World Perspectives 2016: Advancing Counterrevolution and Acceleration of Class Contradictions Mark the Opening of a New Political Phase

Theses on the World Situation, the Perspectives for Class Struggle and the Tasks of Revolutionaries (January 2016)

Document of the International Executive Committee of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency, 23 January 2016, www.thecommunists.net

Note of the Editorial Board: The following document is an extensive study of the present state of the world economy and the global class struggle. It contains 55 figures, 9 tables and one diagram. The figures can only be viewed in the pdf version of the document below for technical reasons.

Contents

I.             The Main Features of the New Political Phase

II.           The Decay of the Productive Forces and the World Historic Revolutionary Period which Opened in 2008

III.          The World Economy: Facing the next (and even worse) Great Recession

IV.          The World Political Situation: Class Struggle in a Phase of Counterrevolutionary Offensive

IV.1.      The Accelerating Rivalry between the Great Powers

IV.2.      Counterrevolutionary Offensive: The Retreat of the Arab Revolution Continues Despite Heroic Popular Struggles

IV.3.      Counterrevolutionary Offensive: Imperialist Wars Abroad – Repression and Racism Within

IV.4.      The Consistent Struggle against Imperialism, Militarization and National Oppression – A Key Issue in the Current Period and a Litmus Test for Authentic Marxists

IV.5.      Counterrevolutionary Offensives: The Bankruptcy of Bourgeois Populism and the Right-Wing Shift in Latin America

IV.6.      The Political Situation and Class Struggle in Asia

IV.7.      The Political Situation and Class Struggle in Africa

IV.8.      The Political Situation and Class Struggle in Europe

IV.6.      The Political Situation and Class Struggle in the USA

V. Building of a New Revolutionary World Party as the Crucial Task in the Coming Period