Skip to content

Communists Answer Your Toughest Questions — AGAINST THE STREAM

Against The Stream · 2026-05-28

Core Argument

This episode argues that the current conjuncture is defined by the military and political defeat of American imperialism — most dramatically in the Iran war — and that this defeat, while progressive, does not in itself advance the cause of socialism. The central thesis is that the decline of US hegemony creates a multipolar world of competing capitalist powers, not a step towards socialism. The episode insists that the key problem facing revolutionary movements globally is not a lack of mass struggle — revolutions have been happening continuously for 15 years — but a poverty of theory and the absence of a revolutionary leadership capable of completing the transition to workers' power. Against those who defend "nuanced" or "national" paths that stop short of breaking with capitalism, the hosts argue that only a clear Marxist programme — including the expropriation of the capitalist class and the destruction of the bourgeois state — can prevent revolutions from being absorbed, betrayed, or crushed.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the classical Marxist tradition, particularly the Leninist and Trotskyist currents. Key theoretical reference points include:

  • The distinction between state intervention and socialism: The episode draws on Engels' remark that nationalisation under capitalism is not socialism — the determining factor is which class holds power and whether production is for private profit or social need.
  • The theory of combined and uneven development: China's rapid capitalist growth is explained not as a model for socialism but as a late-developing capitalism that used the institutional remnants of a planned economy to accelerate accumulation — a phenomenon that has historical parallels in state-directed capitalist development elsewhere.
  • The critique of trade union consciousness: The episode follows Lenin's What Is to Be Done? in arguing that trade union struggle alone cannot break the logic of capitalism, and that revolutionary theory must be brought to the working class from outside the narrow economic struggle.
  • The theory of permanent revolution: The discussion of Venezuela, Burkina Faso, and the limits of national liberation struggles reflects the Trotskyist position that the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution can only be completed by the working class, and that stopping at national liberation or anti-imperialist reformism leaves the capitalist state intact.
  • The critique of "multipolarity" as a progressive framework: The episode rejects the notion that a world of multiple imperialist powers is inherently more favourable to socialism, arguing that it merely redistributes exploitation among competing capitalist centres.

The episode sits firmly within the revolutionary Marxist tradition that rejects both reformism and the defence of "actually existing" capitalist states that call themselves socialist. It is critical of both Western imperialism and the Chinese and Russian ruling classes, while maintaining unconditional but critical support for anti-imperialist struggles.

Conjunctural Relevance

The episode is directly engaged with the current moment — recorded during the ceasefire negotiations between Iran and the United States. Specific conjunctural claims include:

  • The Iran war as a watershed defeat for US imperialism: The hosts argue that the US has expended its missile arsenal, lost regional bases, and been forced to negotiate on Iran's terms — a formalisation of military defeat. The proposed memorandum of understanding (reopening the Strait of Hormuz, lifting sanctions, releasing frozen assets) is described as Iran achieving all its aims.
  • The fracturing of the US camp in the Middle East: Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain) are described as increasingly at odds with US and Israeli interests, seeking accommodation with Iran. A bloc of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt is identified as emerging in opposition to Israel.
  • China's growing role as a broker: The episode notes that China, as the primary purchaser of Gulf oil, is positioned to mediate regional deals — a return to its role after the Syrian civil war.
  • The crisis of the Chinese economy: The hosts cite specific data — 73.6% capacity utilisation in large enterprises, 240 million "flexibly employed" workers, 21% youth unemployment, 48.7 average working hours — to argue that China is experiencing capitalist overproduction and growing social contradictions.
  • Venezuela as a case study in revolutionary failure: The episode references the current status of Venezuela as a US protectorate — oil sold under US permission, proceeds held in US-controlled accounts, US military drills in Caracas — as the outcome of a revolution that stopped short of expropriating the capitalist class and destroying the bourgeois state.
  • The global wave of revolution: The hosts list uprisings from 2011 to the present — Arab Spring, Southern European debt protests, Ecuador, Sudan, Chile, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Madagascar, France, Italy — to argue that mass struggle is not lacking; revolutionary leadership is.

Where the Argument Continues

The episode deliberately leaves several threads open, pointing to other content in the corpus:

  • The question of how China's planned economy turned into capitalism is flagged as a topic requiring fuller treatment — the hosts indicate it has been addressed in other videos and should be revisited.
  • The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and the situation in Burkina Faso are promised as the subject of a dedicated future episode.
  • The question of entrism and trade union strategy is left as a tactical debate — the hosts argue against fetishising union positions when the organisation is small, but do not rule out the importance of union work at a later stage.
  • The broader theoretical question of the transition from planned economy to capitalism in the former Soviet bloc and China is referenced as a larger topic that connects to the Marxist theory of the bureaucratic degeneration of workers' states.

Listeners should consult earlier episodes on China's capitalist restoration and the Venezuelan revolution, as well as the writings of Alan Woods and Ted Grant on Venezuela (specifically the 2002 article analysing the April coup and proposing a programme for completing the revolution).

Connections

  • Lenin, What Is to Be Done? — The distinction between trade union consciousness and revolutionary consciousness, and the role of the party.
  • Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution — The argument that national liberation struggles cannot be completed within the framework of capitalism.
  • Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific — The distinction between state ownership under capitalism and socialist ownership.
  • Julio Antonio Mella — The Cuban Marxist's defence of the applicability of Marxism to Latin America, quoted directly in the episode.
  • Alan Woods and Ted Grant, Venezuela: The Revolution Unfinished — The programme and predictions referenced as having been vindicated by events.
  • Other Against the Stream episodes — Previous episodes on China's capitalist character, the Venezuelan revolution, and the nature of multipolarity are implicitly referenced as the foundation for the arguments made here.

Key Quotes

  1. "Theory is foresight over astonishment. When we discuss these things, when we develop our ideas, our analysis, our theory to explain certain situations, it is only in so far as it makes us able to intervene better and act better."

  2. "If you say that Marxism and therefore the Communist Party is exotic or alien here in America, you will have to demonstrate that here we do not have a proletariat. That imperialism doesn't exist with the same characteristics that Marxist thinkers have explained. And that the productive forces in America are different from those of Asia and Europe. However, America is not a continent of Jupiter but a continent of the earth."

  3. "The defeat of American imperialism is a good thing. It's the biggest enemy of the working class. We can see how barbaric it acts. But that only poses the question of what now rather than actually solving it."

  4. "What determines the character of a mode of production, the character of an economy, is whether there is production for private profit of the owners of the means of production or whether there is central planning and state ownership of the whole economy — not just one part or another part."

  5. "The problem is not that there's not enough people working in the unions. The problem is that the communists are too weak numerically. The programme is there, the ideas are there, but we need more people to join us."