World wave of revolts and revolutionary situation

This text is an attempt to deepen the understanding of the current phase of the class struggle and at the same time it expresses how this effort is the result of the international communication and discussion conducted by minorities of the proletariat in different latitudes of the world.

1) We believe that we are witnessing a pivotal period that puts an end to the strong period of ebb that was experienced in the nineties of the 20th century. A period anticipated by the struggles of 2001 in Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, 2006 in Oaxaca, 2008 the hunger revolts, until 2011 all over the world and its continuation in 2013 in Brazil and Turkey.

2) We consider it important to differentiate between entering a historical period of social revolution and facing revolutionary situations. We believe that we are at the beginning of the former but there is still a long way to go before the latter. That is, the increasingly strong crisis of capitalism, the development of more and more superfluous humanity, the crisis of valorization, etc. will force the proletarians to struggle in defense of their living conditions and to activate more and more strong and radical struggles. In this sense, we are living the beginning of a process of social polarization on a global scale.

3) These struggles have a synchronized and worldwide character. They tend to feed off each other and the dynamic will be increasingly this way.

4) But we are facing a wave of revolts, rebellions, etc. These are not revolutions or revolutionary situations where we could reverse the praxis of capital, where we would be in a position to develop an attack on capital and its social relations in order to impose in some region of the world the dictatorship of the proletariat against capital and the State. In our opinion there is still a long way to go.

5) That’s why we have to read what is happening not as a snapshot but as a movie that will know ebbs and flows. But it is a movie in which social polarization is increasingly intense and concentrated; with the development of increasingly antagonistic social blocks.

6) Thinking about it as a movie and not as a snapshot helps us to reflect upon the dynamic process under way and that one of the most important tasks for minorities like us is that of programmatic clarification through the study of the lessons of the past, that of international communication and coordination between different groups… These kinds of questions are decisive. Today is not about carrying out a victorious insurrection that will put an end to capital in the most advanced places of the ongoing revolt (Chile and Iraq). But it’s about trying to develop at maximum the levels of self-organization and class autonomy as they exist (which are a fractal and impressive repetition of the revolts and revolutions of the past – seeing the images of Tahrir Square in Baghdad is something incredible –). And above all it’s about ensuring an intransigent defense of our communist and anarchic positions, for example in Chile the criticism of the constituent assembly.

7) The defense of these positions will be decisive for the future processes to come. We believe that we are at the beginning of a historical period that will become more and more radical and strongly international. This is why we keep repeating that it’s important to think of today’s dynamic as a movie and not as a snapshot, as we said above. It’s not about becoming obsessed now with the insurrection or with the ebbs and flows of the processes that are being and will necessarily be experienced, as in Ecuador, but it’s a matter of thinking about the dynamic that is underway, and this dynamic is revolutionary, it is toward levels of social antagonism that are increasingly intense.

8) In this sense, we indeed believe that we are at the beginning of a new epoch of social revolution. An epoch still characterized only by revolts and rebellions and not yet by revolutionary situations all over the world as it happened a hundred years ago, in 1919. We are at the beginning of an epoch of social revolution and revolutionary wave like the one that went through the world from 1910 to 1937 (especially from 1917 to 1921) or from 1968 to 1980. And this wave is going to continue and develop with ever greater force.

9) As we said above, one aspect of the current wave is the enormous extension of the international synchronization of the ongoing revolts. This is why we do believe we can say that the tendency to the internationalization of struggles of the world proletariat will be increasingly strong. It is very emblematic to think about the current synchronization in relation to the beginnings of the previous revolutionary waves, in 1917 or 1968. This is undoubtedly one of the most outstanding and important elements of the current earthquake of the class struggle. Against all the deniers of internationalism, the struggle of the proletariat will become increasingly international.

10) The most important thing now is how can be provided the asymptotic lines that communicate the revolutionary learning of the proletariat in struggle and the programmatic lessons of the past carried out by minorities. In other words, how the proletariat can constitute itself as a class, as a party, and reach clarity, from its own experience, that leads it to display its antagonism against capital and value in its many forms. And to do that, the role of minorities like ours, as part of the class, is essential; as well as our participation in the moments of barricades but also in the moments of balance sheet, in the flow of the class struggle but also in the ebbs that will follow. That’s why initiatives like the ones you’re doing there are so important. What role can revolutionary minorities play? This is without doubt one of the weakest aspects we are dealing with in this new wave of international class struggle. Concretely this means how we can strengthen the centralization and the debate around positions, experiences, balance sheets… among the different groups of the communities of struggle in which revolutionary and internationalist proletarians tend to get organized. And this means, ultimately, strengthening the role of revolutionary theory in understanding the nature of capital in order to break with it; this means recognizing the discontinuous thread of our class history and the lessons that can be drawn from past revolutions and counter-revolutions; and this means also deepening and consolidating the role that minorities can play from within current and future class movements in criticizing the weaknesses of our class and seeking to advance the practical movements and clarification around the overall and historical objectives of the proletariat. These aspects seem decisive to us today.

11) We have always insisted that it seems very important to us to try to analyze the balance of power between classes. Ultimately a period of counter-revolution is an epoch marked by social peace and the absolute triumph of capital. These are the normal times of capital, of its commodity fetishism and its democratic logic. Periods that were interrupted by periods of intense class struggle, such as the revolutionary waves mentioned above. That’s why we indeed believe that we are emerging from of a period of counterrevolution and of intense social ebb like that in the nineties. However there is not a clear demarcation line between revolution and counterrevolution; above all it is necessary to know that the revolution always coexists with the counterrevolution, that the current struggles arouse everywhere the counterrevolution supported by the bourgeoisie.

12) Having said this, it is very important to know how we revolutionaries analyze the epochs of counterrevolution in order to make a distinction with the present one. As we said, we are before the beginning of a pivotal epoch that leaves behind the counterrevolutionary ebbing wave of the nineties. A period preceded by a whole series of struggles at the turn of the century and especially in 2008-2013. Anyway, the counterrevolution of the nineties, which was never absolute, is a good example of how the perspective of overcoming capitalism through a revolutionary process that would contribute to the achievement of human community over class societies was weakened. This is the main element of the counter-revolution of the nineties and it continues to lie like a heavy burden on the weaknesses of our class in today’s struggles. Anyway, we do not believe that the ebb of the nineties can be compared with the ebb that started in the late 1920s and during the 1930s, when it was “midnight in the century”, and the counter-revolution was affirmed through the twin regimes of fascism, Stalinism and the social-democratic New Deal. A counter-revolution that reduced the proletarian and class structures of the previous revolutionary wave to a few handfuls of isolated minorities.

13) Finally, such correspondences are very useful to us, so that we can commonly clear up many points. We hope we’ve clarified something; it seems to us, in short, that we are only at the beginning of a new historical epoch marked by social revolution, by social polarization that will arouse class antagonisms increasingly strong and virulent. This is the fertile ground for the constitution of our class as a party, clarifying its historical perspective: its negation as a class to negate capital and its social relations. But to do that, there’s still a long way to go, as Marx said after a first European wave of international struggle he experienced (in 1848): “Whereas we say to the workers: You have 15, 20, 50 years of civil war to go through in order to alter the situation and to train yourselves for the exercise of power, it is said: We must take power at once, or else we may as well take to our beds.”

English translation: Los Amigos de la Guerra de Clases