nº 48 | March 2021 Communist Left Semi-Annual Magazine of the International Communist Party In this issue: No "Great Man" Will Solve the Deadly Crisis of the Imperial Powers 2 The Catastrophic Trajectory of World Capitalism 6 The Labor Movement in the United States of America: Part 11 – The 8 Hours Movement is Back 14 The Anti-Historical Irish Nationalism 19 The Economic and Social Structure of Russia Today: Part One – Struggle for power in the two revolutions 41 From the Archive of the Left: Programme of Action Presented by the Left Minority from the P.C.d’I 50 Summaries of the Party’s two latest General Meetings 59 Communist Left no. 48—March 2021 No "Great Man" Will Solve the Deadly Crisis of the Imperial Powers The change of government in the United States last January led bourgeois commentators to reflect on the conse- quences that the replacement of the “great helmsman”, or rather a “mad helmsman”, could have on the foreign poli- cy of the largest imperialist power in the world. In fact, during the four years of the Trump presidency, with the motto “America first”, the sincerity of the US capitalists has prevailed; they have been forced to admit that they have to close themselves off from the rest of the world, that they have to defend their companies with a protectionist policy by imposing customs duties on the goods of their competitors, first and foremost China; they have proclaimed, instead of just doing it, to close their borders to immigrants; they have withdrawn from many international bodies that could have harnessed US economic policies under environmental pretexts. On the diplomatic, commercial and military levels, they have sought to establish uni- lateral relations with individual states in order to assert their superiority as best they can, no longer in a position to impose themselves against all at once. This policy was not invented by Trump and his equally eccentric collaborators, it is a reflection of the relative loss of power of the US economy, which has long since ceased to be the world’s leading industrial power, nor the leading commercial power, even if it continues to maintain an undisputed military dominance. But the “moderately isolationist” line followed for a few years, as well as the partial military withdrawal from certain areas and war scenarios, should be understood as a “catching up” in order to attempt new returns and inter- ventions on the international scene: the new president will not be able to do anything other than continue the work of his predecessor. Those who expect, in a fideistic attitude, that the Democrat Joe Biden will renounce economic con- tention with other powers and adopt a “more peaceful” policy than the Republican Trump will receive nothing but bitter disappointments. The new President Biden had already indicated the lines of the new administration in an article published in For- eign Affairs in March 2020. Those themes formed the basis of the 2020 Platform approved in August by the Democ- ratic Party. The title was already very explanatory: “Why America must lead again – restoring US foreign policy in the post-Trump era”. Biden summarised his foreign policy agenda as follows: “President Trump has belittled, weak- ened, and abandoned allies and partners, and abdicated American leadership; as president, I will take immediate steps to renew the United States’ alliances and ensure that America once again leads the world”. It would therefore be a matter for the new administration to restore the United States to its role as the world’s leading power, to restore its dominant role. Easy to say! The new administration is faced with a complex international situation in which the US is no longer unchallenged. Beijing now opposes American dominance in vast areas of the world, in a situation made more tense by the economic crisis and the pandemic. It is clear that US foreign policy (but we could extend this judgement to many countries) demonstrates a substan- tial long-term continuity that transcends the political colour of governments. It can be said that Washington’s foreign policy is the expression of a party “transversal” to the official parties, whose existence is demonstrated by the fact that fundamental foreign policy decisions, first and foremost those con- cerning wars, are taken in agreement between Democrats and Republicans. It should also be noted that Trump has achieved some notable diplomatic successes in the latter part of his term of office that have been downplayed in the “liberal” caricature of the deranged president driven by destructive fury. The recognition of Israel by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (later joined by Sudan, Morocco and Qatar) un- der the Abrahamic Accords sees a revival of the US as a regional arbiter, a function in recent years overshadowed by Russia’s activism. It is hard to imagine that Biden will undo what his predecessor did in this field. But the restoration of US dominance in the “free world” of which Biden speaks will come at a high cost, espe- cially in terms of military spending, which is weighing increasingly heavily on the state budget. The magazine Anal- isi Difesa observes that “the Pentagon, the largest arms factory on the planet, plays an important role in US in- ternational policy. An industry that represents one of the components of its economic development: indirectly through the military supremacy it ensures and through increases in GDP. And this has been part of the strategic awareness of the ruling groups for a long time. As early as 1950, the Truman administration theorised not only the — 2 — Communist Left no. 48—March 2021 full compatibility between butter and guns, welfare state and warfare state, but their close interdependence: the growth of the latter would feed the growth of the former, in a potentially unlimited virtuous spiral”. But while it is true that government spending on armaments contributes to GDP growth, the United States, de- spite being the largest producer of armaments and the country that sells the most, is perhaps the only industrialised country in the world where life expectancy is falling, a clear sign of the decadence of its welfare state. It is clear that they cannot continue to dominate the whole world for long and will have to make choices and sac- rifices, something that no bourgeois state is ever prepared for. This leads us to say that the foreign policy of the United States will not undergo any major changes. In his first interview with the New York Times as president-elect Joe Biden said, for example, with regard to policy towards China, that he would not remove the tariffs imposed by Trump for the time being. He said there are two main points that will inform US strategy towards China in the coming years: preventing Beijing from taking away the US primacy as a world power, and building coalitions against it. Biden further stated, “I want to make sure we fight to the death by investing in America first. I won’t enter into any new trade agreements until we’ve made major investments here at home and on our workers”. A speech that certainly echoes the Trumpian motto “America first”; even Biden is concerned with transmitting to US workers a petty nationalism to justify the constant deterioration of their conditions, by blaming workers in other countries, the Chinese, instead of their bosses. In consonance with these words of Biden are the stances of the new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his also recent statements on fundamental international policy issues, in particular on relations with China. “I think President Trump was right, I don’t really agree with the way he dealt with the China issue in a number of areas, but the basic principle was the right one and I think it serves our foreign policy well”, and added that China is the main adversary with whom “we need to take a strong position”. China will therefore remain the US’s main enemy, commercially, diplomatically and militarily. In the Pacific, the US will continue to deploy their massive military potential, a strategy already set by Obama, in order not to lose the vantage position in the area, and will try to strengthen the anti-Chinese bloc through a reaffirmed alliance with Tai- wan, Japan, South Korea, India and Australia, as well as with some smaller countries in Indochina, the Philippines, etc., as was also done by the previous Republican administration. Relations between the US and the European Union may also be more “cordial” and marked by “mutual respect”. But the EU remains a major commercial competitor of the US, while a political translation of its economic power would be a planetary threat. Washington will continue to use the lack of a single European foreign policy to privi- lege relations with individual countries. This divide and rule policy can be taken to extremes, as happened with two world wars played out on the theme of European unification, while a constant in recent years has been the attempt to counteract the cohesion of the EU, a policy that has seen its first substantial success with the Brexit affair. The subject of Blinken’s clear condemnation was also the trade agreement between Beijing and the European Union reached at the end of 2020, which will facilitate European industrial investment in China. The primary instrument for keeping European countries under control is NATO, and the new American adminis- tration will aim to strengthen it, also to oppose the feeble European attempts to create a supranational army. To this end, Biden has promised that he will make the necessary investments to ensure that the United States maintains “the most powerful military force in the world” and, at the same time, he will ensure that “our NATO allies increase their defence spending” in accordance with the commitment made under US pressure at the Cardiff Summit in 2014, dur- ing the Obama presidency, to devote at least 2% of GDP to defence and at least 20% of the defence budget to re- search, development and the acquisition of new weapons systems.