[Podcast] Trump’s peace deal prepares Europe’s downfall

With Trump’s proposed peace plan in Ukraine, Europe is once again finding itself sidelined by its former ally and benefactor, the United States. Having staked their crisis-ridden regimes on a Russian defeat in Ukraine, the Europeans are now waking up to the stark reality – Ukraine has lost the war, and Zelensky has his back against the wall.

Although the European leaders would be the first to deny it, the continent where capitalism was born has now been left to rot on the vine. As Jorge Martín and Hamid Alizadeh discuss in this episode of Against the Stream, the decline of the European economy in a period of rising imperialist competition is creating an explosive situation all across the continent.

Against the Stream is the Marxist current affairs podcast of the Revolutionary Communist International. It airs weekly on YouTube on Thursdays at 6pm GMT.

Reading list

China is making trade impossible – Financial Times

Why Trump Pushed for Peace—Again – Atlantic

Top U.S. Negotiator Warned Europeans That Russia Is Stockpiling Missiles – The New York Times

How Can Europe Pay for Things That It Cannot Afford – IMF

Transcript

Hamid Alizadeh

These guys don't care about Ukraine. They're basically dragging it down into rubble.

Jorge Martín

They know they are unable to continue this war without the participation of the United States. So they will wreck any peace plan just so that they forcing the United States to continue involved.

Hamid Alizadeh

If they continue down this line, they're going to have a Saigon moment. This is what they're talking about.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

But they can't help themselves. And they have the Europeans pushing and pushing and pushing. And who's paying for it?

Jorge Martín

The working class. That is the working class in the West. The working class in Ukraine.

Hamid Alizadeh

The IMF asks, how can Europe pay for things that it cannot afford? The question is can the working class afford the capitalist class? All of this machinery, all of this industry, these are creations of the workers themselves.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Welcome to Against the Stream, the communist podcast which analyses world events in order to reveal the true class interests which shape them. While we aim for the highest objectivity, we do not claim to be impartial. We stand unapologetically on the side of the poor and the workers, the people who make the world go around. This podcast is for them. 

Peace will be coming to Ukraine soon, suggests Donald Trump. But not everyone is interested in peace. Leaked conversations between top US and Russian officials reveal a campaign at the highest level to stop any peace talks between the US, Ukraine and Russia. But why are they doing that? And what are the consequences?

Meanwhile, Europe's descent into crisis accelerates. European industry is fast declining and the budget deficits are rising even faster. In a new report, the IMF is asking, how can Europe pay for things that it cannot afford? This should make you wake up. They want the working class to pay for this crisis. But is there another way out? Those are the questions that we're trying to answer in this week's episodes. 

And finally, we're going to be taking a question from one of our listeners. My name is Hamid Alizadeh, and I'm here today with, uh, Jorge Martín. Welcome back, Jorge. 

Ukraine is our first topic. And I think I was saying this to you the other day. When I was a kid, I came home from school and there was nothing on TV except for soap operas. And once or twice I watched one of those episodes. I must have been around 10 or 11 years old. I watched an episode of this one soap opera that just kept going year in and year out. And then about 10 years later, for some reason, I watched another episode of the same soap opera and I realised and I understood exactly what was going on.

Jorge Martín

Nothing had changed.

Hamid Alizadeh

Nothing had changed. That's how it appears in Ukraine today. We have Donald Trump announcing peace is coming. There's peace negotiations, there's a deal being reached. Uh, a deal is presented which more or less accepts the facts on the ground that Russia is winning, uh, giving significant concessions to Russia, basically acknowledging what they have.

Jorge Martín

That's a 28 point.

Hamid Alizadeh

This is the 28 point peace plan that Donald Trump or that the Americans have leaked. None of this is official, by the way. Someone has, and there's many. None of this is official. There's many versions of these plans, but in general I think we can safely say they take into consideration a lot of the demands of the Russians that uh, the Russians are carrying out in practice on the ground, in the war. 

Then what happens is Vladimir Zelensky travels to Europe. There's a flurry of meetings between Zelensky and Merz and uh, Macron and Kier Starmer. Some of the US officials go to that place. The people in the Trump administration who are opposed to ending the war, go meet them. This is what happened here. There was a meeting in Geneva and they negotiate amongst themselves and they present….

Jorge Martín

A 19 point another plan.

Hamid Alizadeh

A 19 point plan, which again no one has seen but uh, clearly has reduced the key demands of Russia, which uh, are the recognition of the facts on the ground, which is the Russia has taken, uh, the land area that Russia has taken and the ones that they're demanding in the Donetsk, uh, curbs on the Ukrainian army, which in the other leaked plan was set at 600,000. We don't know by the way what the Russians think about that, but that was taken out, uh, curbs on, uh, Ukraine's um, membership of NATO. Membership of NATO is taken out. Curbs on Ukraine's um, how do you say, um, uh, allowing the Ukraine to have advanced weaponry and long range weaponry is also taken out. Which means that all of the demands of Russia that Russia has been making, that Ukraine been made into a country that is militarily not a threat to Russia. Those are taken out. And then Zelensky comes out and says, yes, we agreed to this 19 point peace plan.

Jorge Martín

There's two completely opposite, uh, plans, entirely different plans.

Hamid Alizadeh

Uh, and then we're back at square one. But something is different this time around, I think. What are your thoughts?

Jorge Martín

Yes, I think that uh, there is a, there is a sense of deja vu. As you, as you were saying. I also used to watch a soap when I came back from school and it was a Brazilian soap over the way it went on for thousands of episodes. And uh, yeah, it was basically the same plot again and again. And there is a sense of that. However, the situation is not exactly the same. 

There was a very interesting article today, I think it was today in the Atlantic by Simon Schuster, uh, in which he traced a timeline of events since the Alaska, uh, uh, meeting between Trump and Putin up until now. And what he was saying made a lot of sense. 

He's saying that Zelenskyy, at the time of the United Nations General Assembly, convinced Trump that the situation was favorable to Ukraine on the military front. I don't know how, but anyway, he spinned that story. He told him that a, uh, number of, uh, Russian troops were surrounded near Pokrovsk in a northern salient of that section of the front, and that the Russians were going to be, uh, routed and that if only the United States was to implement some pressure on Russia through sanctions, that then Russia will agree to come to the negotiating, uh, table. And uh, Trump. It seems that Trump did follow that, uh, advice. He believed this, uh, tall story that was put forward by, who is a very skilled, uh, propagandist. He spins a story and he's a good actor. He's a good actor. He, uh, I don't know if he's a good actor. He's a good actor, but comedian, uh, and then Trump implemented these sanctions on Russia, on the two, uh, oil companies, in the hope that, because at the end of the day, what Trump seems to want is an end to this conflict, to disentangle the United States from this conflict through a peace deal. 

But then obviously the facts on the ground wildly contradicted what Zelensky had told Trump. Uh, in fact, Pokrovsk has fallen. Uh, that pocket, uh, has been closed. Is a big military defeat for Ukraine. Either it's already happened or it's about to happen. It is clear to everyone, US military strategists included. 

And this despite the fact that Zelensky has been trying to refuse to withdraw troops from that place, put them out of harm's, uh, way and all for what? In order to continue this fiction that uh, Ukraine had the initiative in this war, so these people are now dying or being surrounded, surrendering and so on, just so that Zelenskyy can spin this story to Trump. Trump no longer believes, and no one, uh, anymore believes this story. And so now this is the motivation or the trigger for this new push by Trump administration towards negotiations. 

He then, uh, had Dmitriev, the US the Russian, uh, envoy or negotiator in the United States. They were talking, to Witkoff, and they worked out this 28 point plan which basically um, takes into account all of the Russian uh, demands. 

Now you say the situation is now different. Yes, it is different because of two things I, uh, will say. One is that you've already discussed in the program is the big corruption scandal in Ukraine which is weakening Zelensky as uh, his power, his authority and is touching his immediate entourage and he's quite clearly involved in that. So he is weaker from that point of view. 

But also militarily, Ukraine is weaker. Russia has not only uh, taken Pokrovsk in that pocket, but has taken a whole number of other towns or surrounded a number of other towns. And in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk fronts it's advancing almost without any resistance, uh, at a much faster pace than previously. 

So clearly Trump has seen this and is now putting pressure on Zelenskyy to sign a deal, whatever deal it is, so that there's no more. Because he is putting forward the argument that otherwise Russia will win even more territory, which is what the situation on the ground situation is different. Ukraine is much weaker at this point.

Hamid Alizadeh

The Western media has been up in arms about this uh, deal because it would uh, it would recognise Russia's aggression on Ukraine. Um, but, and, and someone asked Trump what are the concessions that Russia is giving? And Trump made the point, he said they're conceding not to take more land.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Which is the fact, I mean if you, I follow the, the war, I follow some of these bloggers every day. It's my, ah, it's my past time. And um, if you look at the, the rate of advance, uh, now in Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk in particular, the rate that they've, the, the speed with which they've been approaching Hulyaipole, which is a middle sized town in the region is one of the last three remaining major cities. There's Zaporizhzhia city which is quite far from Russian reach. Then there's Ariekov which is to the west of Hulyaipole and southeast of Zaporizhzhia which is where the Russians are on the city gates, but they're maybe a couple of miles outside. And then there's Hulyaipole. 

So this is, this is an important city, uh, and it will change the dynamic of the war significantly to the benefit of the Russians if they take it. It will ease logistics. It was uh, and it would give kind of a front base of operation for the Russians into the, further into the region. And the rate of decline of this front has just been, uh, breathtaking because in this war, because of the predominance of drones, you cannot have these huge advances. They're not very, uh, easy because you can't really go by car or by, by trucks and tanks and, and so on carrier carriers. You need to walk. And I think basically the rate of advance in this front has just been the rate that the soldiers can walk. They've just been walking from position to position and, and maybe new soldiers have, have, have, have new infantry has kind of replaced them. 

But, um, and now they've actually taken. Yesterday they were a couple of miles outside of Hulyaipole. Today they've taken. Last night they've taken, taken the eastern neighborhood of Hulyaipole. So it's gone.

Jorge Martín

And one of the reasons for the advance...

Hamid Alizadeh

And this was a heavily fortified city.

Jorge Martín

One of the reasons for the advance on this front, uh, is precisely that Zelensky, for propaganda purposes, in order to convince the Americans, has concentrated all of his forces in Pokrovsk, where it's already lost, but nevertheless is weakened other areas of the front. 

Hamid Alizadeh

They sent In elite units into Pokrovsk who were then surrounded and defeated. Even though in Ukraine people were saying why are you doing this? And, and Zelensky was coming out saying, oh, there's only two hundred and forty people there. There's only 60 people left in. Russians, yeah, Russians, we're going to clean, we're just clearing them out. 

Kupiansk has fallen, has fallen. Mirnograd, uh, is completely surrounded now. There's almost no path. Exit, exit. Very, very unlikely that you would get out of there alive if you're a Ukrainian soldier, unless, uh, or if, unless you, you surrender. Um, the Russians are now in Siversk. They've taken the majority of Siversk, which is the key city protecting Slaviansk and Kramatos from the east. Uh, Liman, they're taking, they're inside of Lyman, fighting, which is the city protecting Slavians from the northeast. Uh, Arov, they're outside. 

And I was saying to you yesterday, I think that in the whole area of operations, if we disregard Kherson, there's only three cities left. Zaporizhzhia, Slaviansk and Kramatorsk. All the other major urban areas the Russians are contesting right now, which is a completely different picture from last year. One year ago they took Ugledar, which was this fortress town, which took them two and a half years to take. The distance between Ugledar and the front now is much longer. Than the front line and Zaporizhzhia City. So the rate of advances is. Is. Is accelerating, and that is why they're panicking, the Americans.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

You know, this is what Trump means with the concessions that the Russians would make is to stop advancing at this stage, get some more land. But, uh, and he said, what do you. What do you want? Give some of this land away now, then have them take it a few months down the line at the cost of even more economic destruction, even more.

Jorge Martín

Lives, 60,000 people killed.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah, yeah. The whole thing is collapsing.

Jorge Martín

Yes. And, uh, in fact, this is what Dan Driscoll, the Secretary of the US army, said to its European and Ukrainian counterparts. He traveled to Europe. He was in Kiev together with someone else. I can't remember exactly what other US Official were there. And, uh, they had a meeting, a meeting with Zelenskyy, but also had a meeting with, uh, European diplomats, uh, in Kyiv. 

And he basically told them, look, the situation is bad. The situation for you, for Ukraine, in this war is bad. It's getting worse. The Russians are advancing. But he also said another thing. According to some media reports that we've seen this morning, he also said Russia is now stockpiling missiles. He said, basically, previously Russia was using all its missiles in its daily nightly attacks on Ukraine, but now they've, uh, basically stockpiling. This also means that the rate of production is gone up quite significantly for them to be able to stockpile because the attacks on, uh, Ukraine continue. And he said not only that these missiles will allow Russia to destroy the energy sector of Ukraine coming this winter, putting the civilian population in a very difficult position and industry and so on. 

But he also hinted that, obviously then Russia will have all these missiles, uh, ready and available to attack other European, uh, countries. So it's basically telling them, you need to make peace. You need to accept these conditions, however harsh they may, uh, look like, because the alternative is worse and Russia is winning the war. And, uh, it will get worse for European countries if you don't sign this deal.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah, I mean, the NBC article which, uh, reported Dan Driscoll's, um, conversation with the Ukrainians also said this. The US Delegation also said that America's defense industry could not keep supplying Ukraine with the weapons and air defenses at the rate needed to protect the country's infrastructure and population. So Russia is out producing the West, the entirety of the West. They've been telling us for three years that Russia is running out of missiles. Russia, you remember…

Jorge Martín

There's only one day left and they’re only like using washing machine parts.

Hamid Alizadeh

And now they're admitting the facts, which is that Russia is massively outproducing them.

Jorge Martín

And in fact massively outpoducing the west.

Hamid Alizadeh

The entirety of the West.

Jorge Martín

Not Ukraine, but the whole of the West. Yeah, we did discuss this in relation to uh, the bombing of Iran and Israel's war. That the amount of um, uh, air defense missiles that the US is producing is very limited. They don't have stockpiles. They're not producing enough for even their own uh, defense needs, never mind supplying the air defenses of Ukraine, which are already severely depleted.

Hamid Alizadeh

And meanwhile the scandal in Ukraine, although for the moment it's taken a backsteet. But it's not over. SAPO and NABU, the two, um, anti corruption agencies. Anti corruption agencies are kind of drip feeding in a very meticulous and clearly calculated way, drip feeding information. And every day the revelations about these scandals come closer and closer to Zelenskyy.

Jorge Martín

Right. Um, they've interrogated a couple of people now. Have they interrogated Yermak and Umerov I think, but they haven't said whether they charged or not.

Hamid Alizadeh

Umerov is the previously previous Defense Minister of Defense. He's now the head of the security… something. 

Jorge Martín

He's involved in the next…

Hamid Alizadeh

Uh, Yermak is the second most powerful man in Ukraine. He's the head of uh, the presidential office. Basically Zelenskyy does the big, big talks and Yermak runs the machine. That's how it kind of works. 

And what Zelenskyy has done is instead of distancing himself from these guys, he's actually protecting them. What has he done? He's put them in the negotiation teams with the US he sent them abroad first of all out of the limelight. And he's trying but, but he's basically tying himself closer. 

Meanwhile, yes, in the Ukrainian parliament there's a rebellion. There's an almighty rebellion. Um, one hundred and ten members of Zelenskyy's party rebelled and called in the Prime Minister, um, the justice minister who's been involved in this case and the energy Minister who's also been involved. They've been fired these two. Called them into basically against Zelenskyy's wishes. They called them in to answer questions for, for, for the Rada. And 110 members of his own party participated in, in this vote. 

The opposition, which is led by Poroshenko and um, what are they called? Timoshenko and these other basically different, different oligarchs and different representatives of oligarchs, they want a government of national unity, they want to defang Zelensky, they want to have a bite of the cake basically. And they want to participate in the running of the country and, and looting of the country.

Jorge Martín

And it's also a self defense move for them because Zelensky was moving towards jailing them. Kolomoiski, Klitschko and Poroshenko.

Hamid Alizadeh

He's been going one by one, starting from the broader periphery and closer to the center of the opposition. Concentrating power is in his own hands. And now these guys want to have a share of the pie. So they. It's clear that the whole campaign from NABU and SAPO is coordinated with these guys. Of course there's highly produced video material which is, which is leaked every single day into the media as if that has any legal justification whatsoever. But then inside of his own party there's another rebellion because uh.

Jorge Martín

In his own parliamentary faction.

Hamid Alizadeh

Exactly. Because the parliamentary faction has also been losing power because it's been all gathered in the President's office, which is where all of these scandals have been taking place. So Zelenskyy can't really run away from it. But uh, David Arakami, I think his name is, and Stefan Chuk, who's the speaker. Arakami, is the head of the parliamentary faction. And Stefan Chuk is uh, the leader of the parliament. Speaker of parliament. Basically they've been kind of whipping this internal rebellion saying yeah, saying to Zelenskyy, basically, if you don't give us more power and get rid of Yermak.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

And give us more power in your administration, we're going to sell you out and you're going to have to form a government of national unity. So the knives are out amongst the thieves? Basically, yes. And so obviously this is also helping. This is something that Trump, ah, and his gang are using.

Jorge Martín

In fact there was an interesting point in the Atlantic article by Simon Schuster detailing the timeline of these negotiations. He said the only reason why Zelensky is not agreeing to this uh, deal now is that that will make him look weaker come an election because one of the parts of this 28-point plan was elections in 100 days. And obviously everyone knows that the elections are coming at some point and Zelensky uh, will lose those elections and he will lose those elections even more if he's seen as someone who's given away Ukrainian territory and all that. 

So in fact his considerations are nothing to do with uh, the general interests of Ukraine, whether Ukraine is losing the war or not, whether the situation will be worse, um, 10, 20 days down the line. In fact, his only consideration is his own personal power, whether he will win the next election or not. Pure short term electoral, uh, uh, considerations.

Hamid Alizadeh

I saw this tweet by one of his aides, one of his main aides, but she left him I think in 2020 or something before the war. 2021. Uh, but she made a tweet. She was a hardcore Zelensky supporter and all that, but she made a tweet saying these guys don't care about Ukraine. They're basically dragging it down into rubble. Uh, this thing has everything to do with their own manoeuvring and nothing to do with the actual interests of the Ukrainian nation. I mean that's a lot coming from…

Jorge Martín

From his own camp.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah. Um, meanwhile there's a movement on the other side, uh, on the Western side to sabotage this. It's clear.

Jorge Martín

There was an article in. Where was it? I can't remember. One of the newspapers was describing the mood of the European leaders at the G20 summit in South Africa, which US didn't participate. And it describes the mood of panic when they first heard about this uh, plan. A mood of panic. They were scrambling, they were running around, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? 

And uh, the reason for this we have explained before in this uh, program, in this podcast, the reason is that uh, it's in the interest of the Europeans to maintain the US involved in this war. Why? Because this war is an existential war for them against the power of Russia, uh, in order to defend the European imperialist interests. And they know they are unable to continue this war without the participation of the United States. So they will wreck any peace plan just so that uh, they, forcing the United States to continue involved.

Hamid Alizadeh

There's a powerful set of interests. Um, yesterday, the day before, there was a leak of a conversation of, of two conversations. One was between Steve Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, who is a presidential aide, very close person to Putin.

Jorge Martín

In Russia.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah, in Russia. And basically Witkoff was giving uh, uh, Ushakov talking points saying look, Putin should call Trump and he should praise his peacemaking, uh, skills in, in the Middle East. And, and uh, you know, if you, if you go, if he just talks, says yeah if we get done. Yes, we'll, we'll uh, we'll agree that's not going to lead anywhere. But if we presented like a hopeful thing, look, a 20 point peace plan. Peace, uh, plan. Like, like the one in Gaza.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Basically you present… you come up with a deal, coaching him and how to deal with Trump, Right?

Jorge Martín

Yes. Ah.

Hamid Alizadeh

And, and how to present a peace proposal. And then Ushakov, uh, Ushakov calls Kirill Dimitriev, who is presidential, uh, envoy in, in Russia, and they're saying, saying, well, yeah, look, the Americans are asking us to present a proposal, uh, for discussions, not a peace plan, but a series of, uh, talking points basically. And then the other guy says, well, yeah, but they're going to change it anyway. They're not gonna present what we give them. Say, yeah, okay, but that's fine, but it's a starting point, isn't it? Let's just give it, let's just give them what they want. 

Now, besides the content of this, what's really, uh, stood, uh, out to me. Uh, I was thinking this is serious leaking stuff. This is serious espionage. We're talking about some of the highest officials in the world negotiating with each other. The only people who could have had access to this would have been Russian intelligence. Russian and you know, the Russians themselves and American and European intelligence. These are the only ones who have the ability to intercept someone in the West.

Jorge Martín

Although one, one will think that these conversations take place over secure lines.

Hamid Alizadeh

But, but they say that there's a WhatsApp, which is banned in Russia, which is banned in Russia anyway. But, um, but. And no one has come out, uh, saying, hey, wait a minute, what's going on? Clearly this could not have been done without the consent of the top, at the top level of the US intelligence community.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Which shows what, which shows that what are their interests. The narrative is this is a Russian plan. This is a Russian plan.

Jorge Martín

This is the idea they want to present. That Witkoff is an idiot who just, uh, listens to what Putin says or the Russians say and that he's basically an agent of Russian, uh, interests in the Trump administration and they want to take him down. This has now been carried by all the. This is, uh, I was reading this is quite, uh, unprecedented because it's not just the leak, uh, that Bloomberg got, but also that Bloomberg got the actual audio files, not just the transcript, but the actual audio files. So it's been given to Bloomberg by the actual source of this wiretapping, basically, uh, which can only be the US Intelligence agencies or perhaps the European intelligence agencies with the aim of sabotaging, ah, the peace negotiations.

Hamid Alizadeh

Exactly. The narrative is this is a Russian plan. Well, I mean, I don't think it is entirely the Russian plan, but if Russia had an input in it, it's because they are winning. And they set the terms as winners of a war. But I was just thinking, you know, when, um, was it, um, the person who released the files about the Iraq war.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

What was his name?

Jorge Martín

Snowden.

Hamid Alizadeh

Edward Snowden.

Jorge Martín

And Chelsea Manning.

Hamid Alizadeh

Chelsea Manning. They were hounded down.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Never mind the crimes that they were revealing of US imperialism in Iraq, the horrible, horrible crimes. They were hounded down, punished and destroyed.

Jorge Martín

And including Assange as well.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

And they went to destroy them as humans.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Crush them.

Jorge Martín

Right.

Hamid Alizadeh

And here it's like no one is even commenting. Wait a minute, what is going on here? Who has an interest in this? And this reveals, uh, a division within the West. We've talked about this division, but I think also a division within the US Administration. US Administration, because what has been. The media, who has been having a go at Witkoff.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Uh, what are they saying? Rubio should take his place.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

He's a more professional negotiator. You know, he, he knows how diplomacy works and he, you know, he protects the interests of. What is the position of Rubio?

Jorge Martín

Rubio's position is not exactly the same. We've seen him at the Geneva talks, basically taking out the main points of the 28 point plan in order to please, uh, the Ukrainian position. So his position is clearly that he doesn't want or is not so keen on a deal like this and is more on the other side of putting pressure on Russia, putting more sanctions, which is there's a big party in the United States, in the Republican, um, amongst the Republican elected officials, but also inside the administration. 

And what the commentators and newspaper commentators are saying is that these two camps are more or less led by J.D. Vance. This is the extreme, uh, let's retreat, let's make America great again by, uh, strengthening America and disentangling from foreign military, uh, adventures. This is the head of one party, let's say one wing. 

Rubio is the head of the other wing. He's also, uh, warmongering in relation to Venezuela, Cuba and so on. And he's not so keen on, uh, reaching a deal with, uh, Russia on Russia's, uh, terms. So this all makes sense. And this has been used by the media, that is by the US capital establishment, all these big newspapers and media agencies and people inside the intelligence community to drive a wedge between the two of them, uh, and to clip the wings of the section that wants a deal with Russia and disentangling, uh, the US from the Ukraine war.

Hamid Alizadeh

Um, you know, we always say that um, when a regime nears its nadir, its end, you begin to see splits and divisions as the masses rise. This is in revolutionary, uh, terms, as the masses rise, there's this division at the top where one wing says we need to repress, we need to crush the movement because otherwise this is going to develop into a full blown revolution. And the other wing says, no, we need to give concessions, we need to retreat, because otherwise if we repress, we're going to have a open rebellion and be overthrown. 

And when you reach that stage, both are right and both are wrong. And this is where we see like this processes similarities here because this is us uh, imperialism experiencing a serious division within the ruling class. The Atlanticists, we can say the dominant traditional wing of US imperialism and Western imperialism, it's all the same kind of organism. We can say with, with his heart in Washington, obviously their, uh, approach is whatever happens, double down. Any challenge we see, double it down. Go to war, crush, defeat. But it's not worked in the past.

Jorge Martín

This was the Biden approach.

Hamid Alizadeh

This was the Biden approach. This was the Obama approach. Although no, Obama I think had a slightly more nuanced, he was a bit more careful. He, he did think that we should withdraw to safeguard the interests of US imperialism. Now Trump, uh, there's another wing which is the JD Vance, the MAGA wing, which is a minority of the ruling class in a way, but they believe that this is unsustainable. This war is lost. We're going to keep throwing things at it. And these different conflicts around the world are sucking resources that we need to protect our core.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

And we can't do this. We need peace, not for the interests of Ukraine, but for the pure interest of US Imperialism. Now Trump,

Jorge Martín

Interest from two points of view. One, they're spending a lot of money they don't have. There's a massive budget deficit in the US and two, they're overstretching themselves from a military point of view, as we just said, stockpiles and so on.

Hamid Alizadeh

They didn't even have enough to attack Iran. If that war had gone on, they would have been in serious trouble because they're spending a lot of it in Ukraine. Um, and Trump, when he came to power, he was leaning on the rebellious wing, let's say the junior wing of the ruling class. 

But he's disappointed his base. It was an open rebellion against Trump last week in Congress, which unanimously, almost unanimously voted to reveal the Epstein files. Let's see what happens to that. Uh, he has had an open clash with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's now stepped back from Parliament, from Congress, but I would say is maybe even more powerful outside of Congress. She denounced it. She said, doesn't matter who you vote for, it's all the same. She distances herself from Trump and she still has huge base of support amongst the core MAGA kind of base, a big part of which is working class and which is very angry, um, now as this has happened.

Jorge Martín

But the most important thing is that he is not delivered on the economy. That's at the bottom of all of this.

Hamid Alizadeh

He's not delivered on anything, really speaking, which has given the war wing, the war party, more and more power. The old gang. Rubio has the crazy Cubans in Congress whose votes Trump needs. There's. What's his name? Um, Lindsey Graham and Johnson, Mike Johnson. They have other votes that Trump needs and they're pulling in different direction. 

But this is tearing them up now. And, and now it's a situation where if they continue down this line, they're going to have a Saigon moment. This is what they're talking about. Mhm. Russia could overrun Ukraine. You could see a collapse. I mean, we don't know if it's going to happen right now or in a year or two, but it's clearly moving in that direction. And that would look even worse for US imperialism. But they can't help themselves. And they have the Europeans pushing and pushing and pushing.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

And who's paying for it?

Jorge Martín

Well, everyone's paying for it. The working class. That is the working class in the West. The working class in, uh, Ukraine. Because these are the people who've been sent to the front to die just for propaganda, uh, purposes in a war that's already, uh, lost, basically. And yeah, the working class is paying everywhere because all this, uh, drive towards, uh, militarism, uh, military spending and so on is being paid by cuts in social spending and other areas.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah. And raised high oil prices, um, is leading to inflation in Europe. We'll get to that in a minute. Leading to the industry.

Jorge Martín

Just to say, you were saying about this wing of the US Administration that's in favor of, uh, retrenching, just to make clear they are not in favor of peace. They're just in favor of making a deal with Russia in Ukraine so that they can get out of that. 

But in reality, you just have to see their actions. They want to restrengthen the US military power in its own hemisphere. They're going for Venezuela. I mean, they've now built a Massive military escalation in the Caribbean, where they now have 20% of the US Navy is concentrated there. There's, uh, provocative, um, deployment of B2 and B1 bombers and all sorts of things. This is not a, uh, peace party, but, uh, it's a wing of the US Administration that recognizes the limitations of US Imperialism and wants to rebuild the power of US Imperialism to concentrate on its main rival, which is China.

Hamid Alizadeh

The problem is they're bound up in insoluble contradictions, because what does the retreat from Ukraine mean? Yes, that is the real answer. What is the. What does the defeat in Ukraine? What does admitting defeat in Ukraine mean? It means the end of the US as the sole superpower on the planet.

Jorge Martín

Exactly.

Hamid Alizadeh

It's the end of the US in that role. And it would mean a massively strengthened, morally, industrially, economically, militarily strengthened Russia. And, uh, and it would mean a huge political crisis across the Western world.

Jorge Martín

Which obviously, on the other hand, the clash with China is not going very well. There was an article, I think it was in the Financial Times, an opinion article that they said the latest deal between Trump and Xi Jinping over, uh, trade is basically just, um, like a ceasefire. So a delay of the measures, postponement of the measures that had been agreed in relation to tariffs and so on, retaliation. This will be seen in the future as the moment in which the US Realised they could not crush, uh, China into submission. They put up tariffs. They put up tariffs to 140%. Was it? Or 150%. They put sanctions, they withdrew access to advanced technology, microchips and so on, and, uh, they did not break China. China retaliated. And in the end, China came out, uh, unscathed from that struggle. 

So not only the United States is unable to militarily defeat Russia, uh, in Ukraine, it's unable to economically crush China in the trade war. So they are in a very difficult position. It all comes down to this question we've been discussing the relative decline of US Uh, imperialism in the world.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah. And the fact that they're now taking on these two companies, once. They can't take out either one of them on their own. And then. And they want to take them on both at once. And that's why they need a peace deal with Russia, because this is also.

Jorge Martín

Reflected in something else. I mean, we're veering off, uh, the script now, but there's this question where Trump called the Japanese president to say, you need to scale down the provocations against China because we're not interested in this Conflict. Can we…

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah, we'll talk about this hopefully next week, but I think that's a good place to end it. There we have to follow, follow the. What happens. Um, but it's clear that there are powerful forces at play. 

But Europe, you know, um, Francois Hollande, the previous president, uh, of France, wrote an article, a desperate article in Le Monde the other day, says the break is already here for Trump. Our continent is finished. It no longer counts. As he told Zelensky in the Oval Office, we no longer hold the cards. We have neither oil nor gas, no major industrial champions, and no dominance in the digital sphere. And even when we still post trade surpluses, they come at the US’s expense, which is why Trump is leveraging tariffs. When faced with him, we are timid. Worse, we tolerate his extravagances and do not stand up enough for the values that we hold dear. Wonder what those values are. In short, in his eyes, we are second division players compared to the empires and financial powers.

Jorge Martín

Not only in his eyes, though, not only in his eyes, that reflects the real situation. 

Yes, but, yeah, that's quite an indictment. I mean, he is saying things as they are. Uh, Europe plays no role, has no leverage, has no power, and, uh, has very little say in world affairs. It just, I mean, even these Ukraine negotiations are taking place. Between whom? Between Russia and the United States. The Europeans are not even consulted, they're not even told, uh, that that's the real role they play. It's not just in the US's eyes, it's a reflection of the real weight of European imperialism in the world.

Hamid Alizadeh

The fact is, whether Rubio wins or, uh, J.D. Vance's wing wins inside the Oval Office.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

The US is retreating from Europe.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

And the Europeans are desperate to keep that. They talk about peace in Ukraine, they talk about, oh, Russia has to be beaten back.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

With what? With American weapons.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

With American troops, with American security guarantees, with American intelligence, with. That is what they want.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Because the withdrawal of America, economic, diplomatic, military. What he explains that Europe is not important for America anymore, is a existential threat to European capitalism. That's basically what it is. 

I'm just going to list out the crisis that US is going through and then we can talk about it in general. Europe, sorry, Europe is going through. The Ukraine war has pulled the plug from the European economy just in the form of cheap gas. 

We've seen a, uh, complete collapse of European industry, heavy industry, mechanical industry, all of the things that Europe was leading or partially dominant in. Productivity has been stagnant in Europe for the past 15 years. Public debt is now at an alarmingly high level in central European countries such as, uh, Italy, France and Spain.

Jorge Martín

Britain, Britain, um, it's over 100, well over 100% in all of these countries.

Hamid Alizadeh

Um, it's funny because it's the poorer countries where it's less actually. Um, the US is now imposing tariffs, which means that they're pushing for industries to be moved, production to be moved to  the US. This is already. This started before this started.

Jorge Martín

Hollande was saying that uh, Europe has trade surpluses with the US. That's why the US is imposing tariffs.

Hamid Alizadeh

Exactly. The US is retrenching. And like every empire, when it reaches a stage of decline, it starts drawing, sucking up resources into it. 

You know, I, I, um, I like ice bathing in the winter, you know that. And what happens actually when you come out of ice cold water is that you get very warm, very cold hands and feet and head. Why? Because the body is drawing in resources to heat up this decor. And that is kind of what's happening with US imperialism. The sucking out resources out of former colonies, dependent friends.

Jorge Martín

Friends and allies.

Hamid Alizadeh

That's what America first means. That's what America first means. It means, uh, yeah, we've been holding our hands under you. No longer.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Because before Europe was an important outpost for European, for American imperialists is no longer. They're withdrawing NATO forces, which means.

Jorge Martín

Europe.

Hamid Alizadeh

Needs to defend itself somehow. European capitalism not only defend itself. What they want is not just defend themselves. They want to maintain their position as imperialist powers.

Jorge Martín

Areas of influence.

Hamid Alizadeh

Which means they go out in the world and dictate terms to poorer countries. Um, and then you have at the same time the threat of China, cheap goods on a higher level, um, uh, coming in. And Russia after the Ukraine war, what’s Europe going to be faced with? It's going to be faced with a massively strengthened Russia militarily right on its borders. Which is going to mean what? Which means that the Russians are going to demand concessions, diplomatic, political and most importantly economic in Eastern Europe. Which is what? Which is the domain of European imperialism. That's what is, that's what is what it's about for these people. And it's all collapsing. And they're desperate to keep this process from uh, happening. What are your comments?

Jorge Martín

Yeah. Perhaps the one place where the crisis of European capitalism is revealed in its most extreme form. It's uh, Germany. And this is quite striking because 10 years ago when there was the European debt crisis, Germany was in a strong position still. And the debt crisis was mainly developing in peripheral uh, countries like Greece and Spain and Italy and Ireland, Portugal. Sorry. Uh, and Germany was still the motor force of uh, Europe, the engine of uh, the European economy. 

And now it's completely reversed. Uh, Germany is in the worst position of any other European uh, economy. In 2023, 2024 they were in recession. 25 is not finished yet. But if they have any growth this year will be like 0.2% which is like three years of stagnation. Someone said that this is the worst period for Germany's economy since the Second World War. 70 years. 

There's a process of growing deindustrialization where Germany was based on heavy industry, engineering and so on, know how technology and is now being overtaken by China. Um, was it the last, last month. I can't remember the exact figure. Was it in, in November? In October, I think for the first time, uh, Germany had a trade deficit with China in machine tools, which is unbelievable. It used to be the other way around that China was exporting cheap uh, commodity consumer goods and uh, Germany was exporting to China the machines to build those. And now it's come the other way around. 

And there was some article, okay, the Germany, Germany is also losing, uh, is also losing uh, jobs, uh, in a big scale. I have some figures here. Says the industrial sector of Germany has lost 250,000 jobs since 2019. That's a 4% contraction of the workforce, uh, of industry. Of industry, sorry, yeah. Uh, the automotive industry which is a cornerstone of German manufacturing has lost 50,000 jobs in just one year. That's a 7% drop in employment in that industry which was key to Germany. And there's uh, many other facts and figures that can be given. 

And what you said, sanctions on Russia. The loss of cheap energy has damaged Germany particularly because they were very closely integrated. And many of Germany's key industries are uh, energy intensive. And there were some figures here. Germany's manufacturing index is now down at uh. All manufacturing is down to 90 from a level of 100 in 2021. But the energy, the chemical sector for instance is now down at 80.

Hamid Alizadeh

So the energy intensive sector.

Jorge Martín

Chemical uh, sector has, is now down at 80. That means it lost 20 points since 2021. We're talking about four years. The energy intensive uh, sector is also down at 80. Chemicals is under 80. The other one, uh, all of the energy intensive industries is down at 80. That means 20 points lost. It's uh, really staggering. It's phenomenal and it just happened in two or three years. 

Of course this is not the only reason for the industrial decline of uh, Germany. The economic decline which has been accumulating for a long period of time. But the loss of this cheap energy has been like a tipping point where this has gone into almost uh, threefold. This is really staggering and it's having a massive impact in Germany.

Hamid Alizadeh

Well we've said this before, the European capitalists have not invested uh, in anything. I was looking at the figures. Europe is the market where there's the highest level of yields paid out.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

And the lowest level of investment.

Jorge Martín

Exactly.

Hamid Alizadeh

Which is what uh, is an indication that they're just sucking out old investments, living off old investments. That's what the European capitalists have been doing. Of the top 50, uh, major European uh, companies, I think there's two that's been established in the past 50 years and those are ASML. One of them is ASML, which was established in the 80s.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

So it's not even if you look at America, you have Google, Facebook, Meta, these are all from the past few years. The closest you get to that is Spotify which was established in 2006, which is not even in the top 50 by the way.

Jorge Martín

It's a Swedish company.

Hamid Alizadeh

It's a Swedish company. Yeah, but we're talking about European, it's not European Union. Um, but what does that mean? That means a ruling class which has not invested in actual development and they're.

Jorge Martín

Paying for it now.

Hamid Alizadeh

The investment in research and development is, is lower than, than America, lower than, than China, lower than, than everywhere else, more or less. Um, and they just been sucking up what was built in the post war period and living off, off of that fat basically. And they've been going more and more at it and now they're in a stage where the productivity is really beginning to reveal itself.

Jorge Martín

They're competing and China has overtaken them.

Hamid Alizadeh

And China has overtaken them.

Jorge Martín

There was um, a statement, an official statement. There's some discussions in the European Union. There's the European Commissioner for Industries, Séjourné, and he said basically that we need to look at all these Chinese investments in Europe. China is investing in Europe in order to circumvent some of the tariffs and so on. Is installing um, electric vehicle battery plants I think in Hungary, in Spain. This is, this billion euro investments is installing uh, car electrical vehicle assembly plants in different parts of Europe. 

And the European Union is now complaining that uh, China is not transferring technology, uh, which is usually what used to happen the other way around, isn't it, that uh, the west was investing in China but not wanting to hand over the technology and taking extreme measures for that. Now it's the other way around that the Europeans are complaining China's investing here, but these are just, just assembly plants. They're not transferring any of the, of the technology. And uh, and they want to put new rules uh, in order to prevent that from happening.

Hamid Alizadeh

So I read an article by Wolfgang Munchau about a month ago. He, this was, he was the finance like a very prominent columnist in the Financial Times for a while, I think he was an editor actually. Um, but uh, he, he's obviously a very prominent person in terms of German and European economy. And he said oh, Europe has an innovation problem, right. Uh, which is that we're not basically from a capitalist point of view. He said we're not developing the means of production, we are relying on these old mhm monopolies which are not developing anything, they're just living off old fat. And what we need is a capitalist destruction, creative destruction. That is some industries have to go under and we have to build up new industries. And um, he said we um, need to do that. We just need to have creative destruction and we need to deregulate as well. 

But here's the point. Why? Who is going to destroy themselves? Mhm. Which capitalist class? The German capitalist class is going to say oh we got Mercedes, we got Volkswagen, we're making tons of money. I mean for us to reestablish a whole new auto industry or a whole new industry and destroy this one would mean hundreds of billions of investments and long periods with no real profits being made. Uh, and lots of risk involved. We don't care about that. We're getting our investments many times back just by sucking these dry. And the French are going to say the same thing and the Greeks are going to say the same thing. 

And then there's this question of regulation, you know, in the EU. Anyone who lives in the EU knows that um, if you go and buy feta cheese in a supermarket, it says Greek style cheese because if it's not made in Greece, you're not allowed to call it feta cheese. Well that's something that a lot of companies always complain about. Oh, the EU bureaucracy, the EU regulations. But all of that is in place to what? To protect national monopolies. I Hm, mean the Feta is just one tiny example. It's not really a big. But it's precisely because every single capitalist class has an interest in developing their own monopolies which are Living off the fat that was produced by the working class in the whole of the post war period. And they have no interest in changing this. So this idea that, oh, we should.

Jorge Martín

And also, sorry, another side of what they complain about regulations and so on is labor, uh, regulations and environmental regulations have been conquered, uh, by the working class over a long period of time that they want to completely destroy.

Hamid Alizadeh

This is the next point I wanted to say because, um, that's the solution of Munchau. Munchau says we need to innovate ourselves out of this crisis. In other words, we need to develop the means of production and by that raise the productivity of labor and through that raise living standards.

Jorge Martín

But can I say that this is exactly, this is exactly what Draghi said in his famous report. He said, but in order to do that, we need 800 billion euro of new investments. Where's this money going to come from?

Hamid Alizadeh

Exactly. Who's going to pay this? Yes, um, but the IMF has a different view. I'm holding here, my hands, the latest regional economic outlook notes about Europe, which was released earlier this month. And they paint a very bleak picture. They say, look, we got this public debt. They just talk, they're just focusing on the public debt. They say we have all of these things, NATO, uh, by the way, NATO withdrawal also means, and the increase in NATO spending is also a transference of uh, resources to the US because where are they going to buy these new weapons from? Most of the weapon systems are locked into American manufacturers.

Jorge Martín

I think it's 65% of all weapons, uh, spending in Europe goes to US companies.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah, so that's another transfer of wealth from Europe to the US uh, and they list all of these things that we list and they say, well the only way to get around it, uh, they say, basically they say the, the average European debt is around 60% of GDP. Now that's not a weighted calculation. So they're just taking, you know, France has got 114 and Moldova or whatever, Luxembourg has much less. And then those are two divided anyway. So in reality it's much higher than that. 

But they say the average, uh, debt is around 60%. And if it continues like this, nothing changes, just continues as it is now. Interest rates don't go up, don't fall in 15 years, by 2040 we're going to have double that, double the budget deficits that we have now in order to maintain, uh, budget deficit below 90%. So we're still gonna go up by around 50%. Yeah, we have to cut, uh, around 5% of GDP per year. Mhm. Of spending. Which is what? Which is a huge amount, hundreds of billions of euros. And then they say, well, uh, we have a few suggestions. First of all, um, we need to deregulate the labor market.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

We need just incentivize work because people don't have incentives to work to make it in.

Jorge Martín

People are lazy.

Hamid Alizadeh

People are lazy. Basically we need to push them with a rod. Ah, make them early, easier to fire and easier to hire. Incentivize work and incentivize hiring because if you hire someone you can fire again easily. You don't, you're not going to think so much about it. Then we need to adjust pension systems to mitigate the cost of aging and increased longevity. So raising pension age and limiting the, the, and decreasing the amount, uh, increasing the centralization of spending at the EU level, concentration of wealth of power, the EU bureaucracy, um, tax policy reform and improved revenue administration, which means higher taxation basically. But all of this, they say we need to phase this in. The salami method, in other words. And then they say, um, spending prioritizations and improvements in spending efficiency. So cuts, cuts.

And then at the end, rethinking the role of government may be unavoidable in some countries. If reforms and m. Medium term consolidation are insufficient, then more, uh, radical fiscal measures could include reassessing the scope of public services and other government functions, potentially affecting the social contract. What this means is don't take it for granted. And they, I mean they say a lot more further on. They, they basically say, look, people have come to take free education, free health.

Jorge Martín

Care, you know, as a normal thing.

Hamid Alizadeh

As a normal thing, we can't continue with that. Mhm. And then they say these cuts will add 1 1/2% of cuts to GDP. We still have another 3 1/2% to go to reach the 5%.

Jorge Martín

Yeah.

Hamid Alizadeh

So this is a frontal attack against the working class.

Jorge Martín

It's a program of class war.

Hamid Alizadeh

Class. And then on top of that we need to cut three quarters of a percent additionally every single year.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Which then gets us to 5% in five years. And what they say, I think the interesting thing is the social contract.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

What is the social contract?

Jorge Martín

Yeah, what this means is that everything that was taken for granted or was rather conquered by the working class over a period of economic growth after World War II is now going uh, to be destroyed. Free education, free health care, pensions and everything. So I mean this is a program of class war. 

And there was another article in the Financial Times that was saying look, we are now competing with uh, we now don't have a market in the US. We are competing with China, but the problem with China is that China doesn't want anything that we produce. We are only buying from China. And the only way he says there's only one solution to this and uh, we must severely reform. When they say reform they mean counter reform. Basically we need to severe reform, uh, our system of regulation. Again same idea. And the welfare this is, it's not that welfare is bad in itself, but it's not sustainable. We can't pay for it. When they say we cannot pay for it, what they mean is that there is now a direct contradiction between maintaining the profits of the European capitalist and its role in the world and paying for basic, uh, subsistence, basic existence conditions, basic living conditions for the working class. The two are in direct contradiction. 

And the problem when they talk about social contract, what they really mean is that implementing these measures would mean an all out assault on the working class which will inevitably lead to a massive social explosion. We already see the developments of that say in France where for one year now we've seen one government after another fall over the question of the budget, uh, which is precisely this question of where they're going to get 60 billion or 50 billion euro worth of cuts so that they can pay the debt.

Hamid Alizadeh

The interest rates.

Jorge Martín

The interest rates, some of the interests, yes. In Britain, I think the figure In Britain is 100 billion pounds paid every year just in interest on the debt. This is money that the state takes from social spending and from other spending and gives it directly to financial market speculators, people who bought debt bonds because they thought this is good business. And they're not parasitical, completely parasitical.

Hamid Alizadeh

I think that's the point. These guys have been… The capitalist class they basically always say that the reason why they should rule is because they innovate, they develop.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Capitalism uh, develops society and modernizes and raises everyone. But they haven't been developing anything. Hm. By the way, they also talk about uh, derisking in this IMF report. Derisking investments.

Jorge Martín

Which means that the state will back you up.

Hamid Alizadeh

The state will back you up. Right. Uh, so they shouldn't take any risk. They've been sleeping. They haven't been doing anything. I was about to say.

Jorge Martín

They haven't been doing what? The only progressive role that capitalists play in capitalist uh, system would be to invest, to innovate, to develop technology and the means of production.

Hamid Alizadeh

They haven't been doing anything of that sort. They've been falling behind on productivity as a result.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Because they've just been busy looting the existing system. And now that they're facing competition from China and the US. And Russia, who's going to pay for it? The working class. The way to raise productivity is to exploit the working class harder.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

And that's. The social contract is like a sanitized way of saying the situation which arose after World War II, mass protests coming from below and with the collaboration of uh, with the betrayal of the social democratic and communist leaders, by the way, the bourgeois made an agreement. They said, look, we're going to give a little, a slight, kind of a tendentially civilized existence to the European workers. Free education, free health care, all of these things. And as a result. And then we expect you not to rebel. That's the point. We expect the working class…

Jorge Martín

Buying social peace.

Hamid Alizadeh

Buying social peace. But when you rip up when one side of a contract.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Reneges on their part. Well, why shouldn't the other part?

Jorge Martín

Social peace will come to an end.

Hamid Alizadeh

Social peace will come to an end.

Jorge Martín

There's just been a general strike in Belgium over some of these questions. The deregulation of the labour market and so on. There's a new law that's being introduced and, and uh, in. And in France we have seen a massive uh, up. Massive uprising in. In uh, September with this movement, the let's block everything movement.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah.

Jorge Martín

And this is what's brought all these governments down.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah. The IMF, US. How can Europe pay for things that it cannot afford? The question is, can the working class afford the capitalist class? Yes, that's really the main question.

Jorge Martín

Exactly.

Hamid Alizadeh

Because they are the. All of this machinery, all of this industry, all of these things that are there, these are creations of the workers themselves. This is not. The capitalists didn't go and screw down. Screw the machines or even invent them.

Jorge Martín

There was a figure I saw the other day. Uh, Spain is presented as this economic miracle, the only country in Europe that's growing substantially. And um, on the surface figures this is true. There's been growth of GDP, but then they had this other statistic about the growth of real wages, uh, purchasing power of wages discounting inflation. And wages in Spain now have the same purchasing power as they had 25 years ago. 

There's been no advance for the working class. The economy has been growing, but the money has not been going to the workers. It's been going somewhere else to the pockets of the capitalists. In countries like Greece and Italy, real incomes are now lower by 4% and 5% than they were 20 years ago. This is uh, an unbelievable state of affairs, an unsustainable state of affairs. This will provoke a social explosion and.

Hamid Alizadeh

Then you have a bonanza in the stock market, Dividends going out like uh, there's no tomorrow.

Jorge Martín

Bitcoin going through the roof, uh, speculation, yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Class struggle is coming to Europe and there's nothing anyone can say or do, can say or do about it. The question is how is it, how is this going to be solved? How is this crisis going to be solved if it's not cutting our welfare? How can we solve the crisis? There's been some people saying we need to tax the rich. That's, I think that's kind of gripped the imagination of a lot of people on the left, in particular a lot of working class people, which justifiably they see...

Jorge Martín

See it's an idea that makes sense because there's this massive extravagant accumulation, grotesque accumulation of wealth, uh, top, uh, while people's living conditions and social service and so on are going down. So it's an obvious answer, let's uh, take the money from the people who have the money. 

The problem is that you cannot tinker around the edges of the capitalist uh, system because what will happen is actually, there's actually some concrete real life examples of this. But what will happen if there is a significant amount of taxing of the rich is that the rich will then go on a strike of capital. 

Say okay, you take money, we're not going to invest, they're not investing very much already, but they're going to invest less or they're going to take the money somewhere else. Uh, they have an army of lawyers and accountants that find loopholes and they uh, put the money in uh, tax havens in the Seychelles or in the Caribbean or in uh, low tax uh, economies like Ireland or Holland. And so they will always find a way to avoid this. 

The only real way of uh, taking the money from the rich is by expropriating, expropriating capital, expropriating the big banks, the insurance companies, expropriating the means of production, that is the factories, the fixed capital. And uh, on the basis of that it will be possible to democratically plan the economy so that all these resources that already exist, all this technology that's potentially liberating for humanity, uh, to free leisure time and so on, to use it for the benefit of the many and not the parasitical, uh, few. But you're not going to do that by taxing the Rich. 

The one example I wanted to give is the Hollande government actually that you mentioned before. The Hollande government came to power on the promise of taxing the rich. And they introduced a, um, mild or mild to significant, uh, tax on the top, uh, income, uh, earners. And what happened immediately, uh, many of them went abroad. The owner of uh, l'Oreal, uh, uh, moved their tax domicile to, I think it was Luxembourg. I think Gerard Depardier, the famous actor, moved to Russia. He is now paying tax in Russia, though he doesn't live there. Uh, and so on. This happened so quickly that uh, the Hollande government, I think, lasted only this tax. This tax on the rich lasted only for one year. Then they had to retreat because they.

Hamid Alizadeh

Can't, uh, and I think it even goes further than that because, um, the idea, if you have a government which genuinely supports the interests of the working class, the capitalists have many, many means of undermining it because they can live with, they can come to live with a slightly higher or lower lower tax, but they would seek to undermine that. And if you break that, then they're going to come for you. 

Now, what are the means of power that the capitalists hold? Is one, the influence in the state apparatus. The unelected part of the state, which is 99.999% of the state, is directly linked or controlled by the capitalists. Uh, and even the ones that are elected, most of them are in the pocket of the bourgeois. Then you have the rest of the economy. I mean, we talked about the Venezuelan revolution a few episodes ago. And what you saw there was just the idea of Chavez, the president being a representative of the, of the working masses right at the top of the state meant precisely the mobilization of the entire apparatus in the state apparatus and in the economy to sabotage and to bring that government down.

Jorge Martín

The Chavez government attempted to regulate capitalism to introduce controls that will benefit the working class.

Hamid Alizadeh

Which is what taxing the rich is exactly.

Jorge Martín

Foreign exchange controls, price controls and a few other things. What the capitalists did was first of all, a massive strike of capital. They ceased to, uh, invest. Second, a sabotage of the economy, direct sabotage of. They were hoarding, they were withholding products from the market in order to hit the pockets and the livelihoods of working class families. There was this, uh, one company in Venezuela, uh, Grupo Polar, that controls most of the food distribution chain and they were withdrawing products from the market. And there was even an example. The government introduced a price cap on white rice, which is a main staple, uh, for working class people. And what this company did is that they ceased production and distribution of white rice and they introduced other types like flavorized, uh, rice, colorized rice, in order to evade controls. So in fact, this is what we always say. You cannot control what you don't own and you cannot plan what you, what you don't control. The only way to plan the economy in the benefit of the majority of the people is if the working class owns and controls the means of production.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yes, we are in favor of a progressive taxation, we are in favor of taxes, higher taxes for the rich, but that's not going to. So that's not going to make Mercedes or Volkswagen.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Re. Uh, establish their plants or re. Establish tens of thousands of people and develop the manufacture.

Jorge Martín

No, no. If anything, their decisions are determined by maximum profit in the short term for a small minority of unelected.

Hamid Alizadeh

Precisely, precisely. And the point is precisely to get to the core of the problem which is right there in production, in the economy. And that should be controlled by the working class, which after all, has built all of that.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

Uh, I'm sure that none of, well, hardly any of the CEOs of Mercedes or Volkswagen have added anything to the development of CASAs. Ordinary engineers who are now also working class and mechanics on the ground who are, who are the ones who make these machines run and develop. I think that's a good point. Place to end the second segment. Now, just briefly towards the end, we tried this last week and we will try, um, every week now, uh, or M, as often as possible to deal with questions that come up from our audience. Uh, you can write your questions in, um, YouTube, Spotify, wherever else. You, you, you listen to us. And we do, we do listen, uh, we do read everything that people write, try to incorporate it. But we want to try to answer some of these, um, a bit more directly, uh, on a regular basis. 

Now there's one that I thought was interesting, uh, I'm just going to read it out, says this one was particularly interesting. This was the previous episode which, which highlighted Epstein and the rot, uh, in the, in the ruling class says the Epstein class is quite a moniker. And how you also tied those scientific studies into why these people are such depraved perverts just clinched it. It is frightening how openly arrogant, callous and depraved they act. And with seemingly no consequences. The fires of hell clearly do not make them flinch. Never mind asking what their mothers would think of their conduct.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

As a pretty good, uh, sum up of what we think about the Epstein class and we're supposed to look up to these people. Meanwhile. Now here's the interesting bit. Meanwhile my rent is going up again and it's keeping me up at night. High rent has been a mass crisis for years now, yet nothing is being done about it. How is an economy supposed to keep going when most of his people are poor? I haven't, I haven't had a good answer to that one. But I, uh, but I have seen that misery can last a very, very long time. You say things are coming to a boil. I hope you're right, though the prospect scares me. Revolutions have uncertain outcomes. I'm so tired. There's a lot here, there's a lot of questions there actually, and maybe we can telegraphically go through them.

Jorge Martín

But it's a very good reflection of what many people are thinking.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yes, I think that's, that's why I raised it. I think this is a very good, uh, reflection. Precisely. High, um, rent is keeping a lot of people up. Keeping me up.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Uh, and uh, and nothing is being done about it. How is an economy supposed to keep going when most of its people are poor? Yes, well that's one of the things in the IMF report and all of these so called restructuring, uh, proposals. No one is answering. How are you going to keep an economy with this amount of cuts? First of all, a huge amount of the, the wealth created is going straight into the bottomless pit of interest payments. Then another pit is now created for defense spending. This is also, doesn't Serve any social purpose. And now you have, um, what's it called, uh, attacks on welfare and wages and living standards. Surely that pulls out the bottom from the market. That undermines uh, demand, which in turn would undermine the economy. The idea that you just attack people's living standards and then you can sell more things and you can produce more things.

Jorge Martín

Sell more things to whom exactly? Because at the end of the day, the capitalists do not invest in order to produce things that are, uh, useful. They invest in order to have a return on the investment profits. So in order to have profits, you need to be able to sell these products to someone. And if you, if you're cutting the living standards of the working class, you're reducing the internal market, never mind the fact that there is no external market. Who are they going to sell it to? This there's now a, uh, descent into protectionism and so on. 

So that is a very good question. And the answer is it's impossible. You cannot have a growing economy when the majority of the people are poor. And if you have that, it tells you something. It tells you, yeah, there is some economic growth, but it's all going to the top 1%, the capitalist class. And uh, this is not only, uh, our opposition to capitalism, it's not just a moral opposition. This is wrong or this unfair. No. It's also that this doesn't work. Doesn't work. Uh, it doesn't allow for society to develop in general.

Hamid Alizadeh

Exactly. Which leads us to the second question. It says, um, I've seen that misery can last a very, very long time. This seems to imply that where is the revolution? Nothing changes.

Jorge Martín

Mhm. And he says something about things are about to boil.

Hamid Alizadeh

But you say things are about to boil. I think before we go to the last bit, which is also interesting.

Jorge Martín

Things are about to boil. I was at the congress of the Brazilian Organisation, uh, recently and this question came up, uh, and also at the discussion at the Revolution Festival, some. At the Revolution Festival, we were discussing about the crisis in Europe and the big movements in France, the big movements in Italy. And someone asked, why is it such delay in Britain? We haven't seen the same thing in Britain. And I said, and I pointed out to some Italian comrades in the room and I said, I'm sure that in September when there were the big movements in France, there were many people in Italy saying, oh, nothing's happening in Italy. Look at France. In France they know how to fight. And in Italy nothing's happened. And on top of this, we have right wing government, a right wing populist government. And uh, people just voted for that government. And then all of a sudden there was a big social explosion, big working class, a massive, uh, general strike in Italy. 

So what this means is that things happen in a dialectical way. There's an accumulation of anger, an accumulation of pressure. People can't pay their rents. People are thinking, why are we poor? And then one day from sometimes maybe from an accidental, uh, uh, question, there is a big explosion of the class struggle. Our task is not to say exactly when it will happen, because this is impossible, but to look at all the different factors that are building up towards that social, uh, explosion.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah. There is this idea that communists make revolutions.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

Oh, you want a revolution? Yes, we do want a revolution, but we don't make them. No, capitalism makes revolutions precisely because, because it creates the conditions. But a revolution doesn't happen in a straight line. A revolution is not like one more person getting angry or one more person getting angry or everyone just getting a little bit angrier. But you have to look at the subterranean processes which are taking place. Because you can have for a long time an accumulation of anger m which is latent, which is not clearly expressed. You have people who take a hit and they say, uh, oh, well those at the top know what they're doing. We're just going to squeeze our belts, tighten our belts a little bit more. Don't worry. Someone, someone's got control of the situation and they do that a hundred times and you can talk to them. I mean I've talked with these kind of people and they said no, no, no, this is not, don't worry, look, what are you talking about? Communism, revolution, this, look at this system, it works, right? But then over time, that precise defense of the system, that kind of standing up for the system, but constantly being disappointed leads to a point where over an accidental thing you can have a complete explosion that concludes entirely to his explosion.

Jorge Martín

You could say that the Italian events there was a general strike, two general strikes over the question of Palestine was over an accidental question because normally foreign affairs like that would then affect the country's policies or never mind the country's policies, a general strike, people leaving work for one day. Uh, and obviously the question of Palestine is felt very strongly in Italy and many other countries is a factor of radicalization. But what the Italian comrades were saying is that this is something else as well. 

There's a question of Palestine, but it's the question of 20 years of cuts, austerity of the drip drip, of the erosion of the conditions of the working class. And there's another factor as well, I think that is important. That is uh, if the economy was growing, if you have the expectation that okay, now things are a bit tough, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, there's something that's coming, there's going to be a better situation, then most people will be prepared to make some sacrifices, wait for a little bit. But this has now been going on for how long? Since the 2008 crisis is now 17 years. There's a whole generation of people, anyone who's under what, under uh, 30, they lived all their conscious life under the crisis of capitalism, under this particular crisis of capitalism under war. And this is what's producing this radicalization of this so called Gen Z revolutions and so on. So um, we say things are about to boil over because all the factors are accumulating.

Hamid Alizadeh

And in fact, I mean, I don't know if this comrade is in Europe or not, but Europe is because of the reasons why we explained is going to be at the center of all of this. There's a massive crisis of economic crisis, a democratic crisis, crisis of democracy, a moral crisis. Uh, and, um, people, there is a very strong competition.

Jorge Martín

But I will say Germany is at the front of the line for countries that are about to have a big social explosion.

Hamid Alizadeh

And obviously these will affect one another. The other element is, um, the question of leadership. Because the lack of working class leadership also means that this pressure is not given any expression.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

And obviously this delays the process. Mhm. Because.

Jorge Martín

But also makes it more explosive.

Hamid Alizadeh

More. More explosive.

Jorge Martín

This is what, sorry, this is what happened in Italy, isn't it? In Italy, the leadership of the main trade union with millions of workers affiliated, uh, the CGIL was refusing to take any steps and it was a smaller union. They just set a date and then boom, everyone came out. And then it forced the main union to also, uh, jump on board.

Hamid Alizadeh

And that leads us to the, the next point, which is, he says revolutions, uh, have uncertain outcomes.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

And they do. I mean, you said, I, I said it to you before.

Jorge Martín

You said yes, but, but capitalism has one certain outcome. Things are only going to get worse under capitalism.

Hamid Alizadeh

Yeah, yeah. Uh, the point is, yes, revolution, Capitalism creates revolutions.

Jorge Martín

Yes.

Hamid Alizadeh

But whether those revolutions will be successful or not, or not depends on the conscious element in them. In the element in the, in the people. The groups of people who are prepared for when the revolution comes, understand the underlying reasons for that revolution, which is what our podcast is all about, and understands the only solution which under capitalism to the solution to all of these disparate movements which seemingly have very, very different aims and, you know, conditions and context. All of them can be boiled down to, in the last analysis, to the rule of the capitalist class over society or not, or the working class, basically. But in order to, but you need to have an understanding of that before the revolutionary events. There needs to be a strong element, strong leadership core in each of these movements, uh, that understands that, that understands the process and the laws of a revolution as it unfolds and understands to make this the process of the working class rising to this task and becoming conscious of its own task, go quicker. Yes, that's the point. 

And so what we're saying is the better prepared you are, the more uncertain the outcome of a revolution is. We can never guarantee the more certain, sorry, the less uncertainty there is of the outcome of a revolution. And that's why you need to get organised. We cannot promise victory. But we can say this first one. 

The working class has never been stronger. It's the majority of the world's population, which is far more than the Bolsheviks had in 1917, only a fraction of the Russian society. The capitalist class has never been as discredited or as weak as it is now, in the sense that no one there has no legitimacy, no legs to stand on. Not only the working class, but large layers of the middle class are now becoming proletarianised and moving to the left and becoming radicalised and are open to radical ideas. The only feature that's lacking in this situation is a party that's capable of expressing this, that's big enough.

Jorge Martín

Mhm.

Hamid Alizadeh

And which has the correct program. And that's what we're building in the Revolutionary Communist International.

Jorge Martín

Exactly.

Hamid Alizadeh

So join us if you want more certainty about the future and more hope. Yeah, I think we can end it on those lines. It's been a great show. We'll be back again, uh, next Thursday, 6pm for all of you out there, don't forget to like and subscribe, uh, to the podcast, wherever you consume it, and also to write your comments and your questions, your criticism in the comment sections, uh, in those places, uh, so that we can engage in this, uh, more in, in, in. In the debate with you. 

My name is Hamid Alizadeh. This was Against the Stream. See you next week.