The Socialist Equality Party, World Socialist Web Site, and International Students for Social Equality last month held three regional conferences on “The Fight for Socialism Today.” The conferences were held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on April 9-10; in Los Angeles, California, on April 16; and in New York City on April 30.

Each of these conferences discussed and adopted a series of resolutions on the basic political questions facing the working class in the US and internationally. This is the second resolution adopted at the conferences, “For the international unity of the working class.” See also, “The attack on the working class and the fight for socialism” and “No to imperialist war in Libya! Withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan!”

Resolution 2: For the international unity of the working class!

The opening months of 2011 have witnessed the resurgence of revolutionary struggles by the working class. The mass uprisings that ousted US-backed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and continue to stagger other despots in North Africa and the Middle East are part of a growing movement of the working class internationally.

Workers and youth in Europe continue to oppose savage austerity policies being carried out by all of the governments on behalf of the international banks and corporations. Recent weeks have seen mass demonstrations in Britain against cuts in social programs and strikes by European air traffic controllers, oil and transport workers and other sections of the working class.

In the United States, the month-long struggle by hundreds of thousands of teachers, public employees and students against the attack by Republican Governor Scott Walker on collective bargaining rights, wages and social programs signals the resurgence of long-suppressed working class struggle in the center of world capitalism.

These developments mark the beginning of a new era of revolutionary struggle by the international working class. The heroic movement of workers and youth in Egypt and Tunisia has demonstrated once again the immense courage and enormous social power and revolutionary potential of the working class. The events in Wisconsin similarly reveal the capacities for struggle of the American working class.

The Marxist conception of the objective laws of capitalist crisis and their revolutionary implications is being vindicated. The resurgence of working class struggle is driven by the crisis of the world capitalist system. In virtually every country, unemployment is chronically high, wages are being slashed, inequality is increasing and the government is demanding unprecedented cuts in social programs.

The struggle in each country must be seen and conducted as part of an unfolding international struggle of the working class. In every country, the enemy of working people is not only the corporations and banks in that one country, but a global network of corporations and banks. They operate on an international scale to extract the greatest possible profit from the labor of the working class.

These initial struggles have underscored the decisive historical issue of revolutionary leadership and the need for working people to be armed with an independent socialist and internationalist perspective. In the absence of an international revolutionary leadership, the working class, despite its heroism and determination, remains subordinated to nationalist trade unions and other political forces that work to prop up the ruling class and its state.

This conferences calls for the closest unity between workers of all countries and the coordination of their struggles on the basis of a socialist and revolutionary program. This means the unification of all sections of the working class—white and black, native-born and immigrant—and opposition to all forms of nationalism and chauvinism.