The Fire of Revolution Will Burn Down Catastrophic Capitalism!

Manifesto for the Liberation Struggle of the Workers and Oppressed

Document adopted by the III. Congress of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), April 2021, www.thecommunists.net

Español   لعربية    Português   Français   русский   Deutsch   Polski

Contents

Fight the COVID-19 Counterrevolution!

Down with the Authoritarian State!

Defend People of Color, National Minorities and Muslims!

Open Borders for Refugees!

Revolutionary Defeatism Against All Great Powers!

Conflicts and Wars between Regional Powers

National Liberation Wars of Oppressed People

Land to the Peasants! Expropriate the big Landowners!

The Climate Disaster caused by Capitalism

Liberation Struggle against Women’s Oppression & Sexual Oppression!

For a Workers’ and Poor Peasant Government! For Socialist Revolution!

A New Era of Counterrevolutionary Offensive and Revolutionary Upheavals

The world has entered a new era of chaos, catastrophes, and war danger. Many people still imagine – or at least hope – that this is just a short bad dream. This is understandable because of the sudden and unexpected nature of the dystopian counterrevolutionary turn in 2020. But it is a gross illusion to believe in a return to the “normal” before!

It is an illusion because capitalist civilization has entered an era of collapse. The Greater Depression of the capitalist world economy which began in autumn 2019 has laid bar the bankruptcy of the profit-driven system and threw countless millions of people into the abyss of unemployment and poverty. The destruction of climate change – caused by reckless production methods of big corporations – results in the annihilation of living conditions for whole nations enforcing mass migration. The COVID-19 pandemic is exploited by the ruling class to impose mass curfews, to restrict democratic rights and to massively expand the police and surveillance state. In such a period of crisis, it has been inevitable that the rivalry between the imperialist Great Powers – most importantly the U.S. and China – dramatically accelerated and opened a new Cold War which might turn sooner or later into another World War.

The ruling classes all over the world have waged a counterrevolutionary offensive not only because of the collapse of their system. They have done so also because they fear the hatred of the popular masses. And they are right to do so! The heroic Arab Revolution which began in 2011 is continuing – despite all the setbacks and defeats. In fact, the fire of revolution is spreading! In the second half of 2019, workers and oppressed on nearly all continents rose up in popular uprisings and threw governments in a state of panic. From Hong Kong to Ecuador, from Iraq to Chile, from India to Catalunya – millions marched on the streets and entered fierce battles with repression forces. No wonder that the ruling classes around the globe – impressed by the model of the Stalinist-capitalist dictatorship in China – saw the pandemic as an opportunity too good to be missed. Exploiting COVID-19 as a pretext, the Lords of Power and Money launched an unprecedented counterrevolutionary offensive in spring 2020 which brought the global wave of popular uprisings to a temporary halt. However, the workers and oppressed have fought back since summer of the same year, most prominently with the Black Lives Matter Uprising in the U.S.

In other words, we have entered a new era of gigantic counterrevolution and revolutionary upheavals. These are the passing bells of a doomed system – similar to the final period of the decadent Roman Empire, of China’s corruption-infested Ming Empire or of the ailing Ottoman Empire. However, the question is which system will replace the outlived order? Will the ruling class engulf not only their system but also humanity in the abyss of climate collapse, nuclear war, and global barbarism? Or will the popular masses succeed in overthrowing the capitalist Lords of Destruction so that they can build a global socialist order without exploitation and oppression?

The future of humanity will be decided not by fate. It will be decided by us – the workers and oppressed! We can take the future in our own hands if we fight. Not everyone individually but organized as a collective. Not for a nebulous better future but for a clear program. In other words, the masses can only win if they have a revolutionary leadership.

This Manifesto is addressed to the new generation of activists who have gone through the experience of the battles against tyranny and exploitation in the last years. We call them to unite in a single combat party based on the program of socialist world revolution.

The RCIT considers it as the most important, most urgent task of the current period to build a Revolutionary World Party which organizes the vanguard of the workers and oppressed. However, such a party does not emerge automatically. It is the result of systematic and determined efforts of revolutionaries. It will be forged in the battles of major class struggles. Hence, every organization which wants to contribute to this task must prove capable to find a correct orientation on world politics and to intervene in these battles.

Those, who praise socialism in words but serve the ruling class in deeds, are concealed enemies of the liberation struggle. Those, who are confused and lack revolutionary principles, might be well-meaning but represent obstacles for the liberation struggle. The revolution has no need for either. It needs comrades of all identities with clear minds and dedicated hearts!

The RCIT calls all activists who share such an outlook to join us in building a Revolutionary World Party!

The Capitalist State Monster Attacks Democracy! Defeat Chauvinism and Bonapartism!

Faced with the inevitable decay of capitalism, all sectors of the ruling class – from classic right-wingers to liberals and Stalinist-capitalists – are waging a counterrevolutionary offensive against the workers and oppressed and attack their democratic rights. All over the world – often in the form of “strong man” regimes – they expand the powers of the capitalist state and intensify the oppression of the popular masses. In states with some form of bourgeois democracy, the ruling class moves in the direction of authoritarian forms of government while often leaving the facade of parliamentary institutions in place. In countries with authoritarian regimes, they increase the power of the rulers even more. All this is usually combined with saber-rattling and chauvinist hate-mongering against foreign and domestic enemies (political opponents, migrants, Muslim minorities, rival states, etc.). Marxists call this policy Chauvinist State-Bonapartism. The strategic task in this era is to advance the struggle of the workers and oppressed and to transform it into a popular uprising aimed at smashing the capitalist state monster. No one should delude oneself: either the fire of revolution will burn down the new Leviathan or this monster will devour us!

Fight the COVID-19 Counterrevolution!

The most important instrument of the ruling class all over the world for justifying their dramatic expansion of the police and surveillance state is the COVID-19 pandemic. Marxists have explained since the beginning that while COVID-19 is a serious pandemic (and not a hoax like the Trumpian muddle-heads claim), it is, however, neither devastating nor unprecedented. In past decades, humanity has faced repeatedly pandemics and diseases which have claimed hundreds of thousands or millions of lives a year (e.g. the so-called Asia Flu in 1957-58, the so-called Hong Kong flu in 1968, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, severe Influenza seasons, etc.).

In addition, one should not forget to view the COVID-19 crisis in proportion to other diseases and preventable health risks (respiratory infections, tobacco, alcohol, etc.) which also cause millions of deaths every year. Furthermore, total mortality statistics in many countries (including those who have not implemented the Lockdown policy) demonstrate that the pandemic has not resulted in an extraordinary increase of death caused primarily by the virus but rather as a result of a bankrupt healthcare system undermined by decades of neoliberal austerity policy. It is in addition hard to tell how much the bonapartist attacks and the economic depression have had already an impact on the death figures.

The RCIT has pointed out since the beginning of the crisis that the ruling class is deliberately provoking public hysteria in order to conceal their political and economic interests. In fact, the Lords of Power and Money utilize the pandemic as a pretext to massively expand the police and surveillance state and to impose draconic lockdowns, mass curfews, anti-democratic restrictions on meetings and social gatherings, etc. The result is a dramatic isolation and atomization of the people making it difficult for the working class and the oppressed to organize resistance.

At the same time the Lockdown policy has served to line the pockets of the top layer of the capitalist class. According to the business news agency Bloomberg the billionaires – among them parasites like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, China’s Zhong Shanshan, Huang Zheng, and Ceng Yuqun – could increase their profits in 2020 by 31%! “The world’s 500 richest people added $1.8 trillion to their combined net worth this year and are now worth $7.6 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.”

In contrast, most of the workers and oppressed people have suffered gigantic losses. Many millions lost their jobs and were thrown into the abyss of poverty. According to the International Labour Organization most of the global labor force – about 3.5 billion people – suffered dramatic losses in wages as “global loss in labour income during the first three quarters of 2020 amounts to US$3.5 trillion“, which represents “a global decline of 10.7 per cent” (compared with the corresponding period in 2019). In other words, the world’s 500 richest people could increase their wealth by $1.8 trillion which is more than half (!) of the combined losses in income of 3.5 billion workers and poor peasants!

In short, while the governments refuse expanding the public health sectors to combat the pandemic, they advance their Lockdown policy which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer! No doubt, the big corporations in sectors like IT, drugs, bio-tech, Artificial Intelligence, retail, etc. hope to rake in even higher profits in the next years.

For all these reasons it is safe to assume that the monopoly bourgeoisie will dramatize and exploit similar pandemics like COVID-19 in the coming years to advance their power and profit interests.

Shamefully, the Lockdown Left support the bonapartist policy of the capitalist governments (e.g. “left” social democrats and populists like PODEMOS in Spain, Stalinists and ex-Stalinists like the French PCF, the Spanish PCE/IU, the German LINKE, Trotsko-Revisionists like the Morenoite LIT, Alan Woods’ IMT, the Cliffite IST, etc.). Worse, these social-bonapartists criticize the governments for not imposing more draconic and longer Lockdowns and invoke the Stalinist-capitalist regime in China as a model! In short, the Lockdown Left continues the shameful tradition of war and police state “socialism” which has dominated official social democracy since 1914. In contrast, the RCIT intransigently opposes the COVID-19 Counterrevolution and fights for the following demands:

* Down with all forms of Lockdown, state of emergency, mass curfews, restriction of mass assemblies and demonstrations, etc.! Abolish all special powers of police and army! No to all forms of surveillance measures!

* An end to the widespread practice of the bourgeois state to condemn oppressed en masse to long prison terms. Roll up of all court cases, in which black people, migrants, indigenous people, LGBTQIA2S+ activists, the youth and all other oppressed were convicted, before democratically elected trial by jury, of which at least half of it are members from the community of the accused!

* Radical democratisation of the administration and jurisdiction: election and possibility to recall the entire administrative apparatus by the people! Trial by jury for all crimes and misdemeanours!

* No to all forms of surveillance technologies and Artificial Intelligence which serve the control and oppression of people! Only socialism will liberate technologies from the fetters of capitalism!

* Radical expansion of public health under workers and popular control! More hospitals, recruitment of more staff, higher wages and better working conditions, more ICU’s, etc.! Paid sick leave with 100% wage compensation! Dismantle oppressive and humiliating practices in healthcare which originated in eugenics era! Inclusionary healthcare for people of all identities, ethnicities and social groups! No to any sterilization or racists practices!

* No sackings, no wage cuts! For a public employment program paid by the rich! Expropriation of big corporations and banks under workers’ control!

* Financial compensation for all self-employed who went bankrupt in the current depression and who are not part of the rich!

Down with the Authoritarian State!

The COVID-19 pandemic is not the only excuse of capitalist governments to build a chauvinist bonapartist state. Other excuses are “terrorist threats”, “foreign spies” or similar inventions. This holds true in nearly all capitalist countries – from China to France, from Nigeria to Chile and from India to Egypt. Revolutionaries denounce such government-led hate campaigns. They are either pure inventions or phenomena overinflated beyond all measures. The system of demands as outlined above for the struggle against the COVID-19 Counterrevolution applies also to all other areas of bonapartist policy.

The reactionary right-wing forces of the type of Trump, Le Pen, and Salvini represent the most open and most vulgar version of chauvinism and authoritarianism. However, this makes them also highly instable, ineffective and incompetent as a governing party as the terms of office of Trump, the Austrian FPÖ or the Italian Lega have demonstrated. In any case, in the end liberalism, traditional conservativism and right-wing populism represent different roads which all lead to the same evil: the undermining of bourgeois democracy and the formation of a Chauvinist-Bonapartist State.

In the wake of right-wing populist forces, fascist organizations are operating and growing – albeit they are currently still relatively small. As history teaches, such forces represent a mortal danger as they strive to physically annihilate all organizations of the workers and popular masses.

We see the same tendency in the form of reactionary terrorist attacks against members of oppressed communities. Examples for this are the murder of Omar and Ernesto Guasiruma – environmental activists and indigenous leaders in Colombia – during their quarantine in March 2020; the brutal assault of the Tunisian police against LGBTQIA2S+ activists like Ahmed El-Tounsi in October 2020; the stabbing of the Muslim Anwar Mohammed by a group of right-wing attackers in India because he travelled in a bus with a Hindu woman in April 2021.

Revolutionaries advocate the formation of a united front of workers and popular organizations in order to defeat the bonapartists and right-wing populists and to smash the fascists. The formation of armed self-defense units is crucial in order to defend the working class and the oppressed against racist and fascist attacks but also against provocations by the thugs in uniform.

Defend People of Color, National Minorities and Muslims!

All over the world, the ruling class resorts to chauvinism against People of Color, migrants and Muslims in order to justify state bonapartism as well as to confuse and divide the popular masses. The police in U.S. are notorious for tyrannizing, assaulting and killing Black people on a daily basis. Millions of refugees are forced to live in fear of being arrested and deported by the ICE. Likewise, the Chinese regime brutally suppresses the Muslim Uyghurs, putting millions in labor camps and enforce sterilization on the women. It has also smashed the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

In Europe, governments are waging an Islamophobic campaign against Muslim minorities, suppress many Muslim institutions under the pretext of so-called “political Islam” und promote anti-Muslim hate-mongering like the obnoxious Charlie Hebdo caricatures. These attacks often take place under the cover of alleged support for women’s liberation respectively liberation of LGBTQIA2S+ people. This is an utter lie which solely serves as an excuse for social-chauvinist oppression! Especially People of Color and indigenous people from the LGBTQIA2S+ community know very well how strongly linked the history of colonialism and the discrimination of LGBTQIA2S+ is.

In nearly all imperialist countries migrants constitute a significant sector of the working class, facing super-exploitation as cheap labor force and national oppression (lack of citizenship rights, discrimination of their language in the education sector and in public administration, harassment by the police, etc.) The same is the case in the Gulf states.

In many capitalist countries, national minorities face oppression by the state (e.g. the Palestinians, the Kurdish people, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Kashmiri in India, the Indigenous People of Biafra in Nigeria, the Tuareg in Mali, the Mapuche in Chile, the Indigenous People in Mexico and Guatemala, the Chechens in Russia and the Basques and Catalans in Spain).

All too often Stalinists, social democrats, Bolivarians and Trotsko-Revisionists are staining the banner of socialism by defending or even glorifying the oppression of national or religious minorities in the name of “enlightenment”. For example, they downplay the oppression by capitalist regimes in Russia or China. In France (and other European countries) “Communist” parties, the French LO, the Lambertists and others glorify Charlie Hebdo and Samuel Paty, advocate banning of the hijab for Muslim women in schools and denounce Muslims who protest such Islamophobic racism.

The RCIT unconditionally supports the struggle of People of Color, migrants and Muslims against all forms of oppression. Our goal is to achieve the closest unity between the workers and oppressed of different nations and religious beliefs. This goal can be achieved through the struggle for full equality of the oppressed group.

Thus, we call upon the workers’ vanguard to oppose all forms of chauvinism, pressure to assimilate, etc., and to implement the program of revolutionary equality.

* Support the struggle for full equality (equality of their native language, equality of citizenship rights, equal wages, etc.) and local self-government!

* Down with all penal codes against LGBTQIA2S+ people which are nothing else but remnants of the Western colonial era! Unite the oppressed of all identities under the revolutionary banner of anti-imperialism!

* For self-defense units of the workers and oppressed in order to fight back against state violence as well as against reactionary political forces and individuals! For a broad public campaign, organized by the workers movement and organizations of the oppressed to educate the popular masses against any form of phobia against LGBTQI2S+, racism, sexism and all other reactionary ideas!

* Against all forms of discrimination of religious minorities! Down with Islamophobia!

* Defend the right to national self-determination for all oppressed peoples! Whenever an oppressed people wish to have an independent state, socialists are obligated to support this demand!

* Smash the Zionist Apartheid State Israel! For a Red and Democratic Palestine from the River to the Sea!

Open Borders for Refugees!

In the same spirit of anti-imperialist internationalism socialists oppose the chauvinist policy of imperialist states against refugees. The big monopolies make huge profits by exploiting cheap labor forces and raw materials of the South. Often the Great Powers (or their proxies) send troops into such countries, wreak havoc and create millions of refugees. But when such refugees flee their devasted countries, the imperialist states close their borders or accept only a small minority of them!

Revolutionaries support the right of refugees to enter the imperialist countries and to live there with immediate and full citizenship rights. They advocate working among soldiers and border guards so that they help refugees escaping misery.

* Down with the imperialist fortresses! For open borders!

* For a public employment program for refugees with wages according to national standards and paid by the rich!

Great Power Rivalry and Imperialist Aggression in the South:

Turn the Guns against the Lords of Power and Money!

In the era of capitalist decay, all ruling classes accelerate their reactionary aggression not only against their domestic enemies, i.e. the workers and oppressed, but also against their foreign opponents. As a result, the rivalry between the imperialist Great Powers – the U.S., China, EU, Russia, and Japan – is accelerating dramatically. The Cold War between the long-time hegemonic, but now declining, U.S. and the second-biggest, and rising, power China is the most important conflict determining to a large degree most other conflicts between states.

On all continents and in all oceans Great Powers are competing for influence and domination. Such rivalry results in the formation of trade blocs, diplomatic maneuvers, arms race, and military conflicts. Asia and the Pacific region are of particular importance as they are home of the bulk of capitalist value production as well as of nearly all Great Powers.

To advance their interests Great Powers often use proxies or support allied non-imperialist states (e.g. the U.S. support for India or Taiwan against China).

In the period of capitalist decay, continuously rising acceleration of such rivalry is inevitable. If the working class does not liquidate the Great Powers in time by means of international socialist revolution, humanity’s existence is threatened by World War III.

Revolutionary Defeatism Against All Great Powers!

The bureaucratic leaderships of the workers and popular mass organizations are characterized by various trends of social-imperialism, i.e. by support for this or that Great Power under the fig-leaf of “democracy” or “socialism”. In Europe, the forces associated with the (ex-)Stalinist Party of the European Left are inextricably integrated in the imperialist policy of the EU. Some of them are part of EU governments (e.g. PODEMOS and PCE/IU), others have been in recent past (e.g. SYRIZA in Greece, PCF in France, AKEL in Cyprus). While the Japanese Communist Party has not been part of the government, it is a loyal supporter of the imperialist fatherland since many decades.

Other sectors of the workers and popular mass organizations support Chinese and Russian imperialism. Among these forces are many Bolivarian parties in Latin America as well as Stalinist parties (e.g. KPRF in Russia, the parties affiliated to KKE (Greece) led IMCWP, the state parties in Vietnam and Laos). A number of Trotsko-Revisionists (e.g. the notorious Spartacist tradition) also share such an approach. In other words, such forces act as servants of their respective Great Power. Hence, Marxists characterize them as social-imperialists.

Similar phenomena exist in non-imperialist intermediate powers like India where all major “Communist” Parties (e.g. CPI(M), CPI, CPI-ML) act as social-chauvinist defenders of their fatherland against opponents like the Kashmiri people, Pakistan or China.

Various left-wing forces do not openly support one or the other Great Power (e.g. PTS/FT, PSTU/LIT, LIT-CI, CWI). However, by designating only one side as “imperialist” (the US, the EU and Japan) but refusing such characterization for the other side (China and Russia), they open the road for social-pacifist accommodation to the later.

The RCIT and all authentic revolutionaries take a consistent and intransigent approach against all imperialist powers based on the Bolshevik program of “revolutionary defeatism.” We say: Down with all imperialist Great Powers – whether the US, China, Russia, EU, or Japan! The defeat of the imperialist “fatherland” is the lesser evil! In any political, economic, or military conflict between these Great Powers, the workers’ movement must not give support to any of them. Revolutionaries say in the tradition of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg: The Main Enemy is at Home! Turn the guns around against the ruling class!

Revolutionaries operating in imperialist states shall advocate a systematic political and ideological campaign against “their” ruling class. They need to expose their “own” government as the main enemy of the workers and oppressed, as the main cause of their decaying living conditions. In schools, universities, etc. they must oppose all forms of imperialist “patriotism” and supremacism. In addition, they should work among soldiers to undermine the danger that they can be misused by the army command for any imperialist adventure. Furthermore, revolutionaries oppose all imperialist military alliances (e.g. NATO, the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, China’s and Russia’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) as well as cooperation of secret services (e.g. Five Eyes).

* No to imperialist trade wars and sanctions!

* Down with the imperialist arms race! Nationalization of the arms industry under workers control!

* No support for any military budget!

* Down with all forms of chauvinist hate-mongering! For a campaign against imperialist “patriotism”! No to any popular front politics (like the Stalinists are promoting) – for independent working-class leadership!

* In case of a military conflict: the main enemy is at home!

Conflicts and Wars between Regional Powers
 

Against the background of capitalist decay and the crisis of imperialist world order, it is only logical that tensions are increasing not only between the Great Powers but also between the ruling classes of non-imperialist, semi-colonial states. Examples for this are the saber-rattling in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, tensions in Eastern Africa (involving Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan) or in South Asia (India-Pakistan).

In general, revolutionaries refuse support for any aggression of one capitalist semi-colonial state against another. Here similar tactics must be applied as outlined above in the case of an inner-imperialist conflict (“revolutionary defeatism”). However, given the specific nature of the bourgeoisie of semi-colonial countries (it constitutes “a semi-ruling, semi-oppressed class“, as Trotsky explained), it is possible that in a given conflict this or that state serves as a proxy of imperialist powers.

Marxists need to analyze each conflict between semi-colonial countries concretely to elaborate their tactics. They are obligated to judge if one (or both) sides in each conflict act as imperialist agents and if the defeat of this or that side is advantageous for the interests of the revolution. If it is the case that military victory of one side improves the conditions of the international liberation struggle, the RCIT will critically support this country. For example, revolutionaries have sided with the Yemeni forces since the beginning of the Saudi-led aggression in 2015 or with Qatar against the Saudi/UAE aggression from 2017-20.

National Liberation Wars of Oppressed People

The past two decades have been characterized by a number of military assaults and occupations of countries of the South by imperialist powers resp. their proxies. The most prominent examples for this are the U.S. occupation wars in Afghanistan since 2001 and Iraq since 2003, Russia’s wars against the Chechen people in 1994-96 as well as in the early 2000s and against the Syrian people since 2015, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people including its recent three wars against Gaza (2009, 2012, and 2014) or the military intervention of French and EU troops in Mali and other African countries. Another example is the US aggression against semi-colonial states like North Korea and Iran. The military intervention of the Ethiopian-led AMISOM in Somalia since 2007 represents a reactionary occupation war in the service of imperialist powers.

The famous dictum of Clausewitz – “War is merely a continuation of policy by other means” – also applies to the policy of the social democratic, Stalinist and centrist left. While they usually preach empty pacifist phrases, hardly any of them is prepared to defend the oppressed people against the imperialist aggressors. In a number of cases, such forces even advocated imperialist aggression (e.g. the Stalinists’ support for the Russian occupation army in Syria since 2015; large sectors of the German LINKE support Israel) or refuse to oppose military interventions (e.g. the French PCF in the case of sending air force to Iraq in 2015).

The RCIT has always been an intransigent supporter of liberation struggles of oppressed people and victims of imperialist aggression. In all such conflicts revolutionaries must support by any means necessary the struggle of the oppressed people and work towards the defeat of the imperialist forces resp. their proxies. Given the global crisis of working class leadership, such liberation struggles are usually lead by petty-bourgeois nationalist or Islamist forces. Revolutionaries advocate the application of the united front tactic combined with criticism of their political limitations. It is urgent to build an independent working-class party and to fight for a government led by the proletariat, no matter how small the working class is in the country.

In summary, wars represent both the concentration and highpoint of imperialist power as well as the potential for explosive crisis. Revolutionaries work towards utilizing every conflict and war for weakening and eventually bringing down the imperialist Lords of Power and Money by popular liberation struggles and revolutionary uprisings.

Defending our Rights – Fighting for a Socialist Future!

As long as the decaying capitalist system continues to exist – or better say vegetate – it is hardly possible to realize the previously outlined demands of the defensive struggle against Chauvinist State Bonapartism as well as against imperialist war. In the best case the workers and oppressed can impose this or that reform for some time via ferocious mass struggles. But in the end, it is impossible to abolish militarist aggression and the Leviathan monster without overthrowing the capitalist class via a socialist revolution. The same holds true for all other demands in the struggle for our future.

Land to the Peasants! Expropriate the big Landowners!

All over the world, agricultural land is concentrated in the hands of a few – mostly corporations and land barons. In contrast, most of the rural population owns only a small piece of land or has none at all. According to a study published in late 2020, the largest 1% of farms operate more than 70% of the world’s farmland. At the same time, the poorest half of peasants control only 3% of the value of agricultural land, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion people who directly rely on farming. It is only logical that under such conditions millions of people are forced to flee their homes and to join the urban poor or to become migrants and refugees in the rich imperialist countries.

The rural poor are the most important ally of the working class. Therefore, the RCIT calls the workers’ vanguard to energetically support the struggle of the poor peasants expressed in the following slogans:

* For the expropriation of the big landlords, the church, and the multinationals!

* Nationalize the land under the control of workers and poor peasants! The land belongs to those who cultivate it!

* Only local democratic action councils representing the poor and landless peasants should decide the question of the allocation and use of the land! Agriculture specialists can be integrated in this process as advisors.

* Promote voluntary agricultural cooperatives and the formation of larger state production units! The state should provide the necessary machinery and other means to improve agriculture for peasants! For the creation of local schools for peasants to promote learning of modern ways to develop sustainable and green agriculture!

* Cancel debts and abolish rents for the peasants! Interest-free loans for small peasants!

The Climate Disaster caused by Capitalism

Step by step, the big monopolies – mostly based in the imperialist states – destroy the climate and, with it, the natural living conditions for increasingly larger sectors of humanity. If we do not stop them, they will make the planet as a whole inhabitable. According to the latest data, 2020 ended of the warmest decade on record. It is likely the oceans are now at their hottest for 1,000 years and heating faster than any time in the last 2,000 years.

Only a radical reversal of the energy and environmental policy can save our planet and our future. The RCIT warns against any illusions in capitalist governments and their “climate summits”. The only way to combat climate change is the formation of a global mass movement fighting for an international emergency plan. The struggle for necessary environmental reforms must be combined with the aim of overthrowing capitalism, because only then can such an emergency plan be implemented fully and permanently.

* Convert the energy and transport system - global phasing out of fossil fuels and nuclear energy production!

* Massive research into the use of alternative forms of energy such as wind, tidal and solar power! For a program for global reforestation!

* Nationalization under workers' control of all energy companies and all companies that are responsible for basic supplies such as water and agricultural products as well as the airlines, shipping and rail facilities!

The Liberation Struggle against Women’s Oppression! Against all Forms of Sexual Oppression!

Capitalism as the last stage in the history of class society is inextricably linked with various forms of social oppression. Economic exploitation can only exist in combination with divisions among the popular masses and discriminations of different groups. Women earn substantially lower wages than men and bear the main responsibility for (unpaid) housework and childcare. They also suffer from domestic violence – a phenomena which has dramatically increased due to the reactionary Lockdown policy.

Other forms are the discrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people (LGBTQI2+). Their oppression is based on a legal system introduced mostly by European colonial nations and expanded to other parts of the world. Western law at that time was so influential that 57% of countries which have criminalized homosexual behavior are using the British Empire legal framework. At the same time Christian missionaries played a cruel role in the destruction of many historical forms of acknowledgement and acceptance of LGBTQIA2S+ people in colonies. Hence, the struggle for the liberation of the LGBTQIA2S+ community is closely related to the struggle for national self-determination of oppressed people. The RCIT fights against all forms of social oppression.

* Equal pay for equal work!

* An end to all forms of legal discrimination against women and LGBTQI+ people!

* For a public employment program to build free, well-equipped 24-hour childcare facilities!

* Free access to contraception and abortion!

* Fight against violence against women! For the expansion of public women safe houses, controlled by women's organisations! For the formation of self-defence units by the workers' and women's movement against sexist violence!

* For a revolutionary women's movement! Such a movement must also fight back against any form of racism, Islamophobia, transphobia, and all other reactionary attacks! Hence, we fight for a revolutionary women’s movement with a strong leadership by working class women, women of colour, women of the LGBTQIA2S+, indigenous women, etc.!

* No to condescending and oppressive laws for sexual transition and getting Hormon Replacement Therapy (HRT)! Full freedom for getting necessary surgical and hormonal prescriptions!

* Sex/Gender records in IDs and similar documents required by the capitalist state as well as landlords, companies, etc. must be completely deleted!

For a Workers’ and Poor Peasant Government! For Socialist Revolution!

There is no escape from capitalist hell on earth as long as the Lords of Power and Money continue to dominate politics and economy. The only way out is seizing power by the workers and oppressed. Therefore, the central task of the working class is to fight for a government of its own, a government which opens the road to socialism.

Such a government must not be confused with so-called “left-wing” governments like the MAS government in Bolivia, the PSOE/PODEMOS government in Spain, the PT-led popular front government in Brazil, the Maduro government in Venezuela or the SYRIZA government in Greece. These are all bourgeois governments which disguise their service for the capitalist class with some “progressive” reforms and phrases.

This does not mean that revolutionaries should ignore conflicts between such governments and ultra-reactionary sectors of the bourgeoisie. In case of a reactionary coup or an imperialist intervention (as it happened e.g. several times in Venezuela or in Bolivia in 2019), revolutionaries advocate the united front tactic in order to defeat such attacks.

However, all demands and critical support for reformist and populist parties must be combined with a clear warning about the inevitable betrayal of the leaderships. We call the workers and popular mass organizations to break with the openly bourgeois forces in such governments and to create their own government.

The only way forward is the creation of a workers’ and poor peasant government. Such a government should be based on action councils of the workers, peasant and poor as well as on armed popular militias. All representatives of these action councils are elected directly by the workers and can be recalled by them, and they should receive no more than the salary of an average skilled worker. Such an authentic workers’ government would turn immediately to the decisive task of expropriating the capitalist class as well as smashing the apparatus of bourgeois state repression by means of workers' and people's militia.

In other words, the struggle for a workers’ and popular government is inextricably linked with the struggle for the socialist revolution.

However, it is a naïve illusion of the left social democrats, Stalinists, and various centrists (e.g., CWI, IMT) to imagine that the working class could take power via parliamentary elections or in a gradual, peaceful way. All historic experience – both of successful socialist revolutions like Russia’s in 1917-21, bureaucratic social revolutions (e.g., Cuba in 1959-61, China in 1945-49), unfinished democratic revolutions (e.g., Nicaragua or Iran in 1979), or even stranded revolutions (e.g. the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, Chile of 1973, the Arab Revolutions since 2011) – demonstrates that the ruling class will never give up its power peacefully. The working class and the oppressed can only take power and overthrow capitalism if they organize themselves – under the leadership of a revolutionary party – in popular militias and prepares for armed insurrection, civil war and the dictatorship of the proletariat as the only means by which the struggle for liberation can be advanced.

 Crisis of Revolutionary Leadership: How to Organize and How to Fight?

The experience of the past decade – since the beginning the Arab Revolution – has demonstrated the depth of the crisis of leadership. We have seen gigantic and heroic mass struggles – first in Egypt, Syria, Libya, and other Arab countries, and later in Hong Kong, India, Nigeria, Sudan, Chile, Catalunya, the U.S. and many other parts of the world. In most cases, the popular uprisings failed in their aspirations. And when the masses succeeded in bringing down a dictatorship, these gains were later mostly reversed.

The reason for such failure was not a lack of dedication or the “backward consciousness” of the masses – as cynical long-time “leftists” often claim (musing in their comfortable seat). In fact, the fighting vanguard of the masses – from Rabaa Square in Cairo, the trenches of Idlib, the barrios of Santiago de Chile, the universities of Hong Kong to the streets of Portland – take a superior stand against the counterrevolution than most of the so-called left. Just remember the cheers from the social democrats, Stalinists and Trotsko-Revisionists like the PSTU/LIT, the IMT and SWP/IST when Egypt’s General Sisi launched his bloody military coup in July 2013!

But to defeat the enemy, one needs to understand its nature and its inner contradictions. One must learn the lessons of past struggles and see through the fog of confusing phrases by the false friends of the oppressed. Furthermore, one needs to elaborate a program of struggle which is based on a scientific analysis of the capitalist class society in its age of collapse. Finally, one needs an organized force operating as a disciplined force amid the fire of revolution as well as under the fire of counterrevolution. In short, in order to win, the masses need a combat party – nationally as well as internationally – based on a revolutionary program.

Unfortunately, such a party does not exist yet. Hence, the masses are forced to enter the struggle spontaneously – facing without preparation a well-prepared class enemy with a highly organized state machinery at its disposal. Or they suffer from bureaucratic leadership – usually various types of reformists, populists, petty-bourgeois nationalists or Islamists – which betray the masses in exchange for a few, highly remunerated positions in the state apparatus or which drag them in a cul-de-sac of militarist adventure.

This does not mean that revolutionaries shall take a sectarian approach towards such forces. That would be criminally stupid. Revolutionaries must always and everywhere join the struggle of the masses fighting for their interests – irrespective of their current leadership. They should apply the united front tactic towards other forces which are part of such liberation struggles. This means to coordinate for joint practical activities, making proposals and putting demands on them and, at the same time, criticizing wherever such forces demonstrate their limitations.

Given the spontaneous and raw nature of various mass movements on one hand and the betrayal of various official leaderships on the other hand, it happens on and off that outright reactionary elements participate in protests for progressive goals (e.g. pro-Trump supporters within the democracy movement in Hong Kong; Putin glorifiers in pacifist mobilizations in Germany; right-wing libertarians in anti-Lockdown protests). Depending on a concrete analysis of such a situation, revolutionaries might aim to work within such movements with the aim towards expelling such forces. Commenting from outside and denouncing a whole mass movement could result in self-damaging isolation of revolutionaries.

Revolutionaries also need to work within the trade unions and other workers’ and popular mass organizations. Where such organizations do not exist, they must work towards creating new ones. Old or new mass organizations – the task is to build instruments without bureaucratic domination which serve as powerful weapons for the class struggle.

Likewise, the RCIT advocates the formation of revolutionary movement of women, of Black people, of migrants, etc. to fight for their interests.

The revolutionary maturing of the masses is not an automatic process or one taking place under the bureaucratic command of a self-appointed leadership. It is rather the result of the masses’ experience in struggles combined with the persistent education by revolutionary forces.

A revolutionary action program like the one outlined above is not an appeal to the rulers. That would be utterly naïve. You can't ask the tiger to become vegetarian. No, the demands of such a program can only be won by all forms of mass struggle dictated by concrete circumstances – beginning with mass demonstrations, strikes and general strikes, occupations, up to armed insurrections and civil wars. Hence, such a program is also a militant instrument aiding the workers and oppressed to learn what are the most effective ways to organize.

The most important instrument in the liberation struggle is a Revolutionary World Party, a party which unites the vanguard fighters from all continents on the basis of a Marxist program. This task is both an old one as well as a new one. Since such a party currently does not exist, it must be built anew. However, we do not start from scratch. The RCIT continues the revolutionary tradition beginning from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ leadership in the Communist League, the Second International until 1914, Lenin’s revolutionary Communist International and Trotsky’s Fourth International. True, this thread was broken with the programmatic and organizational collapse of the Fourth International in 1948-52. However, today forces like the RCIT are taking up the thread of revolutionary continuity in their struggle for the construction of the revolutionary world party.

If you agree with our goals, join us! Forward in the struggle for socialist world revolution! Let the fire of revolution burn down catastrophic capitalism!