As we begin to write the traditional summary of what happened in the world in this year that is coming to an end, and how we reflect it on our website, a first conclusion emerges: we lived through an agitated time. The years that preceded this one, too, were intense ones for humanity. But this year went beyond. It did not give us a moment’s respite: a war in Europe, growing tensions in the world, numerous workers’ strikes against the effects of persistent inflation and government attacks, rebellions and revolutionary processes in several countries of the world and, as if this were not enough, a coronavirus that, through its permanent mutations, is here to stay.
By the IWL-FI
Let’s start with the coronavirus. At the beginning of 2022, most of the world’s governments “decreed” the “end of the pandemic,” at the same time that a new variant (Omicron) was spreading with a high level of contagion [1]. This policy was the logical continuation of the “normalization” of the pandemic and the need to resume full economic activity and, with it, the “normal” levels of exploitation of workers and the generation of profits.
Then the pandemic became an “endemic” (a chronic disease but stable in its impact) and Covid downgraded to a ”strong flu.” A new chronic disease became part of the daily risks and sufferings of workers with a high and persistent number of contagions [2]. The combination of the accelerated destruction of nature by capitalism, the high concentration of population and its proximity to animals causes a “bridge” for zoonoses (diseases transmitted from animals to humans), and inevitably results in new pandemics. This is not our conclusion: it is stated by numerous specialists and by international organizations themselves, such as the World Health Organization [3].
In the world economy, in 2021, the bourgeois governments and the capitalist press announced that, “now, yes,” the great recovery and economic growth were beginning. Already in 2021, we considered that, in reality, it would be an anemic and low-flying recovery that was going to slow down more or less rapidly. Moreover, we predicted this “recovery” would be marked by high inflation worldwide. Reality confirmed this forecast. Both components were aggravated by the consequences of the war in Ukraine [4].
Workers’ strikes
Beyond the debate on whether we are already in or are approaching a recession in the world’s major economies, what is certain is that high inflation is hitting hard the wages and living standards of workers around the world. A blow that continues from during the pandemic and, in addition, is combined with the attacks by the adjustment plans implemented by governments and the effects of privatizations (total or partial) and reductions in public services.
In the face of these attacks, 2022 showed us the confirmation and growth of a trend already announced the previous year: the growing entry of the working class into the struggles. The list of strikes around the world is very long [5]. In this framework, it seems to us that the epicenter was located in the European working class and, within them, in the British workers.
In Great Britain, the trigger was the increase in government attacks on public services, such as transport and health, with privatizations and reductions. The starting point was the rail workers’ strike and, from there, a succession of other strikes that today has its center in the hospital workers and the health system [6]. There is a dynamic of general strike that the different union bureaucracies try to avoid, in different ways. What is certain is that this wave of struggles is combined with a crisis within the bourgeoisie due to the consequences of Brexit already provoked the fall of the government of Boris Johnson [7] and the very rapid attrition and exit of Elizabeth Truss [8].
The epicenter of these strikes may have been Great Britain, but workers in many countries, even those not experiencing a general process of struggles, showed their power. For example, in Brazil, there was a very hard struggle of the workers of the National Steel Company – CSN (one of the main companies of the country with thousands of workers) for a new wage agreement. The struggle became more acute because the company fired the commission that the workers had chosen to negotiate (they were finally reinstated) [9].
The important thing about the whole process is that, in the union elections (also covering other factories in the region), the workers elected a new leadership based on the vanguard of the struggle. Thus they took a very important first step in a task that is urgent for the majority of workers in the world: to replace the union bureaucracy (which openly betrays the struggles or leads them in order to isolate and stop them) with new leaders arising from the struggle. In this framework, our section in Brazil, advanced in its influence among the workers of CSN and the city of Volta Redonda [10].
This series of strikes was produced by economic or defensive objectives, but has a profound political significance. It attacks the heart of the central policies of the bourgeoisies and governments: on the one hand, to reduce wages and worsen working conditions and, on the other, to privatize or reduce public services, such as transportation and health.
In a balance of 2022 and its perspectives for next year, a central element for the IWL-FI is that our class is beginning to struggle through working-class structures, with its organization and its methods. For that reason, it is a central task to link ourselves and intervene in that process to promote its advance and development. At the same time, as we saw in the example of the CSN, the working class is the center where we want to build our struggles.
Rebellions across the world
2022 not only saw many strikes, but also several major popular rebellions, some of which rose to the level of true revolutionary processes. This was the case in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), an island country south of India. There, a persistent wave of mobilizations and strikes forced the hated President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (elected a few years ago by a large majority of the popular vote) to resign and flee the country, leaving the political regime he headed together with his brother Mahinde [11] with a heavy blow. Although Sri Lanka is a relatively small country, it has significance for Trotskyists because decades ago an organization of that origin (the LSSP) had great weight in the processes of struggle [12].
Developments in Iran in response to the murder of a young Kurdish woman by an agent of the so-called Morality Police for “not wearing correctly the hijab” (a traditional headscarf worn by Muslim women) had a much greater international impact. The response to this event was the trigger for the outbreak of great accumulated anger against the clerical dictatorship of the Ayatollahs and became a national rebellion against the regime which continues, despite the harsh repression [13]. The mobilization achieved a first triumph when the regime announced the dissolution of the hated Morality Police [14].
In November, numerous struggles and workers’ and popular mobilizations took place throughout a large part of China, to which, due to their international importance, we have dedicated several articles [15]. The detonator was the weariness of the workers and the Chinese people against the asphyxiating measures of the policy called “Covid Zero.” Applied by the capitalist dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party, in practice it was a repressive tool at the service of maintaining the very high levels of exploitation to which it subjects the working class of the country. But this was only the spark that ignited the “dry grass” of the accumulated anger against this regime. The dynamics of the movement points directly at the government itself. Aware of this danger, the dictatorship took a step back and eliminated some of the most irritating measures. In this sense, we can consider that the wave of rebellion obtained a first partial triumph [16].
Latin America
Here we will refer to three countries. In Cuba, at the end of September, there were numerous protests against the blackout that affected the whole country. In reality, it was a jump in the partial and rotating blackouts that workers and the Cuban people suffer on a daily basis. In analyzing the facts, we reiterate our characterization that the Castro regime restored capitalism in the 1990s and opened a process of semi-colonization of the country by imperialism, at the same time that the high cadres (especially in the army) have enriched themselves and transformed themselves into a new bourgeoisie. On this path, they have attacked and destroyed a large part of the conquests achieved after the 1959 revolution. At the same time, they deny any real democratic freedom to the Cuban people: the Castro regime has been transformed into a capitalist dictatorship. The protests and mobilizations that take place (such as those of 11J 2021) and these recent ones are the response of the Cuban people to this reality. For this reason, we characterize them as “just struggles” and we support and defend them against those who define them as “counterrevolutionary” or say that, between the people on the streets and the Castro regime, “they have no side” [17].
Another very important issue was the elections in Brazil: a broad alliance led by Lula and the PT (which included even traditional right-wing figures like Geraldo Alckmin) defeated the candidacy of the current extreme right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro. In its campaign, the PSTU argued that Lula was not the “lesser evil” but one of the two variants pushed by the Brazilian bourgeoisie and imperialism (even the preferred one)[18].
On the contrary, the majority of the Brazilian and world left sees and celebrates Lula’s triumph as a new expression of the “progressive wave” that is taking place in the continent in the path of the electoral triumphs of Pedro Castillo in Peru, Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia. The reality is that these governments (which do not confront imperialism or the national bourgeoisies in any way) have worn out very quickly, frustrating the expectations that the masses had placed in them [19].
Pedro Castillo’s government has already expired. He took office with great expectations of the poor peasantry of the interior and of many workers in the big cities. But his government quickly showed that it was not willing to change anything or to appeal to the workers’ and popular mobilization to advance that road of struggle. He became weaker and weaker and lost space in the face of a Congress dominated by the right wing that surrounded him and wanted to remove him.
Again, he did not appeal to the workers and popular mobilization to defend himself and attempted a coup d’état (closing the Congress with the support of the Armed Forces). He failed and was dismissed by that Congress, which appointed his vice-president Dina Boluarte as his replacement in order to achieve and stabilize a “normal” government [20]. But this transition of power has not succeeded: in spite of the repression, especially in the interior, there were important mobilizations of peasants in the rural areas who rejected the new government, and in the cities, the workers’ movement also mobilized. The leadership of this process in the cities is the Workers’ General Confederation of Peru (CGTP, influenced by the Community Party). It tries to lead the mobilization towards a negotiated solution with the government through the call for new presidential elections. In the framework of a profound crisis of the political regime and with the masses in the streets, our Peruvian section (the PST) intervenes with a revolutionary program [21].
The War in Ukraine
Within the framework of a very busy year, the war in Ukraine is undoubtedly the most important event since last February. A new war broke out in Europe more than 75 years after the end of the great conflict that shook the continent and almost 30 years after the wars generated by the outbreak of the Yugoslav Federation.
In a conflict in which very complex factors are expressed and combined, the IWL-FI characterized it as a war of an oppressor/aggressor country (Russia) against an oppressed/attacked country (Ukraine). From this characterization and, according to Lenin and Trotsky’s criteria, “we had a fatherland,” we unconditionally supported the Ukrainian resistance to defeat the Russian invasion, especially the working-class resistance which was at the center of this struggle. Since it was a war, we placed as a central issue of this support the question of guaranteeing the armament for this resistance. We followed step by step the changes in the dynamics of the war [22].
At the same time, we proposed a policy for the working class and the Ukrainian masses in the face of the attacks of the Zelensky government and the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, taking into account the consciousness of the masses with respect to the government, the bourgeoisie and the imperialisms. With the same method, we also denounced and fought NATO and opposed any possibility of its direct entry into the conflict.
All this was expressed in public debates (with several articles) with the organizations that support Putin’s aggression or those that adopted the position of “no side” and even with those that support the Ukrainian resistance but deny them the right to demand armaments from foreign governments.
We did not remain at the level of words; we took this policy to the streets. We took big posters to various mobilizations (such as those of March 8, May 1st or the Argentine piqueteros’ encampments), we carried out unitary acts with other parties, we promoted resolutions and actions in trade unions and other mass organizations, etc.
The most important of these actions were carried out within the framework of the International Trade Union Network, which we are part of together with trade union organizations in Europe. For example, in its meeting held in France last April, we took an activist representing the Ukrainian labor union sector. From that meeting came the first Workers’ Solidarity Convoy to Ukraine, which arrived in that country and met with mining union leaders who are participating in the resistance [23]. Then a second Convoy was held [24] and, in December, an open online conference was held with members of the Network and trade unionists from the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih to evaluate the progress of the campaign and the situation of the war [25]. We are proud of our position in the face of the war in Ukraine and, in this framework, of the concrete activities of support and solidarity with the workers’ resistance of this country that we are promoting.
Other noteworthy events
In the framework of such an intense year, the IWL-FI celebrated the 40th anniversary of its foundation. Our page dedicated a special issue to this anniversary composed of several articles and videos that deal with a review of our history, its main theoretical and political positions, and debates with other organizations that claim to be Trotskyist [26]. In these articles we reaffirm our strategy of the seizure of power by the working class at the national level as a step to carry out the international socialist revolution, that the working class is our privileged place of construction and intervention, and that our model of international is based on that of the first years of the Third International led by Lenin and Trotsky. To finalize this campaign, in February an e-book will be launched with all the articles of the special.
The year 2022 ends with an event which does not originate in the class struggle but which concentrated the attention of many millions in the world: the World Soccer Championship in Qatar. We approached this event from the denunciation of its many despicable aspects: the crude negotiation of soccer as show business with which Qatar was chosen as host, the terrible conditions in which foreign workers (many from India) built the stadiums (and its aftermath of accidents and deaths), and the harsh oppression and repression suffered by women and the LGBTQIA+ community in Qatar [27]. At the same time, many of our editorial staff, like millions of workers around the world, passionately followed the wins and losses of the national teams and rejoiced or suffered with them.
We have said that the World Cup is not based on class struggle but, inevitably, it brings up political considerations. For example, the Iranian team did not sing the anthem of their country before the match against England in what was considered a show of solidarity with the victims of repression in their country. The course of the tournament was followed a division of support for those teams that were considered to be the representatives of semi-colonial countries (Argentina and Morocco) against the “European imperialist powers” (such as Spain and France). In many countries of the world, much of the celebration of the championship achieved by the Argentine national team had this connotation.
To close the circle of the relationship between soccer and politics, even during the World Cup itself the international campaign against the execution and for the freedom of Amir Nasr-Azadani, Iranian professional soccer player, condemned to death for having participated and supported the protests against the regime of the ayatollahs, began to grow. The IWL-FI supports and promotes this international campaign [28].
We want to end this review of 2022 with some considerations. We have seen that the year showed us a deep crisis of the “imperialist world order” through the war in Ukraine, an international economy that continues to benefit the rich, and numerous structural struggles of our class as well as several rebellions that challenged regimes and governments or forced them to retreat (some, as in Sri Lanka, overthrown). It seems to us quite possible that 2023 will maintain this dynamic although imperialism and the national bourgeoisies and their governments will try to defeat it or, at the very least, to divert it.
Reality will show us which of these two forces will prevail. But what we reaffirm is our commitment to support and promote these struggles and, to the extent of our possibilities, to intervene actively in them. Our page puts itself at the service of that task and, in it, of the construction of the IWL-FI.
Notes:
[1] https://litci.org/en/omicron-the-final-wave-or-another-ripple-in-an-unending-pandemic/
[2] https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/mundo/contagios-covid-estables-mundo-oms.html
[3] https://www.who.int/en/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/pandemic-prevention–preparedness-and-response-accord
[4] https://litci.org/es/el-impacto-de-la-guerra-ruso-ucraniana-en-la-economia-mundial/
[5] See https://litci.org/en/67494-2/ and https://litci.org/en/u-s-whats-the-story-behind-inflation/
[6] https://litci.org/en/britain-the-working-class-is-rising-again/
[7] https://litci.org/en/the-fight-for-a-new-prime-minister/
[8] https://litci.org/en/truss-is-gone-build-for-a-general-strike-now/
[9] See in Portuguese our coverage: https://www.pstu.org.br/operarios-da-csn-se-levantam-contra-a-superexploracao-e-as-injusticas/
[10] See our coverage in Portuguese: https://www.pstu.org.br/pstu-realiza-plenaria-de-apresentacao-do-partido-para-operarios-da-csn-de-volta-redonda-e-seus-familiares/
[11] See, among other articles published on this site, https://litci.org/en/sri-lanka-ongoing-revolution-topples-president-rajapaksa/
[12] https://litci.org/en/the-day-trotskyists-shut-down-a-country-the-sri-lankan-hartal/
[13] https://litci.org/en/iwl-statement-in-support-of-the-protests-in-iran/
[14] https://litci.org/en/iran-on-the-rebellion-against-the-ayatollah-regime/
[15] See https://litci.org/en/category/world/asia/china/
[16] https://litci.org/en/chinese-dictatorship-backs-down-on-covid-19-policy/
[17] https://litci.org/en/cuba-protests-against-the-general-blackouts/
[18] https://litci.org/en/67025-2/
[19] https://litci.org/en/progressive-governments-a-not-so-pinky-new-wave/
[20] https://litci.org/en/peru-the-end-of-the-castillo-government-and-the-urgent-need-to-rebuild-independent-working-class-action/
[21] https://litci.org/en/peru-long-live-the-workers-and-popular-rebellion-out-with-boluarte-and-the-corrupt-congress-calling-for-a-workers-and-popular-national-strike/
[22] See our various articles covering the war here: https://litci.org/en/category/world/europe/ukraine/
[23] https://litci.org/en/csp-conlutas-goes-to-ukraine-with-international-worker-convoy-and-delivers-donations/
[24] https://litci.org/en/trade-union-network-prepares-second-workers-aid-convoy-to-ukraine/
[25] https://litci.org/en/trade-union-network-hosts-conference-with-ukrainian-trade-unionists-in-december/
[26] https://litci.org/en/40-years/
[27] https://litci.org/en/world-cup-in-qatar-when-sport-is-used-as-a-cover-for-exploitation-and-oppression/
[28] https://litci.org/en/iran-no-to-the-execution-of-amir-nasr-azadani/
