We have entered a new era of wars, as the struggle for global hegemony between the various capitalist-imperialist blocs is intensifying. The war in Ukraine is in its fifth year, with hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, with millions of refugees and displaced. The genocide committed by the terror state of Israel against the Palestinians is continuing, as is the war against Iran, Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East. Cuba is surrounded by the US military and is suffering under a devastating embargo. Other main war fronts remain open, in almost every corner of the world. The possibility of a direct conflict between the United States and China – the dominant and the rising superpower – can’t be ruled out. The threat of a nuclear war is also present. We are not witnessing a mere accumulation of regional conflicts, but rather a trend towards a world war, which is bound to go through crises, clashes and realignments before it can take on a definitive bloc structure.
The war fronts are slaughter machines for soldiers and unarmed people, even children. The war economy is gaining ground, at the expense of the people and their needs. Almost every country is taking part in the new «armaments race» and the arms industry sees its revenue and gains to expand in an unprecedented way. Governments and militaries are launching a campaign to persuade the young people to get ready to fight and to die in the imperialist wars. At the same time, an «AI revolution» is taking place in the world’s militaries, changing the way wars are being waged, transforming humans into digital «signs» or targets. Global capitalist architecture is being reshaped violently with the blood of the people. Old world order is dying and, before a new one emerges, we’lL see whether we live in a new imperialist order, or a new cycle of revolutions.
The war that is spreading across the globe is an admission of capitalism’s historical impasse and exhaustion; its contradictions can no longer be resolved through the usual mechanisms of economic accumulation and competition, but increasingly require the use of force and clashes between states. Neither the United States nor the global economy has managed to overcome the great crisis of 2008. On the contrary, it is now the states themselves which, in their attempt to bail out failing banks, investment funds and private companies, find themselves at the eye of the storm.
To the bourgeoisie and imperialism, who seek to condemn the peoples of the world to a new bloodbath in order to sustain their privileges, we respond by standing alongside the workers and peasants who are beginning to rise up with greater vigour.
War on war! The main enemy is within our own country. Down with the governments of war and hunger.
1. The US decline is accelerating. The war in Iran has seriously damaged the image of unquestioned US omnipotence, in the eyes of its allies and enemies and of the peoples around the world. It is obvious that the US are no longer able to achieve their goals without facing meaningful resistance, even blowbacks. The new U.S. National Defense Strategy, in a rather concise manner, acknowledges the loss of American global dominance in its previous form. The decline can’t be understood solely in military and geopolitical terms. We must take also into account the «internal factor», namely the evolution of the US capitalism itself – of which Trump is the result and not the cause. The weakening of its position in the global balance of power is rooted in the relative decline of the size, structure, and dynamism of its economy, owing both to internal factors and to the rise of other capitalist economies. The era of the uncontested economic and military supremacy of the American capitalism is coming to its end. This does not mean that the US has already been brought to its knees. It still possesses the power of the dollar, which remains the dominant currency in the world. It has the most powerful military machine in world history, with military spending three times greater than China’s.
However, those who suggest that Washington is abandoning its plans against China and Europe, as well as its military escalation, in order to confine itself to its ‘backyard’, are mistaken. US interventionism is brutal across the globe, meddling in the Middle East, Latin America, and in its military deployments in the Pacific and the South China Sea, amongst many other regions. In the military offensive in which US imperialism is currently engaged, we are not neutral. We stand with the oppressed nations and their just struggle against any imperialist interference. The reactionary, capitalist and deeply anti-worker nature of the regime in Iran does not make us lose sight of the fact that the defeat of US imperialism, with the support of the European Union and other states, represents a positive development for workers across the world who seek to free themselves from its yoke in every corner of the globe.
Faced with this situation, the people are beginning to rise up. In the United States, various radical movements have emerged, although these are generally co-opted by forces that operate within the capitalist framework and the Republican-Democrat political system. We are referring to the mass protests under the slogan ‘No Kings’, strikes in Minnesota, the growth of trade union organisation, resistance against ICE and fascist-like forces. Criticism of the two major parties is spreading due to their funding of genocide, military spending and the propping up of capital, gradually paving the way for the emergence of a revolutionary organisation of the working class at the very heart of capitalism.
2. China is constantly strengthening its position and expanding its sphere of influence across the globe, shaping its own geopolitical space. The recent Trump–Xi meeting underscored China’s continued rise. For the first time, Xi Jinping himself openly raised the possibility of war while simultaneously demanding that the United States recognize China as an equal partner in all major international affairs. Its resilience against the Trump tariff offensive proved that Beijing has enough and powerful weapons to withstand any pressure and retaliate effectively. While, at the same time, it is steadily strengthening its military. The revolutionary process was defeated, with the defeat of the Cultural Proletarian Revolution and from the early 1970s , a distinctive form of capitalism gradually emerged, determined by a strong role for the state. The Chinese capitalism has achieved an enormous accumulation of capital in the last decades, through the exploitation of the world’s largest working class. Xi Jinping now stands as the leader directing China’s global capitalist expansion through the modern Silk Road – the Belt and Road Initiative. This course inevitably leads to confrontation with the «old» Western capitalist powers, and developments across the globe will be shaped, to a significant extent, by the outcome of this conflict.
China, however, is not immune to the capitalist crisis. The crisis at the property firm Evergrande – the largest bankruptcy in history – was merely the tip of the iceberg of a bubble of inflated companies and profits, often linked to local or national developments. China’s debt stands at nearly 300 per cent of its GDP, and this is against a backdrop of contraction in key sectors of the economy – a situation that is exacerbating social tensions and paving the way for the great awakening of the world’s largest working class. Neither China nor those countries that claim to share its line (enrolled in the so-called BRIC group) play a progressive role in the interests of the global working class. They do not constitute an anti-imperialist bloc, nor are they by any means a vehicle for social transformation. A telling example is their complicit collaboration in the genocide of the Palestinian people and their commercial and military support for Israel.
3. The European Union is facing various pressures in this crisis: on the one hand, the US desire for greater subjugation; on the other, direct trade links with China. Faced with this, the leaders in Brussels have not managed to come up with a unified response, but are instead trying out various ways out of the crisis, with very limited resources, varying degrees of cooperation with other powers, and, undoubtedly, greater exploitation of their workers.
This reality has triggered, among other things, a deep and profound political crisis in most European countries, rooted in the upheavals caused by the violent change of orientation of the bourgeois classes and capital. But this does not mean that the EU is impotent and weak, merely «watching events unfold in bewilderment». The attempt to create a more «European NATO», in the face of the US disengagement from Europe, is another proof of their willingness to «whatever is needed» to cover the ground they have lost. In this context, its leaders have chosen the path of escalation and the intensive preparation for war. The joint declaration issued by the liberal Macron, the conservative Merz, the far-right Meloni and the social democrat Starmer demonstrates the unprecedented alignment of all the major political forces across the continent to defend their imperialist share in the spoils of the war in Ukraine. The world must take note of the scale of the war under the EU’s auspices, with missiles launched from European soil striking Russian territory. Pacifism, in this context, is a blind alley. Peace and an end to the war will not come from those responsible for it – those who have instigated it and continue to fuel it.
We also warn against ‘imperialist peace’, that is, the orderly division up of disputed enclaves and resources. In the face of imperialist war, we call for revolutionary defeatism and the fraternisation of workers and soldiers on both sides of the trenches, against the governments of war and hunger. It is necessary to transform this fratricidal war into a war against capital and its political representatives in each of the countries involved. The ‘war economy’ constitutes the strategic choice of European capital and its bourgeoisie. It permeates all its political forces, from the far right of the AfD or Le Pen, through the traditional conservative and liberal parties, to the social-democratic forces and those that identify as the ‘left’ but remain under the aegis of capital, such as Podemos, Syriza, LFI and others. All governments, including Spain’s “socialist” Pedro Sánchez and Britain’s “Labour”, have increased their levels of military spending. The response to the war must also take into account the duplicity of various progressive or left-wing forces which, whilst maintaining a combative rhetoric and even getting involved in popular movements, vote in favour of war appropriations in the European Parliament. In contrast, the most notable development is the independent action to block NATO bases, ports and airfields, as well as those of each country’s armed forces, alongside trade union and popular efforts to halt the production and transport of weapons and military equipment. This is a path we endorse as a milestone in practical action against war and as an opportunity for strategic clarification towards the building of revolutionary parties
4. Russia, India and other «middle powers» of our era understand that as the US is losing its grip, the Western-dominated order is undermined. They seem to believe that the old hierarchy is giving way to a looser system in which these states can bargain, demanding their share in the new world order of the future. To achieve that, their governments and regimes are determined to use any available means, including war against their less powerful neighbors – while, at the same time, they are repressing their peoples. For that, they are and cannot be regarded as less aggressive and threatening, even more so as allies in our struggle.
Lula’s Brazil must also be included here – a giant that denied Cuba oil, whilst continuing, against its own people, to uphold the slavery reforms of Temer and Bolsonaro. At the same time, other middle-power states, such as Turkey, are exploiting crises, gaps and relative weaknesses to pursue reactionary policies against their neighbours.
5. Governments all over the world are implementing sweeping cuts to social expenditure – education, healthcare, welfare, housing, and other essential public services and social benefits – to finance their militaries. The overall trend is towards war society, war economy and, ultimately, towards war itself. The decline of traditional industrial sectors, such as the automobile industry, is accompanied by significant job losses, with many of those positions being replaced by new employment in the arms industry. The latest NATO summit in Ankara underlines the choice already made by the governments of the member states and their priorities. Tens of billions for new armaments through bilateral and multilateral deals made in the summit and much more to come in the next months and years – all paid by the people, in the name of their wars. In contrast, it is the workers affected by the austerity measures and the young people organised against military conscription who are making their voices heard. We salute them and urge others to follow the example set by German youth, particularly the secondary school pupils who organised strikes and school boycotts, thereby completely thwarting the Merz government’s plan for 300,000 reservists.
6. Our needs, our reality, our dreams and our wars are different from theirs. As revolutionary internationalists, we insist on both the necessity and the possibility of new victorious social revolutions in the twenty-first century. This is the only viable way to achieve the most heartfelt demands of the people, against the wars of the imperialists and capitalists.
It is at least naive and surely dangerous to believe that a «fairer» and more peaceful multipolar capitalism could emerge to the benefit of working people. Or that the are some imperialists who are better than others. Only the working classes and the peoples of the world, united through internationalist solidarity, can put an end to the nightmare of wars into which contemporary capitalism seeks to drag humanity. They alone can open the road to freedom, peace, equality, and the abolition of oppression and exploitation.
-Dissolve NATO! Closure of all NATO military bases. Disengagement from all imperialist plans and alliances. Dismantle all imperialist military bases and outposts in Africa, Asia and Latin America. End colonial interference.
–Down with the imperialist European Union of war and exploitation.
-Against war economies: no vote for the imperialist miltary budgets. Allocation of the entire military budget to healthcare, education, housing
-International unity of the oppressed and exploited masses against the wars of capital! Down with the governments of war and hunger. For a revolutionary alternative and workers’ power within a socialist Unity of Europe, including Russia.
