Why this blog

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The existence of the RT/TSI/ICL has spanned several historical periods. Born out of the nature of the Cuban Revolution, and standing out through its support for the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam, the SLUS/TSI was later at its post to defend the USSR against the imperialists during the second Cold War launched by Carter and Reagan. This represented a turning point which, unfortunately, ended with the destruction of the USSR (and all the deformed workers' states of Eastern Europe). This historic defeat of the world working class opened a new historical period in which we still find ourselves, the post-Soviet period, which proved fatal to the ICL.

Fatal for three main reasons: the ICL/IST was not politically and organizationally prepared for the destruction of the USSR; the conclusions its drew from it never sought to understand how its intervention was completely out of step with the reality of the working classes (in East Germany/DDR, the USSR, and elsewhere) and how its program could not and did not have any influence on events; the outlook of the ICL leadership after the destruction of the USSR never anticipated nor considered the disastrous consequences of this terrible defeat. We will therefore examine these crucial periods that fueled and led to the demoralization that made possible the ICL's final degeneration.

The Consequences of the Destruction of the USSR

The end of the USSR put an end to the anti-Soviet "front" of the imperialist countries, and interimperialist rivalries were able to rekindle. However, the US hegemony was never threatened, as it scrupulously ensured, thanks to its power—economic and military—, that potential rivals were weakened as soon as they gained strength.

The setbacks of the organized labor movement

One of the consequences of these rivalries was that each of the imperialists redoubled its attacks on the labor movement, starting with historical gains, in order to be more competitive than its rival. They were able to carry out all these attacks with the complicity of the reformist leaderships of the workers' movement since these, "in the face of competition," rallied to the interests of their own bourgeoisies and supported them (and still support them) in the name of defending "the nation" or "the enterprise." These "labor lieutenants of the capitalist class" in order to preserve the few crumbs the imperialists distribute to them in exchange for their loyal service, have managed to divert, sabotage, or exhaust the resistance and struggles of the workers. Successful in their attacks, the capitalists have caused a decline in living standards, working conditions, health, education, and so on of the working-class.

For they gradually cut back on everything they could in order to be more efficient than their competitors. In this race for profits, each setback achieved by one imperialist power forces its competitors not only to follow suit but also to prepare a new offensive leading to yet another retreat — a never-ending downward spiral for the workers. For three decades, we have witnessed an explosion in subcontracting, temporary work, outsourcing, and attempts to weaken unions, all resulting in job insecurity and individualization that have weakened the working class.

The quest for greater productivity and profitability over competitors has also resulted in a resurgence and exponential increase in "globalization" (which had never disappeared). In a traditional way, imperialists transferred millions of jobs to countries where production costs were more advantageous for them. These transfers led, in imperialist countries, to rising unemployment, used by bosses to blackmail the working class and attempt to curb resistance. But they also led to the development of the working class (or even its emergence) in the countries that recovered the production. The most emblematic case is, of course, China, which, as a deformed workers' state, has completely differentiated itself from other countries by giving itself the means to take advantage of this in the medium term.

The union bureaucracies in the imperialist countries, which for decades have been holding back or misleading workers' struggles, found themselves torn apart. As co-managers of the companies (and beneficiaries of the capitalist system), they could only approve of such measures, but they found themselves confronted by their rank and file, who bore the brunt of the effects of these measures. They generally tried to pit workers from different countries against each other, pointing to low wages, working conditions, or the banning of unions, without even noticing that these "poor wages" (from the perspective of developed western countries) often allowed peasants to escape the abject poverty of their countryside.

For there is no solution within the capitalist system. Only a worldwide planning of the economy can allow for a fair distribution of work among all and decent working and living conditions for all the workers of the planet. This will only be possible with the complete overthrow of the capitalist system. Capital's labor lieutenants, whether the union bureaucracies or the "left" labor-bourgeois parties and their "far-left" touts, seek only to maintain their privileges by protecting the interests of those who feed them, their national capitalists.

Within this national framework imposed by the political or union "left," the struggles of the working classes, who, with their backs against the wall, tried to stop the slaughter, have failed.

In most advanced capitalist countries, the working class has shrunk sharply ("deindustrialization"), and union leaderships have lost their credibility and most of their members. In developing countries (apart from China, which must be treated separately), the working classes are still far from being organized to the level they should be, even if progress has been made (despite chauvinistic western union leaderships).

While this may seem paradoxical, reality forces us to note that today it is very difficult for workers, except in the few sectors that are still protected or the highly qualified sectors of the labor aristocracy, to go on strike. The risks are all the greater since the unions have been considerably weakened, and their leaderships have for many years demonstrated greater concern for employers’ interests than for the needs of their base.

The decline of working-class consciousness

These setbacks for the working class were accompanied and reinforced by the decline in working-class consciousness. With the destruction of the USSR, the working class and the oppressed around the world witnessed the sudden collapse of a country they perceived, despite its distortions, as a bulwark against imperialist attacks. Two major factors exacerbated the effects of this global defeat. The first is that most of the leaderships of the workers' movement, which had supported the anti-Soviet campaigns, celebrated the end of the USSR alongside their bourgeoisies (and the further to the left you went, the louder the cheers became ). The second is that the bourgeoisies around the world, intoxicated by their victory, waged a vast anti-communist crusade with an incessant bombardment clamoring and proclaiming that, supposedly, "communism was dead." This decades-long barrage had an even stronger impact on workers because their own union and political leaders (including in the “Trotskyist left,” where some took advantage of the situation to get rid of “dead weight like the "dictatorship of the proletariat") actively took part in it.

Combined with the accumulating defeats, the aspiration and hope for a society other than capitalism — a society in which the working class would lead — have faded. The new generations of workers found themselves with organizations and activists that left them with no other option than to scrounge for scraps in this corrupt system. The level of working-class consciousness spiraled downward, plummeting into an endless abyss. Very quickly, symbols such as the red flag or the hammer and sickle disappeared from the demonstrations, while the idea of communism as the only solution to capitalism gradually eroded. Perrault and the ICL, with their mantra of not "seek refuge in abstract phrase-mongering about revolution" in order to be "a living factor" represent a perfect adaptation to the results of this crusade against the so-called "death of communism", joining, under this pretext, the ranks of "the left," placing themselves from the outset on the right wing of the "socialist left.

The ICL refused to face reality

The level of consciousness of the working class determines the general perspectives of revolutionaries and must be translated into programmatic terms. If a significant change in outlook had been raised in the ICL at one time to take into account the consequences of the destruction of the USSR and of this decline in consciousness, in the end it was never implemented (with all due respect to the Internationalist Group). Clinging to more appealing (but illusory) prospects, the ICL (like the various groups emerging from the "Spartacist tendency") has gone through the entire post-Soviet period continuing to propose virtually unchanged transitional programs. While the ICL responded to every direct attack on the workers movement with its propaganda, the succession of setbacks suffered by the working classes was never studied or analyzed as such, even though doing so would have allowed the party to intervene in a way that matched the actual condition of those working classes. The same goes for the slow erosion of working-class consciousness, which was never properly acknowledged, studied, or recognized for what it truly was, at any point in time.

As working conditions have steadily and inexorably deteriorated, they now bear little resemblance to those of 30 years ago. This is what gradually caused the ICL's programs to become increasingly out of step with the reality of the working class and, little by little, to lose any and all relevance.

While this observation seems simple, it is quite astonishing to note that no so-called revolutionary organization, nor the ICL, ever dared to frankly acknowledge what was happening. For its own reasons, the ICL, like the others, turned a blind eye and denied this reality, refusing to draw the programmatic conclusions that flowed from it.

Declining Consciousness and a Transitional Program

The system of transitional demands, the basis of the Trotskyist program, aims to establish a bridge "stemming from today’s conditions and from today’s consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat." Therefore, for this system to work, it is imperative to start from the real level of consciousness of the working class, and not from an idealized or fantasized level. Otherwise, this "bridge" bypasses the working class consciousness. And the lower the level of consciousness, the more abstract and propagandistic the question of seizing power will be. By no longer taking into account the real needs of the workers, the programs of the ICL have turned into mere invocations rather than a means of intervening to raise working-class consciousness.

Today, the "Spartacist" groups find themselves in a state of great confusion. All implicitly, and wrongly, assume that the working class is in the process of recovering. Everyone confuses defensive actions — after years of attacks by the bourgeoisie — with offensive actions. A deadly confusion. It is typical, for example, that the LTF denounced the LO reformists because they dare to recognize and assert that there has been a regression in the level of consciousness of working-class in France (of course, this costs LO nothing, allowing it to further justify its reformist program, since it has not implemented the transition program for a very long time). We'll examine further in upcoming posts this critical issue of overestimating the possibilities for working-class struggles, starting with the movement against the 2023 pension reform in France — the country we're least unfamiliar with.

Since its reappearance in 2021, the ICL has clearly broken with the Transitional Program. While the new leaders have returned to the classic minimum-maximum program (a series of basic demands sprinkled with calls to seize power or revolution), it seems that over the past several months they have been slowly shifting their focus to the minimum program (all the "phrases" of the maximum program on revolution or communism have been declared "abstract"), now sprinkled with recipes for combativeness.

Declining consciousness and abandoning the revolutionary program

Recognizing the true level of workers' consciousness, yet obvious, seems anathema to the organizations of the "Spartacist current," particularly the ICL or the Internationalist Group. Recognizing that it is extremely low would lead them to label us as "pessimists," "demoralized," or "defeatists," this question being completely avoided, by everyone. The case of the ICL is emblematic. While the former ICL regularly recalled that the Transitional Program is the means of raising working-class consciousness (even if this level became largely fantasized), all reference to the Transitional Program has now completely disappeared from the ICL.

We'll examine further the reasons for the ICL's abandonment of the Transitional Program and its constant programmatic shifts. But it is clear that, with the ICL shifting from "fighter of the socialist revolution" to "not only the best but the only consistent fighters for national liberation" the Transitional Program is now useless and dead weight. As with all petty-bourgeois organizations, the working class has become a mere auxiliary. All the ICL asks of it is, at best, to fight and put all its weight into supporting and helping "the left" (the "social traitors" in Lenin's texts) rebuild itself and regain its former glory, or to lend a helping hand to the national bourgeoisies. For the ICL, all this represents the first stage of a future proletarian revolution. Breaking with a century of trotskyism, the ICL embraces the classic stageism, with which, historically, the first stage has always resulted, despite the "promises," in more or less bloody defeats. This stageism is embodied in the plethora of "fronts" and other "poles" ("anti-imperialist", "workers'", "of defense", etc.).

Our predecessors (Engels, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, etc.) spent an enormous amount of time grasping what was happening in the global workers' movement, its relationship with the bourgeoisie, its level of organization and consciousness, etc., in order to establish a program to be able to intervene effectively. Without such observations, as we have seen for more than thirty years, this only leads to confusion, demoralization, and results in isolation and degeneration.

The perspectives of the revolutionary party are absolutely not the same when the working class is advancing, confronting and challenging the capitalists (and their labor lieutenants), as when it is on the defensive, backed against the wall and without direction, suffering their attacks. The paragraph by Trotsky in the epigraph of this text, written in 1937 (after the defeats of the popular fronts in France and Spain and as war in Europe loomed) summarizes what should have been, for the ICL (and the IBT at the time), the basis for reflecting on and preparing for the consequences of the defeat in the USSR. The hope for better times to come, undoubtedly more reassuring and less depressing, was the prevailing mood and prevented any serious analysis of what was happening. Of course, thirty years later, it is difficult to say precisely what should have been said and done, especially since the decline of the working class was irregular and unfolded over the whole period. But the hindsight we have is an advantage and an opportunity to reexamine history (without rewriting it as some do), and draw lessons from it.

Obviously, this situation is not eternal. The working class will overcome its difficulties at some point. But for the near future, we find ourselves with the upper layers of the working class, the labor aristocracy and the bureaucrats, who cling to the coattails of the so-called "democratic" or "national" bourgeoisie. A minority fraction of the working class, as the capitalist system sinks deeper into economic crisis and "democratic" politicians find themselves completely discredited, is desperate and turns to all manner of populists and sovereignists. As for the rest, they endure, contain their anger, and retreat in wait-and-see inaction and abstention in order to survive.

The unconditional defense of China

The current situation can be characterized as the entry into the final phase of the decline of US imperialism. Many people and organizations are talking about it. But the present and future consequences of this decline are rarely fully appreciated. Accelerated by the Great Depression that followed the 2007-2008 crisis, this decline has resulted in a series of wars, sanctions, massacres, and other dirty tricks.

US imperialism will hang on

The decline of imperialism, which has dominated the world unchallenged for nearly 80 years, is not without its ups and downs. And these will accelerate because, to defend its position, US imperialism will use all the means at its disposal to try to continue dominating the world, means which, in the imperialist world, are always the same: trying to destroy those who try to oppose it, whether through economic wars or outright wars. It has two solutions available to try to halt its decline. The first is to go after its imperialist competitors a little more forcefully. And Trump shows even more clearly than during his first time in Washington that he will not hesitate. Even if its "MAGA" populism, its thunderous and grandiloquent declarations are out of step with the reality of its power - economic, political and military - the USA are still the leading world power, with an extraordinary ability to cause harm. Damage that will hit the least developed countries hardest (the "shithole countries" as Trump calls them), but which will also hit "friendly" developed countries. Including those led or who will be led by European populists, who risk having to choose between making their populations pay (and turning against them) or opposing their populist friend Trump. What is certain is that the isolationist policies of "MAGA" will only accelerate the decline of US imperialist hegemony, which can only be beneficial to the oppressed around the world (including in the USA).

The other solution for US imperialism, becoming more complicated every day, would be the destruction of the deformed Chinese workers' state, whether economically or militarily. This has become a clear priority since late 2011 with the Obama/Clinton "pivot to Asia." Attempts to contain China have intensified, first under Trump I, who had started it, then with Biden, who has amplified them, but without much success and, above all, without halting the decline of the USA. What will guide Trump II will be, more than ever, an attempt to focus its actions on this dual objective.

The ICL capitulates on China

The question of the unconditional defense of the Chinese deformed workers' state is more than ever the "Russian question" of today. If the ICL was at its post for the defense of the USSR (with weaknesses to which we will return), it is clear that the ICL leaders have deserted the post with regard to the Chinese deformed workers' state. Their abandonment of the Trotskyist program towards China — for a program similar to Schachtman's toward the USSR when he left the Fourth International — is blatant with the abandonment of the fundamental slogan of "unconditional defense of China." This word, "unconditional," only appears clearly, as with Schachtman, when the ICL refers to a China that is "genuinely threatened" by US imperialism. And since Trump's election and Perrault's "discovery" that ultra-imperialism existed (or even "hyper-mega-ultra-imperialism"), we note that the LCI has brought back this slogan (of course, within the framework of its “nationalist anti-imperialism”). From the trotskyist point of view, this position amounts to adding a condition for speaking about "unconditionally" defending China. This position goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the characterization of the dual nature of the bureaucracy. The one and only nature attributed to the Chinese bureaucracy by the ICL: reactionary (summed up by Perrault's mantra "be tough on the Stalinists"). Thus the defense of China is no longer "the Russian question" of today, but a stance that reformists, "third-worldists" and bourgeois or petty-bourgeois nationalists can just as easily assume in certain circumstances .

It is at the heart of the imperialist beast, in the USA, that this break between the ICL and trotskyism is the most blatant and striking. The SLUS found itself, once again, running a US "electoral campaign" (that of 2024) with a front page of a WV that does not mention China (!) while it had become a race among the Democratic and Republican imperialist dogs to see which could bark the loudest against China. The surviving SLUS activists distributed at picket lines a newspaper and leaflets that do not mention or call for the defense of China against their imperialism. The SLUS vociferates against the union leaderships, but never on the fact that they are hand in glove with the US capitalists in the campaigns against China to defend the interests of "their capitalists," to safeguard "their privileges" as rotten bureaucrats, and to tie the workers to the chariot of their bourgeoisie on China. Saying the SLUS went bankrupt doesn't even begin to cover it. The US section of the ICL, "historic," which still has the most activists today, sells the most newspapers, fills the ICL's bank accounts and holds its family jewels, is, by virtue of its position "at the heart of the beast," the one whose betrayal is the most remarkable and repugnant.

The other sections are not to be outdone. Like the SpAD, promoted by the ICL, which can debate courteously with an anti-Soviet organization (the MLPD), which supported the destruction of the DDR and the USSR (alongside the imperialists), boasts about it, and is ready to do it again against "capitalist/imperialist China." And the SpAD proclaims the MLPD "anti-German imperialist" and has fielded an MLPD candidate in the elections (and, moreover, the height of cynicism, a DDR activist won over to the ICL on... the defense of the DDR)!

We will return extensively to the Stalinophobic positions that the ICL is currently using to justify its capitulations.

Decline of US imperialism

and unprecedented global situation

The decline of US imperialism will lead to an entirely new and unprecedented global reconfiguration, which will open a new historical period. The new leaders of the ICL, like many others, sense this new period. To confront it their solution is simple: break with trotskyism. As is often the case in the history of the workers' movement during times of global turmoil in the world, the ICL is no exception to the rule, turning resolutely and firmly towards revisionism and liquidationism. They are abandoning the revolutionary program for classic "shortcuts" that we know where they lead. In the imperialist countries, the main task is to advise "the left" so that it "bridges the gulf between itself and the working class". The ICL would thus like to be admitted as a link in the syphilitic chain of the reformist swamp in total decay (and not the last link!). In other countries, their abandonment of the Permanent revolution and their enthronement of the policy of the "anti-imperialist united front" (we would add "strategic", more politically precise) lead them, again as the whole history of the last century has shown, into the mire of class collaboration with national capitalists (the Philippines) and to exhort minority nations, in multinational countries (Iran, Sri Lanka, etc.), to capitulate to the dominant nationalists. We will return to this in detail.

No imperialist successor to the US imperialists

Interimperialist rivalries have never ceased, and were rekindled after the destruction of the USSR. But, as the ICL has repeatedly explained, US imperialism has always taken meticulous care to weaken its potential imperialist rivals (mainly Germany and Japan) and ensure its world domination and claim the lion's share of its plunder. The latest blow it dealt to German imperialism with the war in Ukraine is a perfect illustration of this. From this perspective, the destruction of Nord Stream 2 was particularly shrewd and effective.

As it intensifies, one of the consequences of this decline of the world's leading imperialist power will lead to a major global upheaval. This was also the case when British imperialism began its final phase of world domination. At the time, US imperialism, in both "world wars," had skillfully taken care to let its competitors tear each other apart and slaughter each other before intervening. The second, in which it managed to annihilate its japanese rival itself, allowed it to take the place of British imperialism by driving the final nails into its coffin.

Now its time has come, but it is not another imperialism that is driving the nails into its coffin, since no other imperialism is capable of taking its place (considering their political, economic, and military state). Especially since, in its decline, US imperialism will attack its rivals to try to save its own skin. Whether with Biden or Trump's MAGA (even if the two factions of US imperialism do not have the same approach), it is no longer capable of recreating, against China, the anti-Soviet bloc.

China as a pole

From this chaos, the deformed Chinese workers' state will emerge as the main economic and military pole. This will be the first time in history that a workers' state will face imperialists who are weakened, divided, discredited in most countries of the world, and hardly able to unite. This situation does not call into question marxist theory or trotskyist analyses. It will be a new configuration that could never have been envisaged before. Because the situation was not conducive to it (England and then the USA dominated during the existence of the USSR). Because the emergence of China, relatively recent, has never been correctly considered and characterized politically by anyone, particularly by all the organizations that consider China "capitalist," completely off the mark and in total contradiction with marxist theory, or by those who politically support China (Stalinists, nationalists, etc.).

The IST/ICL also had difficulties with China's development, especially when that development accelerated. It began to vacillate over the nature of the bureaucracy, often seeing it as essentially restorationist. While the bureaucracy advocates socialism in one country and peaceful coexistence, it is the working-class nature of the state (even if deformed) that has enabled China's economic, scientific, and technological development, advancements from which workers, peasants, women, youth, and all minorities have benefited. Of course, developing these trotskyist positions would contradict the ICL's new central task of advising the virulently anti-China "left". To satisfy its appetites, the first step for the ICL is to break with the trotskyist program, which demands an uncompromising struggle against all those organizations that are merely links seeking to chain the working class to its capitalist masters.

The destruction of the Chinese deformed workers' state will become an increasingly challenging and problematic issue for the US high command and political personnel. Countries aspiring to wage a proxy war against China for the benefit of the US are scrutinizing the results of the -- lost -- US proxy war in Ukraine. Anti-communist fervor may be cooling somewhat, especially since China is not quite in the same league as Russia, whether in terms of its economy and industry, population and cohesion, military, geographic location, etc. Moreover, the governments of the most belligerent countries that could potentially commit to the US military (Korea or Japan, for example) do not particularly benefit from the support of their populations, nor from a favorable perception among their colleagues in Asia, nor from a thriving economy, while they are likely to be affected by the MAGA wave of their colleague Trump.

Time is working against US imperialism, even though it has benefited (and still benefits) from the historic policy of peaceful coexistence of the Chinese bureaucracy, which has never sought to weaken US imperialism (or any other) from within by calling on the US working class to mobilize against its bourgeoisie. And unfortunately, with the ICL's break with trotskyism, the US working class has just lost the most important embryo of a revolutionary party that could have prepared it for its historic tasks.

A historic turning point for the US proletarians

In an article written in 1885 (reprinted in the preface to the 1892 german edition of "The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844"), Engels comments on the very beginnings of the decline of the English industrial monopoly, with initial consequences such as the shutdown of business, stagnation, and misery for the workers. And he explains what he thinks will happen to the working class: ""The truth is this : during the period of England's industrial monopoly the English working class have, to a certain extent, shared in the benefits of the monopoly. These benefits were very unequally parcelled out amongst them ; the privileged minority pocketed most, but even the great mass had, at least, a temporary share now and then. And that is the reason why, since the dying-out of Owenism, there has been no Socialism in England. With the breakdown of that monopoly, the English working class will lose that privileged position ; it will find itself generally — the privileged and leading minority not excepted — on a level with its fellow-workers abroad. And that is the reason why there will be Socialism again in England."

This reasoning can perfectly well be applied to the USA (and, all things considered, the same applies to all other imperialist countries). The slowdown in the imperialist plundering of the world (and the distribution of its crumbs to the labor aristocracy may open up the historical possibility of finally seeing the US working class break free from the interests of its own bourgeoisie and begin to use its power against it. And revolutionaries must prepare themselves and a potential workers' vanguard for these moments which are likely to be very painful.

That the leadership of the SLUS/LCI chose this precise moment to make its final and fatal turn of abandoning trotskyism is absolutely not surprising. Faced with the impending maelstrom, the ICL sees history "biting at its neck" and, like the pabloists at the beginning of the Cold War, begins by liquidating the revolutionary program and abandoning the marxist compass for a much more proven means of orientation to satisfy its appetites: the wet finger, better able to orient itself according to the prevailing winds of "the left" and the "national bourgeoisies."

Towards a "multipolar" world ?

The decline of the US will mean increasingly difficult times for it to plunder the entire planet and a weakening of other imperialisms. The effects of this new situation will be numerous and hard to foresee. Countries that have been under the direct domination of the imperialists and have been plundered for decades or centuries will regain some freedom of action and a little room for maneuver. They will be able to get their hands on some of the resources currently ending up in Western banks. The national bourgeoisies (or the military) will find themselves more weakened compared to populations who, due to the imperialists' retreat, will raise their heads a little and undoubtedly demand more. These will be openings for the working class. The same will be true for all other non-imperialist capitalist countries. In imperialist countries, as Engels indicates, the decline in the plundering of the world will mean for the working classes that their "advantageous position" will decline to approach that of workers in the rest of the world. We can hope that worker militancy will develop either during the nationalist-protectionist wave or afterward.

We can see all these phenomena taking place today on a very small scale. For example, in the African neo-colonies of French imperialism, where the French army is kicked out, without French imperialism (or any other imperialism, for that matter) being able to do anything about it. With a large portion of the population celebrating this departure, the military regimes in power know that their room for maneuver is very limited as any failure on their part would result in a painful return of other military forces which the imperialists, French or otherwise, would rush to propel forward. In the imperialist countries, we also have the beginnings of what will happen with the automotive sector (manufacturers, equipment suppliers, etc.), where hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost and where we can observe the positioning and impotence of "the left" (including its extreme fringe) and union bureaucrats.

What will be vital at this moment will be a revolutionary organization. Since all the old, moribund leaderships of the workers' movement (or nationalists of any kind) who have led the workers up the garden path will attempt, as always, to confine resentments and movements within the capitalist framework. All the so-called revolutionary or trotskyist organizations that for decades have served and continue to serve as beaters and footstools for the official labor lieutenants of the bourgeoisie will once again try to play their deadly tunes. It is at this moment that "the program of transitional demands will gain burning actuality" ("The Transitional Program"). These are the moments that must begin to be prepared so that the new generation of activists can avoid the traps that the capitalists and their "left-wing" lackeys of all kinds will set to try to delay the deadline and lead the workers to failure.

An important transitional programmatic axis of the revolutionary party to guide the working class will be to make it learn the lessons that decadent capitalism is incapable of delivering a decent life and a decent world. This is only possible with a globally planned economy. But for this to happen, it is necessary to overthrow the capitalists, not only in one's own country, but also all capitalists in other countries by allying with other working classes. To achieve this, it will be necessary to regenerate (and, most of the time, rebuild) the organizations of the workers' movement on revolutionary foundations. This is how the working class will be able to evolve from a class in itself to a class for itself.

For China (and other deformed workers' states), the pressures will shift. The petty bourgeoisie or capitalists attracted by "western democracy" or reactionaries of all kinds (religious, nationalist, etc.) supported by the imperialists — all these individuals will have the rug pulled out from under them. The restorationist danger will take a big hit, and a few years will be gained, which will be a good thing. If we can envisage a renewal of struggles in the capitalist world, with imperialists in retreat, we could envisage that the Chinese working class could begin to question the policy of peaceful coexistence, seek to join with its brothers in the capitalist countries, question the waste that "market socialism" represents and frame the issue of workers' planning, not only in China, but on a global level. Such questioning will immediately polarize the bureaucracy and the PLA.

But whether in China or in the capitalist world, the problem of the workers' level of consciousness remains and will remain the central issue to be resolved. After decades of setbacks and defeats in the capitalist world and of stalinist domination in China, this new historical period will undoubtedly enable new possibilities, with new layers of activists emerging. The key issue will be to re-educate them in the fundamentals of marxism, that the perspective must be the establishment of a classless, communist society. Even if the old organizations, with their decades of betrayals, are weakened and fairly discredited, it will take a fierce struggle by revolutionaries to prevent them from once again leading this new generation into the dead ends of reformism. Even weak revolutionary forces could, in these circumstances, find their way to the vanguard of the workers, with the program of transitional demands becoming more urgent than ever and acquiring a multiplied power.

The near disappearance of the trotskyists, the only ones capable of carrying out this work, is a real problem. A break in continuity would be a terrible ordeal. Maintaining a thread of communication, however tenuous, and maintaining ideological clarity and principles are more than necessary. We have only derisory resources and can only try to help maintain and preserve these principles, starting with trying to understand why the TSI/ICL failed.

September 2025

[translation done using AI bots]