By PRMI reporters 30 April 2025
May Day 2025 follows the completion of the first 100 days Trump 2.0. It has seen a relentless barrage of attacks unfurl on immigrants, women, disabled people, the LGBTQ+ – in particular transgender – community, students, pro-Palestinian activists, civil servants. Barely a section of the working class has remained unscathed.
The genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has deepened with Trump’s full-throated support for ethnic cleansing of the Strip, and the effective normalisation of Israel’s deliberate starvation of two million Palestinians. Settler and state violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has escalated, a process which some have called “Gazafication”.
A dramatic shift in US policy over Ukraine has made abundantly clear that its involvement in the war was never about defending the Ukrainian people or their right to self-determination, but about prestige, great-power rivalry and economic interests.
The impending trade war, a likely Trump-induced recession and inflation promise to make life even harder for the working class across the world, as well as in the US.
As China is already suffering from serious economic and financial crises, a further wave of factory shut-downs has resulted from Trump’s tariffs. This is as the situation facing many in the country is already unbearable.
It goes without saying that the largest burden of this horrific situation is borne disproportionately by the population of the neo-colonial world, by women and oppressed layers, and by youth.
Trump and his allies support the super-rich
This is not accidental. The policies of Trump and his allies across the world – Netanyahu, Milei, Modi, Putin, Xi, Meloni, Erdoğan and many others – are consciously intended to deprive those layers of their already restricted rights and ability to defend themselves and fight back.
They do so not just to protect the super-rich, but to enable them to grab an even larger share of the world’s diminishing resources irrespective of the costs to the climate, mental health, the rights of women and children.
The sharp upturn in attacks reflects a desperate move by the global ruling elite to save their system after the disaster of four decades of neoliberalism. A period in which living standards of the working class and poor were driven down, public services destroyed by privatisation and austerity.
This was, despite heroic attempts to resist by the working class, a period in which the level of workers’ organisation and political independence declined.
Even so, the capitalist system sunk deeper into crisis, with profits and investment low, and huge speculative bubbles culminating in the 2008 global recession. This was exacerbated by the pandemic.
Globalisation replaced by protectionism
Rejecting globalisation and the “rule of law” – by which they mean trade liberalisation and deregulation – the elite are turning to protectionism and the defence of “national”, i.e. national capitalist interests.
Having not so long ago kept their distance from right-populism and even fascist tendencies, large sections of the ruling elite are now at best compromising with and often adopting these poisonous ideas.
There is no immediate comparison between the situation we currently face, and that which existed in pre-war Italy, Germany and elsewhere. Then elections were completely replaced by open dictatorial rule, stormtroopers ensured the immediate suppression of resistance, mass arrests, executions and extermination camps were the norm.
It would, though, be reckless to ignore how far to the right the ruling elite are prepared to go to protect their profits and their system, and the extremely harmful effect these policies have on working class people, the vast, overwhelming majority of the world’s population.
Trump’s victory has enthused and encouraged right-wing and authoritarian forces across the world and accelerated the general rightwing shift of the ruling class.
Netanyahu on steroids
Netanyahu pushed by the far-right within his government has, after a brief and precarious pause, resumed and escalated Zionist Israel’s brutal genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. Trump has provided steroids to the most rabid factions of the Israeli ruling class through his uninhibited endorsement of ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and his direct coordination and by flooding the Israeli state with billions in new weapons.
Trump has also been waging an unprecedented domestic crackdown on the Gaza solidarity movement, including by allowing for the arrest and deportation of visa holders protesting Israeli policies and by threatening billions in funding cuts to universities who don’t cooperate. All these moves are designed to create a chilling effect amongst those opposing the genocide, and provide Israel with a freer hand to “finish the job”, as Trump himself put it.
Imperialist division of Ukraine
The Ukrainian people, having suffered three years of brutal occupation and war after Putin’s imperialist invasion, are discovering that their right to self-determination has been used as a bargaining chip by Western imperialism all along — with Trump now openly seeking to appease Putin.
National and human rights are cynically sacrificed as the two imperialists negotiate the division of Ukraine and attempt to grab its natural resources. Clearly Trump’s legitimisation of Russia’s seizure of parts of Ukraine aligns with his desire to annex Greenland.
While the pro-Ukrainian rhetoric of the EU leaders continues, a section is increasingly succumbing to Trump’s demands, while another is maneuvering in the hope of protecting its own interests as the US and Russia carve up the Ukraine.
EU turns back on democratic rights
Authoritarian leaders feel strengthened in their moves to restrict democracy. In Turkey, Erdoğan has gained the confidence to remove his main opponent from the next election and is moving to change the constitution a la Putin, which would allow him to stay in power beyond 2028.
Despite the claims of the European Union leaders that in opposition to Trump it is still defending “democracy”, it has barely muttered a word about Erdoğan’s move for fear of alienating him, and losing an ally in their conflict with the US and in policing Europe’s borders.
In Romania, the EU openly supported the suspension of last year’s election, after the right wing populist party won the first round.
This of course follows a steady and marked deterioration of democratic rights in the EU, including police attacks on pro-Palestinain demonstrators, the ban on the “marche nocturne” feminist demo in France and serious restrictions on trade union rights in several countries.
Disorderly realignments
Trump’s foreign policy is bringing back into fashion a more aggressive brand of colonial expansionism as well as stronger alliances with majoritarian, ultra-chauvinist and ethno-nationalist regimes —from Israel to Turkey to India— sharpening the features of national oppression in many parts of the world.
This has emboldened Modi and his government’s jingoistic grandstanding and escalating military threats against Pakistan in the aftermath of last week’s terror attack in Indian-occupied Kashmir, bringing the region dangerously close to a new conflict.
It is leading to the re-orientation of imperialist forces and relationships between the blocks, even with divisions and conflicts developing between the US and its closest allies in the EU, UK and Japan. This clearly is of huge cost to the working class in these countries, who bear the brunt through heightened militarisation, economic uncertainty, and renewed austerity.
As military expenditure is boosted other programmes are cut. Starmer’s UK government has attacked the rights of the disabled, pensioners and many others to boost the defence budget. “Warfare not welfare” is used to justify attacks on public services and the general living standard of the working class.
In Global South horrors without end
An even higher cost is being paid by those living in the neo-colonial world. Cuts in the foreign aid budgets by the US and UK are already having a devastating impact. In general this aid acts only as a sticking plaster to patch holes in much greater problems, and is cynically used to foster neo-colonial goals. The cuts will nevertheless lead to a further 25 million deaths over the next fifteen years according to the journal “Nature” as programmes for tuberculosis, HIV, family planning and maternal and child health are shut.
Instead we see a stepping up of the struggle for resources by the different imperialist powers, completely ignoring the huge human costs entailed. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the US, China, Russia, the EU and Britain are all involved in the plundering of Sudan’s gold reserves.
This is currently fuelling the counter-revolutionary civil war that has claimed the lives of up to 200,000 people. In al Fashir and surrounding camps, according to UNICEF, there are 825 000 children trapped in a nightmare with catastrophic shortages of food, water and other necessities for life.
Now the struggle for control over “Rare earth minerals” by China, the EU and US in the Congo is threatening to further escalate the horrific civil wars that have raged in the region since 1960. This is as if the region had not already suffered enough during the world’s bloodiest conflict since WW2 in which ten million perished in atrocity killings, institutional sexual violence, starvation, disease and genocide.
Imperialism’s rose-tinted glasses
The international media largely ignores the horrors without end sweeping the world. Instead every claim by the capitalist institutions that things are getting better is trumpeted out loud.
It was Mark Twain who popularised the phrase “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. Even he would have been staggered by the World Bank’s claims in its latest report that since 1990, one billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty.
In 1990 extreme poverty was defined as having less than $1,90 a day. 1.8 billion, 35% of the global population lived on less. Thirty five years later extreme poverty is defined as less than $2.15. Yet if inflation was taken into account $1.90 in 1990 would be $4.56 today. 35-45% of the global population have less.
Yet even the World Bank admits the “progress” it has claimed has “been impeded by multiple, interconnected crises, including the scarring effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, slow economic growth, high indebtedness, conflict and fragility, and severe weather-related shocks.”
Runaway climate and environmental crises
Runaway climate and environmental crises have been producing large-scale devastation and catastrophes on a daily basis across the globe, which in 2024 alone displaced millions and killed tens or hundreds of thousands.
The empty promises made by the global powers at COP 26 in 2021 to take measures to keep the rise in global temperatures to under 1.50C over pre-industrial levels have been long forgotten. In 2024, global average temperature was 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels, with many regions experiencing more extreme temperature change.
Two billion people lack safe drinking water. It is estimated that it needs $70-80 billion a year extra spending to provide clean water for all. This is approximately just half of the global profit expected to be made by Big Pharma just from its weight-loss drugs!
Fifty years ago the iconic photo of the earth was taken from space by the first astronauts. It showed a beautiful blue marbled globe.
Now the same shot shows a rusty hue over large parts of the land. The shrinking Antarctic ice sheet and loss of snow is clearly visible. So is the retreat of the rainforest and the loss of vegetation which has changed the colour of the land mass from green to desert brown.
Meanwhile, billionaires like Jeff Bezos —a man whose Amazon empire is itself a major contributor to ecological destruction— indulge in grotesque, expensive and pointless vanity projects, like the recent eleven-minute trip to the edge of space with rich celebrities.
He claims that as his engine simply combines oxygen and hydrogen into water it does not affect the environment. But he ignores the massive carbon footprint left by the research and manufacturing that went into the rocket, as well as the damage done by water vapour and other emitants to the stratosphere and ozone layer.
Not only are the world’s powers completely incapable of resolving these problems, every step they make worsens the situation.
Misogynistic wave sweeps world
Huge reverses are also occurring in the position of women and the LGBTQ+ community across the world. On top of the situation in which women were already expected to bear the brunt of the economic, health and social care crises as well as the worsening climate, the pandemic brought the role of the ‘front-line’ workers, the vast majority of whom are women to the forefront.
The numerous brutal wars are also taking a horrific toll. According to ‘Amnesty International’, Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces are inflicting widespread sexual violence on women and girls, while the conflicts in Myanmar and Sudan are forcing millions to flee their homes.
The sudden cuts to aid programmes in countries such as Yemen are leading to a dramatic increase in malnutrition for children, pregnant women and new mothers. This is while the same governments making the cuts – the US and UK – are sending aircraft to drop bombs on the country.
The misogynist policies of the Trump government are encouraging new measures against the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community. In Afghanistan and Iran gender persecution has worsened, while in Argentina a femicide was reported every 33 hours. Many Russian women live in fear of the traumatised soldiers returning home – already hundreds have lost their lives.
Reactionary ideologies are driving new attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. In Ghana, Malawi, Mali and Uganda gay sex has been criminalised. Transgender people have not only been stigmatised and horrifically traumatised by policies of the Trump and Starmer governments, in many countries their access to healthcare is being severely restricted.
The Kremlin, continuously stepping up its attacks on women and LGBTQ+ is now pushing women further into domestic slavery by banning “childfree” ideologies.
Trump’s domestic agenda
Trump’s policies are having a hugely disrupting effect across the world. Domestically too they are causing turmoil.
His victory in the election, with the support of 32% of the electorate, represents a real crisis of US imperialism. The traditional parties – the Democrats and Republicans – have for many years presided over a fall in living standards and seen their support drop.
There can be no doubt that the attacks on immigrants in the US, on DEI, on state employees, and on academia are driven by the right-wing racist, misogynist, anti working-class ideology of MAGA.
They also have the benefit of providing scapegoats to divert attention from the chaos and disorder caused by Trump’s policies
Trump argues that his policy of tariffs will improve the position of the US working class by protecting jobs. This has no basis in fact. The global recession that he is on the verge of provoking, together with the increase in costs will lead to further factory closures and cuts in living standards.
Like elections, opinion polls too are just snapshots of opinions at one particular moment. But they do indicate declining support for his policies. According to Brookings, when Trump was inaugurated more Americans thought that within one year their household would be better off than those who expected a worsening. Now expectations have been reversed. Significantly, Hispanic and young voters, many of whom voted for Trump, have also been disillusioned.
Shock and despair
The spectre of Trumpism has left many in shock, many others in despair. This is not surprising.
When Palestinians see no viable end to the genocide, Ukrainians face brutal occupation by Russia, the impoverished across the world suffer ever-increasing prices and climate change damage to their crops, transgender people see their very identities robbed by the state, immigrants and refugees face deportation, it is understandable if many despair ever escaping the nightmare.
As if to confirm these fears, the traditional establishment parties – whethersocial-democratic, conservative, liberal, green or nationalist have no answers.
The US Democrats are frozen, like rabbits in car headlights, not knowing what to do as they fear the only force that can defeat Trump – the mass mobilisation of workers, women, LGBTQ+, immigrants and all oppressed – more than they fear Trump himself.
Meanwhile other imperialist forces like China in reaction to Trump are building their own military, and spreading their exploitation across the world to take advantage of the current disorder.
According to SIPRI, global military expenditure has seen “the steepest rise since end of cold war” reaching a mind-boggling $2718 billion in 2024. This includes $314 billion spent by China, $55 billion by Japan and $86 billion by India. The whole Asia-Pacific region is in a dangerous arms-spiral.
And elsewhere capitalist leaders of countries such as Britain and Germany, fearing the growing threats from the far-right are themselves moving dramatically rightwards, mimicking the policies of the far-right and crawling up to Trump in the hope he will not be so tough on their countries.
Germany, for example, is deporting students in response to their activities in support of Palestinians in Gaza. In Britain, the supposedly Labour government of Keir Starmer cynically endorses the transphobic ruling of the Supreme Court to deny transgender people of their identity, and publishes statistics of the crimes committed by foreigners – a move guaranteed to fuel the racist myths peddled by the far-right.
Need to fight back
It is in this world, in which capitalism is creating crisis after crisis – what is often now called the polycrisis -, and in which neither the traditional political parties nor the ruling elite can offer any solution, that the desperation of the working class, poor and oppressed can be exploited by that section of the ruling elite that uses the far right and authoritarianism to protect its interests.
The only force that can provide an alternative is the organised resistance of workers and the oppressed, fighting to defend their interests and overthrow the capitalist system.
In the words of the great worker activist and songwriter Joe Hill who was framed and executed by the American bosses “Don’t waste time mourning. Organize!”. His advice has been followed many times in the past year as working people have expressed determined resistance to the crises that face humanity.
Africa protests gender violence, tax rises, and election rigging
In South Africa, last spring, a country in which over 11,000 rapes are officially reported each year, anger exploded after the brutal rape of a seven-year old girl at school after no action was taken to bring the culprit to justice. Protesters wearing black demanded the government declare gender-based violence a “national crisis” and take the necessary action to stop it.
In June and July, a powerful youth-led protest swept Kenya, protesting the government’s finance bill, which would have led to a raft of hefty tax increases forcing down living standards. They only let up when President Ruto was forced to scrap the law and sack ministers. New protests flared up in December following the femicide of over 100 women in three months.
Since October, angry demonstrations have been built despite the brutal actions of the riot police in Mozambique after disputed election results. Barricades were built, borders closed and the army deployed. In November alone up to 250 protesters were killed. Despite this protesters said they would continue as they “have nothing to lose”.
Corruption, growing authoritarianism drive European discontent
Greece was hit, at the end of February 2025 by the largest popular mobilisations since the fall of the military regime in response to a railway disaster two years ago, organised by relatives of those who perished.
They represented the accumulated anger caused by years of austerity, privatisation and corruption, and government inaction. Two general strikes took place in less than six weeks, also bringing in demands around low wages and collective bargaining rights.
In the Caucasian republic of Georgia, opposition has been building over the past few months. Initially in the spring, youth came out to protest the “Russian law”, which many see as a step further towards establishing Putin style authoritarianism.
Anger was widespread in September, when a new law was passed restricting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, the day after which one of Georgia’s best known transgender persons – Kesaria Abramidze – was brutally murdered.
Widespread belief that the result of October’s election had been falsified in favour of the ruling party fuelled an escalation – protests lasted for weeks at the end of the year.
Serbian President Vucic has spent months under siege by opposition protests led largely by students. The spark for their actions was the collapse of the roof at the Novy Sad Railway station, built as part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”. Many Serbians see this as another, in a long line of many, examples of corruption and government inaction.
As elsewhere the hypocrisy of the EU is seen as they have been pushing Vucic to deregulate and privatise. The protests have managed to mobilise significant support from organised workers.
After the historic feminist general strike in the Basque country at the end of 2023, workers and youth have continued to resist the moves to the right in Europe. Tens of thousands demonstrated across France in March against Trump. “Fascism is a gangrene from Washington to Paris”, “Against state Islamophobia” and “Tesla is the new swastika,” were some of the slogans seen on the placards.
The hundreds of thousands Germans who first came out onto the streets in early 2024 against the far right AfD should not be forgotten, as further anti-AfD protests have continued this year.
“Never again – never Musk”
That was one of the demands heard in Argentina’s capital echoing the calls originally made to oppose the earlier military dictatorship. Health workers, students, scientists, sex workers, artists, teachers and pensioners all turned out on protests across Argentina in February.
They were a massive response to Javier Milei, who had just spoken at the 2025 World Economic Forum in which he blamed queer people for child abuse, claimed that femicide prioritised women’s lives over men’s, and said it was migrants who caused crime.
While at the time of writing, a new strike wave is hitting Panama. Teachers and construction workers have launched an indefinite strike demanding the repeal of a new pension reform law, and opposing US plans to build more military bases.
Mass mobilisations in Asia
Resistance to discriminatory job quotas in the public sector caused the first wave of protests in June in Bangladesh. After the Awami League government launched a massacre in an attempt to suppress the movement in July, leaving many hundreds dead and thousands injured, the student inspired movement exploded into an all-out uprising which led to the overthrow of the Sheikh Hasina government.
In the last months, Turkey too has been struck by the largest opposition protests since the Gezi Park movement of 2013. This followed the arrest of the main opposition figure by the Erdogan regime in preparation for the coming election, which polls indicate he would lose.
Students often led by left activists have played an instrumental role. Even though the main left parties have either tail-ended the pro-capitalist opposition, or played a passive role, the students have been appealing with some success to wider layers of the working class for support.
Gaza solidarity continues
All of these protests take place against the background of continued international protests against the Genocide in Gaza. Media attention is concentrated on the campus protests across the US and in other countries. These take place despite unprecedented pressure on universities to restrict them. But there has been widespread support for Gaza expressed even during sports events, particularly football.
The issue has crystallised action across the world. Japan has experienced a series of campus occupations in universities which have no tradition of such action. In other countries such as UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, protesters have overcome severe repression.
The press in the imperialist countries largely back Netanyahu and chose to ignore the massive protests that are sweeping other countries in solidarity with the Palestinians.
In April mass protests swept Morocco, Yemen and Tunisia. As participants in the Morocco demonstration made clear – they opposed the normalisation process between their government and Israel demanding instead “a boycott of the Zionist entity” and an end to genocide.
Just a few days later, over one hundred thousand Bangladeshis crowded into Dakha’s centre to demand “Free, free, Palestine”.
Now we are seeing the development of more widespread demonstrations across the US to protest Trump’s attacks on immigrants, DEI, and state employees.
Youthful character of the protests
The incredible movements that have taken place over the past year, like the first shoots of spring, are fragile. Whether they grow over the years into powerful movements capable of challenging capitalism, or wither in their first months depends on many factors.
A relatively new feature of today’s movements is that youth and students have often led the charge. They have instinctively set up bodies to coordinate action, linking up with others to spread and expand the movements.
More often than not they have resisted the calls by established parties and opposition forces to scale back protests until real gains have been achieved. They have appealed to trade unions and the wider working class to join the actions.
This is a tremendously positive feature. But the youth has had to take up this responsibility because, with a few honourable exceptions, the trade unions and, where they exist, the left parties have not played the role they should play in opposing the various forms of crisis and oppression which face the working class.
Potential power of the working class
There have, on many occasions, been flashes of the potential power of the working class. Dock workers in a series of countries have protested and been on strike to mark their refusal to handle weaponry and other military equipment destined for Israel. Just weeks ago Moroccan unions took such action.
If ramped up and coordinated on a large scale, this type of actions would be particularly effective in asphyxiating the Israeli genocidal machine.
The response of the South Korean workers, who declared a general strike within hours of the declaration of martial law by the now former President Yoon ensured the very rapid defeat of this undemocratic move.
In India, a nationwide general strike has been called on May 20 by the main trade union federations to demand fair wages, the repeal of the new Labour codes, and a halt to privatisations — a sign of the discontent brewing in the country with the numerically largest working class in the world.
But in general the poor response of trade unions is in part a result of their weakening that has taken place during the neo-liberal period. This weakness will not be reversed automatically.
Workers across the world are being and will be forced into struggle by the multiple crises of capitalism, and if the trade unions do not intervene energetically and with a clear strategy, they may well be passed by as workers seek more effective forms of organisation to resist.
Trade unions are misled
It is, though, unfortunate that most trade unions are shackled by leaders who not only suffer from bureaucratic inertia, but are limited by a political outlook that cannot break out of the framework of the capitalist system.
When they accept there is no alternative to capitalism they accept the limitations of capitalism and defend policies that are aimed at merely managing the damage caused by capitalism, or fight for advantages for their members at the expense of others.
More often than not this leads them to tail-end sections of the political establishment – as exemplified by the leadership of the United Auto Workers’ union in the US, which is applauding Trumps’ tariffs.
In other countries such as Turkey, Greece and elsewhere when others have had to take the lead in resisting corruption and attacks on democratic rights, trade union leaders have not seen the importance of stepping up, allowing instead the pro-bourgeois forces to dominate.
In a period of genocide, far-right reaction and environmental collapse, a narrow focus on wages and working conditions doesn’t rise to the scale of the moment, and leaves mass movements more vulnerable.
Marx and Engels correctly understood how such apparently diverse movements interact when analysing the growth of the US workers movement and strikes in East London. They made it clear that if trade unions were to really tackle the system of wage exploitation, they needed to end their practice of remaining aloof from general social and political movements.
The process in which the wider mass of the working class has moved into action bringing energy and radicalism up against the narrow craft-based trade unionism of the ‘labour aristocracy’ in itself pushing the more conservative, older layers into action has been seen time and again.
Need to create independent, militant trade unions
That’s why it is necessary to fight for trade unions that arm and mobilise the working class, taking an independent and pro-active role in the struggle on all economic, social and political questions of the day and making sure that those issues, which are inseparable in reality, are also interlinked in program, method and actions.
The left though has also not escaped the crises that has affected the wider workers’ movement in past decades. Even where there are established ‘communist’ or left radical forces they are limited in their effect usually as they, at best, tail-end the leadership of pro-capitalist forces.
This was seen recently in Turkey where the communist party merely participated in the protests under pressure from its own members, and in doing so avoided radical demands to avoid breaking its alliance with the capitalist opposition. The other party, the Workers’ Party itself proved unable to present a clear lead to the movement.
Left parties which find themselves thrust into power, without a clear revolutionary strategy to overthrow capitalism, end up applying the policies of the system.
This happened recently to the supposedly Marxist ‘Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’ (JVP)-led National People’s Power coalition after the 2022 revolutionary uprising in Sri Lanka, which is now effectively reneging on its promises, bending the knee to the diktats of the IMF, and signing deals with Modi’s India.
The origins of May Day
Since 1889, when the first Congress of the Second International passed a resolution calling for strikes and demonstrations to call for an 8-hour working-day, May Day has been a celebration of International workers’ solidarity.
It too has had its real meaning diminished over time. Reformist trade union and labour leaders have turned it into a holiday to mark the existence of trade unions.
It should though be remembered that a key aim of May Day as expressed in that first resolution was not to have a celebration. It was for “the pursuit of political power” by the working class.
Even nominally revolutionary groups seem to forget this important aspect of May Day. They talk about a ‘day of struggle’, and issue calls for ‘international solidarity’ both in themselves very important aspects of working class struggle.
But these are two very important ways of putting pressure on the capitalist class to make concessions, undoubtedly waiting for the pressure to recede so they can continue their former attacks.
Capitalism though is the root cause of many of the problems currently facing the working class across the world. It is not enough to put pressure on capitalism. It needs replacing by a democratic planned, socialist economy, which allows the sustainable development of all parts of the world.
Restore the real meaning of May Day
On this May Day therefore, we call for the restoration of the real meaning of May Day, the pursuit of political power by the working class. This means using the opportunity to raise the need for, and struggle for the reconstruction of the workers’ movement to defend and fight for all the oppressed.
It means opposing austerity, and the consequences of Trump’s tariffs, calling for the cancellation of all developing world debts. It means the taking over of the world’s natural resources and key industries into democratically controlled public ownership so they can be planned in the interests of all.
It means opposition to all forms of national oppression and all imperialist wars, and to the massive increase of arms expenditure and militarisation. Instead of this hugely wasteful expenditure, the transfer of arms production into socially useful production. Instead of spending money on the military, it should be used to tackle climate change.
It means the mass mobilisation of workers and the poor to oppose all forms of oppression, whether by governments implementing authoritarian measures, or by reactionary forces who attempt to attack the rights of women, the LGBTQ+ and trans communities, indigenous peoples and all others whose freedoms have been restricted by capitalism.
Most of all it means building a revolutionary movement capable of politically arming the youth and all sections of the working class to struggle for their rights in a united struggle for socialism.