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A world on the brink revolution looming

Marxist Perspectives · 2020-09-14

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the world has entered a unique, historically unprecedented period of capitalist crisis that is simultaneously an economic depression, a pandemic-driven social catastrophe, and the opening phase of world revolution. The article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic is not the cause of the crisis but an accelerant that has compressed into months processes that took years in the 1930s. The economic collapse has been faster and deeper than the Great Depression, state intervention has reached levels that make the Marshall Plan look insignificant, and the resulting debt mountain guarantees decades of austerity. The ruling class is caught between the impossibility of maintaining the system without colossal state handouts and the impossibility of repaying those debts without provoking revolution. Mass movements — from Black Lives Matter to the upsurges in Belarus, Lebanon, Chile, and Israel — are described as "dress rehearsals" for revolution, but the article insists that spontaneity alone cannot succeed. The missing element is revolutionary leadership, and the task of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) is to build the subjective factor — the party — to the point where it can intervene decisively when the breakthrough comes.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the classical Marxist tradition, drawing explicitly on Trotsky's 1938 characterisation of the "crisis of humanity" as a crisis of proletarian leadership. The article deploys the dialectical method as its organising principle: cause and effect are shown to reverse (the pandemic deepens a pre-existing crisis, which in turn intensifies the pandemic's effects); quantitative changes become qualitative (economic contraction in weeks rather than years); and the lag of consciousness behind objective conditions is followed by explosive catch-up.

The concept of the "subjective factor" is central. The article rejects both fatalism (the idea that capitalism will simply collapse) and voluntarism (the idea that revolutionaries can shortcut mass experience). It draws on the historical analogy of the English bourgeois revolution, where Puritan belief in predestination did not produce passivity but revolutionary audacity — a model for how Marxist determinism should function. The analysis of reformism follows the tradition of Trotsky's critique of the Popular Front and the lessons of Syriza in Greece: left reformists radicalise in rhetoric but always find reasons to avoid breaking with capitalism, and the masses must pass through the school of their betrayals before arriving at revolutionary conclusions.

The article's treatment of the state is implicit but important: the colossal bailouts reveal that capitalism cannot survive without the state's artificial life support, yet the state remains a capitalist state. This poses the question — why not abolish capitalism and let the state take complete control? — but the article does not develop this into a theory of state capitalism or transitional demands. The analysis of the EU's fracturing draws on the Marxist understanding that bourgeois integration is conditional on expansion; in crisis, national contradictions reassert themselves.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in September 2020, at a specific conjuncture: the first wave of COVID-19 had peaked in the global North but was raging in the global South; the US economy had experienced its sharpest contraction in history; the Black Lives Matter uprising had drawn 10 percent of the US population into protest; and mass movements were underway in Belarus, Lebanon, Chile, Israel, and Thailand.

The economic data cited is striking: US unemployment reached 40 million in weeks; the Federal Reserve bought $3 trillion in assets in three months (compared to $3.5 trillion in seven years after 2008); G20 stimulus totalled $10 trillion. The article correctly identifies that this debt mountain would eventually have to be paid, and that the ruling class understood this — citing the Financial Times warning that a return to austerity would be "an invitation to widespread social unrest, if not revolution."

Politically, the article identifies several key dynamics: the split in the US ruling class over Trump's attempt to use the military against protesters; the crisis of the EU as Italy replaces Greece as the weakest link; the contradictory character of the Belarus movement; and the rapid radicalisation of youth, with 67 percent of young Americans saying they would vote for a socialist president.

The article's predictions have been partially borne out: the V-shaped recovery did not materialise; inflation did eventually spike; the US election did produce a crisis of legitimacy; and the fragmentation of the EU has continued. However, the article underestimated the capacity of central banks to sustain fictitious capital through quantitative easing over a prolonged period, and the mass radicalisation it anticipated has not yet produced a revolutionary breakthrough in any major country.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is a perspectives document — a strategic orientation for the IMT's sections. It leaves several questions open:

  1. The precise mechanism by which the debt mountain will be resolved. The article says debts "must be paid" but does not specify whether this will take the form of inflation, default, or austerity — or a combination. Later IDOM articles on inflation and the cost-of-living crisis develop this.

  2. The character of the state in the bailout economy. The article poses the question of why not abolish capitalism if it needs state life support, but does not develop a transitional programme around nationalisation under workers' control. This is addressed in subsequent articles on the "green new deal" and public ownership.

  3. The concrete path from "dress rehearsal" to revolution. The article correctly warns that the process could take years or decades, but does not specify what would trigger the breakthrough. Later Against the Stream episodes and IDOM articles on specific countries (especially the US, Italy, and Brazil) attempt to track this.

  4. The relationship between the IMT's growth and the broader radicalisation. The article notes that the DSA grew to 66,000 members, but does not analyse the political character of this growth or the danger of reformist absorption. Later articles on the DSA's trajectory and the Corbyn experience develop this critique.

Connections

  • Trotsky, "The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International" (1938) — The article's title and many of its formulations are directly drawn from this transitional programme, especially the characterisation of the crisis as one of leadership.

  • Trotsky, "Whither France?" — The analysis of Bonapartism and the instability of bourgeois democracy in crisis is relevant to the article's treatment of Trump, Johnson, and Bolsonaro.

  • Engels, "The Tactics of Social Democracy" (1895) — The distinction between periods where 20 years pass like a day and periods where 20 years are summed up in 24 hours is cited directly.

  • Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" — The article's method of analysing conjunctural politics through class forces and state forms follows this model.

  • IDOM articles from 2020-2023 on specific countries — The article's general perspectives are concretised in national analyses of the US, Italy, Brazil, Belarus, Lebanon, and India.

  • Against the Stream episodes on the cost-of-living crisis and the Ukraine war — These develop the economic and geopolitical dimensions that the 2020 article could only gesture at.

Key Quotes

  1. "The Bank of England has said this will be the deepest crisis for 300 years, but even this is insufficient. In reality, the situation we are experiencing is unique."

  2. "The economic collapse in the USA is as severe as it was during the Great Depression. But whereas the contraction after 1929 stretched over a four-year period, the coronavirus implosion played out over the course of four months."

  3. "The strategists of capital are coming to the same conclusion as the Marxists. The bourgeoisie is caught between a rock and a hard place. They understand that revolution is implicit in the present situation."

  4. "What we saw in the USA shows the limitations of the powers of the state when faced with a mass uprising, like the one we saw in that country. This spontaneous movement of the masses is the prior condition for socialist revolution. But in and of itself, it is not sufficient to guarantee success."

  5. "The capitalist system is on life support. It depends now exclusively on colossal handouts from the state. But according to the theories of market economics, the state is not supposed to play any role in economic life. The question must therefore be asked: if the capitalist system cannot survive unless it is propped up by the crutches of the state, why not abolish it altogether?"

  6. "Marxists are patient people. We do not mind if the process takes a little longer, for the simple reason that we are not yet ready. People are now more open to our ideas than at any other time. There is a clearly anti-capitalist mood developing everywhere."