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Index- Course on Marxism 2

Part II

1- Strategy and Tactics

2- Propaganda and Agitation

3- Program and Instructions

4- The Theory of Permanent Revolution

5- The Political Revolution

6- The February and October Revolutions

7- The February Revolutions of the 21st Century

8- Counterrevolution and Reaction

1-STRATEGY AND TACTICS

These two concepts were borrowed by Marxism from military science. Strategy relates to the ultimate, overall, long-term goal we want to achieve. Tactics, on the other hand, are the various steps to reach that goal. Both are relative terms. That is, we will always have to specify what a given matter is strategic in relation to. This relative nature of both concepts means that what is strategic at a particular stage may, in turn, be tactical in relation to a higher or more general objective. For example, if we want to win the leadership of a union, that becomes our strategy. Then, to achieve that goal, we employ different tactics, such as putting together a list of candidates, mobilizing activists, and forging alliances with other sectors, etc.

But once we win control of the union, it becomes tactical in relation to winning control of the entire central organization or Federation, which then becomes our strategy. From that point on, the union's role is tactical in relation to the Federation. In other words, strategy and tactics are relative terms, because strategy itself becomes a tactic in relation to our strategic objective, depending on our plans at the different stages of our process.

Trotskyism has only two long-term strategies: Mobilizing the masses, and building the party to seize power

In the current historical era of decadent imperialist domination and socialist revolution, we Trotskyists have, in the long term, both nationally and globally, two strategies and permanent strategic objectives:

1) The mobilization of that same working class and the masses, to take power and make the socialist revolution triumphant.

2) To build the party, in order to provide the working class and the masses with a revolutionary leadership.

As long as we live in the current historical era of relentless struggle against imperialism, everything else is tactical in relation to these two fundamental strategic objectives. To develop these two strategies, we can and must seek and use the tactics appropriate to each moment: intervening in elections, forming anti-bureaucratic opposition lists, raising minimal economic demands for wage increases, and so on. Any tactic can be valid, if it is the one that corresponds, in the concrete situation of the class struggle, to the best achievement of our strategy.

Long-term strategic goals and the broad, ever-changing nature of tactics are characteristic of the Bolsheviks, Leninism, and Trotskyism. Other currents within the workers' movement do the opposite. They confuse strategy with certain privileged tactics and elevate them to a permanent strategy. For example, since the beginning of the century, social democracy has transformed the sound tactic of electoral and parliamentary participation through workers' representatives into a strategy to which it has subordinated everything else, including strikes and independent mass mobilization.

Stalinist communist parties transformed the correct tactic of seeking temporary agreements or joint action with bourgeois sectors against imperialism or fascism into a permanent front strategy with the bourgeoisie in the arena of popular fronts—that is, class conciliation. Guerrilla fighters elevate armed struggle to a sacred and permanent strategy, etc. Anarchists commit the opposite error. They only accept principles and strategies, without tactics. The only response of classical anarchism to the daily struggles of the workers' movement since the last century, whether for wages, politics, democracy, or anything else, was: Down with the bourgeois state!

The history of Bolshevism, on the contrary, is a constant struggle to impose, on all fronts, the means and tactics appropriate to each moment of the class struggle, against the various currents that advocated a single means or tactic, transformed into strategy. Bolshevism fought against terrorists, but knew how to use terror; it fought against trade unionists, but was a champion of the trade union struggle; it fought against parliamentarians, but skillfully and revolutionaryly used parliament; it fought against guerrillas, but knew how to wage guerrilla warfare; it fought against spontaneous uprisings, but knew how to lead spontaneous mobilizations.

And, unlike the anarchists, who spent their lives threatening to overthrow the bourgeois state without success, Bolshevism knew how to do so when necessary and possible. Bolshevism carried out all its tactics, using them boldly and without prejudice, because they were always at the service of its great strategic objective: its development as a revolutionary party. Now, it is necessary to point out that these two great, ongoing tasks—party building and mobilization—have their own characteristics; they have their own specific laws of development, although they are, of course, inextricably linked. Here, for the purposes of our study, we only want to focus on one aspect in which these two tasks are opposed.

The first, party building, depends largely on us; that is, it is subjective. The second, mobilization, does not depend on us; it is objective, meaning it is independent of the desires, will, and even the existence of the revolutionaries. Therefore, party building is a subjective phenomenon; it depends on the existence of united revolutionary wills that are constantly and consistently committed to building a revolutionary party; otherwise, it will not exist. Mobilization, on the other hand, does not depend on the will or actions of the revolutionaries.

But in all cases, whether we are a party with some influence, or a vanguard party, or a small group, the fundamental task, along with the specific tasks that arise for the construction of the party, will be the systematic search for action, for mobilization, and from there the most diverse tactics can be developed.

2- PROPAGANDA, AGITATION AND ACTION

We simply want to recall the classic definitions. Propaganda is the activity of giving many ideas to a few. Agitation is the activity of giving a few ideas to many. Propaganda ranges from a course in Marxist economics or dialectical logic to a one-on-one conversation with a workers' activist to whom we explain the national and international situation, our program, and so on. Agitation, on the other hand, consists of raising a few slogans, sometimes just one, that provide a way out of the struggle that the workers' or mass movement faces at any given time, such as "wage increases," "For democratic freedoms," "constituent assembly," "all power to the soviets," and so forth .

Our organization, through its publications, materials, and social media posts, systematically carries out weekly agitation and propaganda among the activists and workers in the unions and neighborhoods who read us. Generally, propaganda is directed at the vanguard, while agitation targets the entire working population, the working class, and the exploited masses. We can say that what characterizes the activity of a revolutionary party is agitation among the entire exploited population. The slogans we raise in our agitation reflect pressing, urgent needs, and when they align with an objective process, they become calls to action.

3-PROGRAM AND INSTRUCTIONS

Schematically, we could say that a slogan is a single idea or task, while a program is a set of slogans. This set of slogans corresponds to the tasks for an entire stage, for a period. Our Program is based on the documents of the first four Congresses of the Third International (1919-1922), the Transitional Program (1938), Nahuel Moreno's Update of the Transitional Program (1980), the LIT Manifesto (1985), and other documents, which form the programmatic basis, the articulation of the historical tasks for the working class and the revolutionary leadership in the era of decadent imperialist domination in which we are living.

The slogans are practically endless. "No debt payment!", "Moratorium!", "Out with Rockefeller!", "Vote Orange List!", "No to megaprojects!", "Legal abortion!", etc. And we could go on and on, adding hundreds, even thousands. Both in the programs we mentioned and in our own, there are numerous ideas and tasks, numerous slogans, but of varying importance. We can summarize the structure of a program by noting that it must address, at every stage, fundamental problems posed by capitalism, some current and others of a historical nature. Slogans arise from the tasks that emerge in different historical periods. From this perspective, our program encompasses several types of slogans.

Nahuel Moreno explains the importance of slogans in this way: "To summarize, we can say that all Trotskyist science and art are synthesized in the ability to formulate the appropriate slogans for each moment of the class struggle. This is the same as what Lenin said: 'Therefore, the main content of the activities of our party organization, the center of gravity of these activities, must consist of work that is both possible and necessary during periods of the most violent upheaval and of complete calm, namely, unified political agitation throughout Russia, shedding light on all aspects of life and addressing the great masses' (Lenin, "What Is to Be Done?" ). First, we have

a set of slogans that are democratic, which have emerged for several centuries from the different revolutions carried out by the bourgeoisie in the struggle for conquests and rights against the nobility, wrested by and for all the people in the era of the rise of capitalism.

Some examples of democratic demands include freedom of speech, freedom of petition, freedom of assembly, freedom of work, equality before the law, the right to vote, agrarian reform, independence or national unity, the fight for human rights, women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the rights of oppressed nations, and so on. The bourgeoisie no longer fights for these demands in historical terms, but it was the social class that championed them when it led the revolution against the nobility.

From the second half of the 19th century onward, struggles and revolutions gave rise to another set of demands, which we call the minimum, economic, or partial demands, won by and for the working class during the era of capitalist reforms. These demands include, for example, the eight-hour workday and other labor rights, protection of women's and children's labor, labor licenses, freedom of association in unions, legal recognition of workers' parties, and so on.

From the moment we enter the current era of international socialist revolution and decline, and the imperialist stage of capitalism, a new set of tasks and slogans emerges: the transitional ones. Trotsky's Transitional Program of 1938 defines this era as follows: "...the era of decaying capitalism, when it is no longer possible to pursue systematic social reforms or raise the standard of living of the masses... when any serious demands of the proletariat, and even any progressive demands of the petty bourgeoisie, inevitably lead beyond the limits of capitalist property and the bourgeois state..."

We could define transitional slogans as those "socialist solutions ," those foreshadowings of workers' power that we raise in the present in response to the worsening living conditions of the masses under the decline of the capitalist system. For example: "Nationalization under workers' control of the bankrupt company," " Workers' control of production," "Opening of the accounting books," "Nationalization of foreign trade," etc. These are all transitional slogans between the power of the bourgeoisie and the power of the working class.

This is what the Transitional Program states: "It is necessary to help the masses, in the process of the daily struggle, to find the bridge between their current demands and the program of the socialist revolution. This bridge must consist of a system of transitional demands, starting from the current conditions and the current consciousness of broad sections of the working class and invariably leading in one and the same direction: the conquest of power by the proletariat." (Leon Trotsky, Transitional Program, 1938)

4-THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION

From 1936 onward, Trotsky added a new set of tasks, which he called "Political Revolution ." In his book " The Revolution Betrayed," Trotsky pointed to the phenomenon of bureaucratization in the Soviet Union (USSR) with the rise of Stalinism, which seized control of the USSR and betrayed the workers' revolution. Trotsky emphasized the need for a revolution against this counter-revolutionary caste, but since the USSR remained a workers' institution, it was not a social revolution, but rather a revolution of the political regime; hence, he called it a "political revolution." This is why we also call changes in the political regime of all countries a political revolution. For example, when a dictatorship falls, it is a revolution that accomplishes democratic tasks because freedoms are won, but it is also a political revolution because the institutions of the political regime change.

The bureaucratization of the USSR and the Third International resulted in "the historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat ." In other words, the working class and the people were left without leadership to defeat capitalism. The political revolution poses the task of ending these treacherous leaderships and establishing a revolutionary leadership to abolish capitalism. This category, formulated by Trotsky, remains entirely relevant in the 21st century, as we see the political revolution continuing its course and triggering a veritable global political tsunami, because it is striking all the old parties and leaderships of the mass movement.

The people and activists of the world are turning their backs on the old currents, parties, and leaderships because they no longer believe in them, and they reject them. Social democracy, reformism, classical Stalinism in all its variants—whether Maoist, Castroist, or Guevarist—bourgeois nationalist movements like the PRI, Peronism, APRA, or Nasserism, etc., and former guerrillas like

Sandinismo, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, and other movements that were once attractive to millions of activists worldwide are now mired in a profound crisis, a product of the rejection and repudiation they face for their betrayals. This mass rupture is a true global "earthquake" of popular rejection of all the old parties and leaderships, a true revolution as Trotsky envisioned it, a "political revolution" that in the 21st century implies the collapse of all those leaderships .

The concept of political revolution was updated from its original formulation by Nahuel Moreno in 1958 when he stated in the Leeds Theses that political revolution is a revolution against Stalinism, but also against all counter-revolutionary apparatuses and leaderships in the world. Nahuel Moreno explained it this way: "...on a global scale, the strength of the apparatuses that restrain, betray, and divert the revolutionary movements of the masses, whether they be social democratic, bourgeois nationalist parties, bureaucratic, or Stalinist, is directly related to the strength of Kremlin Stalinism" (Nahuel Moreno - Leeds Theses, 1958).

Both Leon Trotsky and Nahuel Moreno were right, and the political revolution deepened at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, 35 years ago, when the peoples of the world began to undertake the task of global political revolution. This opened a new global stage in the class struggle, which went through three phases:

• 1- The beginning of the collapse of Stalinism between 1989-1999, and, as Nahuel Moreno predicted, of all counter-revolutionary apparatuses, social democracy, the old bourgeois nationalist movements, etc.

• 2- Between 2000 and 2010, and for a decade afterward, the political revolution was "frozen" when imperialism launched a global counteroffensive "against terrorism" and the invasion of Iraq. The defeat of the imperialist counteroffensive reopened the global crisis of capitalism, unleashed revolutionary waves, and "thawed" the political revolution.

• 3- From 2010 until today, when the political revolution "thawed ," it began to sweep away the remnants of the large counter-revolutionary apparatuses, but also autonomism, Islamic fundamentalism, Castro-Chavismo, and even began to strike at the parties of the Progressive International itself.

The collapse of political parties and organizations that led the mass movement for decades impacts both regimes of capitalism: bourgeois democracy and bourgeois dictatorships. This is because both regimes are based on the leadership of the mass movement, and if those parties and leaderships collapse, the entire political regime collapses. For example, the Iranian dictatorship is based on Islamic fundamentalism, the Venezuelan dictatorship on Chavismo, and the Cuban dictatorship on Stalinism. When Stalinism, Islamic fundamentalism, or Chavismo collapse because the masses reject them, these dictatorships begin to crumble.

The same thing happens with bourgeois democratic regimes. These are based on parties and leadership in which the masses no longer believe, which provokes a true political "earthquake" and plunges the bourgeois democratic regimes into crisis. The masses' break with the bourgeois democratic regime is expressed in the fact that sectors of the population do not vote and turn their backs on bourgeois elections. A "wave of abstention" swept the world in 2021 and 2022, when high percentages of the population did not vote, or cast invalid or blank ballots in Venezuela, Italy, Brazil, Peru, Iraq, Chile, etc., or as in the cases of the US and Mexico, where abstention reached almost 50%. In the regional elections in France, abstention reached levels of 65.3%, historic highs since General Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic in 1958.

The "abstentionist wave" is a product of the political revolution. The crisis of bourgeois democracy leads to the emergence of very weak capitalist governments, elected by a very small percentage of the population, which must govern amidst a brutal capitalist crisis, resulting in constant crises and government collapses. This has turned bourgeois democracy into a Pandora's box for the ruling classes, because even under the iron grip of fraud and the undemocratic bourgeois electoral mechanisms, it is possible for a "nobody" to win elections, surpassing traditional parties, as happened with Beppe Grillo, Meloni, Milei, Bolsonaro, and others—figures or "outsiders" who were completely unknown two years before becoming president.

In turn, the fact that the world's masses have begun to turn their backs on the propaganda of the bourgeoisie and reformist organizations, and no longer believe in the fraudulent mechanisms of bourgeois democracy, represents an advance in mass consciousness. This advance has created a crisis within the bourgeois democratic regime and the political organizations that defend it, especially the reformist ones. As a result of this situation, the political revolution has triggered a serious crisis within the 99% of the world's left that adopted the reformist strategy.

Therefore, the anti-bureaucratic struggles against the increasingly degenerative character of the counter-revolutionary bureaucracies that parasitize workers' organizations, and of the left-wing organizations that parasitize Marxism, are thus part of the political revolution. From this task emerges a set of political slogans that arise from the struggle against bureaucracy, reformism, and the revisionism of the reformist left. Our program seeks to permanently combine democratic, minimal, transitional, and political slogans that stem from different stages of the class struggle, from previous years and centuries. In turn, this entire program is based on the Theory of Permanent Revolution published by Trotsky in 1930, which we will examine below.

5- THE THEORY OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION

The Theory of Permanent Revolution explains how revolution, an essential component of history, or rather, of historical materialism, unfolds. Revolution is an objective fact, occurring continuously and beyond our control. It is like the circulation of blood in the human body or the rotation of planets in space; it is an objective and ongoing process that, like any other scientific process, has its own laws of operation. Like all objective processes, the development of revolution escapes our subjective will; it is an objective fact that occurs independently of us and our will.

The goal, precisely, is to guide this process toward victory; that's what it means for our organization to achieve mass influence. But achieving mass influence is impossible if the organization doesn't know, or doesn't understand, what revolution is, what it's about, how it works, and what its laws are. In 1930, Trotsky published the Theory of Permanent Revolution, polemicizing against Stalin and Bukharin's "Theory of Revolution by Stages."

Stalin and Bukharin argued that the revolution required a first stage of unity with the bourgeoisie, because conditions in underdeveloped countries—that is, most of the world— were "not ripe" for revolution. This was a theory to justify the "Popular Front" policy and unity with the bourgeoisie that Stalin and Bukharin promoted. Trotsky wrote the Theory of Permanent Revolution to eliminate the classification of countries as "ripe" and "not ripe" for revolution. Hence his famous phrase: "The fruits of the revolution are not only ripe, but are beginning to rot a little."

Revolution is a scientific fact. Far from the romantic and naive views of revolution that abound on the left, for Marxism, revolution is a scientific fact whose laws must be constantly studied, elaborated, and updated. Trotsky's objective when he wrote the Theory of Permanent Revolution was to lay the foundations for the study of revolution, understanding that revolution is the engine of history, and that the functioning of this engine is governed by its own laws. The goal, precisely, is to guide this process toward victory; that is what it means to ensure that our organization achieves mass influence. The democratic, minimal, transitional, and political tasks are like gears that make the engine of revolution function. In turn, revolution is an engine that drives the class struggle and history, thus making revolution the foundation of historical materialism.

In the Theory of Permanent Revolution, Trotsky explains how democratic, socialist (i.e., minimal) and transitional tasks function and intertwine. He posits the unequal and combined dialectical interrelation between democratic and socialist tasks and revolutions, thereby demonstrating the permanent nature of the revolution. In doing so, he dismantles the theory of revolution by stages and its categorization of countries as "mature" and "unmature . "

6- THE FEBRUARY AND OCTOBER REVOLUTIONS

The first classification of revolutions, tasks, and slogans is based on objective factors: the development of the productive forces and the class struggle. The second classification is based on the subjective factor: who leads the revolution, that is, the party or the leadership of the masses, which is the expression of their consciousness.

According to this concept, we can classify revolutions into two main groups:

1) February Revolutions

2) October Revolutions.

Both revolutions were socialist and workers' movements. The difference lies in the fact that the February Revolution had a reformist leadership, or no leadership at all, while the October Revolution had a revolutionary leadership. Both concepts stem from the Russian Revolution, which began in February 1917 with the fall of the Tsar, with an urban insurrection lacking leadership, which then culminated in the October Revolution led by the Bolsheviks supported by the soviets.

The February Revolution

The February Revolution is a workers' and socialist revolution in its content, because it is part of the world revolution against capitalism, and because it challenges the power of the bourgeoisie and its government. It fulfills tasks

democratic and political, because it wins freedoms and democratic rights, and because it produces changes in the political regime of the country where it occurs. Nahuel Moreno states it this way: " ... In reality, February has a fundamental and decisive importance, as much as the conquest of the large unions in the reformist era... February is a socialist revolution, categorically socialist... The transitional process that leads to the February revolution gives enormous weight to democratic tasks. But this does not mean that it is a bourgeois-democratic revolution..." (Thesis XV, "A stage of February revolutions and no October revolution" )

In the February Revolution, the workers were unaware of the revolution they had carried out. Lacking revolutionary leadership, they believed that another revolution was unnecessary to seize power; this is why we call the February Revolution an unconscious socialist revolution. But objectively, the February Revolution paved the way for the October Revolution because it set out to advance toward the seizure of power.

For this reason, the reformist parties collaborate with the bourgeois regime, attempting to prevent the February revolution from reaching October. They try to save the bourgeois regime with a policy of support for the bourgeoisie and vehemently oppose the struggle to carry out the socialist revolution. In the February revolution, the bourgeois democratic political regime is weak because it faces the mobilization of the workers and the people, and the institutions forged by the workers' and mass movement within that mobilization.

These are the "soviets," that is, the organs of struggle and power of the mass movement, such as the soviets of workers, peasants, and soldiers, the trade unions, or the factory committees, assemblies, etc. These emerging bodies constitute a de facto power that challenges the power of the bourgeoisie. This is why it is called dual power; a power begins to emerge that challenges the power of the capitalist state. These are bodies that begin to wield power, and sometimes even more power than the capitalist government.

The recurring Februaries

Even with its great victories, the February Revolution does not solve any of the people's problems, since capitalism persists, leading to recurring Februarys. The February Revolution not only occurs in many countries during this revolutionary stage, but also repeats itself several times within the same country until the revolution progresses to October. Therefore, we must further define this period as revolutionary: it is the stage of objective revolutions, regardless of whether the subjective factor is present.

The revolutionary upsurge is so great that revolutions occur even with immature subjective factors. The February revolutions characterize this stage, and will likely continue to characterize it for a long time, while the conditions for the October revolutions mature. In reality, the February revolutions are the prologue to October, even though the process is prolonged and often thwarted, as has happened in many cases.

The October Revolution

In October 1917, the revolution took place through which the Bolsheviks seized power. Through an insurrection led and organized by the revolutionary Marxist workers' party, the Bolsheviks won a majority in the soviets and led them in a revolution against Kerensky, that is, against the bourgeois democratic regime, by imposing the soviets' control. Trotsky defined it as a conscious revolution. In this way, they changed the character of the state. Unlike the February Revolution, this revolution not only changed the political regime but also the state itself: it ceased to be a state in the service of the bourgeoisie and a state of the working class, supported by the peasantry and soldiers, was born.

Unlike February, the October Revolution was not merely a political revolution, but also a social one. However, like all social revolutions, the October Revolution was also a political one. The October Revolution not only changed the social classes that dominated the state, but also inaugurated a new type of regime; that is, it radically changed the governing institutions. Until October, the bourgeois and reformist petty-bourgeois parties governed, relying on the bourgeois army in crisis. From October onward, the bourgeois army and police disappeared, the reformist bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties ceased to govern, and an ultra-democratic institution that organized all the exploited—the Soviets of workers, peasants, and soldiers—began to govern the state.

At the head of these new state bodies or institutions was the Bolshevik party, a revolutionary, internationalist, and profoundly democratic party where everything was discussed and virtually nothing was voted on unanimously. It is therefore important to analyze the relationship between the February and October revolutions. Due to their class dynamics and the enemy they faced, both February and October were socialist revolutions. The difference between them lies in the different levels of consciousness of the mass movement and, primarily, in the relationship of the revolutionary Marxist party with the mass movement and the ongoing revolutionary process.

To put it succinctly, the February Revolution was unconsciously socialist, while the October Revolution was consciously so. We could say, flirting with Hegel and Marx, that the former was a socialist revolution in itself , while the latter was socialist for itself . The classical analysis of

Trotsky and our International have maintained that the February Revolution is the prelude to the October Revolution, and without the latter there can be no break with the bourgeoisie, no expropriation of the bourgeoisie, and not even the fulfillment of the remaining democratic tasks. All current revolutions are socialist because of the enemy they face: the bourgeoisie and its state apparatus, and because of the class character of those who carry them out: the workers.

The proletariat, due on the one hand to the agony of capitalism, its decay, and the general regression it causes for humanity, and on the other hand to its prejudices, low political awareness, and the existence of bureaucratic and petty-bourgeois leaderships that reinforce these prejudices and conceptions, is compelled to carry out a February revolution as a prelude to the necessary October revolution. There are two errors we can make regarding the relationship between the February and October revolutions. One is to think that there will only be a revolution when the industrial proletariat, led by its Marxist party, carries it out. This is a sectarian conclusion that underestimates all the revolutionary processes we are experiencing today and, moreover, denies history.

If the only revolutions we recognize as such are those of October, we would see a completely paralyzed class struggle; there would be no revolutions anywhere, because the consciousness of the workers has not yet matured. The class struggle would grind to a halt, and the workers would be unable to make any progress. But history tells us that this is not the case, that the revolutionary struggles of the masses continue to achieve great historical victories, making triumphant revolutions despite their immaturity.

Then we can make a second mistake, and believe that the only possible revolutions are those of February. That would be a pessimistic view. There is no reason why new October revolutions cannot occur; the February revolutions will mature in the consciousness of the proletariat, and in turn, that maturation will contribute to the strengthening of our parties. This is how these two processes—the triumph of the revolutions, together with the maturation of consciousness that this entails—will lead to the October revolution.

It is an inevitable consequence of the revolutionary upsurge. What we must recognize is that the October triumph is much more difficult than the February one; and also that February revolutions occur and advance more than we believed, due to objective circumstances. But from this we cannot regress Marxist thought to theorize that February revolutions are the only kind that can happen. Moreover, any February revolution that does not transform into an October revolution inevitably degenerates.

No February revolution can maintain a permanent rhythm because the role of the petty-bourgeois and bureaucratic leadership at the forefront is always the same: to freeze the process of permanent revolution; to stifle, suppress, and defeat the mass movement. Therefore, every February revolution, whether or not it has expropriated the bourgeoisie, gives rise to recurrent February revolutions. This means that the February revolution does not constitute a fundamental solution to the revolutionary process. It always necessitates new Februarys or large-scale mass mobilizations to halt the inevitable setbacks caused by the treacherous leadership.

7- THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTIONS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Nahuel Moreno conducted a study on revolutions, which he published in the book "The Revolutions of the 20th Century ." Based on the development of the revolutionary process in the 21st century, we periodize and study the three waves in which the global revolutionary process has unfolded in the current century:

1) First Wave (2010-2015): Hatred of capitalism erupts

The first revolutionary wave emerged from the triumph of the Iraqi Revolutionary War of National Liberation, an urban guerrilla war that defeated the Pentagon and NATO, combined with mass mobilizations worldwide and in the US against the Bush administration's attempt to impose a dictatorship through the Patriot Act. Simultaneously, the Wall Street crash and the collapse of global corporations led millions to rise up against capitalism and the consequences of the global crisis.

From there, the first wave was marked by the " Arab Spring," a complex of revolutions that began in October 2010 with the uprising in the Saharan refugee camp. This was followed by the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, the White Revolution in Egypt, the Libyan revolution, the Pink Ribbon Revolution in Yemen, the Syrian revolution, the revolution in Bahrain, and spread to Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Jordan, Mauritania, Sudan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Kuwait, Morocco, and other countries. The " Arab Spring" encompassed the fall of decades-old governments, regimes, and dictatorships. It also included processes of self-organization, civil wars, dual power structures, crises and divisions within the armed forces, expropriations, council democracies, mass mobilizations, general strikes, armed struggles, and the emergence of new states and new armies, spanning more than 20 countries. The wave continued in 2011 in Spain with the "Indignados" movement , in Portugal with the Gerão a Rasca movement, in China with the strikes in Guangdong, in the US with Occupy Wall Street, in Greece with the 11 general strikes and with the 15-O the first global mobilization against capitalism on October 15, 2011.

In 2013, the global wave continued in the United States with the mass mobilization of the Black population and the Black Lives Matter movement , and in Syria with the uprising of the Kurdish people that gave rise to Rojava. In 2014, the revolutionary wave found continuity in Ukraine with the "Revolution of Dignity" that overthrew the dictatorship of Viktor Yanukovych, the outbreak of the "Umbrella Revolution" in Hong Kong, the declaration of independence of Catalonia from the Spanish State, and in Yemen with the triumph of the "September 21 Revolution" that brought the Houthis to power.

In 2015, the mass uprising brought an end to Dilma Rousseff's capitalist government in Brazil. In short, all these struggles deepen, reaffirming the permanent nature of the revolution with no turning back to the previous situation. This entire first revolutionary wave was predominantly popular, urban, and youthful, with a strong influence from autonomist, horizontalist, and 21st-century anarchist currents, spearheaded by Tony Negri, Subcomandante Marcos, Michael Hardt, John Holloway, Heinz Dieterich, David Graeber, and Murray Bookchin. Autonomism lied to activists, claiming that it is possible to "change the world without taking power ," a naive and utopian proposal that is treacherous , pacifist, and reformist because it strengthens the bourgeoisie by refusing to overthrow it.

But autonomism suffered a brutal blow with the first revolutionary wave because the people carried out self-defense and armed uprisings against the states and their armies, ignoring the "horizontal" and pacifist rhetoric of autonomism. This led to the eclipse of this movement and its offshoots, such as Zapatismo, or the Kurdish leaderships that integrated into the bourgeois regime amidst a profound crisis.

2) The Second Revolutionary Wave (2016-2021): The struggle of the oppressed

The second wave was marked by the eruption of the global women's movement, foreshadowed by the Kurdish guerrillas of Rojava as part of the "Fourth Revolution" of women. But the global mobilization of women was joined by the struggles of oppressed nationalities, oppressed races, immigrants, indigenous peoples, and others—among the most exploited and oppressed sectors of the world. The women's struggle spread like wildfire with the Ni Una Menos movement in Argentina, the women's struggles in Spain for the

Abolitionism, in Chile with the play "A Rapist in Your Path", the mobilizations in Mexico against femicides, the victory in Ireland for legal abortion, the struggle in Poland for legal abortion, and the Me Too Movement in the USA, etc., among others.

Other key milestones of the second wave were the uprising of the Honduran people against the JOH government, the uprising of young people in Nicaragua against the Ortega dictatorship in 2018, the Yellow Vest uprising in France in 2019, the revolution in Chile known as "Chile Awakened" from 2019 to 2021 that defeated the "30-year" regime , the National Strike in Colombia in 2019-2021 that defeated the Uribista regime, the revolution that caused the fall of the capitalist government of Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2019, and the revolution that ended the government of Lenín Moreno in Ecuador also in 2019.

In 2020, the wave continued in the United States with renewed Black Lives Matter mobilizations sparked by the murder of George Floyd, extending the struggle for Black liberation to every continent. The second wave began with the "Second Arab Spring," marked by uprisings in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon, and the "Third Intifada ," this time led by Palestinians living within Israeli cities, centered on Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The "Second Arab Spring" is a revolutionary process challenging the fundamentalist Islamic governments of Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, fueled by a new wave of youthful activism that breaks with religious leaders and fights for secularism, challenging the fundamentalist Islamic current that acts as the leadership of the mass movement in the Middle East region.

The second revolutionary wave is an urban process that began to place the working class at the center, developing the elements and methods of the proletariat following the emergence of the Yellow Vest movement in France, the general strike in Belgium, the Amazon strikes in Germany, and the 2020 general strike in India, which was the largest general strike in history. Also in 2020, the revolution in Peru overthrew two capitalist governments in a single week: that of Martín Vizcarra and Peruanos por el Kambio (PPK), and that of Manuel Merino and the Acción Popular (AP) party.

This entire process suffered successive paralysis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but overall it signified a maturation and an advance in relation to the 1st wave, because it presented a combination of the actions of the working class with other oppressed sectors such as women, oppressed races, oppressed nationalities such as Catalonia, Palestine, and Ukraine, oppressed sexualities, and indigenous peoples.

3) The Third Revolutionary Wave (2022 to present): The political revolution erupts

The third revolutionary wave began in March 2022 with Putin's defeat in his attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital in the battles of Kyiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv in mid-March 2022. The triumph of the Ukrainian people prevented Putin from taking control of Ukraine and led the invaders to withdraw, limiting themselves to controlling the occupied territories. The Ukrainian revolution follows the path of revolutionary wars such as the Iraq War, the Rojava Revolution, and the Yemeni Revolution.

Or take Syria, which is waging an urban guerrilla war, a form of armed self-organization in the cities combined with the struggle of a national liberation army. Putin's defeat confirmed the development of a process characteristic of the 21st century, which, as in the cases of Iraq, Ukraine, or the Third Intifada, receives support from sectors of the mobilized masses worldwide.

Another key milestone of the third wave is the inclusion of major strikes by large-scale proletarian movements worldwide. In the United States, these included strikes by actors and Hollywood workers, hotel and casino workers in Las Vegas, dockworkers, and the historic strike by the "Big Three" automakers —Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors.

This movement was joined by major general strikes by railway, metal, and dockworkers across Europe, such as the strike in Great Britain; the 2023 mobilizations of railway and maritime workers in France—the largest strike in 30 years; the 2022 strikes in Germany by port workers in Hamburg, Emden, Bremer, Bremerhaven, Brake, and Wilhelmshaven; and the 2022 general strike in Belgium, as well as strikes in Italy, Spain, Norway (of gas and oil workers), and Denmark (of aeronautical workers). And then came the major general strikes in Italy, Belgium, and Portugal in 2025 against the economic plans of capitalist governments.

The third wave continued with mass protests in Latin America, such as the mobilizations in Cuba against the capitalist dictatorship of Díaz-Canel and the Communist Party in 2022, or in Panama and Ecuador in 2023. In Africa, demonstrations took place in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, South Africa, Sudan, the general strike in Tunisia on July 16, 2022, and the anti-imperialist revolutionary wave, especially anti-French, in "Françafrique ," which led to coups in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali.

In Southeast Asia, the 2022 revolution erupted in Sri Lanka against the Rajapaksa clan. In 2024, the revolution in Bangladesh triumphed, overthrowing Hasina's dictatorship, while on August 25, 2025, the revolution in Indonesia triumphed against Subianto's government. On September 8, 2025, the revolution in Nepal toppled the capitalist government of KP Sharma Oli and the Maoist Unified Communist Party of Nepal (UCN-UML).

But undoubtedly, the uprisings of the Third Wave are centered on the Palestinian uprising, or Third Intifada, which took a leap forward when Palestinian militias inflicted a defeat on the Israeli army on October 7, 2023. From that day forward, the Third Intifada took on the character of an open and declared civil war, permeating the global situation, impacting the entire Middle East, and deepening revolutionary processes worldwide.

The third revolutionary wave witnessed the working class clearly taking center stage in the global situation, permeating the entire revolutionary upsurge with its actions, methods, and organizations. In turn, the emergence of the major proletariats, with their methods and actions, fostered the rise of a new global trade union activism that fought to affiliate and organize the working class while simultaneously seeking to defeat the union bureaucracy—a development that is part of the global process of political revolution. The development of these three revolutionary waves has generalized the process of revolutionary wars. Following the revolutionary war in Iraq, these wars continued in Rojava, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Palestine, and elsewhere.

But without a doubt, the process that definitively characterizes the third revolutionary wave is the political revolution. We have already studied how the political revolution "thawed" in 2011, but ten years later, starting in 2021-2022, it began to strike hard against all the old counterrevolutionary leaderships. This led to the development of self-organization and self-defense processes, which we call the "Sovietization process," and which has massively led to the emergence of "First Lines" in Chile, Hong Kong, Colombia, and the United States.

The political revolution also fosters a process of political radicalization and a leftward shift among mass sectors. As part of this process, an activism and vanguard independent of the major counter-revolutionary apparatuses emerges worldwide, giving rise to new phenomena such as the rise of Generation Z and the resurgence of the Black Panthers in the United States.

The political revolution expresses an advance in the consciousness of the world's peoples, a fact reflected in the major revolutionary events around the globe. These events are beginning to develop slogans that increasingly align with Marxism, such as the slogan "Free Palestine from the river to the sea ," which combines two Marxist slogans in a single phrase: "For a secular, democratic, and non-racist Palestine" and "For the destruction of the state of Israel ." In all these movements, a powerful and renewed interest in Marxism is developing among thousands of activists, along with the search for a revolutionary alternative.

8- COUNTER-REVOLUTION AND REACTION

The opposite of revolution is counterrevolution. And the opposite of reform is reaction. The bourgeoisie can respond to revolutions in two different ways: counterrevolution and reaction. For example, if a coup d'état occurs, and the bourgeoisie crushes the workers and the people, murders, massacres, persecutes, imprisons activists, and imposes a dictatorship that suspends rights, freedoms, and guarantees, this is a counterrevolution.

On the other hand, if the bourgeoisie proposes a "Peace Agreement," calls for elections, engages political parties, convenes a Constituent Assembly, and seeks "consensus" with workers' and popular organizations, that is reaction. We call this policy the policy of "democratic reaction." It is the policy promoted by the organizations of the Progressive International (PI) in the face of revolutions when they call for elections. For example, Petro, amidst the mobilizations in Colombia, called for taking "the struggle from the streets to the ballot box."

These are two different ways the bourgeoisie confronts revolutions and the struggles of the masses. An example of counterrevolution is Putin's invasion of Ukraine. In response to the Ukrainian people's revolution, Putin launched a military invasion, carrying out brutal massacres like the one in Bucha, bombing the civilian population, and so on. Putin seeks to militarily crush the revolution in order to reinstate a dictatorship; that is counterrevolution. In contrast, a different policy is that of the capitalist governments of Ecuador or Panama, which, faced with the struggles and uprisings of the people, propose "Negotiation Tables," "Agreements," and so forth; that is a policy of democratic reaction.

As a result of successful counter-revolutions, totalitarian regimes like those of Pinochet, Videla, Hitler, or Franco emerged, transitioning to a fascist or Bonapartist regime that crushed the workers' movement with methods of civil war. And as a product of reaction, bourgeois-democratic regimes arose when the bourgeoisie responded to revolutions by calling for elections, with ballot boxes, electoral campaigns, candidates, parliamentary elections, etc., with the aim of derailing the revolution.

Both counterrevolution and reaction are treacherous policies against the mass movement, which we must relentlessly denounce. Counterrevolution seeks to defeat the masses and prevent their struggle for many years, while reaction seeks to deceive the masses by diverting their struggles, making them believe that elections will solve their problems.

But it is a mistake to believe that Counterrevolution and Reaction are absolute terms. In Counterrevolution, dictatorial methods, repression, and the curtailment of freedoms predominate, but it is possible for a dictatorship to combine repression with some "openings" or "reforms" to divert the struggle. Conversely, a reactionary policy does not mean there is no repression; on the contrary, in "democratic" regimes , while negotiation and deception may prevail, there is also repression, violent attacks, and curtailments of freedoms.

In other words, in the class struggle, counterrevolutionary and reactionary policies are constantly intertwined. But, just as it's important to understand that they are intertwined, we must also understand that counterrevolution and reaction are distinct policies, and we cannot confuse them, because we risk falling into opportunism or ultra-leftism. For example, when Putin invaded Ukraine, the masses mobilized, demanding weapons; they wanted to avoid being crushed and murdered. Therefore, any slogan of "Peace" or "Negotiation," as raised by many leftist groups, was misguided. We demanded weapons, called for preparations to confront the invading army, and sought to prevent massacres. In this context, the slogan of "Peace" had nothing to do with reality; the masses would reject us as opportunists.

And conversely, we must not confuse reactionary policies with dictatorships. Many leftist groups claim that Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, Macri in Argentina, or Piñera in Chile are fascists. This is also wrong and can lead us to serious error. We cannot confuse counterrevolutionary policies or regimes with reactionary policies or regimes, however profoundly reactionary their ideology may be. If they govern through parliament, with elections, and democratic freedoms exist, they are not fascist regimes, and their policies are reactionary.

Therefore, the democratic reaction consists of the processes by which the bourgeoisie attempts to divert and halt the revolution by deluding the masses with the mechanisms of bourgeois democracy. While its objective is indeed counter-revolutionary, it is not a counter-revolution precisely because it does not radically change the regime. It attempts to slow the revolution through maneuvers, exploiting the democratic illusions of the masses, and eventually repressing them, but always within the bounds of bourgeois-democratic legality. It does not destroy the bourgeois-democratic regime but rather relies upon it. That is why it is not a counter-revolution.

From now on, we will refer to it as bourgeois-democratic reaction. The counterrevolution destroys the bourgeois-democratic regime and replaces it with a dictatorship. To change the political regime and regress to a more retrograde one, a defeat of the masses is necessary. Counterrevolutionary or reactionary politics depend on the class struggle to prevail.