Núcleo Trotskista Internacionalista- IV Internacional, 11 May 2020
The fall of the world’s stock markets from the end of February signaled the beginning of a new crisis in the capitalist world economy. Imperialism, that is, capitalism in its stage of decline, has begun to unload the economic crisis onto the shoulders of the exploited, leaving, according to official figures, around 33 million workers fired in the US alone. These figures do not take into account the millions of informal workers, including millions of migrants, who do not enter the official statistics. Meanwhile, the states have injected millions and millions of dollars, euros and yens to save the imperialist companies from bankruptcy. A handful of parasites – 1% of humanity – who have already monopolized more than 50% of the world’s wealth, are the beneficiaries of these state aids who, moreover, continue to get richer in the midst of the crisis.
These capitalist parasites are responsible for the misery and barbarity that has been imposed on our countries. A handful of the most powerful powers in the world, such as the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, etc., are the ones who oppress our nations, plunder our natural resources, super-exploit us in their factories, arm to the teeth lackey governments, fascist gangs and paramilitary groups and irrigate our territories with their military bases. And when we want to rise up against such ignominy, they are capable of the greatest acts of barbarism, as we have seen in Syria a thousand and one times massacred by Al Assad, Putin, Trump, Obama, the imperialist coalition organized by the U.S. and NATO. They are responsible for hunger, malnutrition of our children and dozens of diseases, epidemics and pandemics suffered by our peoples, to which the current coronavirus pandemic is added. On the other hand, the rich make their quarantines in their mansions, yachts or summer houses and attend the best clinics with the best technology and the latest scientific advances in medicine.
And when our revolutionary uprisings are defeated by the treacherus reformist leaderships, as is happening in Syria, and we seek a way out by leaving our nations in ruins from the bombs or subdued by the maras and fascist drug gangs, they treat us as terrorists, as criminals and persecute us, close the borders, imprison us in their detention centres, leave us to drown in the Mediterranean or sell us into slavery, as in Libya. In the U.S. they persecute us with their repressive forces, with fascist groups of the Ku Klux Klan and the racist Trump government locks us up, deports us or separates us from our children, who are locked up in cages like animals. Meanwhile, the union bureaucracies, sold out to the capitalists, look the other way or openly promote chauvinist policies, as when the bureaucracies of the British trade unions promoted the policy of «British work for the British» or the traitors of the U.S. AFL-CIO the treacherous policy of «American work for the Americans».
While in Mexico the government of López Obrador, a servant of the Yankees, opens its territory to the imperialists to plunder at will and super-exploit Mexican workers, it has also disciplined itself to the U.S.-imposed immigration policy and never tires of deporting migrants, while keeping them in detention centers, completely overcrowded, in unhealthy conditions and with a high risk of catching coronavirus. A few weeks ago a Guatemalan migrant was killed during a riot while protesting the inhumane policy of López Obrador’s 4T, in one of his detention centers in Tabasco.
According to the UN, there are currently 292 million migrants in the world; these are millions of exploited people who travel from country to country in search of a job and a decent life for themselves and their families. Imperialism, decadent and decaying capitalism, has proved incapable of feeding its slaves. More overexploitation, unemployment, hunger, high cost of living, disease, fascism and wars, among many other capitalist miseries, are what the system has in store for the exploited of the world. The decay of this system has reached such a point that one more school bench for a Syrian child, a hospital bed for an African or a respirator for a Latino threatens to send the world’s most powerful states into bankruptcy. Capitalism has no way out, unless it is seen as a way out of perpetual and prolonged decline. Only proletarian revolution can save human civilization from barbarism.
From now on, we will see the bourgeoisie launching superior offensives on the standard of living of the exploited. Superior clashes are prepared between classes. Trump has already decreed that he is suspending the arrival of new immigrants for 60 days, claiming that he wants to defend the jobs of U.S. workers. Thus, xenophobic, racist and nationalist tendencies are beginning to develop among sectors of the American middle classes and working class aristocracy. They want to blame the immigrants for the crisis of the capitalist system! Those 1% of Wall Street parasites who have monopolized more than 50% of the world’s wealth! They are the ones who are laying off workers! They are the ones who are paralyzing the machines!
The confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution has become the order of the day. Dozens of workers’ conflicts are going around the world, from Argentina to Italy, from Chile to Mexico, from Spain to the USA, of sectors of the masses that are facing the pandemic and the crisis with the methods of class struggle. In Italy the masses are rising up, carrying out looting and imposing general strikes on the treacherous leaderships. In Lebanon the masses are trying to take up the path of Arab revolution. In the confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution on an international level, the fate of every worker, every combative youth and every migrant is at stake today. If the bourgeoisie imposes the division of the workers’ ranks, it will be stronger to impose its counter-revolutionary offensive. Then fascism and war will have become the order of the day. If the masses manage to unify their ranks and get rid of the traitorous leaderships, the triumph of the proletarian revolution will be the order of the day. Only by starting from the interests of the most oppressed sections of the masses, working women, working youth and migrant workers, the proletariat will win the unity of its ranks and prepare a revolutionary offensive. In France, the black vests, migrant workers from the French African colonies, have sought unity with the yellow vests and have risen up against the persecution, discrimination and mistreatment to which they are subjected, fighting for papers for all and in defence of their rights. That is the way!
No more persecution and repression of migrants! Open the borders! Right to free transit! Free detained migrants! Stop deportations! Papers for all! Self-defense committees of workers and peasants organizations to guarantee free transit! Down with the charra bureaucracy and the AFL-CIO! Let the workers’ organizations of Mexico and the U.S. organize migrant workers!
For the working class to live, imperialism must die: let the capitalists pay for the crisis! Expropriation of every factory that closes, suspends, fires workers or does not guarantee healthy conditions! Reincorporation of the fired workers! Distribution of working hours among all available hands! Wage increase according to inflation! Expropriation of all private health care to deal with the pandemic! It’s them or us! Expropriation of the Wall Street parasites, that 1% of humanity that exploits and oppresses the other 99%!
This policy can only be carried out by defeating the workers’ bureaucracies and aristocracies and their reformist parties, agents of capital within the workers’ movement. That is also the task of those of us who are fighting to re-found the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution.
Black vests during a mobilization in Paris
NTI-CI 