The comrades of Socialist Resurgence would like to wish our readers, friends, and supporters a New Year of struggle, unity, and solidarity. If 2019 was any indicator, the coming year promises to be one of continued resistance to this criminal capitalist system.
The year 2019 was marked by mass explosions in the semi-colonial world—in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Columbia, Chile, Ecuador, and Lebanon. There were mass pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong. The Yellow Vests, and now a strike movement, in France have kept the Macron government off balance with a stunning rejection of neoliberal policies. Worldwide, student and youth stood firm against the looming climate catastrophe in the face of the inaction of bourgeois politicians. Millions of youth mobilized for Student Climate Strikes.
In the International Politics Resolution approved at SR’s convention, we wrote: “We appear to be in the midst of an explosive new phase of the uncompleted colonial revolution. Pent-up rage against the inability or unwillingness of the neo-colonial regimes to free themselves from the ravages that imperialism has imposed upon their countries, and the frequent imposition of corrupt and authoritarian regimes on those countries, has erupted into struggles in both world hemispheres.
“Around the world—from Iraq to Colombia—democratic demands (not only for government accountability but also for land reform, women’s rights, the rights of oppressed nationalities, etc.) have often been at the forefront of the protests. Typically, young people, including students, are the first to leap into the struggles; sections of the trade-union movement only join in later after the demands have been broadened to specifically address basic economic issues. Yet all of the revolts have come about against the background of an increasingly dire economic situation in the semi-colonial world due to imperialism’s tightening stranglehold and the accompanying environmental crisis that the imperialists have largely caused.”
In the U.S., there were strikes of tens of thousands of grocery workers, hotel workers, auto workers, and teachers. In cities and towns across the U.S., there were mobilizations in solidarity with migrants in ICE concentration camps, women’s organizing to preserve abortion rights, and new organizing on campuses.
A time for optimism!
This past year also marked our very optimistic decision to found a new revolutionary socialist organization, Socialist Resurgence. But it’s not just about us. SR proposes the principled unity of revolutionary forces. Those who stand for class independence, build opposition to imperialist wars, and fight against racism and oppression must do what we can to work together to rebuild the revolutionary movement—both here in the U.S. and worldwide.
In our convention document on the U.S. Political Situation, we wrote: “Today, the revolutionary left in the U.S. is emerging from decades of retreat and one-sided class war against working people. We are faced with an existential threat to humanity in the form of the looming climate catastrophe. Building a broad, united-front type movement to meet the climate crisis must be at the center of our political and organizational perspectives. Building a mass international movement to avert climate catastrophe is linked to our efforts to revive the labor movement and sink roots into the working class.
“We know that the working class and its allies are the only social force with the potential power to make the fundamental changes necessary to save the planet. Capitalist ‘solutions’ to the climate crisis will not address the roots of the crisis. As the crisis deepens, causing crop failures, rising sea levels, and population dislocations, the capitalist class may opt for authoritarian methods of social control to save their own hides. This may include calling forth fascist elements.
“Our tasks are not simple or easy. We have before us the work of defeating the far right, fighting police brutality and institutionalized racism, prison abolition, building the LGBTQIA+ movement, building a new independent feminist movement, and the revitalization of the labor movement.
“Fighting for class political independence and class struggle unions is an urgent task. A strong rank-and-file-based union movement is the key to defeating the union busters. Breaking the subordination of workers and their mass organizations to the Democrats is a central political task. Therefore, we fight for the founding of a Labor Party based in the unions and organizations of the oppressed.
“We are a small revolutionary socialist organization. We understand that we alone are not going to be able to achieve all of the tasks put forward here. This is why we strive for the greatest possible unity in action of working people and of the revolutionary movement. We seek to regroup principled revolutionaries into an organization that can lay the basis for a mass revolutionary party—a party that is international as well as national in scope.” We have a world to win!