(N.B. The present article appeared in issue no. 1 of our German-language journal Kommunistiches Programm).
It is always difficult for capitalist States, torn by inter-imperialist competition and propelled by the economic crisis, to camouflage their own economic dominion as though it were the height of social development: this very myth of lack of alternative is one of the conditions for the survival of capitalist power. The exploited and the oppressed must be politically integrated, either through reactionary, nationalist mobilization acting as the infantry in inter-imperialist rivalry and with a view to the consolidation of the system, or thanks to the illusion of a possible transformation of this system.
In this context, on 6 and 7 July, a show-summit of 20 powerful States will take place in Hamburg, congenially rounded off by alternative demonstrations with colourful proposals for an improved and better regulated organization of the capitalist mode of production and against financial speculation (which has become too evil), against debt, environmental damage, arms production and war. But anti-capitalist oriented and tendentially revolutionary activists and groups, too, took action at the beginning of July to organize a Gipfelsturm (violent action against the summit) – a significant event in the development of the left-wing political context, not only in Germany.
Imperialist reality
The imperialist scaffolding is starting to creak. “America first”: this is the motto with which US imperialism, through its newly-elected president, Trump, directly addresses its competitors. The military-style show of muscle is nothing new: over the past few decades the USA has had growing difficulty in hanging on to its role as director of the world, thanks only to its economic force, as well as its military power. Imperialism under the symbol of dollar-power nonetheless finds itself in increasing difficulty, in direct ratio to the progress made by its competitors, first and foremost China, whose economic relations with the USA come up against their own limits. Meanwhile, China disposes of US loans to the tune of over 1 trillion, whilst the US trade deficit with China has risen to almost 350 billion over the past year. China is attempting to reduce its dependency on the dollar and, by using its huge reserves of currency, to intensify its own exports of capital. The “Middle Kingdom” openly advances its imperialist intentions under the motto “a new silk road”: its ports and military investments in the Horn of Africa (Djibouti), as well as its increased activity in Europe, point to the itinerary of this “silk road”.
The fact that China is becoming the second largest investor in the world after the USA and that it is already number one in terms of its commercial relations with Germany causes the German foreign minister, Gabriel, to speak of a new “world division” – a new division that is also manifest at a military level: the USA and China alone are increasing their military spending by 2 percentage points a year.
German imperialism is highly indignant that, during the meeting with the G20’s finance ministers prior to the summit, the USA refused to approve the usual empty formulae of the conclusive statement on freedom of commerce and against protectionism, advancing criticism of the enormous trade surplus of the GDR. The surplus of the German trade balance (over 250 bilion euro in 2015) is also the economic basis for the process of erosion affecting the European Union (EU), which, with the exit of Great Britain (with a trade deficit of almost 150 billion euro in 2015), has reached its maximum level. At the same time, the EU is attempting to penetrate the cracks left open by the USA (e.g. the free trade agreement with Japan, announced by Trump at the beginning of the year) or not yet filled by China (the “Marshall Plan for Africa”).
The historically unchanging world order that Merkel and her partners in Hamburg wish to refer to at the conference looks more like a ruined palace in disguise – a disguise which, it is recommended, may be uncovered by reading, amongst other titles, Lenin’s study on imperialism, written during the first world war, where for example, we read: “Thus, in capitalist reality, and not in the vulgar phantasies of the English priests or of the German ‘Marxist’ Kautsky, the ‘inter-imperialist’ or ‘ultra-imperialist’ alliances are NONE other than a ‘pause for breath’ between one war and another, whatever form these alliances may take, whether one imperialist coalition against another imperialist coalition, or a general league of all the imperialist powers. Peace alliances prepare wars and are, in turn, born of them – whether one or the other form, they determine one another reciprocally and, on ONE AND THE SAME terrain, produce imperialist links and relations in world economy and politics, an alternation of pacific and non-pacific forms of struggle.”
The Summit and its alternatives
Faced with the show put on by the Summit of imperialist States, the reformists intend to organize a “counter-summit”, through which alternative political proposals are to be advanced. They thus wish to strengthen “participatory and democratic rights” to motivate the countries of the G20 towards a change in policy, which should combat poverty and hunger… and thus they complain, for example, in their invitation, that no “global rules for a stable financial economy” have yet been established. At the meeting of the finance ministers in March, ATTAC had already complained that “ ‘just and democratic answers’ to global problems could not be expected from the G20” and had demanded that measures be taken against “tax havens”, the competition between States to provide reduced taxation, as well as for “efficient regulation of financial markets”. Precisely as they did with the campaign for amnesty (Erlassjahr) in the organization’s demonstrations in Baden Baden against the meeting of the G20 finance ministers and for a “correct and democratic mechanism for converting debts”, ATTAC’s defenders of the State demand from the capitalist State a policy for alleviating the consequences of the capitalist crisis. It is impossible to take these absurd, pro-capitalist positions seriously, and indeed, in the above-quoted text, Lenin had already written pertinently of them: “the learned and bourgeois publicists’ defence of imperialism generally tends to take a larva-like form, dissimulating the absolute dominion of imperialism and placing before it secondary features, distracting attention from the essential with proposals for “reform” that are not particularly credible, such as, for example, the proposal to establish a police-like control over trusts and banks.” (cit. pp. 150-151).
Instead, it is certainly worth dealing with apparently more consequential positions, such as those represented by the autonomous groups who, in their appeal for an anti-capitalist demonstration on 6 July, advance a radical differentiation of the summit-show: “We are opposing the summit as well as any effort to include political critique and resistance as a part of the summit’s orchestration as a democratic institution”.
Radical criticism without consequences
Against the backdrop of the personal and theoretical decline of the autonomous movement since the end of the 1980s, in pride of place are active protests against the summits, distinguished by proclamations marked by considerable verbal radicalism. Unlike the confused politics of the alliances, the autonomous groups pose the question of the System and assume a position clearly opposed to reform. “In contrast to bourgeois opposition, we do not suggest to the rulers any alternatives for keeping the capitalist system alive.” (from the Call to the Demonstration of 6 July). And again: “The summit (G20) is a key expression of the political dilemma of capitalism: its contradictions are not solved, as is maintained, by politics and those administering politics […]. The G20 is therefore – not least in relation to parliamentary elections – a formal event that has to legitimize itself by putting on a show […]. At the same time, the numerous crises of global capitalism see a further, giddy escalation.”
In any event, a radical refusal of capitalism also requires an analysis of its function, its contradictions and, above all, the material bases for overcoming it. And it is precisely here that the serious limits of the autonomous movement’s radicalism are to be seen. Instead of setting out from the social force created by capitalism, on which the socially-organized production of goods grounds its existence, and with this, also the strength needed to abolish capitalist relations (the proletarian class), the autonomous movement remains confused and subjective and, therefore, politically compatible. Clear as the criticism of reformism is, in the appeals of the autonomous movement, discourse on “practices of resistance” and “new prospects for resistance” remains equally confused: not a word on the proletarian class and the international class war, no link between the development (and crisis) of capitalism and the dynamics of the class war… When we read in the leaflet “however, capitalism’s penetration of the world also acts to unite resistance”, this may sound fine at first; but when it is then concluded that: “resistance against the open mines in Colombia has a link to urban political battles against the Moorburg coal company in the port of Hamburg, which uses Colombian coal as raw material,” and that “desertification and migration caused by climate change have a direct bearing on struggles for the right to housing,” and “the connivance between the interests of valorizing capital becomes evident, like criticism and political attack,” none of these words touch remotely on the terrain of the international class struggle. On the contrary, the old practices of bourgeois initiatives (which in the end can only be of a democratic nature and State-oriented) are resuscitated. For us, instead, it is a matter of abolishing capitalist relations and not of producing a political criticism of them! Since the “anti-capitalism” of the autonomous movement does not intend taking the final step towards the proletarian class war, it itself remains on the same plane as bourgeois politics and the “social revolution” it promotes becomes a matter of empty words.
The communist prospective
Marxism has the merit of having analyzed the driving forces of capitalist development, placed capitalism in the context of its historical role and defined the course of the proletarian class war. The appearance of the proletarian class on the social battlefield and its constitution in the form of a political party had already been recognized in theory by Marx and Engels when capitalism was still on the rise. They indicated the path of an independent class struggle, deriving from real experiences of struggle (for example the Paris Commune), the need for the violent seizing of power and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The harsher conditions of the class struggle in capitalism’s imperialist phase, analyzed so precisely by Lenin, brought the need to defend Marxist theory against opportunism onto the agenda. The revolutionary class war against capitalism is a long and complex historical process. Neither the many attempts at revising Marxism, nor the numerous opportunist betrayals have managed to prevent the class war re-emerging from the terrain of capitalism. After the betrayal of social democracy, the historical working class party assumed the form that led to the unification of parties in the Communist International. It was the practical work, oriented by firm theoretical principles, of the “Italian” communist Left that represented, after Stalin’s counter-revolution, the basis for the renaissance of the class party, together with the proletarian struggle in the final phases of the second imperialist war in Italy. With the united international communist Party, the historical party of the working class reappears on the battleground. To keep the continuity of the true class party alive and develop a strong and efficient world party from its organizational nucleus is our main task today.
Even though the dominance of defenders of the capitalist system – reformists, democrats and even fascists still – weighs heavily, it is the system itself that is producing new cracks where sectors of the class start to fight for their own interests and look for alternatives. It is our task to promote these struggles, broaden them and, in the limits of our own forces, direct them and take up the thread of the class war again. Only in this way can the precious treasure-chest of experience in the battles of our class be used and become a real prospective above and beyond the subjective excogitations of projects and conformist political mishmash.
Forward, then, with the International Communist Party!
International Communist Party