The slaughter committed in Paris against the newspaper Charlie Hebdo and the national and international reactions which followed, mark a turning point in the historical situation. A “pre and post” situation. No matter who are those directly responsible – Islamic terrorist groups – or indirectly – State and secret services – for these attacks and the imperialist dimension which lies behind, they always are linked with capitalist and state forces. That is anti-working class forces. This dramatic event means that the bourgeoisie has engaged a head-on and massive ideological and political offensive against the international proletariat. Here is what the unheard of situation of the organization of a demonstration of millions of people behind more than 40 Heads of State in Paris January 11th illustrates (see the article A New Period Opens... ). And here is what the media promotion of the European “radical” Left after the coming to power of the extreme-left Syriza in Greece confirms.

Driven by the inexorable worsening of its economic crisis and by the exacerbation of the imperialist rivalries, the bourgeoisie has no choice but to engage in massive confrontations against the international proletariat to lead it to a new world war. Although the great masses of the both exploited and revolutionary class still remain sensible to bourgeois ideology, they don’t really adhere to, nor get behind, the capitalist States [1]. The support and a minimum of national unity behind each bourgeoisie are the conditions for Capital to engage in a march towards generalized imperialist war. These can’t be got but through an historic defeat of the working class. An historic defeat? This means at the cost of an ideological, political and “physical”, that is bloody, defeat, like the defeats during the 1920s and 1930s which led the world into the horror and barbarity of World War 2.

We are not there yet. The working class continues to develop a dynamic of struggle against the effects of the economic crisis. In this regard, it represents a major obstacle to the capitalist class. Many militant workers and revolutionaries doubt this. Their skepticism seems confirmed and apparently justified by the rare news of working class struggles at the international level. The censorship of the media is not a vain word, nor a denunciation of principle, that has no practical consequences. It directly contributes to the feeling of powerlessness and isolation that millions of individual workers can suffer; and, by the way, it reinforces the doubts of the most militant ones and of the communists about the real, practical, in movement, force of the proletariat.

Nevertheless reality is much different from this immediate feeling. It is enough to gather the international news of the last months (see the article Workers Struggles throughout the World) to state that millions and millions of workers have been participating to varying degrees in mobilizations and struggles on all continents. There is no doubt that these mobilizations, strikes, demonstrations, Days of action called by the unions, etc. have not succeeded to stop the bourgeoisie from continuing its anti-workers politics, nor even its economic attacks. On the other hand, these mobilizations have really occurred. They are a reality.

It is to this very reality that the promotion of the European radical Left – Podemos in Spain, Front de Gauche in France, Die Linke in Germany... – responds, after the electoral victory of Syriza in Greece. This bourgeois political response to the real combativity of the working class – in particular in Greece and Spain since the 2008 crisis – is the second act of the head-on offensive that the international bourgeoisie [2] has decided to launch against the proletariat at the European and international levels. And this, 15 days after the great demonstration of national unity in Paris. The fact that the ruling class is obliged to lead this offensive, to put forward in the first line the ‘”extreme-left” parties illustrates the reality and potentialities of the working class struggles today.

The European bourgeoisie knows well that the Greek debt will never be paid back. Thus it can afford to let Syriza come to power in Greece –a relatively peripheral and secondary capitalist power– if it succeeds to make credible the other Left “radical” parties at the European level. Insomuch as Syriza won’t have any other choice than to lead the same anti-working class politics as the previous Greek governments, on the other hand, Syriza and the international mediatization of Podemos enable to paint in glowing colours a Left “radical” political, but not less bourgeois, alternative behind the Capitalist democratic State at the European level just as the great masses of proletarians vote less and less – get away from the democratic bourgeois ground – and struggle more and more – anchor themselves in their class ground.

The confrontations are engaged thus. It is up to the proletariat to raise its fight to the political level against the State and its apparatus, particularly the political (Left and Leftist) and union ones. For this, driven by its most militant minorities, it must take charge of the organization of the extension and unity of its struggles against the unions and leftist maneuvers. For this, the organized revolutionary minorities and, in first line, the communist groups must develop a general political intervention – against the ideological and political maneuvers of the capitalist States – and particularly in the working class struggles so that they assume and materialize the political leadership behind which the whole proletariat will regroup, oppose with all its forces and finally destroy capitalism.

The IGCL, January 28th 2015