Statement of the Political Bureau of the PCTE on May Day
Trade war between powers
The tariff war unleashed by the US Government has shaken the guidelines of the world capitalist market. The financial chaos, the diplomatic bustle, the fast framing of the different social actors around the “national interest” and the corresponding launch of the propaganda machine evidence that the international capitalism has entered a new stage with huge risks for the lives of workers all over the world.
Our time is characterized by the extremely high level of internationalization of capital, i.e. the economic intertwine of the different countries through the tentacles of the unequal economic interdependence. This means that the volatility the international capitalism has entered inevitably threatens the working class and the peoples from all over the globe, even though the headlines of the big media only include the statements and political ruses of the leaders of just a bunch of powers at the forefront of the chain. The sparks can ignite anywhere, and any of these sparks can result in a generalized fire.
Furthermore, capitalism is a system doomed to suffer unavoidable cyclic crisis. Workers, who are paying their consequences with our life and labor conditions, know it well. Precisely, the accumulation of crisis in the last decades has caused this apparent rearrangement in which the old alliances crack and new agreements arise, always for the pursuit of more profits for their own capitalists.
In the particular case of the power that has created this new scenario —the United States—, the protectionist trends of the first Trump term, far from being paralyzed or slowed down, were consolidated during the Biden Administration. The first world power has witnessed in the last years how it has been losing ground in certain spheres of influence and economic sectors against some of its competitors — quite particularly against its most direct competitor, China.
The trade war we are witnessing does not respond to the psychological profiles of particular characters nor a change of direction in the trends that had been ripening in the international relations. However, the histrionics and belligerence Donald Trump has started his second term with is neither a mere theatricality, but rather a reflection of the intensification and sharpening of capitalist contradictions. The fact that the form is answering to the content becomes evident in the picture he left during his inauguration with all the billionaires from the big technological monopolies along with the new President.
The true sense of Trumpism, connected to an international reactionary tendency, is nothing but the need of the monopolies from the first world power to be freed from certain obstacles and find in the political way certain eases in order to maximize their profits. Within this framework, the scientific-technical development opens new and hard struggles between countries and monopolies, since it is generating new requirements, new raw materials, and new markets to compete for.
The old Europe: more cannons and less butter
One of the features of the imperialist stage of capitalism is that the internationalization of the economy brings about the competition between big companies to a global sphere. The intrinsic need of capitalism to permanently pursuit the increase in their profits causes frequent struggles for the control of markets, natural resources, and transport routes for energy and commodities. Against an already divided world, there is room for new divisions only according to the strength of each competitor. When the economic situation urgently demands new sources and bigger profit rates, conflicts inevitably break out.
The trade war is just one more form of the inter-imperialist struggle (a struggle between powers), but this form historically preludes the military conflict. It is therefore not weird that the European Union already supports, in an open and definitive way, the path for rearming. They are all preparing for war.
Again, this is not an impulsive reaction to the tariff conflict. Already in September, the Draghi Report was way too clear in its warning about what should be the slogans if the European Union did not want to suffer a “slow agony”, given its competitive decline against the USA and China: strengthening the single market, increasing productivity, and fostering the re-industrialization. The prospect of increasing productivity and the re-industrialization —which went through the digitalization plans, the increase of labor flexibility, and the “ecological” transition within the strategies of the EU— maintains its essential features, even though the order of priorities, i.e. the primary allocation of resources and investment, has slightly changed because of the breakage of the Euroatlantic alliance.
The ReArming Europe Plan is an ambitious package of measures devoted to granting financial resources to the EU member States in order to increase their defense abilities. According to Ursula von der Leyen: “The era of the peace dividend is long gone”. Europe thus returns to the path of cannons — a path that has historically left a long trail of blood. Nobody can doubt that the millions of euros for the funding of the rearming will also carry with them the black shade of austerity again, i.e. the justification of the worsening in the living standards of the working class and the popular strata for the sake of the war business. The huge propaganda efforts in the last weeks in order to attempt to convince the population that the increase in the military expenses will not have any result in indirect salaries (pensions, education, healthcare, and so on) is a symptom of capital focusing on the submission of the public opinion to the war as its main challenge.
The holy alliance around capital
The Spanish social democratic Government has proved its strong and unfailing support to the EU warmongering plans. It has announced in the parliament a “big national plan” devoted to technology, security, and defense. The Government, which has increased in more than 10 billions the military expenses in the last five years, is now setting the goal at 2% of the GDP. All of this is happening without the approval of new budgets and according to agreements made in the intimacy and darkness of the Council of Ministers.
It has neither been long before they have announced millions of euros of public funding for the Spanish monopolies affected by the US tariff policy. Again, this is a massive transfer of public income, mostly coming from the working class, that are going directly to private hands. The activation of the RED mechanism —a mechanism enshrined in the 2021 Labor Reform that enables companies to cancel or reduce workdays for their workers while being granted up to 60% in exemptions on their fees to social security. Under the appearing slogan of “defending employment”, the Government supports the direct funding with public resources of a larger mobility of workforce according to the needs of employers.
In press statements, Sánchez himself talked about the required “national unity” to face the crisis and defend the interests of Spain and Europe. Such sacrosanct national unity is nothing but the demand to discipline, behind the interests of Spanish capital and its main allies in the process of war rearming, funding, and ease of the exploitation. There are few doubts on the fact that the main political parties —the representatives of various sections of the Spanish bourgeoisie—, are shaking hands in this strategy and will continue to do so, even if it is just under the table. The pressures and negotiations mostly answer to party interests in the electoral struggle or to their approach in the management, but not to a substantial program difference. The PP and the PSOE, as the two political parties with real possibilities to take charge of the State, are the highest expression of the capitalist consensus around the offensive started.
This scenario, ruthless for the working class and the popular strata, could make anyone think that a strong opposition by those who say to be their representatives has been created, from Sumar to the main trade unions — CCOO and UGT. Far from this, the trade-union boards hurried to the call to unity of President Sánchez. They celebrated labor flexibility and the transfer of millions to the affected employers. Satisfied by the rhetoric effort of the Government, which prefers to talk about “security” instead of rearming, the trade unions do not seem to need much more to make their influence on the working class available for the warmongering and austerity policies, for the sake of the State. They will do so just at the expense of getting a comfortable and frequent seat in negotiation and dialogue tables guaranteed as well as the preservation of the internal social peace in order to more calmly develop the external war.
On their part, Sumar —in its total submission to the “big brother”— is losing every glimpse of its own features and becoming a mere puppet whose work is limited to serve on a plate warm compresses for the Government’s policies. Every glimpse of breakout within the social democracy to the left of the PSOE, every possibility to split paths with the PSOE, has disappeared from the political horizon. It does not matter how evident the reactionary policies of the Government become — they are barricaded behind their five ministries, waiting for the future elections to pass sentence about its political project.
Podemos is also living in this wait. It is arising in this context, enjoying its “freedom of movement”. The phony radicality of the purple formation aims at making the public opinion forget that, when they were in the Government, they fulfilled the same subordinated role Sumar is representing today; and also that when they were running for the elections together, as Unidas Podemos, they participated in such obscurantist dynamic consisting in publicly opposing to the increase of military expenses but privately compromise on them through subsequent budget modifications, which already attained record figures.
The trend towards reaction in every sense
While a bloodshed continues in Ukraine —whose future is subdued to the diplomatic plots of the different powers and bloc—, while Gaza has become a vast death camp —whose rebuilding is so mouth-watering for the monopolies from different countries—, all the actors seem to take a stance while explosive material is being accumulated. The comparison with World War I becomes a prophecy — and its realization is written in the intrinsic laws of capital.
The sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradictions, the increasing conflict between the capitalist powers — workers from all over the globe will pay for it with our work and our lives. We will be nothing but cannon fodder in their plundering wars, mere figures of death, exchanged according to the rules of commerce in the imperialist era by profit figures in their bank accounts.
Against the growing capitalist competition in the international sphere, the trend towards the reinforcement of the different States —which require not only arming to the teeth, but also national cohesion in order to pounce on their competitors— is aggravated. This means an internal increase of surveillance and repressive mechanisms, an increased repressive coverage for social peace —which we are already witnessing in our country— and the increase of nationalism.
All this environment is furthermore the ideal breeding ground for the growth of the ultra-reactionary and fascist forces that are beginning to be structured internationally. The State fetishism, the economic nationalism, the most refractory chauvinism, the sharpening of repression and anti-communism — these are some of the ideological elements connecting the interests of a section of capital, the “losers of globalization”, with the social radicalization of certain middle strata. Thus the program of maximums of the bourgeoisie takes shape in a moment of crisis.
Turning the cannons — building the working-class opposition
This is the context a new May Day, a new International Day of the Working Class, is being held. This is the ideal moment to settle scores, to assess the current scene of class struggle, and to inspect our ranks. It is true, nowadays the correlation of forces is enormously negative for the working class in both the national and the international spheres. However, far from being discouraged, May Day should be a date for commitment, for getting stained, for taking sides, for changing the situation.
If capitalists have turned the slogans of rearming, labor flexibility, and austerity into a banner, the workers’ movement needs to answer with the same clarity when defining its own independent program, structured around three essential axes — against the imperialist war, against dearness and labor flexibility, for the unity of the working class as a whole against capitalism and reaction.
Around these three axes, a working-class opposition to the capitalist offensive can and must be structured, our forces can be politically and ideologically rebuilt, starting with the organization at workplaces and following by its coordination with the organization at neighborhoods, villages, and schools.
A working-class opposition that knows that only our own organized forces can radically change the situation and break down the capitalist normality directly leading us to the gates of new and bigger war conflicts.
A working-class opposition that raises again the banner of proletarian internationalism — capable of answering to the chauvinistic propaganda machine that there is no community of interests in a nation, that the only community of interests is created by the world proletariat.
A working-class opposition capable of proving with deeds its growing force, of radically breaking down the practices and speeches of social peace, and of answering with combativeness, with practical victories, to their plans of war and exploitation.
A highly organized working-class opposition, capable of carrying out its struggles no matter the conditions, of answering with discipline and determination to the increase of repression and the reactionary rise.
A working-class opposition that “turns the cannons”, that make Karl Liebknecht’s words its own. He was brave to oppose to war credits and declare: “the main enemy is at home!”. Because, indeed, the main enemy of the working class is its own bourgeoisie.
There is much work to do in order to build such working-class opposition, by every stance taken is an arm intertwined, a small but decisive advance. Thus, step by step, shoulder to shoulder, and class against class, the red banner of communism will be waved again as a symbol for hope and revolution — as the only possible answer to the barbarism of imperialism.