2022: Year Three of the Pandemic and the Emerging Global Class Struggle - World Socialist Web Site

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2022: Year Three of the pandemic and the emerging global class struggle - World Socialist Web Site: 

 EXCERPT--Must read for serious socialists.  Excellent historical summary & call to action.

That is, the central contradictions of the world capitalist system—between the global economy and the nation-state system, and between socialized production and private ownership of the means of production—have created the conditions for massive, revolutionary struggles.

68. The development of a revolutionary situation, however, involves two elements: the objective contradictions of the old society, and the consciousness and political organization of the masses—the subjective factor. But the interaction of the objective and subjective factors is complex. “Society does not change its institutions as need arises, the way a mechanic changes his instruments,” Trotsky explained in his monumental History of the Russian Revolution.

Entirely exceptional conditions, independent of the will of persons and parties, are necessary in order to tear off from discontent the fetters of conservatism, and bring the masses to insurrection.

The swift changes of mass views and moods in an epoch of revolution thus derive, not from the flexibility and mobility of man’s mind, but just the opposite, from its deep conservatism. The chronic lag of ideas and relations behind new objective conditions, right up to the moment when the latter crash over people in the form of a catastrophe, is what creates in a period of revolution that leaping movement of ideas and passions which seems to the police mind a mere result of the activities of “demagogues.” [5]

69. The pandemic—which has exposed the obsolescence and irredeemably reactionary character of the world capitalist system, its political institutions and class structure—is the catastrophe that is not only provoking strikes and other forms of social protest but also changing profoundly the consciousness of the working class and the youth. The ruling class hypocritically bemoans the closing of schools, which have been underfunded, understaffed and overcrowded for decades. It is not the absence of formal education that it fears. Capitalist governments know that while they have been out of schools, the young people have not stopped thinking. The pandemic has provided an education of its own, laying bare the nature of capitalist society.

70. But as consciousness undergoes a profound change, there remains the question of revolutionary leadership. Socialist consciousness—that is, scientific understanding of capitalist society and the political program required for the transformation of society—does not arise spontaneously or automatically. The transition of the objective crisis into a conscious political movement for socialism is the great challenge of our time.

71. When humanity is confronted with great social issues, nothing is more futile, not to mention useless, than passive speculation about what can or cannot be achieved. There has never been a period of crisis when the path to progress has been strewn with roses. In such historical moments, as Lincoln once observed, “the occasion is piled high with difficulties.” Complaining about the impotence and outright treachery of the trade unions and the old ex-reformist and ex-liberal capitalist parties is a distraction from the serious tasks at hand. These organizations, their representatives and accomplices are rotten through and through.

72. There is no way out of the present disaster, let alone the looming catastrophes of fascism, war, and irreversible ecological harm to the planet, except through determined and unyielding struggle.

73. Marxism, based on historical materialism, understands very well the law-governed processes that give rise to genuine mass revolutionary movements. But this understanding of objective processes and the necessity of action by the masses has never been an excuse for individual passivity. Individuals make decisions, including the decision to oppose inequality, injustice and oppression. There has never been, and can never be, a great mass revolutionary movement without individuals making the conscious decision to fight.

74. Therefore, as we enter the new year, we call upon workers and youth to draw the necessary and inescapable political lessons of the last two years of crisis—and, in fact, of history. Capitalism has condemned itself. The future of mankind depends upon the victory of socialism. Join this fight. Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees! Participate in the Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic! Expand the circulation of the World Socialist Web Site! Above all, make the decision to join the Socialist Equality Party and build the International Committee of the Fourth International as the World Party of Socialist Revolution!