ourselves: What about Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia? The ultimatum that Germany probably dictated and in any case desired?

What was this ultimatum if not the culmination of the entire Balkan question, its violent resolution in the German-Hungarian sense, which automatically brought the questions of Turkey, Asia Minor, Arabia, and likewise India back onto the table? Thus, the Austrian ultimatum touched upon the very heart of Anglo-German antagonism.

Thus Kautsky’s assertion is demolished. We shall see later that Kautsky has arrived at this distortion of the facts out of fear. Out of fear of the inevitable struggle between imperialism and the proletariat, out of fear of its main weapon: mass action.

With this assertion, Kautsky has become an ally of the imperialist  bourgeois  classes, of big finance, and of their servants. Indeed, nothing could please them more than to show the workers that this war, the massacre of peoples, and the murder of the workers of Europe are not the necessary consequence of their insatiable hunger for new territories.

Naturally, in such a massive war, there are also other motives here and there. However, these are of no importance in the face of imperialism and for this reason can be set aside. We merely wish to recall that Serbia is fighting to preserve its national state."  (...) The responsibility for these events lies solely with capitalism and the capitalist classes, with each and every one of them.

In fact, all of this is happening solely because of capital’s drive for profit.

All capitalist classes aim, through this war, to spread capital across the entire globe in order to extract ever-greater profits from this expansion and from the world’s population, whom they wish to turn into their wage laborers.

It is profit for the ruling class, whose representatives are nothing more than wretched puppets in the hands of global developments….It is profit for the capitalist class that calls upon bankers and industrialists, capitalists in commerce and transportation, and landowners, urging them to vote in favor of war in parliaments, to have war declared. It is profit, that petty and miserable profit, that compels the middle class, the peasant, and the sharecropper to side with big capital in this war, albeit with fear and anxiety.

It is profit, the thirst for gold, that compels the entirety of science, art, and religion to stain their hands—alongside the capitalist classes—with the blood of millions of human beings.

It is profit, abject material profit, that compels all these classes to the greatest and most widespread of lies, to the supreme hypocrisy, since it contradicts in the most obvious and harshest way the crystal-clear reality of the current situation; that hypocrisy declares that their nations wage war for a just cause, that they seek to achieve the noblest and highest ends, that they serve civilization, that their nation is the repository of wisdom, humanity, and culture.

It is profit, abject material profit, that drives these classes to utter such lies and hypocrisies. All of this is nothing but lies and deceit.”

Comrade  Anton   Pannekoek rightly argued  in 1916:

“Imperialism differs from old capitalism in that it seeks to bring foreign parts of the world under its control in order to find new markets for products, new sources of raw materials, and, above all, new areas of investment for the abundance of capital. Over the last 20 years of prosperity, the masses of capital have grown enormously, and the impulse to invest them with great profit in underdeveloped countries has prevailed among the bourgeoisie. The various bourgeoisies confront one another as competitors; the young German bourgeoisie, which has just emerged, attempts to conquer territories (colonies or spheres of influence) everywhere and finds its path blocked by the old dominant states of the world, especially England, as in Morocco in 1911, while even in Asia Minor it obstructs Russia’s advance. All have armed themselves to have a decisive voice in the struggle to divide up the world; all strive to attain as much world power as possible. And this pursuit has gradually drawn in the entire bourgeoisie. Any anti-militarist, progressive, or radical opposition that still existed within the bourgeoisie gradually fell in line, had to yield to growing military demands, or was abandoned by its former supporters. In England, France, and Germany alike, the old bourgeois opposition to the imperialist course was gradually reduced to a few limited phrases, as people voted in favor of the fleet, the army, and colonial expenditure (...) From now on, the proletariat’s struggle against capitalism is possible only as a struggle against imperialism, for modern capitalism has no other policy than imperialism. From now on, the class struggle, the struggle for socialism, takes the form of a struggle against imperialism. But as such, it takes on a new and more promising character. New prospects for victory arise; indeed, we may well say that only imperialism creates the conditions for a victory of the proletariat, for the realization of socialism.” (Imperialism and the Tasks of the Proletariat)

Pannekoek is  insightful  and    argues in   1916:

“Socialism will not be imposed by the fantastical great final crisis, in which capitalist production comes to a hopeless standstill forever; rather, it is prepared and built little by little through the real temporary crises, in which this production comes to a standstill each time. Each crisis shakes the workers, makes them feel the unsustainability more acutely, compels them to stronger resistance, and awakens a stronger will to fight. These crises are not accidental disturbances, but are part of the very mechanism of capitalist production. If they turn into a long, hopeless depression, a revolutionary era will begin with a fierce class struggle, which will continue to shape the political transformations of the years to come.”

“Kautsky once said that imperialism was a question of power. This is correct, but not in the sense he intended. He said: a question not of necessity, but of power—and by this he meant that the other capitalists, who had no interest in imperialism, could suddenly put an end to it as soon as they turned their power against the imperialists. Theoretically this was certainly conceivable; but the fact that it did not happen in practice—that, on the contrary, imperialism continued to gain ground—already proved that there were flaws in the theory. Once again, he contrasted two things that go hand in hand. He said: imperialism is not necessary, but a question of power. We say: imperialism is a question of power, and therefore it is necessary. The development of capitalism has strengthened and increased the power of big business, which wants imperialism, and has constantly reduced resistance among the petty bourgeoisie—and even among the workers! That is why imperialism is now supreme, that is, necessary. Because this power and its growth are no accident, nor is the slower, future growth of the power of the proletariat, on which socialism depends. They have their origin in the economic development of modern capitalism. Herein lies the main flaw of the social-utopians and pacifists in the center of the party, who fail to see how the thinking and will of the bourgeoisie are determined by modern economic relations. They have been telling the petty bourgeoisie year after year that imperialism is so stupid, so impractical, and so unprofitable, that disarmament, social reform, and cooperation with the workers against the iron and steel magnates would be far wiser. The petty bourgeoisie did not listen, went its own way, and thus proved that the theory was wrong. We are not going to claim that the calculations were erroneous and that, therefore, imperialism is also the most advantageous policy for the bourgeois masses. That is difficult to establish. What is certain is that powerful, clearly visible economic forces have drawn the majority of this class to the side of imperialism. To highlight the contrast between imperialism and the old policy of free trade, the former is rightly referred to as the export policy of the iron and steel magnates. But this is surely too narrow and limited. Producers of consumer goods also have an interest in this policy. They could, certainly, have their cotton, mirrors, and Haarlem oil  exchanged on the coasts of Africa for some primitive products of the Blacks. But the purchasing power of the Blacks was extremely small. But when railroads, ports, plantations, and factories are built in their country, those same Africans go from being producers for their own use to producers of commodities and workers who receive money to buy European consumer goods. Their purchasing power increases extraordinarily because they are drawn into the capitalist circuit with the penetration of commodity production. While “heavy” industry takes the lion’s share of the profits, producers of consumer goods will simultaneously see their market expand and their purchasing power increase.

However, this also applies to inland areas.  In capitalism, the prosperity of each industrial group is closely linked to the prosperity of the others: this follows, theoretically, from their cohesion in production diagrams, which also demonstrates their joint rise and fall between crisis and prosperity. When heavy industry is booming, consumer industries are too, and vice versa. Any policy that increases the export opportunities of the former will therefore have an advantageous side for the latter, which is all the more striking given that the disadvantages—in which the interests of both types of capitalists come into conflict—are, nevertheless, inevitable due to the great political power of the iron magnates. Added to this far-reaching solidarity of interests is the personal connection through the banks. Steel policy would not be so overwhelmingly powerful if it were not also the policy of banking capital. The managers of the steel industry are for the most part also the managers of Haarlem oil. They could, certainly, exchange their cotton, their mirrors, and their Haarlem oil on the coasts of Africa for some primitive products of the Blacks. But the purchasing power of the Blacks was extremely small. But when railroads, ports, plantations, and factories are built in their country, those same Black people go from being producers for their own use to producers of commodities and workers who receive money to buy European consumer goods. Their purchasing power increases extraordinarily because they are included in the circuit of capitalism with the penetration of commodity production. If “heavy” industry takes the lion’s share of the profits, producers of consumer goods will at the same time see their market expand and their purchasing power increase. In capitalism, the prosperity of each industrial group is closely linked to the prosperity of the others: this follows, theoretically, from their cohesion in production diagrams, which also demonstrates their joint rise and fall between crisis and prosperity. When heavy industry is booming, consumer industries are too, and vice versa. Any policy that increases the export opportunities of the former will therefore have an advantageous side for the latter, which is all the more striking given that the disadvantages—in which the interests of both types of capitalists come into conflict—are, nevertheless, inevitable due to the great political power of the iron magnates. To this far-reaching solidarity of interests is added the personal connection through the banks. Steel policy would not be so overwhelmingly powerful if it were not also the policy of banking capital. The managers of the steel industry are, for the most part, also the managers of large banks; their interests are intertwined in many ways. These banks are the agents of the policy of capital export, financing productive enterprises, railroads, ports, plantations, placing government loans, and seeking concessions"... the true modern development in which all these different capitalists—despite their mutual struggles—are increasingly becoming a single, omnipresent, and interdependent class. Only by taking this into account can one understand why the will of the concentrated big capital of banking and the steel industry is also the will of the bourgeois masses. “This policy is nothing more than the flip side of heavy industry policy; for capital is exported mainly in the form of steel products. Banks have invested their money and management in countless industrial enterprises of the most diverse kinds, linking them in a community of interests; all capitalists with a stake in these enterprises are therefore also indirectly interested in how the other affairs of this community unfold; almost all small business owners feel dependent in their affairs on the great banking capital that controls the entire economic life. Furthermore, the role of the money-owning bourgeoisie—as banks increasingly become entrepreneurs and factory owners their wage earners—is increasingly reduced to that of rentiers and stock speculators. The shares of all domestic and foreign companies, which the banks create and finance, are placed on the market; in this way, the general public that owns money takes a direct interest in imperialist policy.The conflict of interests that some theorists construct between the means-of-production industry and other industries, as if they were independent of one another, seems very clever on paper, but it is based on a completely outdated conception of the structure of capitalism. It takes no account whatsoever of the actual modern development in which all these different capitalists—despite their mutual struggles—are increasingly becoming a global and wholly interdependent class. Only by taking this into account does it become clear why the will of the concentrated big capital of banking and steel is also the will of the bourgeois masses; why, against the power of this big capital—which wants and must want imperialism—there is no other power of significance in the bourgeois world; and therefore, why imperialism is necessary.But it is also clear—which the social-imperialists fail to see— that imperialism is only necessary, that is, inevitable, as long as the power of the proletariat is not great enough to overcome the power of capital. As soon as the will and power of the proletariat rise above the power of the bourgeoisie, imperialism is finished; it is no longer necessary.”  (The Economic Necessity of Imperialism, by Anton Pannekoek, 1916).

Since 1914, the year Herman   Gorter wrote his text, and since 1916, the year of Anton Pannekoek’s, what has happened to capitalism, with its tendencies and manifestations, on a global scale?

The clear development of capitalism has exacerbated and spread the trends they mention.  In particular, the necessary alignment of the interests of the various bourgeois factions behind the leading wave of big capital, which maintains the manifestations of concentration, centralization, and fierce competition among its components.

The small and medium-sized nations and states that emerged later, as well as other large ones (such as India), developed capitalism and quickly became part of its globalized competitive framework.

Therefore, what in the time of Herman   Gorter,  Anton Pannekoek, and their comrades on the socialist (later communist) left was already clearly manifesting as a defining and determining trend, does so today with greater emphasis and impact.

Adhering to this type of approach, concretizing and developing it in accordance with the very movement of global capitalism’s development, allows for a reference point with rigor and historical-materialist and revolutionary clarity. This is not the case with political expressions rooted in Bolshevism. The  derailments  of  Leninist  expressions  throughout  the  20th  century  and  so  far  in  the  21st  century   attest to this.This is not the case with those who draw inspiration from and claim the positions of  Gorter and other comrades such as   Pannekoek or Rosa Luxemburg, with their corresponding differences, but who agree on the political conclusions regarding interpretation and militant strategy.

There is no known organized expression claiming to follow this line (that of the internationalist communist left of the German-Dutch tradition) that has defended one side in the war in Ukraine.  If we look at Leninists and Trotskyists, we find some on one side, others on the other, and a sector of centrist pacifists.

This is not a mere coincidence, but is  rooted in the determinations of a theorization of imperialist capitalism that opens the door to such positions. Gorter, Pannekoek, and Rosa Luxemburg, for example, share a series of similarities with Lenin—verifiable by reading and comparing their works—but where we find significant differences is in their assessment of dominated nations and dominant nations (imperialist, according to Lenin) and the future of the national question in capitalist history. Leninism adheres to the approach of nations dominated by imperialism, paving the way for the defense of certain movements for their national self-determination. The German-Dutch Communist Left does not deny the existence of powerful centers of internationalized imperialist capitalism, nor of economies and states of medium or small power and capacity, but it views the relationships among them all as inextricably linked to the global development of capitalism. Small and medium-sized nations, in order to carve out a niche for themselves and better defend the interests of the ruling bourgeoisie, must seek and form alliances with the major economic powers and the most powerful capitalist states;  they must carry out imperialist maneuvers whenever they can and to the best of their ability; they must serve as a bridgehead and an intermediary factor in inter-imperialist  conflicts of greater scope and economic, political, and militaristic significance. No new nation could emerge outside the framework of capitalism from that time around the First World War, and the manifestations of colonialism and imperialism gradually changed. India is a very significant example: following independence under  Gandhi and  Nehru, Indian capitalism developed, interconnecting with other powerful international capitals, and soon began to exhibit expansionist tendencies, clashing in several wars of a distinctly bourgeois and imperialist character. The evolution of China, Brazil, South Africa,  etc., is very significant in the same sense. Vietnam, victorious in the war with the U.S., went on to invade Cambodia. Algeria, following its independence from France, laid its hands on  Kabylia and denied rights to its population; it handled the Sahrawi issue against Morocco, with imperialist  powers involved in both cases. The list is long.

In short, with Lenin’s approach one becomes disoriented and goes off the rails, whereas with that of the German-Dutch Communist Left, one does not. And this is something very important.

Let’s turn to the present day:

What we are observing is a massive expansion of imperialist capitalism and a significant escalation of tensions between states and coalitions of such capitalism. Clashes follow one another, militarism complements the trade war, and all this takes place within the framework of broad and intense inter-capitalist competition political actions are determined by the inherently competitive nature of capitalism, with its tendencies to expand, concentrate, and centralize, competing as a means of development for its agents and active powers. They do not seek spaces to dominate out of a mere  desire for power, but rather they either attempt to dominate them or lose material economic opportunities.

That is why the most powerful forces of capital are so dynamic on an international scale, and they act in these ways out of necessity, not by chance, and not merely driven by the desire for political power over geographical spaces.

Even without direct geographical control, imperialist capital’s investments and networks operate and collide.

It is this dynamic of big capital that predominates, setting the pace for medium-sized capital and constellations of small capital. The most powerful states set the pace and direction, but all must enter into the dynamic, each at its own level, according to its competitive capabilities and the exercise of its particular forces and resources of pressure.

The major imperialist capitalist powers form coalitions with the medium-sized and smaller ones, and all operate on the same playing field. There are tendencies toward specific and joint domination; there are  coalitions of interests and disputes of greater or  deeper significance;there are direct and indirect interventions by their armies, supporting proxies and seeking to get others to switch sides; it is a tremendously roguish and Machiavellian world, but all are determined to act within the relationships that constitute  capitalist   imperialism.Therefore, it is not a matter of imperialism being limited to the imperial actions of great powers, which is an alibi very easily used by forces and states of medium and small power. 

Regarding Lenin and “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” The text “Errors and Deviations Developed by Lenin on Capitalist Imperialism”  presents  numerous  well-reasoned criticisms  and  provides data  to demonstrate    the  unsustainability  of  the  Leninist  text  for  any  lucid Marxist.

Let’s look at some history.

Rosa Luxemburg rightly argues:

“Imperialism has completely buried the old bourgeois democratic program; expansion beyond national borders (regardless of the national conditions of the annexed countries) became the platform of the bourgeoisie in all countries. If the term ‘national’ has remained, its real content and function have become its opposite; it serves only as a miserable cover for imperialist aspirations and as a battle cry for their rivalries, as the sole and final ideological means to secure the support of the masses and have them play their role as cannon fodder in imperialist wars.” (The Crisis of Social Democracy, 1916)

Lenin and his followers deny this when they assert: “It is necessary to distinguish between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and the nationalism of an oppressed nation, between the nationalism of a large nation and the nationalism of a small nation” (On the Question of Nationalities or on “Autonomization”)...in order to defend the military and political struggle of these small nations for their self-determination as part of the “democratic program of socialism.”

Lenin argues:

"For Eastern Europe and for Asia, at a time when bourgeois democratic revolutions have begun, at a time when national movements have arisen and intensified, at a time when independent proletarian parties have emerged, the task of these parties in national politics must be a twofold one: to recognize the right of all nations to self-determination, because the bourgeois democratic transformation is not yet complete, because workers’ democracy advocates seriously, frankly, and consistently, not in the liberal manner, not in the manner of the Kokoshkins, the equal rights of nations and the closest, indissoluble alliance of the class struggle of the proletarians of all nations within a given state, through all the vicissitudes of their history, regardless of whatever changes the bourgeoisie may introduce to the borders of the various states.” (The Right of Nations to Self-Determination. February–May 1914)

In   1916   he would say:

“Progressive bourgeois national movements ended long ago in them [the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe and the United States]. Each of these ‘great’ nations oppresses others in the colonies and within the country. The tasks of the proletariat in these dominant nations are exactly the same as those of the proletariat of England in the 19th century with regard to Ireland.” (The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (Theses), in LENIN: Collected Works, Vol. XXIII. Written in January–February 2016).

A century after these differences emerged within the communist movement, it is appropriate to take  stock. The struggles of such small nations for self-determination have not contributed to the development of the proletariat’s communist revolution; on the contrary, they have served as fertile ground for:

•  in a high percentage of cases, the creation of new states that have developed capitalism and served as a pretext in the struggle between the powers of imperialist capitalism,  in which one side offered support not for its own interests against the other side, but for the national right of this or that oppressed nation to which “imperialism” denied the right to free self-determination.

• to drag the proletariat into the defense of political and military causes of a bourgeois nature, where the question of which political leadership would be at the helm of a country to develop capitalism was being settled.  And such development could not be merely “nationally self-centered,” given that the capitalist economy is international and its framework—its networks of investment and business, its markets—must link nations to one another with regard to economic development.

• 
  

The victory of nationalist-style political-military movements in small, dominated nations did not place their economies on the margins of capitalism, whose existence is international. They could not remain in limbo.  At most, they weakened a number of colonial powers, but within a movement in which colonialism itself was  increasingly at odds with the fluid and internationalized development of capitalism. To side with some capitalist interests and forces against others is to sabotage the international struggle of the proletariat and genuine communists.   When Lenin and Bolshevism focused on defending Russia and the USSR, that is what they did, since their development was capitalist and their state was not proletarian at all. The Stalinists, and the non-Stalinist Leninists—the Trotskyists—converged  in the defense of the USSR, and thus Trotsky’s followers defended it during World War II, with Trotsky condemning the defeatists and declaring himself  a defender. (1) 

Later, the Fourth International, in its various forms, has defended bourgeois national causes to the hilt...

Following Lenin’s logic, his followers devoted themselves to serving bourgeois interests of one kind against others, also bourgeois; it is no coincidence that on some occasions they defended state capital against private capital (nationalizations, the USSR, China, and the like...), and on other occasions small or medium-sized capital against large capital, with the typical anti-monopoly national-popular line.

The self-determination of a small nation implies that its ruling and exploiting bourgeoisie can interact with others, establishing agreements and projects in the realm of globalized, inter-imperialist competition   among capitals—something inherent and necessary in the development of capitalism on a global scale.

That is why, whenever they have been able to and always in favor of their capitalist interests, the bourgeoisies that have led national movements for self-determination have not hesitated to sacrifice it in part if this provided them with comparative advantages,  and have fought to attract foreign capital whenever their cut was substantial, condemning it if it was not... and then calling on the working class to “uphold the rights of the popular nation against imperialism.”Does  this sound familiar?  This is what Leninists and their ilk constantly claim.  

In such historical and social processes, cultural elements have played a role in shaping interclass 

consensus and have interfered in the class struggle, at times hindering  proletarian solidarity and internationalism. For this reason, the struggle against the cultural privileges of dominant nationalism in the face of the subjugated or limited cultural rights of citizens belonging to nationalities existing within bourgeois states,  for the weakest and minority multinational nationalisms, and for the most powerful national nationalisms. Nationalities that are denied their own self-determination, as is the case in Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, etc.

This does not mean supporting, in general as Leninists do, the right to self-determination of small nations—something that, incidentally, Lenin limited after 1914 to Eastern Europe and Asia, as we saw earlier in his work “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination.”It means opposing the cultural chauvinisms that divide the proletariat and poison its movements and its   level of consciousness   in a petty-bourgeois sense, knowing that the capitalist movement exerts pressure to impose internationalized bourgeois cultural trends, languages of large states or regions where capitalism is economically powerful,   marginalizing, stifling, or causing the disappearance of cultural and linguistic elements of peoples with less economic weight in the international arena,  or    converting them into  a bargaining chip  in relation to  the concessions that big capital makes  to  smaller capitals that  systematically  reproduce  alongside  the  trends  toward  capitalist centralization and concentration (institutional autonomy in  Spain, the  "State of the  Autonomies"    of the Kingdom of Spain, for example)... which in practice means that these cultural elements are a prominent part of the tourism show business and the business of pop art. Thus, in practice these languages tend to  fall behind  and the cultural displacement  of imperialist capitalism  runs its course  to the  delight  of  specific  investors  and  for the benefit  of the  agility  of  financial  transactions  and consumption habits  stamped  internationally  by the  higher  authorities  and  the  productive forces  of big capital... in coalition and in competition with  one another,  with    a   substantial  base  of  SME bourgeoisie  in which  these nationalist  and cultural-specific  issues    have a significant place (32  million  SME businesses  in  the U.S.,  52%  of the total and 68% in terms of the number of workers employed, for example, representing around 96% of the economic structure in Spain, and amounting to nearly 3 million companies).

For Lenin, in the aforementioned work, written in 1922 (On the Question of Nationalities or on “Autonomization”):

"And the dawn of world history will be the day when the peoples oppressed by imperialism—who have already opened their eyes—finally awaken, and when the long and hard final battle for their emancipation begins."

As  that  uprising  unfolded,  those  nations  were  assisted  on  many  occasions  by  capitalist  and  imperialist  states  for  whom  such  self-determination  was  advantageous.  new nations began to emerge with the right to have their own state—a bourgeois state with a capitalist economy, a state that quickly established ties with existing imperialist capitalism, attacked  other  countries,  generated  militarism  and aggression ( the  nationally liberated Vietnam  which  goes  on to invade  cambodia,   the  independent state of algeria  against kabylia....), allied itself    with    constellations  and  blocks  of international imperialist interests of capitalism,  fostered it,    it  became  involved  in  the conflicts  that had unfolded  and  were  unfolding  on  the  stage  of  the  market,  geopolitics,  and  international  imperialist  strategies... Lenin adhered to the democratic program of social democracy, and his orientation favors what has been the theoretical and practical line of bolshevism:  capitalism,  opportunistic and  imperialist interventionism, and the defeats  of the proletariat.

It was the German-Dutch Communist Left that best understood what imperialism was, as well as its    political, programmatic, and strategic  implications.  In the writings of Rosa  Luxemburg, as well as those of Herman Gorter,  Anton Pannekoek, the KAPD, the GIC... we find the guidance needed to maintain the necessary clarity. (2)

***

1. https://www.marxists.org/espanol/trotsky/1937/diciembre/06.htm

2. https://inter-rev.foroactivo.com/t10940-pasados-mas-de-cien-anos-la-izquierda-comunista-germano-holandesa-y-lenin-ante-el-capitalismo-el-imperialismo-la-autodeterminacion-nacional-y-los-nacionalismos?highlight=imperialismo

II.

On   imperialist war,   decadence,  and the capitalist crisis.

“The economic crisis is not the cause of war. War is not the cause of the crisis. In the imperialist phase of capitalism, war and the economy are interrelated in many ways. It would be preferable to analyze the current situation more closely based on the facts, without obstacles such as general abstractions from a distant past—such as the decline of capitalism—which obscure the possibilities and strengths of global capitalism and, therefore, overestimate the power of the proletariat….

We are neither in an irreversible crisis nor in the terminal phase of capitalism. Wars are an expression of imperialist capitalism and its constant tensions to redistribute spheres of power and influence to the benefit of some against others, in a competitive manner, intensifying the normal and necessary mode of existence of capital: competition (Marx).

The wars of imperialist capitalism have occurred and continue to occur both in situations of economic crisis due to overproduction and during booms in investment, the market, and business. It is not because of the crisis that capital engenders and needs war, but because of its own characteristics—such as relations of ownership, production, and distribution—in which competition plays an essential role and in which militarism is absolutely necessary for any bourgeois state.

States defend themselves and attack one another, compete, and reach coalition agreements that elevate competition to a higher level—that of blocs—without eliminating competition among states within each bloc.

It is not because there is a general crisis of overproduction, nor because we are in decline, in the irreversible senility of capitalism, but because capitalism remains capable of developing and deploying its capacities and, therefore, its inherent consequences—both constructive and destructive—because this development historically and dialectically (and thus in a complex and dynamic manner) exacerbates inter-imperialist tensions.”

“It is not surprising that the various concepts of a capitalist phase of decline, apart from ideological and moral factors, include real economic characteristics of imperialism, such as growing state intervention, the concentration of enterprises, and monopolization. The problem arises when theories of decline apply monocausal explanations—such as the falling rate of profit, the lack of markets, or overproduction—as the economic determinants of a supposed capitalist decline. However, over the past 125 years, imperialism has demonstrated the potential for continuous economic growth and the growth of the proletariat, refuting the concept of capitalist decline or reducing it to a moral category. (...) During the period of World War I, the imperialist phase, for understandable reasons, has been mistakenly identified with another concept in Marxism—that of the phase of historical decline of capitalism that would follow its phases of birth, growth, and expansion, just like previous exploitative societies. We set aside here the differences between the proletarian revolution and the communist mode of production and the previous revolutions and modes of production. These differences involve theoretical problems that have been attempted to be resolved in various ways.” https://inter-rev.foroactivo.com/t13848-el-contexto-de-la-guerra-decadencia-o-imperialismo-fredo-corvo-anibal-18-06-2025?highlight=imperialismo

III.

Regarding  trade unions, trade unionism,   and  parliamentarism,  we look forward to  hearing  what    you  end up defining. We have  addressed this in  “Notes on Proletarian Consciousness, Capitalism, Imperialism, and the Autonomous Struggle” and “Our Fundamental Political Positions.”

IV.

On  scientific  socialism  or  communism.

For us, it constitutes  an important pillar of communist theory. 

However,  we must  distance ourselves from and criticize    much of the praise  for such “scientific socialism”  that      contradicts  the ABCs  of historical-critical materialism  and  the  common foundations  of all scientific methodology. 

We  base ourselves on practice,  and  in this regard,  that means  verifying  whether  what is said holds true  and  what social  and political consequences it entails.

That is  to say, we fight for it to be true and, consequently, scientific and communist, not to  mystify it with rhetoric despite its numerous and significant contradictions with communism and science.

Further reading:

• The Economic Necessity of Imperialism, by Anton Pannekoek (1916). 

• National Liberation Movements and Capitalist Imperialism - Leninism, Neo-Leninism, and the German-Dutch Communist Left. By Fredo Corvo and Aníbal.

• Imperialist capitalism, war, Kautskyism, Leninism, communism

• More than a century later. The German-Dutch Communist Left and Lenin on capitalism, imperialism, national self-determination, and nationalism.

Greetings,

LAW

Editor’s note: you can find “Trade Unions, The Working Class and Reactionary Forms of Struggle” here in both Spanish and English

A. We find this to be an important text with excellent content, with the exception of one clarification we will make below

B. We have selected a few noteworthy excerpts:

“We take for granted that the working class must fight for the abolition of wage labor and not for a better sale of its labor power.”

This needs to be explained more clearly. The historical and revolutionary objective of the proletariat consists in putting an end to the system of wage labor and capital. In everyday life, the proletariat must oppose capital, its pressures, and the existential degradation of its labor power. This opposition in and of itself is neither revolutionary nor does it guarantee that it will become so; rather, it can be—and in fact is—the “energetic” source that fuels the machinery of trade unionism, a bourgeois machinery designed to control the exploited class, maintain it as such, and ensure the reproduction of capitalism.

Within the dynamics of capital’s value-enhancing action, it is possible, through workers’ pressure, to reduce the ratio of necessary labor to surplus labor; however, by limiting oneself to trade unionism, it has not been possible to advance toward social and political revolution. The forms of defensive resistance of the exploited class outside of trade unionism and the democratic leadership that often accompanies it on numerous occasions express conditions and dynamics distinct from those of trade union organization, as manifested in various forms of trade unionism. But if they remain limited to that form of economic defense, they cannot become revolutionary practices either.

In social life, we also find intermediate forms between trade unionism and the proletariat’s autonomous defensive struggle. In short, we must properly link the defensive struggle and the offensive, without illusions of a trade-unionist, economicist, spontaneousist, or vanguardist nature. All of this is explained in the Notes… and the positions of LAW.

“Although the union has been assimilated as an organization of capital, it is still an essential task for communists to thoroughly analyze the form and content of the organizations the working class needs for its defensive struggle in non-revolutionary and pre-revolutionary periods.”

Exactly, that is correct.

“The proletariat’s struggle begins on the defensive. The proletariat must transform the defensive struggle into autonomous class organization.”

Exactly, that’s how it is.

“However, a pending task for us is a thorough analysis of the unions as managers of the labor force assimilated into the bourgeois state; but also of the forms of defensive organization of workers in non-revolutionary periods that emerge as autonomous structures of their own struggle. This analysis must necessarily address the character and historical composition of workers’ councils during periods of revolutionary upsurge, while elucidating the support that communists must offer to the autonomous forms of organization of the proletarian struggle and the consequent rejection of any institutional mediation of the proletariat by the state and the bourgeoisie. We will publish this analysis—still in progress—soon.”

Well, it is a very important and absolutely necessary work

The Anti-Political and Social-Revolutionary Current, which defends the positions of the anti-party current within council communism – in the tradition of Otto Rühle – in texts such as this one:

https://astendenz.wordpress.com/2026/03/06/1-klassen-und-staatenlose-gesellschaften-im-moglichen-weltrevolutionaren-prozess/#more-606

defends the coexistence of “classless and stateless societies” alongside others “in the hands of capital and the State”

This is called “national communism” – or isolated communism in one part of the planet – and it constitutes an aberration. Communism is either global or it isn't, it's as simple as that.