By Alejandro Benedetti- The Marx International

A revolutionary tide travels the world with mass uprisings in Europe led by the peoples of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Albania, Belgium, Greece, Serbia, and the war of national liberation of Ukraine. In the United States with the mobilizations against ICE in Minnesota or the "No Kings" movement. In poor countries with the Palestinian Intifada, the 1st and 2nd Arab Spring, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Bulgaria, Turkey, Peru, the struggle against the dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba, Syria, the Houties revolution in Yemen, the Kurdish struggle, the mobilizations India, etc. These processes show that the 21st century is far from an unrevolutionary era. Revolutions cause panic in the ruling classes that call them "chaos", "teror", and their policy is to take troops out into the streets or declare a state of siege as the governments of Italy or France do in the face of the revolutionary processes that are unfolding in Europe on which you can read by clicking here.

However, for the 99% world left revolutions in the 21st century do not exist. When these processes erupt they speak of "rebellions," "riots," or "scrambles," and refuse to define them as revolutions. Indeed, and regardless of what the leaders of the groups of the 99% of the world left say, throughout the twenty-first century and since 2011 3 revolutionary waves have been developing with countless revolutions that have caused the fall of governments, fall of economic plans, defeats of prime ministers, fall of dictatorships, crisis in the armies and all kinds of crises in political regimes that happen permanently and characterize the world political situation.

Subjectivists: A retreat from Marxism to Hegel

From a Marxist perspective, revolutions are objective processes, rooted in material contradictions and in the class struggle, which can explode even without the previous presence of a revolutionary party. But for the leaders of 99% of the left-wing groups, these revolutionary processes cannot be classified as such because they lack the "subjective factor", that is, they have no slogans, no program, no revolutionary party. "Subjectivists" emphasize "subjective" or "subject" factors the "ideas" or "ideologies" to define the processes of class struggle.

In the field of Marxism we call "subjects" or "subjective factor" the parties and organizations involved in the processes of the class struggle, their programs, "consignas" "signs" and "ideology". The leaders of the 99% of the left groups define the processes according to the "subjective" issues such as ideology, people, or the intervening political groups, and if there is no revolutionary Marxist or Trotskyist party leading the revolution, the "subjectivists" give their sentence: "That is not a revolution". It does not matter that a government, a regime, that there are insurrections, or armed confrontations has fallen, none of that matters for the leaders of the 99% of the world left.

That shows how the leaders of 99% of the groups on the world left have broken with Marxism. Marxism as a science is materialistic. Study the concrete reality: economic crises, national oppression, labor exploitation, class struggle, institutions and regimes. Class struggle is an objective, material event that happens regardless of the will of parties and organizations. Because of the enormous crisis that capitalism is going through, all the time the governments and capitalist regimes push the masses into direct action, and those outbursts can be explosive, and contradictory but they are concrete and objective expressions of the class struggle. That is why Marxist science is called historical materialism, because it studies objective, material, concrete phenomena.

When Marx and Engels broke with Hegel's "idealism," they criticized the Hegelians for arguing that what was fundamental in historical development was the development of the "subjective" of "ideas," the intellectual world of the clash of "ideologies." Against the Hegelian thought that history and the world was a movement of "ideas""ideas", and subjetivo""subjective", Marx and Engels, they argued that the basis of the understanding of history and political reality is not the "subjective", nor the "ideas", but the objective and "material", the economy and the class struggle, therefore they called "dialectical materialism" to the current that they founded, in opposition to the "ideas"dialéctica idealista"

The leaders of the 99% of the world left who define the revolutions of the 21st century by the "subjective" factor, by the "subjects" and the "ideas" raise a pre-Marxist position. They go back to the early 19th century and present a stance "Hegelian", "subjectivist", which is ultimately the official bourgeois ideology, so they end Breaking with Marxism. Thus, the inexorable law is fulfilled that everything that does not advance, is receded: By taking a position "Hegelian" "subjectivist", "bourgeois" the leaders of the 99% of the world left groups instead of going from middle to university education, go back to Hegelian kindergarten or kindergarden in the early 19th century.

Leon Trotsky against the "Hegelian subjectivists"

Leon Trotsky violently confronted the "subjectivists" and all those who despised the revolutions of the masses: "... Lawyers and journalists have spent large amounts of ink on proving that the February movement... was strictly more than a mutiny of women, then transformed into military mutiny. Also Louis XVI was obstinate to believe in his time that the taking of the Bastille was nothing more than a mutiny, until things were responsible for proving to him in a fed up and eloquent way that it was a revolution ... Those who go out losing with a revolution rarely lean to call it by name... The privileged of all the centuries and their lackeys invariably try to mote of mutiny, sedition or revolt from the rabble to the revolution. (Leon Trotsky. Who led the Revolution of February? History of the Russian Revolution)

EIn the same text, the history of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky states: ""The history of revolutions is for us, above all, the history of the violent irruption of the masses in the government of their own destinies" -Chapter VIII) That is to say for Trotsky, and for all Marxism, the definition of revolution is an objective fact, it is when "the masses break in" and question the governments, regimes and plans of the ruling classes. That irruption is an objective, material questioning, concrete to the capitalist system, whereby following Trotsky's method of defining a revolution as such, we do not take into account slogans, nor subjects, nor ideologies. What we take into account is the objective fact of "mass disruption," regardless of the forms that such an intrusion may take.

The "irruptions" of the masses can take various forms. For example, in 1936 there was a sit-down strike in France that reached 700 factories. In the face of events, Leon Trotsky said: "The words "French revolution" may seem exaggerated. But no! It's not an exaggeration. This is precisely how the revolution is born. In general, they cannot be born otherwise. The French Revolution has begun" (Leon Trotsky - "Where is France going?" 1936). And just as in 1936 the revolution took on the form of a sit-down strike in France, it can be a mass uprising that overthrows a government like in Sri Lanka, Peru, Spain or Bangladesh, or an armed insurrection as in Iraq, Ukraine, Palestine or Yemen, where a national liberation army carries forward an armed struggle supported by the mass movement against the occupation or aggression of an oppressive state. Or it can take the forms of mobilizations with phenomena of self-organization or self-defense such as in the front lines of Chile, Colombia, Ukraine, Black Lives Matter in the U.S., or Hong Kong, etc.

That is, the forms that can reach that "irruption" are innumerable. Regardless of the forms assumed by this "irruption of the masses," we Marxists define it as a revolution. Once we locate the definition of the revolution based on the objective facts, materials remain to be placed what is the importance of the "subjective factor", that is, the parties, organizations, programs, slogans and ideologies that come into conflict in the revolutionary process. And on the other hand, it remains to be evaluated as that subjective factor, it is related to the objective factor of the revolution. Leòn Trotsky, in his elaboration on the Theory of Permanent Revolution, worked on the importance of "subjective factor" in the revolutions.

Leon Trotsky places the importance of the subjective factor

Leon Trotsky clearly placed that revolution is an objective fact, the "irruption" of the masses in the battle for their own destinies. But then, what role does the so-called "subjective factor" play? Leon Trotsky elaborated on the articulation of the objective factor with the subjective in the theory of permanent revolution, showing that the subjective factor or the problem of revolutionary leadership is of fundamental importance in its articulation with the objective factor. In what sense does Trotsky give him the importance? For Trotsky, the subjective factor does not define whether there is a revolution or not because that is an "objective" element, which does not depend on the subjects, but for Trotsky the "subjective factor" is fundamental because it defines the dynamics of the objective factor, that is, of the revolution. The subjective factor determines where the revolution is going and what objectives it achieves.

Trotsky warned that every revolution faces the challenge of imposing a workers' and people's government and in order to achieve that goal they must have a revolutionary leadership at their head. "Whatever the first episodic stages of the revolution in the different countries, the realization of the revolutionary alliance of the proletariat with the peasant masses is only conceivable under the political leadership of the proletarian vanguard organized in the Communist Party. This means, in turn, that the democratic revolution can only triumph through the dictatorship of the proletariat... (Leon Trotsky. " What is the permanent revolution? (Fundamental thesis- 1930)

That is, according to Trotsky to impose the "dictatorship of the proletariat", that is, to say the workers' and people's government, the revolution was to be conducted by the "the proletarian vanguard organized in the Communist Party." It is necessary to clarify that when Trotsky spoke of the Communist Party (CP) he meant the 1930s PCs that were still revolutionary parties, we should not confuse them with the current Stalinist "Communist Parties" that defend capitalism. That is, Trotsky made it very clear that the revolution, that objective "irruption" of the masses, that "objective factor" can only achieve the goal of the workers' and people's government if combined with a very specific "subjective" type factor that is the revolutionary party. In this way Leon Trotsky made clear the role of the "subjective factor" in the revolution: He defines its scope. If it has a revolutionary leadership, the revolution may end up imposing a workers' and people's government, but if it does not have a revolutionary leadership revolution it can achieve many things, but it cannot impose the power of the working class.

This elaboration of Leon Trotsky began to act as a law of revolutions, and began to clarify the relationship between the "objective" and "subjective" factors of the revolution. Leon Trotsky was persecuted and killed which prevented him from continuing his political elaboration which left many questions to be resolved in the Theory of Permanent Revolution. For example: If for a revolution to impose a workers' government it must have at its head a revolutionary party what happens to the revolutions that do not have revolutionary parties as their leadership? How do we define Marxists to those revolutions? Nahuel Moreno continued the elaboration left open by Leon Trotsky and began to elaborate to answer this question,Looking at the events and the great revolutions that happened in the post-war 20th century.

Nahuel Moreno: The February Revolution

In the 20th century, great revolutions such as the defeat of the Nazis, the Yugoslav revolution, China, Korea, or Vietnam, among others. None of these revolutions were led by a revolutionary party but by Stalinist or petty-bourgeois directions. Still, I'mn Great revolutions that brought down bourgeois regimes and even expropriated the bourgeoisie. To these revolutions, how do we categorize them? To solve this other aspect of the relationship between the objective and subjective factors of the revolution, Nahuel Moreno theteno that the study of the mechanics of the Russian Revolution allows us to solve the problem.

In 1957, when Moreno carried out this elaboration, the Russian Revolution had happened only 40 years ago as a process in which there was first a revolution in February that defeated the Tsar, and opened the doors of the workers' revolution. Then an interregnum developed in which the subjective conditions matured, the dual power bodies were strengthened, the working class made the experience with the opportunists in a process that led to the October revolution which was led by a revolutionary party. Having observed the course of the first post-war revolutions, Moreno concluded that since there was no revolutionary party on a world scale, the revolutions develop with the same mechanics of the Russian Revolution, that is, starting with "revolutions of February", continuing with an interregnum that should not necessarily be the same in the amount of time as in the Russian Revolution, it could be months or years depending on the rate of maturing of the subjective conditions, to giveOctubre.

Nahuel Moreno explains: "The Hungarian and Polish revolution has posed a great theoretical problem and, in my opinion, they have solved it: the political revolution will have like the classical revolutions, its February revolution and its October revolution, and an interregnum of dual power. That is, the political revolution is equal, in its mechanics, to the social revolution (Nahuel Moreno- The Revolution Permanent in the Post-Wara. 1953) Nahuel Moreno updated Trotsky's elaboration on the permanent revolution and raised like Trotsky, that revolutions are developed all the time, objectively, regardless of our will. But having not before a revolutionary leadership the revolution that is produced is February, a revolution that goes against capitalism but is "unconsciously" socialist.

That is, the masses make a revolution, but they have no full awareness that they are fighting against capitalism or that they are starring in a revolution. Even so with their struggle they achieve immense conquests, throw down dictatorial regimes, obtain democratic freedoms, collapse economic plans, stop the attack on their economic conquests, overthrow governments with which they liquidate officials and anti-workers institutions, overcome and destroy the old leaderships and the trade union bureaucracy that develops the political revolution. That is, the February revolutions cause serious damage to the bourgeois state, its institutions and political regime and the parties that make it up. Those conquests that achieve the February revolutions, prepare the conditions for the October revolution.

This is what Nahuel Moreno explains: " In reality, February has a fundamental and decisive importance, as much as the one that had the conquest of the great unions at the time reformist... February is a socialist revolution, categorically socialist, that destroys the capitalist state apparatus" (Update of the Transition Program- Nahuel Moreno) The February revolution is for Nahuel Moreno the gateway to the October revolution. The October revolution is not inexorable, nor inevitable, it can happen or not, it depends on how the "subjective factors" mature, but the February revolution has opened the doors so that it can be fought for. Then Nahuel Moreno categorized the existence of two different revolutions determined by the "subjective factor": February, it is a revolution that does not have a revolutionary leadership, and October if it has a revolutionary leadership. Therefore October is then, a "conscious" socialist revolution, which the working class carries forward "for itself".

Relations between the February and October revolutions

Both revolutions February and October are deeply intertwined, both go against capitalism, both are socialist, but they differ by the "subjective" question since while February is not led by a revolutionary party, October if it has a revolutionary party at its head. This elaboration that Nahuel Moreno developed in the 20th century, allows us to understand the revolutions of the 21st century. Since there is no revolutionary mass organization in the world today, all the revolutions that unfold in the 21st century are from February, because they are not led by a revolutionary party, they are revolutions that achieve great conquests but do not impose a government and popular. You can read more about the work of Nahuel Moreno in reference to the February revolutions by clicking here.

However, it should be emphasized that from the moment Nahuel Moreno made this elaboration that is in the middle of the 20th century in relation to the 21st century, the panorama of imperialist capitalism and the world situation have totally changed. Fundamentally two things have changed: The moment Nahuel Moreno began to elaborate on the February revolutions an economic "boom" of capitalism was developing in the post-war period of the 20th century. And secondly, at that time in the post-war period, counter-revolutionary apparatuses such as social democracy, Stalinism, or bourgeois nationalist movements were powerful, enjoying enormous strength and most of the world's activism was active within those organizations. That situation has totally changed in the 21st century.

The February revolutions transit in the 21st century a completely different framework and those two elements no longer exist. Today the February revolutions unfold within the framework of a historical world crisis of capitalism and a collapse and crisis of social democracy, Stalinism and all the old directions of the mass movement in the twentieth century, a process that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall and we call "political revolution". These two elements have led to their maximum potential to the February revolutions in their process character that opens the doors to the nourishment of the conditions for October, which has an enormous impact on the task of building the revolutionary party. The fall of the old apparatus weakens the policy of "socialism in one country", the "popular front", the "class collaboration" and all the policies that revolutionaries have been facing for decades. In turn, these trends strengthen the Theory of the Permanent Revolution, the Transitional Program and generate better conditions for the reconstruction of Orthodox Trotskyism.

A conclusion is clear in the light of the events of the 21st century. Orthodox Trotskyism, and the revolutionary party needs for its development of the February revolutions, because these revolutions allow the masses of the world to advance in their consciousness, draw conclusions, make the experience with their leadership, weaken the capitalist regimes and states, while encouraging the emergence of thousands of new activists and allow the revolutionary party to capture valuable leaders and activists who emerge from the reformist leaderships, This potentiality to allow the maturation of subjective conditions is in the more developed 21st century than ever, but it was always the characteristic of the February revolutions in the 20th century. The clearest, most famous and historical example is that of the relations between Lenin and Trotsky. Before the triumph of the February revolution in Russia, Trotsky was away from Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, even enmity, but after the triumph of the February revolution, Trotsky concluded that he should unite with Lenin and join the Bolshevik party. And it was incorporated by Lenin directly into his top direction.

Just as the February revolution forever modified the relations between Lenin and Trotsky, the same process is today among thousands of leaders and activists from around the world, Saving the distances with the stature of those two great leaders of Marxism. To such an extent the February revolutions allow the subjective factor to mature that a law can be practically established: Without revolutions of February, the revolutionary party cannot be built. Without February's revolutions the revolutionary party can exist, but it will never leave its embryonic state, it is the February revolutions that make possible the development and maturation of the revolutionary party.

In turn, because the February revolutions cannot impose a workers' and people's government, and the fact that capitalism is sinking into an unprecedented crisis, leads to these revolutions being able to repeat themselves with new episodes. The bourgeoisie and the reaction intervene to stop, defeat or freeze February Revolutions aware of the danger they mean, so that the conditions of the revolution do not mature. By not solving the problems that gave rise to the revolution and even in many cases worsen, what happens Nahuel Moreno called "recurrent fevers." That is, the February revolution is repeated again several times, sometimes in an interval of many years between one revolution and another, sometimes at shorter intervals of time.

The categorization of revolutions in "February revolutions", and "October revolutions" whose difference is the subjective factor, is the largest and most transcendental contribution of Nahuel Moreno to Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution. This categorization allows us to understand all the revolutions of the twentieth century, and the current revolutions of the 21st century. However, a fundamental question is pending in the face of the revolutions that are happening in the 21st century: How do we make the February revolutions of the 21st century become October revolutions?

Regroup the revolutionaries to intervene in the revolutions of the 21st century

The absence of a world revolutionary party was defined by Leon Trotsky as "a crisis of revolutionary leadership", a crisis that began when Stalinism took the USSR, seized and dissolved the Third International, coupled with the fact that revisionism destroyed the Fourth International. The disappearance of the Third and Fourth International left the world proletariat without leadership, but the February revolutions of the twenty-first century in achieving enormous conquests and developing the political revolution are laying the foundations for the resolution of that crisis. Even so, it is essential to make it clear that the crisis does not resolve itself, automatically, a subjective task is necessary, an orientation of regrouping of the revolutionary cadres and militants, Marxists of the world to advance in building the world revolutionary party, and overcome the crisis of revolutionary leadership.

In this way, by building a revolutionary leadership at the global level, a structure of cadres that defend the postulates of Marxism to fight for the direction of revolutionary processes, we can achieve that the February revolutions are transformed into October revolutions. To shape this structure of cadres at the international level, a requirement is fundamental: The battle against reformism and revisionism. It is impossible to advance in the construction of a revolutionary party without giving the theoretical, and political struggle against the reformist leaderships, their treaching policies of class conciliation and the false ideologies that lead to the mass movement. Without that battle, like that which Lenin and Trotsky gave against the Mensheviks and social revolutionaries in the Russian Revolution, it is impossible to carry forward the regroupment of the revolutionaries.

The leaders of the 99% of the groups on the world left deny the existence of the February revolutions, as part of whether to integrate into the strategy of the Progressive International. The leaders of the groups lower the price, and disqualify the revolutionary processes to end up supporting the "progressives" such as Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Ocasio Cortez, Pedro Sanchez, Jeremy Corbyn, in Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, in Southeast Asia Muhammad Yunus, Anwar Ibrahim, Pita Limjaroenrat, in Latin America Lula, Claudia Scheinba Groups that break with Marxism provide political support by calling for vote for these political leaders, or support measures from their bourgeois governments

The leaders of the 99% groups of the world left recognize bourgeois democracy as their main field of action. Adopt a Electoral strategy, which becomes visible when they give priority to the electoral campaigns of bourgeois democracy, the line of creating "public figures" and candidates under the logic of bourgeois marketing. They prioritize electoral propaganda and adopt the methods of the bourgeoisie for the preparation and presentation of candidates in bourgeois democracy. That is, 99% of left-wing groups deny the revolutions to develop a social democratic and reformist strategy.

The first step in carrying forward the challenge of bringing revolutionaries together is precisely the recognition of the revolutions of the 21st century. These February revolutions are only recognized as such by a single current in the world: Orthodox Trotskyism, the current that sustains the elaboration of Nahuel Moreno on the February revolutions which allows us to address and understand the revolutionary character of the processes of the twenty-first century, to understand their dynamics, their limits and their potentialities. There is no one, there will ever be a linear revolution, or without contradictions. In all there will be and there will be backs and forths, marches and counter- marches, triumphs and defeats, but nothing of this difficult path erases the objective character of the uprisings or their historical importance.

Recognizing the revolutions of the 21st century involves critically analyzing them: their demands, their social subjects, their forms of organization and their results. Only from this materialistic analysis it is possible to draw strategic lessons, build revolutionary organizations rooted in the working class and prepare new waves of struggle that can go beyond the change of government towards the abolition of capitalism. Marx International welcomes the revolutions of the 21st century from Nepal to France, from the Palestinian Intifada to Bangladesh, from Ecuador to Yemen and calls you to the global regrouping of revolutionaries to build revolutionary parties on 5 continents. This is the path we chart to intervene in the Revolutions of the 21st century with the aim of the struggle for Global Socialism.