Almost two decades after the United States launched the “war on terror,” the entire world is being dragged into an ever-expanding maelstrom of imperialist violence. Millions have been killed by the wars of US imperialism and its allies in the Middle East and Africa, and tens of millions maimed or turned into refugees. A century after the end of World War I, these conflicts are once again metastasizing toward a catastrophic global conflagration.
The ICFI is fighting to build a new international anti-war movement of the working class. The fight against war is the fight against its source, the capitalist profit system.
The Australian political establishment and media are engaged in a hysterical xenophobic campaign aimed at promoting hostility to China and the Chinese population in Australia. This campaign is aligned with the US and Australian military build-up against China.
The centenary commemorations were a national campaign, supported by all the major political parties—the governing Liberals and Nationals, the opposition Labor Party and the Greens—and the media, to glorify the imperialist slaughter.
The working class, the great mass of the world's population, is the revolutionary force in modern capitalist society. Repressed and dismissed for so long, the working class is beginning to assert its own independent interests, in strikes and demonstrations that have swept the globe since 2018.
The ICFI’s program is is based on the unification of the struggles workers internationally: of all countries, nationalities, ethnicities and languages. We fight against all efforts to divide workers on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation or various other identities.
The problems workers confront in every country are fundamentally the same: War, attacks on democratic rights, exploitation, unemployment, poverty and environmental destruction. They require a global solution: Socialism.
This is the opening report delivered by David North to the 2019 International May Day Online Rally, held annually by the ICFI to celebrate the day of international working-class solidarity and rally the working class to the program of international socialism.
The levels of inequality today are virtually without precedent in history. According to Oxfam, some 26 billionaires collectively control the same amount of wealth as half the global population. In 2018, the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $900 billion, or 12 percent, while 3.8 billion people saw their wealth decline by 11 percent.
The growth of social inequality is the deliberate intended aim of governments throughout the world, who have single-mindedly pursued policies to enrich the corporate elite through the impoverishment of the working class.
In Australia as around the world, capitalist governments are seeking to divert popular anger against the social crisis produced by capitalism against immigrants and refugees, the most vulnerable layers of the international working class.
Unprecedented levels of social inequality, continuous wars and the drive to great-power conflict are incompatible with the maintenance of democratic forms of rule. Around the world, capitalist governments are building up the state apparatus, surveillance and censorship directed at the population.
From the United States to Germany, fascist forces are being systematically promoted by the ruling class. Their elevation is part of preparations to violently suppress mass opposition in the working class to social inequality and war.
The Trump administration is seeking to extradite Julian Assange, an award-winning Australian journalist, to face charges of espionage that carry a life sentence and possible death penalty. His only “crime” is the publication of document exposing the war crimes and diplomatic intrigues of US imperialism and its allies.
In virtually every country, governments are seeking to crack down on the internet, prevent the spread of socialist and left-wing views, and stop workers from being able to communicate and organize online. They are collaborating with the giant social media and technology corporations including Facebook, Google and Twitter to engage in censorship.
Leon Trotsky founded the Fourth International as the World Party of Socialist Revolution in 1938, to oppose the Stalinist degeneration of the Communist (Third) International. The ICFI has defended the program and principles of genuine Trotskyism throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.