The cause for which the Haymarket martyrs gave their lives was
embraced by the working class all over the world. Three years later, in
1889, the founding congress of the Second International, meeting in
Paris, resolved that May 1 would be the day on which workers of all
countries would simultaneously demonstrate for the eight-hour day. From
that day forward, May 1 has belonged to the international working class.
The
eight-hour day was the central demand of those first May Days. Today,
May Day is a fight for the survival of human civilization itself.
Indeed, such is the state of exploitation that even the most elementary
conquest of the workers’ movement, the eight-hour day, has been
abandoned by the trade union apparatus. While AFL-CIO functionaries
organize “May Day Strong” events with the Democratic Party, workers in
the warehouses, hospitals, schools and factories endure 10-, 12- and
14-hour shifts.
The celebration of May Day came to be embedded in the fight for the
unity of the international working class against capitalism, inequality
and exploitation—a day dedicated to advancing the struggle for workers’
power. Leon Trotsky wrote in 1918 that the original purpose of May Day
had been “by means of a simultaneous demonstration by workers of all
countries on that day, to prepare the ground for drawing them together
into a single international proletarian organization of revolutionary
action having one world center and one world political orientation.”
That
task—the construction of an international revolutionary leadership of
the working class—remains the unfinished historical work of our epoch.
It is the work of the International Committee of the Fourth
International.
*****
Speakers will include leading representatives of the ICFI and its
supporting organizations from the United States, Britain, France,
Germany, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil and Russia;
along with representatives of the International Youth and Students for
Social Equality and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File
Committees.
The rally will feature statements collected from
workers and young people on every continent—postal workers, autoworkers,
teachers, dockworkers, students—who are entering into struggle and
looking for a way forward.
*****
Register now at wsws.org/mayday.
The rally begins at 3:00 p.m. US Eastern Time. Gather your coworkers,
your classmates, your families, your friends. Today, May 1, 2026, take
your place in the international socialist movement.
Dr. [Abeer] Omar, who has over 25 years of experience as a nursing educator and
researcher, has faced down persecution of her principled defense of the
human rights of Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians under imperialist
attack. That she should have had to do so comes as no surprise: Canada’s
Liberal government has backed the genocide in Gaza and the US/Israel
war on Iran to the hilt. In June 2025, she joined hundreds of academics
and civil society groups in signing an open letter to Prime Minister
Mark Carney that denounced Canada for its complicity in the Gaza
genocide and demanded Carney take action to stop any “aid and
assistance” to Israeli war crimes. Predictably, this letter fell on deaf
ears.
*****
In a video statement... in support of the International May Day Online Rally
to be held Friday, May 1, Dr. Omar denounces the systematic slaughter of healthcare workers
by Israel in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and the US and Israel’s
targeting of civilians in their war of extermination against Iran.
Minutes after US Secret Service agents took Donald Trump from the
stage at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday and detained an
alleged attacker after a shooting incident, Venezuela’s interim
president Delcy Rodríguez became one of the first world leaders to
publicly condemn the attack.
In a post on X, she declared: “We
reject the attempt of aggression against President Trump and his wife,
Melania, to whom we extend our good wishes, as well as to the attendees
of the Correspondents’ Dinner. Violence will never be an option for
those of us who defend the banners of peace.”
This statement was
one of the most grotesque from any leader. Associating Trump with
“peace,” Rodriguez whitewashes the ongoing avalanche of war crimes
unleashed by Washington across the globe and directly against Venezuela
itself.
The World Socialist Web Site opposes the kind of
attack alleged at the Washington Hilton on a principled basis. Political
violence carried out by individuals serves only to strengthen the
forces of reaction. But this opposition does not require—or
permit—portraying Trump, or US imperialism more broadly, as a victim
divorced from its own systemic violence.
Indeed, as in previous
assassination attempts, Trump is already exploiting the incident to
criminalize opposition and escalate his authoritarian drive. His efforts
to overturn democratic processes in the United States are inseparable
from a broader imperialist campaign aimed at recolonizing Latin America.
Rodríguez’s statement, along with a similar one from Mexico’s “leftist”
president Claudia Sheinbaum, objectively lends support to these
efforts, providing political cover for Washington’s aggression.
*****
The January operation was not a one-off attack. US military activity
in the region has intensified dramatically. Bombing campaigns have
expanded into Latin American waters and border regions. A joint
US-Ecuadorian operation dubbed “Total Extermination” targeted rural
areas, bombing rural homes and detaining agricultural workers.
Simultaneously,
the Pentagon has escalated maritime strikes, particularly in the
Caribbean and eastern Pacific. More attack aircraft and MQ-9 Reaper
drones have been sent to bases in El Salvador and Puerto Rico to carry
out more air strikes on fishing boats, killing at least 186 people under
the pretext of combating drug trafficking since September.
Meanwhile,
Washington is openly threatening further regime change operations,
including against Cuba. Trump has declared that “Cuba is next” after
Iran.
US naval exercises have begun near Cuba, codenamed Flex2026,
integrating artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and traditional
forces to enhance surveillance and control. Reconnaissance drones like
the MQ-4C Triton and electronic aircraft such as the RC-135 patrol Cuban
airspace and maritime routes, tightening the noose around the island.
Within
Venezuela, Rodríguez’s statement has drawn criticism even from Chavista
circles, with some pointing out that it ignores the long campaign of US
sanctions that has caused over 100,000 excess deaths and forced over 8
million to flee the country.
Some commentators, however, argue
that the government is merely “buying time,” hoping for better
conditions—higher oil prices, geopolitical shifts, or a popular
upsurge—to reassert sovereignty and defend social programs. But such
illusions have already been exposed.
*****
This trajectory is not a betrayal of Chavismo’s principles—it is
their logical outcome. The so-called Bolivarian Revolution, proclaimed
after the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, represented sections of the
national bourgeoisie seeking better terms within the global capitalist
system. During periods of high commodity prices and closer ties to
China, Russia and other economic powers, it used limited social programs
to contain the class struggle and negotiate a greater share of the
profits for the local ruling class.
But as conditions
changed—particularly with the slowing growth of the Chinese economy, the
weight of US sanctions and military threats—these same forces have
capitulated, prioritizing their own privileges and class rule over the
working class.
*****
The events in Venezuela confirm a fundamental lesson: the national
bourgeoisie in oppressed countries is incapable of carrying out
democratic tasks, including genuine independence from imperialism.
This
reality vindicates the Theory of Permanent Revolution advanced by Leon
Trotsky. Only the working class, leading a socialist transformation of
society, can break the chains of imperialist domination. This requires
not only the overthrow of capitalist states domestically, but an
international movement aimed at restructuring the global economy to
serve human need, not private profit.
Rodríguez’s statement is not
merely hypocritical—it is symptomatic of a deeper crisis. It reflects a
political movement that has abandoned any pretense of resistance to
imperialism and now seeks accommodation with the very forces responsible
for the immense suffering of the people it claimed to represent.
In a blatant act of censorship in late March, Sri Lankan Customs
authorities have seized books by Tamil writer Pradeepan Deepachelvan,
who teaches Advanced Level students at Murugaananda College in
Killinochchi in the war-ravaged northern province of the country. The
targeted works included three novels titled Naduhal (Memorial Stone), Bayangaravadi (The Terrorist) and Cyanide, along with a collection of essays and a volume of interviews.
Customs seized 360 copies of the five books, which were shipped from
Chennai, India and arrived in Colombo, underscoring the state’s direct
intervention to block the circulation of literature dealing with the
social and political experiences produced by Sri Lanka’s decades-long
communal war.
Customs authorities claimed without providing a
shred of evidence that the books posed a threat to “national security”
and “national harmony.” Unable to substantiate the accusation, Customs
officials reportedly referred the matter to a “special committee”
attached to the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural
Affairs, as well as to military authorities, before making any final
decision.
Such high-handed, politically charged allegations would
not be levelled by Customs officials without being prompted by the
ruling Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/National People’s Power (JVP/NPP)
government, which is steeped in anti-Tamil chauvinism.
Deepachelvan told the World Socialist Web Site
that officials informed his representatives in Jaffna that the books
were being held for review. Following criticism of the government’s
actions by several civil rights groups, including the Free Media
Movement, Customs has agreed to release three of the books.
The
two remaining works continue to be withheld on the grounds that they
could allegedly damage “coexistence among communities,” a claim that
remains entirely unsubstantiated.
These actions by the government
and its authorities constitute a direct and blatant attack on freedom of
expression, carried out under the fraudulent banner of protecting
“national harmony.”
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the World Socialist Web Site
condemn this act of censorship and demand the immediate and
unconditional release of all of Pradeepan’s books. Writers and artists
must have the democratic right to present their views without state
interference or intimidation.
Deepachelvan, a Tamil writer with seven poetry collections, has
consistently addressed themes stemming from Sri Lanka’s three-decade
civil war. His works have been translated into Sinhala, Malayalam,
Hindi, French and Norwegian, reflecting a broad readership that crosses
the communal divide in Sri Lanka and extends internationally.
*****
The anti-democratic action against Deepachelvan takes place amid a
deepening economic crisis and rising social anger. The Dissanayake
government is implementing the austerity dictates of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), imposing severe attacks on workers and the poor
through tax increases, spending cuts and privatisation.
Since
independence in 1948, successive Sri Lankan governments have
systematically cultivated anti-Tamil chauvinism to divert mounting
social tensions and defend capitalist rule. This policy culminated in a
protracted communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed
during the final months of military operations, and thousands more were
forcibly disappeared. The JVP, mired in Sinhala chauvinism from its
inception, was an ardent supporter of the communal war.
The Human
Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, a toothless, government-appointed body,
has criticised the seizure of Deepachelvan’s books as a violation of
freedom of expression. The Free Media Movement, condemning the seizure,
has also questioned the authority of Customs officials to determine
whether literature constitutes a threat to “national security.”
*****
Such attacks on freedom of expression are not unique to Sri Lanka.
Across South Asia, governments increasingly invoke “national security,”
“religious harmony” and “public order” as pretexts to suppress dissent.
In India, the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party government has
encouraged censorship and attacks on intellectuals accused of offending
religious sentiments. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, journalists and
writers face arrest and intimidation under allegations of spreading
“anti-state propaganda.”
These developments are inseparable from
the deepening global crisis of capitalism and the intensification of
imperialist rivalries. Governments around the world are strengthening
authoritarian forms of rule as they prepare for social upheavals driven
by war, inequality and economic breakdown.
*****
The Socialist Equality Party insists that Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim
workers must reject all forms of communal politics and defend the
democratic rights of writers, artists and intellectuals.
The
immediate release of Deepachelvan’s books must become part of a broader
struggle against state repression, austerity and the capitalist system
itself, which breeds dictatorship, war and communal division.
The observance of Workers Memorial Day 2026 took place amid an
escalating assault on workplace safety in the United States of
breathtaking scope. Trump has vastly accelerated the dismantling of
already inadequate safety regulations and enforcement mechanisms.
According
to “Death on the Job,” the annual report issued by the AFL-CIO in
conjunction with Workers Memorial Day, based on 2024 figures, an
estimated 380 workers die each day from illness and traumatic injury.
The
report notes that over the past year, job fatality rates increased in
several sectors, including leisure and hospitality (from 2.3 to 2.4
deaths per 100,000 workers) and government (from 1.8 to 2.0).
Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting remain the most dangerous
industries (20.9 per 100,000), followed by mining, quarrying, and oil
and gas extraction (13.8 per 100,000).
At
the same time, staffing at the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) has fallen to historic lows, with only five
inspectors per 1 million workers. The fatality rate for young workers
has nearly doubled since 2020. Environmental rules are being repealed
wholesale, including limits on the emission of toxic chemicals,
greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
Despite these conditions,
the American trade union bureaucracy marked the day with largely
boilerplate statements that neither accept responsibility for worsening
conditions nor propose meaningful initiatives to defend workers’ lives,
beyond appeals to employers, lobbying in Washington and electoral
activity.
The AFL-CIO stated that its officials “will be in the streets and at
worksites to peacefully engage our co-workers and neighbors on the
issues at stake in the next election so we can ensure that everyone can
vote and every vote is counted.” This only underscores the union
bureaucracy’s efforts to subordinate workers’ lives to the Democratic
Party, a party of Wall Street and corporate America no less than the
Republicans.
Similarly, the American Postal Workers Union
encouraged members to participate in symbolic actions such as moments of
silence, candlelight vigils and AFL-CIO events.
The death of 64-year-old autoworker Greg Knopf on March 16,
2026, at the Ford Sharonville Transmission Plant in Ohio, when a press
machine activated during maintenance.
Two workers killed on April 23 at a chemical facility in Institute, West Virginia, with dozens more injured.
The death of April Flores following a forklift accident on April 4 at an H-E-B warehouse in San Antonio, Texas.
A 53-year-old worker crushed by an excavator on February 6 at RJ Industrial Recycling in Flint, Michigan.
The
November 8, 2025 death of maintenance mechanic Nick Acker at a Detroit
mail facility, where safety features were reportedly disabled, followed
by the death of Russell Scruggs Jr. days later in Georgia.
It
has also been more than one year since the death of Stellantis Dundee
Engine worker Ronald Adams Sr., who was killed on April 7, 2025, when a
gantry crane activated during repairs. Stellantis has not been held
accountable, and the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health
Administration has released no findings. The only detailed investigation
was conducted by rank-and-file workers associated with the
International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.
Globally,
the International Labour Organization estimates that 2.93 million
workers die annually from work-related causes, including up to 380,500
from workplace injuries.
*****
The lack of seriousness with which the American labor bureaucracy
views the question of workplace safety was perhaps best highlighted by
the short shrift paid by UAW President Shawn Fain, who posted a short
statement on X on the occasion of Workers Memorial Day. Following a year
of fires, explosions and workplace carnage, the only actual incident he
referenced was the recent death of Ford worker Gregg Knopf. He said
nothing about the continued stonewalling and cover-up by MIOSHA and
Stellantis of the circumstances of the death of Dundee Engine worker
Ronald Adams Sr.
The reason for this is clear. The UAW is part and
parcel of the cover-up of Adams’ death. Last year, the UAW bureaucracy
used the occasion of Workers Memorial Day to issue a joint video with
Stellantis executives praising their joint efforts to protect workers’
lives. This insulting video, which made no mention of Adams, was
released the same day as the 63-year-old skilled tradesman was buried in
Detroit.
Far from fighting for strengthening safety, the UAW
actively collaborates with management to cover up safety violations and
to ensure that management is not held accountable when deaths and
injuries occur. This is because the union apparatus is joined at the hip
with Stellantis and other automakers through the UAW-Stellantis safety
committees and a host of other similar corporatist programs that
essentially funnel company cash into UAW coffers.
*****
Even the actual tracking of official statistics is undermined by the
patchwork of state, federal and local oversight and reporting in the US,
largely the product of corporate lobbying. While the federal OSHA
implemented a Severe Injury Dashboard
in 2024, which compiles all the reports from 2015 to the present, there
are major limitations. The data only covers just over half the US
population, which works in the 28 states covered by federal OSHA
programs. Injuries to workers in the 22 “state plan” states, which
administer the OSHA program at the state government level, do not appear
in the data, unless covered by federal OSHA, like United States Postal
Service workers. Federal OSHA does not cover state and municipal
workers, so those workers are not represented in the data.
*****
The basic social rights of the working class, such as workplace
safety, can only be defended and advanced through the independent
mobilization of the working class in opposition to the parties of the
ruling class and their defenders in the trade union bureaucracy. Over
the past year, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File
Committees (IWA-RFC) has taken the initiative in defense of workers’
safety by conducting independent investigations into the deaths of
Ronald Adams Sr. and postal workers Nick Acker and Russell Scruggs Jr.
The
IWA-RFC calls on workers to form rank-and-file committees in every
factory, warehouse and workplace to counterpose the will of shop-floor
workers to the dictates of management and the union apparatus. This
includes fighting for workers’ control over line speed, safety
conditions and production, enforced through collective strike action
against any unsafe conditions.
The fight for health and safety is
bound up with the fight to put an end to a global social system based
on the exploitation of wage labor for private profit. This requires the
building of a socialist and internationalist leadership in the working
class.
Two more workplace deaths have been reported this week in Queensland,
taking the total number of workers known to have been killed in
Brisbane, the state capital, and its surrounding region to four in
recent weeks.
On Tuesday, a 36-year-old worker was crushed while
employees were moving large crates filled with stock at around 5:36 p.m.
at a workplace in Wellcamp, near Toowoomba, a regional city about 130 kilometers west of Brisbane.
Initial police and media reports
indicated that crates slipped and landed on the worker below. The man,
from Harristown, a Toowoomba suburb, was assessed by paramedics at the
scene for critical injuries but was declared dead a short time later.
Also reported this week was that Miikael “Mikey” Varuhin, 32, a
Finnish construction worker, fell about four meters through scaffolding
at a development site in Clayfield, an inner northern suburb of
Brisbane, on April 6, suffering a catastrophic brain injury.
Varuhin
was declared brain dead later that night. He had reportedly raised
concerns about the scaffolding on site on the day he fell and had sent a
photo from his phone.
The young worker’s sister, Anniina, told
the media: “This is an injustice what happened—no one should go to work
and never come back.” She said her young brother had moved to Brisbane
seven years ago and planned to make the city his home.
The known
workplace fatalities around Brisbane now total seven in six months. This
is part of a rising toll due to unsafe conditions, increased rates of
exploitation by employers, official coverups and government complicity
in Australia and internationally.
The latest shocking deaths follow two others just reported in April.
*****
In all these cases, the official state safety agency, Workplace
Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ), said it would investigate the
circumstances with assistance from police, but few details have been
released. Such investigations can take many months or years and always
end up in whitewashes or, at best, paltry fines on employers.
Even
where trade unions have members on sites, they work hand-in-hand with
managements and the supposed government safety bodies to cover over the
real cause of dangerous working conditions—the subordination of workers’
health and lives to the interests of corporate profit, notably through
speed-ups, subcontracting and casualisation.
As a result, workers’
deaths continue. Data from Safe Work Australia indicates that by April
9, 30 workers had died nationally in 2026, following 180 deaths in 2025.
These figures understate the true toll because chronic occupational
illnesses and unreported incidents are often excluded from official
counts.
*****
Workplace deaths and serious injuries are on the rise globally, as corporations cut costs and impose productivity increases to satisfy the demands of their financial backers.
To
fight this, workers need to take matters into their own hands.
Rank-and-file committees, independent of the union apparatuses, must be
established in workplaces everywhere to fight for improved safety, wages
and conditions.
Hegseth spoke as the representative of a completely criminal
government, personally advocating that US troops commit war
crimes—including upon direct questioning at the hearing.
In the
face of a broadly unpopular administration, the Democrats made it their
highest priority to emphasize—despite tactical disagreements—their
solidarity with the Trump administration’s megalomaniacal program of
world conquest. Their objections were that Trump’s plans do not go far
enough, or that the Iran war has left the United States unprepared for
war with nuclear-armed China and Russia.
Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York called for doubling
the number of nuclear-capable stealth bombers in the request, from 100
B-21 Raiders to 200. “We’ve been working together to grow the industrial
base because we’re all worried about how our stockpiles would hold up
in a conflict against China,” Gillibrand said. The B-21, she added,
“will be a critical part of both our conventional and our nuclear
deterrence against China and Russia.”
Democratic Senator Mark
Kelly of Arizona voiced his support for expanding military spending,
saying: “I’ve always been supportive of defense spending in my entire
time here. After 25 years in the Navy, I want to make sure our folks
have what they need.”
Democratic Ranking Member Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior
Democrat on the committee, opened his remarks by saluting the war
against Iran. “Tactically the United States military performance against
Iran has been remarkable,” Reed said, “and I salute the service members
who executed this mission with skill and bravery.”
His criticism
was that the war has left the United States less prepared for war with
China. Three carrier strike groups have been pulled into the Middle
East, leaving the Pacific thinly covered. “In terms of … where we’re
putting … the most powerful part of our Navy,” Reed asked, “can you
explain again what that means in terms of the situation in INDOPACOM
where China is watching?” His argument was for a larger war, redirected
at Beijing.
Democratic Ranking Member Adam Smith of Washington took the same line at
the parallel House hearing Wednesday, telling Hegseth he had heard “the
chairman on the need for an increased” budget and attacking popular
opposition to the war: “I strongly disagree with the folks on the far
left who say that we don’t really face any threats.”
After Iran, Everyone Knows It.” The Iran war, the Times
argued, exposed weaknesses adversaries can now see. “The good news is
that Congress, the administration and the Pentagon can all now see our
military shortcomings,” the editorial concluded.
At Thursday’s
hearing, Republican Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi endorsed the
Trump administration’s military budget as necessary to prepare for
military conflict with China.
“First and foremost, we’re locked in
a competition with Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party,” Wicker
said. “The competition is high stakes, and it is about whether this will
be an American-led century or a century defined by authoritarian,
autocratic regimes that care little for the needs of their citizens or
those in neighboring countries. The Chinese Communist Party has
accelerated its historic military buildup and its predatory economic
practices against Americans and countries the world over. Xi Jinping
leads not only China, but also an axis of aggressors.” Of the budget:
“Every penny of it should be money well spent.”
*****
The criminal character of the administration was on open display at
Thursday’s hearing. Asked to retract his March 13 order that US troops
give enemies in the Caribbean “no quarter, no mercy,” Hegseth refused.
Kelly read him the definition from his own department’s Law of War
Manual—that no “legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that
detainees will be executed”—and asked twice whether he stood by the
statement. Twice Hegseth replied: “We fight to win.”
The character of “the mission” the Democrats endorsed was thus on the
record. Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan told Hegseth: “I
agree with the Chairman … that the world has never been more dangerous
and complicated, and … we can all agree that we want our military to
come out of it safely and successfully.” A successful mission, by the
secretary of defense’s own definition, means offering “no quarter” to
those targeted by US imperialism and the destruction of “a whole
civilization,” in the words of Trump.
Thursday’s hearing took place as the administration moved to defy the
60-day War Powers Resolution clock on the Iran war. Friday is the
statutory deadline by which the president must either seek congressional
authorization or certify in writing that more time is required to
withdraw US forces. The administration intends to do neither. Hegseth
said the White House takes the position that a current ceasefire pauses
the clock—a reading with no basis in the statute.
Trump was scheduled to be briefed Thursday evening by U.S. Central
Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper on new military options against Iran,
including, per news reports, a “powerful” series of strikes on Iranian
infrastructure, a ground operation to seize part of the Strait of Hormuz
and a special forces mission to secure Iran’s stockpile of highly
enriched uranium.
The Senate Democrats speak for the same
capitalist oligarchy as Donald Trump. Their disagreements were
operational—anxiety that the Iran war is going badly, anxiety that the
United States is unprepared for the larger conflict with China both
parties expect. On the question of whether US military spending should
surge toward $1.5 trillion to wage that war, Thursday’s hearing revealed
no disagreement at all.
His predecessor Olaf Scholz “always said he did not want to play
security policy off against social policy,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz
told Der Spiegel in a detailed interview. “We can no longer afford that,” Merz said. “We must set priorities.”
The
cabinet did just that on Wednesday. Military spending has priority. It
is being increased sharply, and social spending slashed accordingly.
According to the financial benchmarks presented by Finance Minister
Lars Klingbeil (Social Democratic Party, SPD) and adopted by the
cabinet, the Defence Ministry’s spending financed from the core budget
will rise from €82.2 billion this year to €179.9 billion in 2030. Almost
one in three euros from the federal budget will then flow directly into
rearmament and war. In the next two years, additional billions will be
added from the “special fund for the Bundeswehr [Armed Forces]” passed
in 2022, which expires at the end of 2027.
Outlays on debt
servicing are also rising, as rearmament spending is largely financed
via additional loans. According to Klingbeil’s plans, the government’s
interest expenditure will climb to €78.7 billion by 2030, which is about
12.5 percent of the budget. This year it still amounts to €30.3
billion. Little will be left for social spending.
Parallel to the benchmarks for the budget, the cabinet has initiated a
draft law to reform statutory health insurance from Health Minister
Nina Warken (Christian Democratic Union, CDU). It will now be debated in
the Bundestag (federal parliament) and is to be passed before the
summer holidays. It will deliver the death blow to healthcare in its
current form.
As
early as next year, the spending of the statutory health insurance
funds is to be reduced by €16.3 billion. This is to be achieved by
cutting and increasing the cost of services as well as imposing strict
savings targets for hospitals and doctors. The latter are to bear the
main burden of the cuts.
Overall, spending in the healthcare
sector may only rise as fast as the average contributory income per fund
member. This is supposed to save €11.3 of the total €16.3 billion. The
consequence will be that hospitals and doctors’ practices are faced with
the alternative of cutting salaries or laying off staff. Many will go
bankrupt or no longer be able to find enough staff willing to do the
demanding work while understaffed and poorly paid.
*****
What is completely missing from the draft law—apart from a slight
increase in the contribution assessment ceiling, i.e., the income limit
up to which health insurance contributions are payable—are measures that
make the rich pay. The massive wealth accumulated through rising stock
market prices, exorbitant real estate values and inherited fortunes do
not contribute to these costs. In Germany, there is not even a wealth
tax.
The problem, therefore, is not that there is not enough money
available for good healthcare for everyone, but that healthcare stands
in the way of the enrichment and war plans of the ruling elites. It is
of interest to them only insofar as it yields profit.
*****
Klingbeil’s budget plan contains numerous further austerity measures
at the expense of the wider population. Federal subsidies for long-term
care insurance and pension insurance are also to be cut, and social
benefits slashed. In pension insurance alone, €4 billion a year are to
be saved, even though its requirements are growing due to the increasing
number of pensioners; the pension commission set up by the government
will not present its report until the summer.
Overseas development
aid is also to be massively curtailed. In addition, all ministries are
to reduce their spending by 1 percent, even though inflation is rising
sharply again. The Ministry of Defense is, of course, exempt from this.
The integration of the RIO Morenoites into the Left Party marks a
further political shift to the right by this pseudo-left tendency, which
can only be understood in the context of the current crisis of
capitalism. It is taking place against a backdrop of escalating
imperialist wars, growing social attacks and increasing political radicalization, particularly among young people and workers.
Worldwide,
the development towards a Third World War is intensifying dramatically.
NATO is escalating its confrontation with the nuclear-armed power
Russia in Ukraine. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza with the
support of the US and European powers. The US-Israeli attack on Iran
threatens to plunge the entire region into war. At the same time,
Germany is witnessing the largest military buildup since the Second
World War, while social and democratic rights are being systematically
dismantled.
This development is meeting with growing resistance.
In Germany, in the past year, before and after the federal election,
thousands—primarily young people—have joined the Left Party, often in
the hope of finding there a political instrument in the struggle against
war, fascism and social inequality.
“There is a huge discrepancy
between the hopes that young people associate with the Left Party and
what it actually is. The former want to oppose the fascists, they reject
the refugee agitation, and they want reasonable incomes and affordable
rents,” wrote the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) in a statement
on the result of the 2025 federal election. “But the Left Party has no
program to counter the shift to the right by those in power. It is
spreading the illusion that the main parties of the ruling class can be
persuaded to change course through a combination of parliamentary
opposition and pressure from the streets.”
The statement continued: “The Left Party claims it is possible to reform
capitalism, not abolish it. But that is a dangerous illusion. The
ruling elites’ turn to the right is not simply the product of mistaken
policies that can be corrected by a bit of pressure. The ruling class
everywhere is resorting to dictatorship and war because it is confronted
with the deep crisis of its social system.”
*****
Officially, RIO justified its entry into the Left Party by citing a
focus on the party’s new, predominantly young members. Yet instead of—as
would be the task of Marxists—educating them about the character of the
Left Party, breaking them away from it and winning them over to an
independent socialist perspective, RIO pursues the opposite goal: It
deliberately ties these potentially oppositional forces to a party that
is itself deeply integrated into the capitalist state apparatus and
actively supports the reactionary offensive of German imperialism.
*****
The reactionary nature of this orientation can only be understood by
clearly defining the character of the Left Party itself. It is not a
contradictory “arena” in which different class interests vie for
influence but a historically developed bourgeois party that represents
the interests of the state and the wealthy middle classes.
Its
roots lie in the SED (Socialist Unity Party), the Stalinist ruling party
of the GDR (East Germany), which oppressed the working class for
decades and organized the capitalist restoration in 1989–90. With the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the Stalinist bureaucracy transformed itself
into a bourgeois force, secured property rights and integrated itself
into the reunified German state. In doing so, it carried the nationalist
and anti-Marxist character of Stalinism to its ultimate conclusion.
As resistance to the consequences of the Schröder government’s Agenda
2010 intensified, the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), the
successor party to the SED, merged in 2007 with the Electoral
Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) to form the Left Party,
in order to absorb and neutralise the resistance. The WASG was an
alliance of former SPD and trade union officials who feared that the
SPD, due to its right-wing policies, was no longer capable of
suppressing the class struggle.
Since then, the Left Party has
established itself as an integral part of the capitalist profit system.
Its participation in government, particularly in the state of Berlin,
was inextricably linked to massive social spending cuts. Under its
shared responsibility, tens of thousands of public sector jobs were cut,
public housing was privatized and comprehensive austerity programs
were implemented. The party thus proved that it is prepared to enforce
the interests of capital just as consistently as the SPD or the CDU.
At the same time, it played a central role in laying the political
groundwork for the return of German militarism. The involvement of its
foreign policy spokesperson, Stefan Liebich, in the 2013 strategy paper
“New Power—New Responsibility” was a decisive step in this direction.
This document openly articulated Germany’s ambition to once again assume
a leading military role on the international stage and served as a
blueprint for the bellicose speeches delivered by Gauck, Steinmeier and
von der Leyen at the 2014 Munich Security Conference.
In the years
that followed, the Left Party increasingly and openly supported this
course. It backed the NATO war offensive against Russia, the regime
change war in Syria, the genocide in Gaza and, most recently, the
US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran.
The party’s political
callousness is particularly evident in the statements of its chairman,
Jan van Aken, who welcomed the assassination of Iranian leaders by
saying they should “rot in hell.” This statement is not a personal lapse
but an expression of the political character of a party that has placed
itself entirely at the service of imperialist interests and the
barbarism that goes hand in hand with them.
The Left Party also bears primary responsibility for the rise of the far
right. In its former strongholds in the east, the Alternative for
Germany (AfD) is now the strongest party. On the one hand, it has itself
contributed significantly to the social misery that is driving many
workers, in particular, to despair. On the other hand, the fact that it
pursues right-wing policies under the guise of “left-wing” rhetoric
fuels the disappointment and political frustration that the AfD and
other far-right forces deliberately exploit. And like all other
bourgeois parties, the Left Party is also prepared to cooperate even
with the far right and its supporters within the ruling class and to
implement their anti-refugee and anti-worker policies.
RIO’s role is deeply rooted in the history of Morenoism. This
current, named after the Argentine politician Nahuel Moreno, has for
decades been characterized by its adaptation to non-proletarian forces.
As early as the 1950s, it broke with the world Trotskyist movement and
aligned itself with Peronism. Moreno and his followers joined this
bourgeois-nationalist movement and declared that their organization acted “under the discipline of General Perón.” In doing so, they
abandoned the fundamental principle of Marxism—the political
independence of the working class.
This accommodation had
devastating political consequences. In 1958, on the instructions of
Perón, who had fled abroad to escape the military, Moreno supported the
election of a right-wing bourgeois president, even as sections of the
Peronist rank and file opposed this course.
In the 1960s, this
pattern was repeated in the attitude towards the Cuban Revolution.
Initially, Moreno denounced Fidel Castro because the Peronist movement
glorified his opponent, the dictator Fulgencio Batista, as the “Cuban
Perón.” Moreno subsequently made a 180-degree turn, describing Cuba as a
workers’ state and hailing Castro, a petty-bourgeois nationalist, as a
model for the revolution throughout Latin America. Underlying both
positions was Moreno’s refusal to formulate an independent policy for
the working class.
The full extent of the reactionary role played
by Morenoism became apparent in Argentina in the 1970s. While the
country was in the throes of a deep revolutionary crisis, Moreno’s party
aligned itself with the Peronist government and advocated for its stabilization. It signed declarations in defense of the “institutional
order” and pledged to fight for the “continuity of the government” at a
time when paramilitary forces were murdering workers and left-wing
activists. This policy contributed to the political disarmament of the
working class and paved the way for the 1976 military coup, which cost
tens of thousands of lives.
*****
For workers and young people who wish to fight against war, fascism
and social inequality, a clear conclusion follows: This struggle cannot
be waged within parties that are themselves part of the bourgeois state
and political reaction. It requires a conscious break with all such organizations and the building of an independent revolutionary movement
of the working class on an international basis.
RIO’s entry into
the Left Party is therefore not merely a political declaration of
bankruptcy on the part of this organisation. It creates political
clarity. The struggle for a socialist perspective is inextricably linked
to the struggle against pseudo-left tendencies which, under the guise
of radical rhetoric, defend the political pillars and interests of the
capitalist system. It requires the building of an independent
revolutionary world party—the International Committee of the Fourth
International (ICFI), which is represented in Germany by the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) and its youth organization, the IYSSE.
The
fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an
essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide,
dictatorship and fascism.
