May Day 2024: Revolutionary Unity in the Struggle against Imperialism!

Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 24 April 2024 , www.thecommunists.net

 

On the occasion of May Day 2024, the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) sends greetings to all militants fighting against capitalist exploitation and imperialist oppression! We call socialists around the globe to join forces on the basis of a platform of struggle against the most important attacks which the workers and oppressed are facing in the current world situation.

Support the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance forces! Down with the Zionist Apartheid and Terror state! Our brothers and sisters in Gaza experience a horrible genocide as the Israeli army has slaughtered at least 34,000 people and displaced nearly the whole population. The RCIT and its comrades in Occupied Palestine are active in the solidarity movement all over the world and our International Secretary, Michael Pröbsting, is standing trial in Austria because the state considers our support for the Palestinian resistance as “ incitement to commit terrorist offenses ” . While we do not lend political support to Hamas or other factions, we unconditionally support the military struggle against the Zionist aggressor! Likewise, we welcome the courageous solidarity activities of the Yemeni Houthis against Israel and its allies. For a Free and Red Palestine from the River to the Sea as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East!

In all regional confrontations: for the defeat of Israel! As Israel is becoming increasingly isolated and politically weakened, it tries to expand the war against Lebanon and Iran. Hence, the daily bombardment of Lebanon and the unprecedented attack against the Iranian embassy in Damascus – acts, which provoke regular responses from Hezbollah as well as an unprecedented counterattack by Iran which send more than 300 drones and missiles against Israel. In all these conflicts we side with the opponents of Israel. However, we do not support in anyway the reactionary Mullah regime which oppressed the workers, women and national minorities in Iran, and which helps Assad the tyrant to slaughter the Syrian people.

Solidarity with the Ukrainian people and their war of national defense! Down with Russian imperialism! The RCIT and its comrades in Russia and the Ukraine are united in condemning Putin’s invasion and defending the right of national self-determination. At the same time, we reject any political support for the bourgeois and pro-NATO Zelensky government. We denounce the nearly totalitarian bonapartist Putin regime and call for the release of all victims of political repression like Boris Kagarlitsky and Azat Miftakhov.

Down with all imperialist Great Powers in East and West! As we are living in a period of accelerating inter-imperialist rivalry, socialists can only possess a correct understanding of the tasks in the class struggle if they recognize the imperialist character not only of the old Great Powers – the US, Western Europe and Japan – but also of new powers like China and Russia. In conflicts between such Great Powers, socialists have to take an internationalist and anti-imperialist position of revolutionary defeatism in the tradition of Lenin and the Bolsheviks and oppose each and every of these powers. At the same time, they need to support the struggles of oppressed nations against any of these imperialist oppressors (eg the peoples in the Middle East against Israel and the US, the Chechens in Russia, the Uyghurs in China, the Syrians against Russia).

Down with the reactionary Milei government in Argentina! For a socialist Latin America, independent of all imperialist powers! The RCIT and its comrades in Argentina support the mass struggles against the right-wing, pro-US and pro-Israel government of Milei. We denounce the minimal “resistance” organized by the trade union bureaucracy and call for the formation of grassroots committees in factories and neighborhoods so that the masses can control the mass struggle themselves. Our comrades in Brazil and Mexico reject any political support for “pink” populist governments like those of Lula or AMLO. We fight for a socialist Latin America which is free from domination by any Great Power – the US, Western Europe, China, or Russia!

Kick out the US and France from Sub-Sahara Africa! But no support for Russia and China! The RCIT and its comrades in Nigeria welcome the mass protests in Niger which have resulted in the expulsion of the French and now also the US troops. At the same time, we warn against illusions in Eastern imperialist powers and the replacement of the old colonial masters by new ones. Likewise, we warn against any support for coup d’etats as the task is not to change the personal at the top of the state but to bring the laboring masses to power.

No to the military provocations of the US and the Yoon government on the Korean Peninsula! The RCIT and its comrades in South Korea strongly oppose the repeated imperialist aggression against North Korea, a capitalist semi-colony. We have no political sympathies whatsoever for the Stalinist-capitalist dictatorship of Kim Jong-un but in in any military confrontation we defend North Korea!

Neither Biden nor Trump! The RCIT opposes both imperialist parties of the ruling class in the US – the Democrats as well as the Republicans. We welcome any serious attempt by progressive forces to break with the Democrats and take steps in building a new Labor Party – a working-class party independent of all capitalist factions.

Support the mass strikes in Europe and transform them into political struggles! We have seen an impressive rise of economic strikes of workers in Western Europe in the recent past – mostly for higher wages and against cuts. Socialists fully support these struggles and advocate the creation of grassroot action committees so that the masses can expand these strikes despite the obstructions by the union bureaucracy. At the same time, socialists need to explain the importance to combine such struggles with crucial political issues like the increasing attacks of the ruling class against democratic rights or the shameful support for Israel and its genocidal war against the Palestinians.

The struggle against the bosses and Great Powers can only be successful if the working class organizes for the overthrow of the capitalist system by means of socialist revolution. In the current period of capitalist decay – full of crisis and catastrophes – the only way to avoid regression into barbarism is the international socialist revolution and the creation of a global federation of workers and peasant republics . The RCIT calls all those who share such a program to unite and to jointly build with us a Revolutionary World Party !

 

International Bureau of the RCIT