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Inflammable material is amassing everywhere

Marxist Analysis · 2022-07-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the global capitalist system is entering a pre-revolutionary phase, characterised by the rapid accumulation of "inflammable material" — objective conditions of economic collapse, mass immiseration, and ruling-class paralysis — that will inevitably produce explosive revolutionary movements across multiple countries simultaneously. Will James argues that Sri Lanka's July 2022 uprising is not an isolated event but the leading edge of a cascading crisis, with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Panama, and Argentina all exhibiting the same underlying contradictions. The article claims that the objective conditions for revolution are ripening on a world scale, but that the missing element — the "subjective factor" — is a revolutionary party capable of channelling mass anger toward the socialist overthrow of capitalism rather than allowing it to dissipate in reformist or nationalist directions.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is explicitly grounded in Lenin's theory of the revolutionary situation, as developed in The Collapse of the Second International and Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. James deploys Lenin's two-part criterion: revolution becomes possible when "the lower classes cannot go on living in the old way" and "the upper classes can no longer rule in the old way." The article also draws on Lenin's 1908 concept of "inflammable material" accumulating in world politics — a metaphor for the objective preconditions of revolution that Lenin applied to the period 1905–1917, when seemingly stable empires (Persia, Turkey, China, Russia) were shaken by mass movements within a decade of each other.

The theoretical tradition here is orthodox Trotskyist: the article insists on the permanent and international character of the revolutionary process, rejecting any notion that socialist transformation can be achieved in one country alone or through gradual reform. The emphasis on the "subjective factor" — the conscious organisation of the vanguard party — is a hallmark of the Trotskyist tradition's critique of both Stalinist substitutionism and social-democratic passivity. There is no invocation of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall or overaccumulation; the analysis operates at the level of political economy's surface manifestations — debt crises, inflation, supply shocks — rather than its deep structural laws. This is a deliberate choice: the article is written as an agitational intervention, not a theoretical treatise.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is dated August 2022, placing it squarely in the immediate aftermath of Sri Lanka's Aragalaya ("struggle") uprising, in which mass protests forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and resign on 13 July 2022. James situates this event within a specific conjuncture defined by three intersecting crises:

  1. Debt crisis in the Global South: The article cites Bloomberg's warning of a "historic cascade of defaults" affecting 19 countries with 900 million people, including El Salvador, Ghana, Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan, Argentina, and Ukraine. Sri Lanka defaulted on its $51 billion external debt in April 2022.

  2. Food and energy price shocks: The war in Ukraine (February 2022 onward) disrupted wheat and fuel supplies, hitting import-dependent economies hardest. Egypt, which imported 80% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, faced its worst food crisis in modern history. Lebanon's wheat storage was destroyed in the August 2020 Beirut port explosion.

  3. Ruling-class detachment and incompetence: The article catalogues a series of scandalous remarks by bourgeois politicians — Egypt's Sisi suggesting the poor eat leaves, Pakistan's minister proposing tea rationing, Boris Johnson claiming ignorance of bread prices — as evidence that the ruling class has lost all contact with popular suffering, mirroring the ancien régime before the French Revolution.

Specific data points include: Pakistan's foreign reserves falling to $6 billion (less than six weeks of imports); Bangladesh's reserves dropping by $6 billion in one year; Argentina's inflation forecast at 90%; Panama's fuel prices rising 50% since January 2022; and Tunisia's constitutional referendum achieving only 27.5% turnout while a UGTT strike achieved 96.2% participation.

Where the Argument Continues

The article explicitly identifies its own limitation: it analyses objective conditions but acknowledges the absence of the subjective factor. This opens several lines of continuation within the IDOM/RCI corpus:

  • The question of party-building: The article's closing reference to "what is missing" points toward the RCI's ongoing work on constructing revolutionary parties in each country. This is developed in IDOM articles on the Sri Lankan uprising itself (e.g., "Sri Lanka: The Revolution Has Begun" and subsequent analyses of the struggle's trajectory) and in the broader theoretical series on the united front and the transitional programme.

  • The fate of specific struggles: The article mentions Pakistan, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Panama as sites of imminent explosion. Subsequent IDOM coverage tracks these developments — particularly the Pakistan crisis of 2022–23, the Lebanese economic collapse, and the Tunisian political crisis under Saied.

  • The war in Ukraine: The article treats the Ukraine war as an accelerator of pre-existing contradictions. The RCI's analysis of the war's class character and its implications for the international workers' movement is developed in multiple IDOM articles and Against the Stream episodes from 2022 onward.

  • The reformist alternative: The article's critique of bourgeois politics (exemplified by Tunisia's low referendum turnout) implies a need to distinguish revolutionary from reformist strategies. This is taken up in IDOM's polemics against the reformist left and the "lesser evil" approach.

Connections

  • Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International (1915): The source of the two conditions for revolution. Essential theoretical companion.

  • Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920): On the relationship between objective conditions and the subjective factor, and the necessity of the vanguard party.

  • Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution (1930): The classic analysis of how "inflammable material" transforms into revolutionary consciousness and organisation.

  • Trotsky, The Transitional Programme (1938): The strategic document for building revolutionary parties in an epoch of capitalist decay.

  • IDOM, "Sri Lanka: The Revolution Has Begun" (July 2022): The companion piece analysing the Aragalaya in detail.

  • IDOM, "Pakistan: On the Brink of Revolution?" (2022–23 series): Follows the trajectory of the country identified as the most dangerous flashpoint.

  • Against the Stream, episodes from August–October 2022: Podcast discussions situating the Sri Lankan events within the global conjuncture.

Key Quotes

"A huge amount of inflammable material has built up in world politics. In the coming period, we can be certain to witness the eruption of explosive revolutionary movements all around the world, as this material ignites."

"What the above examples show – and there are many, many more besides – is that a qualitative shift in the world political situation is undoubtedly taking place."

"A century ago, Lenin explained that among the conditions for revolutions, 'the lower classes must be unable to go on living in the old way', whilst 'the upper classes can no longer rule in the old way'. We can see how true that is today."

"Such breathtaking arrogance is perhaps one of the most startling signs of the complete rottenness of the old ruling class. Parallels jump out with the pampered aristocrats of 18th Century ancien regime France... The ruling class is utterly detached from the mood in society. Like the ancien regime, they are ripe for overthrow."

"What is missing is the subjective factor, that is: a revolutionary organisation capable of directing the energy of the masses towards the historic goal of ending capitalism – and the oppression and want inherent in that system – and finally carrying out the world socialist revolution."

"The international fallout from Pakistan's internal collapse would be much bigger than Sri Lanka... I think there are many outside [powers] who would want to avoid an outright disaster in Pakistan created by an economic collapse." (Quoting a political scientist in the Financial Times)