The future of humanity lies not in the ballot box, but in the class struggle!

Wars, terrorism, pandemics, climate change, insecurity, famine... Not a day goes by without a new catastrophe, without a new massacre. Every region of the world, even within the most powerful countries, is affected by this immense global chaos. The bourgeoisie has no solution to the historic crisis of its system; it can only drag humanity along in its mad race of war and destruction. In addition to the tragedy of the increasingly bloody war conflicts they are fuelling and fanning around the world, the major powers are themselves affected by increasingly brutal political upheavals.

The US presidential election at the heart of global chaos

In this respect, the situation in the United States is emblematic: while Trump is a caricature of egocentricity and irresponsibility, openly promoting his petty clique interests to the detriment of those of national capital, the entire American bourgeoisie, including its most ‘responsible’ fractions, is affected by an epidemic of every man for himself with the result that the various parties of the ruling class are less and less able to cooperate. The attempted assassination of the Republican candidate and the way in which Joe Biden, the doddering President, clung desperately to his candidacy, seriously compromising the victory of his camp, are striking symbols of this tendency towards disintegration and chaos within the very state apparatus that is supposed to guarantee a semblance of cohesion in society.

The inability of the dominant factions of the American bourgeoisie to disqualify Trump, despite numerous judicial and financial attempts, has only served to exacerbate tensions between the different political camps, with the vengeful spirit of Trump supporters intensifying and the deafening media hype surrounding the ‘danger’ that Trump and his clique represent for ‘American democracy’. Since the storming of the Capitol in 2020, Trumpists have been denouncing the ‘injustice’ of the judicial treatment meted out to the ‘peaceful demonstration of patriots’ frustrated by the ‘stolen victory’ of the Democratic ‘usurpers’. Each side is now burning red-hot, especially since Biden's forced resignation. And despite fears of an implosion of the Democratic camp, Kamala Harris has been the subject of massive support, which has enabled her to rapidly go toe-to-toe with Trump in the polls. The unpredictable nature of the final result is accentuating the violence of the confrontations and the difficulties in controlling the electoral game.

As a result, the institutions of the American state are being badly shaken by a major destabilisation which, given the United States' place in the global imperialist arena, cannot remain without consequences for the whole planet. The outcome of this confrontation between the Democrats and the Republicans continues to worry all the chancelleries, which no longer know which way to turn. The election is also a source of deep concern about the course of military conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and the Middle East.

But beyond the immediate results in November, the level of tension within the bourgeoisie of the American superpower will not improve and can only further destabilise relations between all the imperialist powers on the planet.

The rise of populism undermines the ‘old continent’

While the political situation in the United States has a major impact on every continent, it is far from an isolated case. On the contrary, it is a continuation of the global populist wave, a pure product of the decomposition of the capitalist system, in which we are seeing the triumph of the most retrograde, divisive and irrational bourgeois conceptions. The rise of populism in Europe was largely confirmed during the European elections, accelerating the process of destabilisation of the ‘old continent’, which can only increase in the future.

But the populist wave is only the most spectacular form of a much wider process of disintegration and growing chaos within the European bourgeoisie. In France, the dissolution of the National Assembly has led to an increasingly uncontrollable political situation. The forced marriage of the Franco-German couple is floundering and Chancellor Scholz is himself politically weakened by the strong AfD push, particularly in the east of the country. In Great Britain, the Conservative party has collapsed and Farage's populist Reform party has made an unprecedented electoral breakthrough, while the riots led by far-right groups are giving rise to counter-demonstrations that reflect a situation that is also increasingly polarised and chaotic. The destabilisation and weakening of European states are already beginning to have an impact on the global situation, particularly on the Ukrainian front and in Eastern Europe, or in the inextricable chaos of sub-Saharan Africa.

Bourgeois democracy against the working class

The working class is faced with capitalism's deepening economic crisis, unemployment, job insecurity, budget cuts and untamed inflation. In this context of serious economic deterioration, in the face of imperialist tensions and confrontations on all fronts, governments are obliged to increase their already colossal military spending, which can only deepen debts and increase budget cuts and attacks.

Faced with austerity, the proletariat has already begun to respond all over the world, as was the case in the vast struggles in Britain from June 2022 to spring 2023, during the movement in France against pension reform in 2023 or during the strikes in the United States in the civil service in California or in the car industry in 2023. Even today, there are still many mobilisations: strikes by railway workers in Canada over the summer, massive strikes at Samsung in South Korea, the threat of massive walkouts in the automotive and aviation sectors in the United States...

The feeling of belonging to the same class, victim of the same attacks and having to fight united and in solidarity, is gradually beginning to develop. But this break with the past, after decades of stagnation, is still marked by weaknesses and unanswered questions. How can we escape the corporatism in which the unions are trapping us? How can we fight so that we are not powerless? What kind of society do we want?

But the decomposition of bourgeois society and the destabilisation of the bourgeoisie's political apparatuses are currently no advantage to the struggle of the working class. The bourgeoisie seeks to use all the phenomena and miasmas of decomposition, to exploit them ideologically and turn them against the proletariat. It is already doing this on a massive scale with the wars, trying to push proletarians to choose one imperialist camp against another, as we saw with the conflict in Ukraine, but above all with the war in Gaza, with pro-Palestinian demonstrations designed to divert disgust at the massacres onto the terrain of nationalism. It is also doing this with the rise of populism and the destabilisation of its political apparatus through a vast propaganda campaign in favour of bourgeois democracy.

The left-wing parties of the bourgeoisie are particularly effective in this area, constantly calling for populism to be blocked at the ballot box, for ‘democratic’ institutions to be revitalised against the ‘rise of fascism’, and promising wonders once in power. In France, this is the case of the New Popular Front, which is up in arms over President Macron's refusal to appoint its candidate Lucie Castets to the Matignon and is denouncing this ‘denial of democracy’. A section of the left around La France Insoumise and the ecologists also organised a ‘riposte’ on 7 September to occupy the streets and prevent the working class from fighting against the economic attacks and the threat of capitalist barbarism. In the United States, Kamala Harris, with her more ‘empathetic’ approach’ is effectively hunting in Trump's territory and managing to win over a large female audience and a young electorate. This relaunch of the ideological campaign in favour of democracy, which is proving relatively successful, also attempts to divert the proletariat from the struggle.

The working class must reject out of hand these ideological campaigns which aim to reduce it to impotence and to the defence of the bourgeois ‘democratic’ state and the nationalist straitjacket. It must be wary of this ideology and above all of its anti-fascist versions, such as those deployed in Great Britain on the occasion of the far-right riots, during demonstrations in which the false radicalism of the leftists, especially the Trotskyists, was on full display. They are always inclined to distort marxism and the history of the workers' movement in order to better drag the proletariat onto the terrain of the bourgeoisie, to support for “just wars” or “voting for change”.

WH, 8 September 2024