In July 2023 and February 2024, the city of Milan, Italy hosted the first and second Meeting of Internationalist Forces. Subsequently, in May 2025, the third Meeting took place in Paris, France. All meetings were conceived as places for the exchange of ideas, analysis and experiences between organizations from multiple political traditions, unified in opposition to the State and bourgeois rule.

The International Socialist League (ISL), which has participated in each of these meetings, will be present again at the next call, with written contributions, as well as in person and online reports.

We hereby share the call for the “Meeting of Internationalist Forces 2026“, which will be held from May 15 to 17 in Paris, which main points of discussion will be ”Imperialist militarization and social war against the world proletariat“ and ”youth movements”.

MEETING OF INTERNATIONALIST FORCES 2026

In July 2023, the first meeting of internationalist forces was held in Milan. State interventionism, protectionist measures, and rearmament, culminating in the return of war to the heart of Europe, were the convulsions of a world order in crisis. Institutions and alliances – forged with the blood of wage earners in the imperialist carnage of the 20th century – were shaken to their foundations by the emergence of new powers, starting with the Chinese giant: hence the need to rally internationalists. Over the next two years, these meetings, which continued in Milan in February 2024 and in Paris in May 2025, became a regular opportunity for useful discussion, encouraging the exchange of ideas, analyses, and experiences between internationalist organisations of different traditions, united in their opposition to the State and bourgeois rule.

The Promoting Committee is today launching this new appeal for a fourth meeting because the urgent need for debate becomes more pressing by the day. With the proliferation of trade wars, military spending, and deadly conflicts, the bourgeoisie is accelerating its race towards the abyss. They tell us so themselves: “We are not at war, but we are no longer at peace either”, said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the end of September. The imperialist partition of the Middle East, over the rubble and dead of Gaza, involves bandits from all over the world: imperialist powers as well as local bourgeoisies. These massacres are provoking growing rejection among workers and young people internationally. Among the unintended consequences of the sorcerer’s apprentices of the Western nuclear powers is the fact that Saudi Arabia has become a de facto nuclear power, through an agreement with Pakistan endorsed by Beijing. Turkey and Iran are being pushed to try to do the same and catch up with Israel. The spectre of nuclear proliferation in one of the most unstable areas of the planet looms ever larger.

The consequences are incalculable, but what is clear is that more than half a century of illusions about the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and related treaties are melting like snow in the sun. From South Korea to Brazil, from Germany to Japan to Italy, the issue of nuclear rearmament is no longer taboo.

Against the backdrop of the massacres of the new Twenties – at least 300,000 dead in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and 150,000 to 400,000 in Sudan (where there are an estimated 14 million internal refugees and one million exiles) – we see a widespread rearmament confirmed across the globe, starting with Asia. According to SIPRI in Stockholm, in the last eight years – that is, since Beijing launched its ambitious military modernisation programme – military spending has grown by 3% per annum in India and Indonesia, 5% in China, and 6% in Japan. Today, imperialism in Europe, with its German giant at the centre, is undertaking a rearmament of historic proportions. Everything is overshadowed by the uncertainties of an American imperialism in the throes of political and social turmoil – with public debt spiralling out of control and a conflict between the powers of its State that undermines its credibility in the eyes of its allies and rivals – yet still possessing a military apparatus unmatched by its competitors.

Then there are the youth protests we have witnessed in recent months: the young people who took to the streets in Morocco, Madagascar, Algeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Nepal are, too, a result of the crisis of the old order. This is also a result of the maturation of the process of proletarianisation that has multiplied wage earners worldwide by at least twofold since 2000, mainly thanks to the strengthening of the Asian working class. Historic migrations are shaking the lives of all nations and causing political upheavals in bourgeois structures. Those young people, shaken by economic transformations in countries with growth rates double or triple those of the old powers, could find in proletarian internationalism a perspective that links their struggles to those of their class brothers and sisters in other countries.

The existence of a terrain for political work that is unambiguously opposed to the policies of the national bourgeoisies is demonstrated by the large-scale phenomena of desertions occurring in the Ukrainian and Russian armies, as well as by the Israeli “refuseniks”, who are fewer in number but growing. Young people sent to kill and be killed are ready to embrace an alternative, if they find one.
The barbarity of war is, for now, limited to the fault lines of imperialist partition, but the historic shift of the world’s centre of gravity from West to East brings the showdown between old and new brigands of imperialism closer. Faced with creeping militarism everywhere, we turn once again to those who claim the world as their homeland – to the historical currents of internationalism, the heirs of the revolutionary workers’ movement: to the anarchists, the libertarian communists, the Leninists, the Trotskyists, the communist left, and all those who draw inspiration from these different traditions.

Wishing to continue and broaden the discussion, in the new era of inter-imperialist confrontation that has begun, the Promoting Committee launches an appeal for a fourth meeting, to be held in Paris from 15th to 17th May 2026.
The discussion on international issues, on the theme of “Imperialist militarisation and social war against the world proletariat”, will take place on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th, following the model of previous meetings – one day for speeches and the next for replies – on the basis of written texts – 10,000 characters, including spaces – which we ask participating organisations to send by 1st March 2026. For Friday 15th, we propose an additional day of discussion less bound by a set format, on the theme of the practical intervention of revolutionaries, with particular reference to youth movements. The organising committee also invites interested organisations to send their written contributions on this theme, again within the limit of 10,000 characters, spaces included.

Milan, 16th November 2025
The Promoting Committee for an internationalist initiative
(internationalistpromcomm@gmail.com)
Organisations promoting the initiative:
Associazione Marxista Rivoluzionaria Controvento
ControCorrente
Lotta Comunista
NPA Révolutionnaires
Partito Comunista dei Lavoratori
Rivoluzione Comunista