The undersigned revolutionary Marxist tendencies and groups extend May Day Greetings to all communists, socialists, class conscious workers, anti-imperialists and partisans of the oppressed around the world.
This May Day the world faces the accelerated decline of US imperialism under the Trump administration. The change in US strategy with the end of the Biden administration has caused a significant rift with the US’s European NATO allies, centrally Britain, France and Germany, who have threatened, very unconvincingly, to continue arming Zelensky’s regime in place of the US and even sending troops into Ukraine themselves, trying feebly to pressure the Trump administration, which is not remotely interested, to agree to this. The European Union and Britain is in considerable crisis and turmoil over Ukraine. The EU powers-that-be regard Trump’s strategic shift over Ukraine as the most disastrous change since WWII.
At the same time, Trump is stepping up US support for Israel’s genocide and escalation in West Asia/the Middle East. Trump was helped to take office again by the Zionists, and in return they expect help to exterminate the Palestinians, advance into the West Bank, destroy those who try to stop them, such as Iran, Yemen and Hezbollah, and even continue with the Greater Israel project, with expansion into post-Assad Syria, ruled by ISIS.
Nearby, between Iran and China, Trump is provoking the appetites of the Indian bourgeoisie, encouraging the rekindling of the conflict with Pakistan, in addition to transferring some US multinational factories from China to India.
The overall situation is accelerating the decline of the US. In this context, we see the vacillating tariff war, which supposedly aims to pave the way for the reindustrialization of the United States, but has already caused losses of several trillion dollars to US capital. The withdrawal from Ukraine has been offset by threats to extend US power in the Western Hemisphere/Americas and things like the annexation of Greenland and Canada.
But beyond the oppressed countries and allies, arguably the main target is China, the giant deformed workers state whose growth in productive capacity is now outpacing the West. This has already created a situation where there is a degree of economic dependence of the West on the advanced productive capacities of China for much in the sphere of electronics, among other things. Even though China is not led by anything like an internationalist, communist leadership, its planned and regimented form of capitalisation contradicts capitalist logic and means that it is at least incipiently stronger economically than the West.
We now go to the national groups for analysis of the situations of those countries on their domestic terrain:
Argentina
Milei’s neo-fascist government is increasingly unleashing an attack on workers. The government justifies the policy of low wages to “contain” inflation, and unemployment is growing month by month. In the context of the exhaustion of the economic cycle of the Milei government, the IMF and other multilateral organizations came to the aid of the neo-fascist government. The debt contracted represents 61% of the loans granted by the international financial organization with all its creditors. The IMF and other multilateral organizations came to the aid of Milei’s government in the face of the exhaustion of the economic cycle of empowerment of the role of financial-speculative capital that originated it. In this context, Trumpism expressed support for Milei’s government, which has not (yet) disassociated itself from China. In essence, there were no new advances by China in Argentina. But there is the latent danger for imperialism that in a Post-Milei the government will be advanced by tendencies more inclined towards China. Behind the IMF loan to Argentina was pressure from Wall Street. The speculative capitals that will enter Argentina to do short-term financial business seek to withdraw before the economic situation becomes more unstable. Then the cost of that debt must be paid by the workers. In the immediate term, the Miel government begins to program the adjustments demanded by the IMF. To guarantee the payment of the debt in the coming months, the following are pointed out: the increase in electricity and gas rates, the pension adjustment that is coming, labour flexibility. In this he also attacks if he includes the so-called “tax reform”, that is, the unloading of the burden of taxes, even more, on popular consumption. Whatever the pace of the economic and political exhaustion of Milei’s government, whatever its duration, we cannot foresee. Workers must prepare to face the attacks that will come from a neo-fascist government that is eroding its base of support. They must take advantage of the difficulties and struggles with all sectors of capital that the crisis of that exhaustion itself will generate. This must be done with the orientation of building an independent tool of the working class so that the contexts of exhaustion and political and economic crises, of tendencies that are based on attacks on workers, can provide a way out that means an advance for the working class.
Australia
Australia will hold a Federal election only two days after May Day. The party of government, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) is a hollowed out social democratic party. The Liberal Party opposition is a conservative right-wing party that openly flirts with far-right politics. Both parties are united in their defence of imperialism and profits.
Trump’s return to power and the shift of the US to “America First” fascism is creating problems for Australia as a junior imperialist power. Its desire to continue profiting from economic ties with China but its reliance on the US to maintain imperialist control of the region are threatened. Such tensions can only deepen as the war drive against the rising Chinese workers state quickens.
Regardless of who wins the election the period ahead will be turbulent. The Australian ruling class anticipating deepening working class resistance to its agenda of war and austerity has utilised the massive Palestinian solidarity mobilisations to further its police state powers. The ruling class in its attack on the militant construction union (CFMEU) is signalling it expects industrial struggles to also deepen. The time ahead must be used urgently to build and bring closer together the small anti-imperialist communist forces that do exist to influence the struggles ahead.
Britain
British imperialism plays a parasitic role, largely as a lackey of US imperialism. The Starmer Labour government was not created by any class polarisation but openly touted by the ruling class as a failsafe given the dysfunction of the Conservative Party, which came close to disintegration after Brexit. Both this and the previous government have been defined by NATO’s Ukraine proxy war, the Gaza genocide, and continued austerity. It is the antithesis of the left social democratic leadership of Jeremy Corbyn from 2015-2020, the product of a determined effort at destabilisation waged by the social-liberal (“Blairite”) wing and the powerful Zionist component, that destroyed Corbyn’s leadership. They engineered a severe election defeat in 2019. Starmer the remainer became a flag-waving Brexiter. He supported Zionism “without qualification”. In October 2023 he stated Israel had every right to starve Gazans of all fuel, power, food and water. Statmer won in July 2024 with a majority of 171. He made Labour ‘fit to govern’ for the ruling class but got fewer votes than Corbyn (33.8%), compared to 2019 (32.1%), and fewer actual votes, on a much lower turnout, only 60%, the lowest since 2001. A contingent of left-wing independents won seats – Jeremy Corbyn, and four independent Muslims critical over Gaza.
This hated government kept the Tories two-child benefit cap, attacked pensioners and the disabled with large-scale austerity attacks. It cut the Tories’ neoliberal bureaucracy in the National Health Service, but Labour’s privatisers are heavily invested in private healthcare themselves. Almost the first crisis it faced was a wave of far-right near-pogroms when a terrible murder of children was misrepresented as the work of a refugee. The regime supressed them using police, but it was the anti-racist left who mobilised a protest response that undercut the attempted pogroms. Since then, they waged further attacks on refugees and migrants. There has been an avalanche of attacks on democratic rights – on the Palestine Solidarity movement, and other causes, such as environmentalists, and arrests of those protesting disability cuts. There is the beginning of opposition in the labour movement, with threats of rebellion by MPs, and agitation in some trade unions. Conscription of young workers to fight in Ukraine is a possibility, though problematic due to the decrepit state of the British armed forces. The British section of the LCFI participates in initiatives, such as the Socialist Labour Network, aiming to crystallise a genuine working-class party.
Brazil
Brazil is the largest and most populous country in Latin America. It is a semi-colony associated with the BRICS, under permanent political siege by US imperialism, through the national financial oligarchy, as demonstrated by the coup d’état of 2016. Lula’s victory over Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential elections was a great demonstration of the class consciousness of Brazilian workers and anti-fascist mobilization. It was a great surprise for those who no longer believed in the strength of the working class. But the conscious policy of the leadership of the PT and the Central Única dos Trabalhadores of depolarization and the non-mobilization of workers in the streets to crush and annul the Bolsonarist forces favors the return of the extreme right to government. Meanwhile, the Lula government, hated by imperialism and financial capital, continues to maintain policies of capital accumulation against the working class: privatizations, high interest rates, fiscal framework and indebtedness. In addition to the belief in the strategic alliance with the sectors of the dominant classes (broad front) for the achievement of some superficial reforms. This policy is isolating the Lula government, and disorganizing the workers, and strengthening it from the extreme right and capital.
Pressured by the fall in popularity, the government has been making important gestures such as the exemption from income tax for those who receive up to five thousand reais, a range in which 95% of the Brazilian working population is found. Also important was the massive demonstration of March 30, in São Paulo, against the amnesty for the coup plotters in order to reconquer the streets. But so far, they are only progressive spasmodic gestures that have not been reversed into a consistent policy and a new course for the government or the party. Bolsonaro and the military coup plotters have been made defendants in the Supreme Court and part of the financial capital is betting on the Governor of São Paulo, Tarcisio, or others to replace him more effectively against the workers. We defend the arrest and expropriation of all the coup plotters, of yesterday (1964-1985) and today (2016-2023) and, above all, of their bourgeois sponsors. If we do not continue with larger mobilizations against amnesty for the coup plotters
United States
Trump is leading a government of the most parasitic layers of American finance capital. The circle of billionaires tapped for the Trump administration is worth four thousand times more than the previous Biden cabinet. At $383 billion this club holds more wealth than the combined gross product of 172 countries. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is overseeing the slashing of $1 trillion from the state budget by mass firing of federal workers, outlawing their collective bargaining rights, gutting essential social insurance benefits, and destroying entire government departments. The Trump regime is a billionaire oligarchy masquerading as a government.
Two things stand out:
1. The American political superstructure has been brought into alignment with the real social relations of property in the United States
2. This concentration of power within the state apparatus facilitates mobilization for a world war of imperialist aggression
Trump is in the process of overturning the basic norms of parliamentary democracy in order to concentrate all authority of the state in the executive branch. He is using the Enemy Aliens Act (1798) to construct a wartime presidential dictatorship during peacetime. By inventing an invasion at the Mexican border and signing a flood of ultra reactionary decrees he hopes to create enough fear and chaos to overwhelm and paralyze potential resistance before it can coalesce. Just three months after the inauguration the Trump regime has:
—kidnapped and deported to the CECOT terrorist confinement centre in San Salvador hundreds of undocumented immigrants
—Revoked the visas of over 300 Foreign students and abducted pro- Palestine campus activists and sent them into the dungeons of the US prison system
—Arrested judges in their own courtrooms for aiding illegals
— Defunded universities for failure to suspend pro-Palestine students
The US has not witnessed such targeted state repression since the days of the FBI Cointelpro covert operation against the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. And that was done under the cover of darkness!
By refusing to obey the orders issued by the courts, including by the conservative Supreme Court, Trump has deliberately provoked a constitutional crisis. Scores of court orders remain unfulfilled as the executive branch is openly challenging the judiciary.
Despite the rampage of police state repression, outright gangsterism, and Trump’s challenge to judicial authority, the campaign to solidify dictatorial rule has not yet succeeded. The US is neither a fascist society, nor has Trump succeeded in imposing his personal dictatorship.
Despite appearances of unity there are sharp internal conflicts and divisions within the administration. There is a major conflict between the Wall Street faction and the tariff/MAGA faction. To prevent a sell off of US Treasury notes, hedge fund billionaire Scott Bessent, prevailed on Trump to rescind the tariffs. Similarly, when Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell refused to lower interest rates as Trump demanded, Wall Street made Trump back down, acting again through Treasury Secretary Bessent.
There has been no political opposition from the Democrats as a party. Although they lost the election to Trump by a margin of less than 2% the Democratic Party is playing the role of loyal opposition party. Even as Trump‘s approval ratings plunge the Democrats are accepting the conventional status of bipartisanship, passively waiting for the 2026 congressional elections. While its liberal and reformist base has shown itself ready and willing to fight, the party fears mobilizing its own activist supporters much more than it fears Trump.
The absence of official opposition from the liberals reflects the underlying unity of the two political parties of capitalism around the fundamental issue of war with China. The real division within the ruling class is over the best strategy to defeat China and regain the lost hegemony of American imperialism. One faction wants to tie Russia down by continuing the proxy war in Ukraine; the other wants to disengage from Ukraine to better attack China by both economic and military means. And they remain solidly united on unconditional support to the genocidal Zionist entity, and for increased aggression against Iran.
Since Trump’s return to the White House public support for the Dems has dropped to a record low, with only 29% of Americans viewing the party favorably. Yet millions of people, previously considered Democrats, have turned out for mass demonstrations in early April. Outraged that their party has mounted no opposition to Trump’s agenda they’ve taken to the streets across the country. Reformist senator, Bernie Sanders, has drawn large crowds to his Fight the Oligarchy rallies, including over 30,000 last week in Denver, which he said is the largest turnout he has ever had. Sanders himself, In contrast to those at his rallies, will not tolerate any show of support for the deportees, foreign students, or Palestinian solidarity. The contradiction between Sanders and his supporters came to a head at Coachella when a Palestinian flag was unfurled and he allowed police to remove the protestors. The crowd then erupted in chants of “Free, Free Palestine!” Now the Sanders tour is facing criticism from major Democratic Party politicians.
Another key sign of the pent up anger and outrage seeking expression appeared this week at the Coachella music festival when the hip-hop band, Knee Cap, brought thousands to their feet when they projected three screens:
“Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people”
“It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes”
“Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.”
During the performance, band member Mo Chara said: “The Irish not so long ago were persecuted at the hands of the Brits, but we were never bombed from the… skies with nowhere to go. The Palestinians have nowhere to go.”
The band led the audience in chants of: “Free, free Palestine”.
The Knee Cap video has since gone viral
The working class is not yet playing an independent role and remains tied to the trade union bureaucracy which has loudly supported Trump‘s protectionist tariffs. But as the tariffs spark layoffs in auto and steel, empty shelves and soaring prices appear at the grocery store, and fears of recession grow, pressure will mount on the trade union bureaucrats.
The expressions of opposition to the fascist agenda we have seen so far are of critical importance for showing that a collective will to resist is seeking an outlet. In the face of a Trump lead drive to fascism and war there can be neither room for reformist illusions, nor longing for a liberal saviour like Sanders. Resistance to the fascist danger requires the organized power of the working class acting in its own name.
The above is signed by the following tendences and groups.
Liaison Committee for the Fourth International, consisting of:
— Consistent Democrats (Great Britain)
— Emancipação Do Trabalho (Brazil)
—Tendance Militante Bolchevique (Argentina)
ClassConscious.org (Australia and United States)
