Statement of the International Socialist League (ISL) on International Workers’ Day
Thirty-five years ago, after the fall of the USSR, the bourgeois classes around the world heralded a new era of peace, prosperity and progress. But the world has gone and is going in the opposite direction. The barbarism of capitalism falls on the working class and the great majority of humanity. The social conquests of the postwar period are progressively dismantled. The environment is being plundered as never before. The most elementary democratic rights are under attack, while xenophobic and reactionary tendencies are spreading. Colonialism dusts off its worst cruelties, as in Palestine. Old and new imperialist powers fight for the distribution of the planet and, therefore, multiply the arms race and new wars of conquest. Trump, Putin and Netanyahu are today the most emblematic faces of imperialist and colonial criminality.
Those on the left who exalt or vindicate “multipolarism” as an alternative to Trumpism and as a possible path to peace, have an inverted vision of reality. Precisely the existence of several imperialist poles drives the politics of war. U.S. imperialism, which after the fall of the USSR aspired to world domination, saw its ambitions frustrated in the face of the rise of Russian imperialism and, above all, of the new Chinese imperialist power. Donald Trump responds to the US decline with a radical nationalist turn (America First): rupture with the old “multilateral” structures of capitalist globalization, trade wars, monopolistic control of America (piracy in Venezuela, threat to Cuba), offensive in the Middle East relying on the Zionist monster, direct negotiating relationship from positions of strength with the other imperialist poles for the distribution of areas of influence, including Ukraine. The crisis between U.S. imperialism and European imperialisms is a reflection of this turn. European rearmament, starting with Germany, is its consequence.
In this global imperialist competition there are no “good imperialisms”, no camps to defend or to which to attribute a progressive role. All imperialist powers, old and new, are enemies of the working class and oppressed peoples. They all trample on the right to self-determination. For them, the rights of the peoples are just bargaining chips. Russia and China’s abstentions at the UN on Trump and Netanyahu’s colonial plan for Palestine, in exchange for U.S. concessions on the war in Ukraine, are an example of this cynical barter.
Opposing all imperialist poles means unconditionally defending all oppressed peoples attacked or invaded by them, regardless of the aggressing imperialism and the political leadership of those peoples. Unlike other organizations, the ISL does not apply “double standards”. We unconditionally defend the Palestinian people against genocidal Zionist barbarism, with political independence from Hamas. We unconditionally defend Iran against Zionist-US aggression, while fighting against its theocratic regime from the perspective of Iranian workers and youth. We unconditionally defend Lebanon against the invasion and the massacres perpetrated by the State of Israel from a position independent of the claudicating Lebanese government and of the political strategy of Hezbollah. We unconditionally defend Ukraine and its right to resist the invading Russian imperialism, while opposing the bourgeois government of Zelensky and defending the right of self-determination of the populations of the Donbass. In all cases, we link national liberation struggles to a socialist perspective, the only one capable of fully guaranteeing the self-determination peoples.
A new generation has taken to the streets and squares around the world against the genocide in Palestine. It is the same generation that is mobilizing in the U.S. against Trump, that opposes the European governments, their complicity with Zionism and their arms race, and that in various countries of Africa and Asia has risen up against oppressive regimes and overthrown them. To take gain the leadership of this generation is a task of the international working class.
The international working class is an immense potential force, but it lacks self-awareness. Its consciousness has suffered a profound setback on a global scale due to the responsibility of its political and trade union leaderships. To recover that consciousness and endow it with a revolutionary program is a task of revolutionary Marxists throughout the world.
The historical space for reformism has long been exhausted. First with the end of the economic boom, then with the fall of the USSR and finally with the great capitalist crisis of 2008. The current competition between armed imperialisms has definitively buried it. The old and new reformist left (Sanchez, Lula, Latin American bourgeois or petty bourgeois nationalism) periodically try to revive the illusion of reforming capitalism. But their governments end up managing counter-reforms. The so-called “radical” left that participates in those governments suffer strong setbacks (as in Italy, Greece or currently in Spain). And it is often the most reactionary forces that benefit from these failures.
It is time, then, for a revolutionary left. The historical dilemma of humanity is between revolution and reaction, between socialism and barbarism. The processes of global polarization reflect this contradiction. It is a question of putting the working class in tune with this dilemma. This can only be done by a left independent of failed reformism, ministerial ambitions, constitutional illusions and subordination to imperialist diplomacy. A left that, in every struggle, connects immediate demands with an anti-capitalist perspective: a workers’ government based on its own strength and organization.
The International Socialist League (ISL) works on a global scale to build that left and a new revolutionary International that organizes the most militant vanguard of the working class and youth. Building this party is difficult, but it is the only way to a different future for humanity. Unlike other organizations, we do not resort to sectarian proclamations. We are committed to patient unity around a common Leninist program among diverse organizations and currents. Rigor in the principles and rejection of sectarianism: this is the method that has allowed the international development of the ISL, present in forty countries and on all continents. It is the method that we propose to revolutionary Marxists throughout the world.
Against all imperialisms, old and new
For the defense of all oppressed peoples and their resistance
For the international socialist revolution
For a new revolutionary International
