Trump’s UN speech and mass protests for Palestine in Italy Share TweetWith his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump has once again shocked the world. But what does his apparent change of heart on the war in Ukraine actually signify? And what does it mean for Europe?Meanwhile, Italy has seen half a million on the streets over Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And it’s not only Italy that’s heating up. France, Nepal, Indonesia, Peru, the Philippines. Today, Madagascar. All across the world, the capitalist crisis is igniting revolutionary class struggle. In this week's Against the Stream, Fred Weston and Hamid Alizadeh break down these turbulent events and explain, most importantly, how communists should prepare.Against the Stream is the current affairs podcast of the Revolutionary Communist International. It airs weekly on YouTube on Thursdays at 6pm London time. Catch up on Spotify or Apple Music.Reading list“Italy: the dam has burst, half a million on the streets for Gaza!” by Claudio Bellotti – Partito Comunista Rivoluzionario“Sri Lanka to Nepal: lessons from the revolutionary wave” by Ben Curry“France: success on 18 September – what now?” by Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire“East Timorese youth follow the example of Indonesia and Nepal” by Max RobertTranscriptHamid Hi, Fred.Fred Hi Hamid.Hamid You've been looking at Donald Trump's speech at UN General Assembly, haven't you?Fred Yeah, I listened to the whole thing.Hamid You listened to the whole thing? I didn't listen to the whole thing, but I've been reading about it. And one thing that I was thinking about this whole time was In vino veritas, an old Latin proverb. Or there's an English one that goes, 'a child, a fool and a drunken man will ever show the truth'. That's what I was thinking when I was listening or reading about it.Fred Yeah, with the due sense of proportion, because Trump tells the truth, but he also tells a pack of lies.Hamid Yes. Well, there was one thing that he said which stood out to me, which was, he said all that... he talked about the UN and said, "All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up." And what I was thinking of, yeah, this is a UN. First of all, what is the UN? It's a collection of the most reactionary people on this planet who can only achieve anything when all of their reactionary interests align, right?And at the same time, what one other thing I was thinking was, what stands out today, perhaps more than ever before, is the complete disconnect between this class of people, the class of the billionaires, of the rich, of the powerful, the capitalist class in the world. The disconnect between them and the billions of working people all over the world, working class, youth, peasants, poor, who are now taking to the streets in one country after another. We've seen Indonesia, we've seen Nepal, we've seen France. This week, we've seen Italy. We'll talk about that. There's the Philippines, there's Peru. Just before we came up, Jorge actually told us that there's protests now in Madagascar. Everywhere is kicking off, and these guys are completely oblivious to what's actually happening on the ground.Well, we'll be talking about those things today. The podcast today is going to be about Trump's message at the UN, the war hysteria in Europe, the war in Gaza and the impact of it on the class struggle, and the new wave of class struggle that is raising it's head across the globe. My name is Hamid Alizadeh. This is Fred Weston, and we're here in Against the Stream. So Fred, what do you think of Trump's speech?Fred Well, I listened to it carefully, because, you know, sometimes the media only highlights certain parts of a speech. I thought, I want to hear the whole thing. And it's true what you say, what he said about the United Nations, is one of the moments where he speaks the truth. The United Nations just writes letters. What else can it do? The United Nations is the heads of all the governments of the world coming together.How can anybody with a minimum of intelligence think that if you take 180 gangsters and put them together, they're suddenly going to become nice people who go to church on Sunday and smile at you all the time. They're still gangsters that are meeting. The people represented there... They're not the people of those countries that are represented. It's the rulers of those countries that are represented in the United Nations. And the rulers of each country rule against their own people because they're defending the interests of the ruling capitalist class of each country. That's what the United Nations is.So as you said, if the big powers can come together and agree, they'll push through a policy. All it takes is one or two of the big powers to say, 'No, there's not in my interest,' and the United Nations can do nothing. It's a talking shop. In actual fact.Hamid Yeah, yeah,Yes, and talking was what Trump did. He was supposed to speak for 15 minutes, but according to him he was sabotaged, the teleprompter didn't work, and he ended up rambling for an hour. And really, what stood out to me at first glance was Trump is increasingly looking like a broken man, almost. He looks very weak. Let's put it like that, not a broken man, perhaps, but he looks very weak in the sense that he has not been able to carry out anything. Any of his major policies.He promised to bring down inflation. Inflation has not been brought down. The cost of living crisis in the US has not been solved. He promised to bring down unemployment. It's not happened. Unemployment is going up. He promised to fix the economy. The economy is now heading into a recession in the US. He promised peace in Ukraine. He promised peace in Gaza. He didn't carry out any of those things. And that's why a speech like the one he had, there are certain truths to it, and we'll get to that. But the way that he lashed out, "and by the way, Tylenol also causes autism, if you take it with your pregnancy,"... But the point is, this is the way that he lashes out and distracts attention from the real problems that he hasn't been able to solve.Fred You know what he said? He said that today in America... "We're living in the golden age of America." He actually says that towards the beginning of his speech. He claims that inflation is down. I looked at the figures, inflation is actually creeping upwards. Food inflation in America is at 3.2%. Energy costs actually went up slightly in July. He claims that they came down dramatically.Basically, he's boasting about a lot of things. Manufacturing is up, he says. It's actually stagnating. Capacity utilisation is down, and actually fewer jobs have been created with unemployment creeping upwards in August, and it's at the highest level since 2021. So he claims a lot of things, workers' wages, I looked at the facts, what he says about workers' wages is not true.You know, real purchasing power in the States has not grown as he claims. He says it's the highest in 60 years. It's amazing. And he talks about America going through the best economy in the history of the world. He doesn't even know his history. America is not in the golden age, and it's not at its peak. America was at its peak just after the Second World War, and since then, it's been a long term decline.He also made a lot of claims about ending all these world wars and all the rest of it, but if you look at it, the two big wars that he claimed he was going to sort out very quickly was Gaza. He was going to just go in there, sort out everything. Ukraine. He was going to do it 24 hours. That was it. All done. He's failed. He's failed on the two big conflicts taking place globally and he's not delivering on the home front.But there's one sentence in the middle of his speech, he actually says, "I have been right about everything." He says that he's predicted everything, and everything he says is right. But actually people listen to Trump one day say one thing, and another he says another. It reminds me of something, you know, there's the old saying, "You can't fool all of the people all of the time..."Trump's time will come. You see, when a big layer of his supporters realise that their lives are not getting better but actually getting worse, then there'll be a dramatic change in US society and US politics. It's just a question of time. It'll take a bit of time for this to feed through, but it will. I think a lot of his bluster and a lot of his boasting is to cover up for the fact that he hasn't actually delivered, and that is a huge embarrassment for him as the president of the United States.Hamid Yeah. I mean, he's basically doing the same thing that he criticised the Democrats for doing because back then, we remember people were complaining that life was getting harder, wages weren't covering the bills, and there was enormous pressure on living standards. And then you had in the liberal media and by liberal politicians, day in and day out, articles and statements to the effect that, 'No, actually, the economy is going great and living standards are going up and wages are going up.'Trump is basically doing the same thing in a slightly less refined way. And I think there is a fracture within the MAGA movement, although temporarily, after the murder of Charlie Kirk, I think perhaps there's a bit of a reunion, coming together again, and they're using it to kind of whip the movement back together.But there are a lot of people in that movement who are very dissatisfied with the way that things are going and that life is getting harder. Obviously, as you say, "You can't fool people all the time" especially if you don't put food on the tables, and that's the main thing that the American working class wants.Now, there were some truths told in that speech, even though, with lots of hyperbole and exaggerations. Alan Woods said it yesterday. We had a meeting yesterday, and he said, 'What was the essence of this speech? It was a frontal attack on Europe and the European ruling class.' That's essentially what it was.He was talking about immigration destroying Europe. Sharia law in London. Apparently we have Sharia law now. Obviously, that's total nonsense, but what did that mean? That was him extending support to the likes of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, all, all of these oppositional figures who are putting forward an anti-Muslim, anti-immigration rhetoric. And he was basically, just days after his trip to Britain, by the way, where he was invited by the king and there was a unprecedented kind of level of of ceremony around his visit, he had a go at everything British. I mean, he tore down the whole country!Fred Look, he's he's helping his friends around the world. He's helping Farage. He's helping the AfD. He's helping all these right-wing populists. The president of the most powerful country in the world talking about immigrants, blaming... basically, the crisis in society, blame it on the immigrants. This is a classic that the ruling class uses. Find a scapegoat on whom to unload all the effects of the crisis which they themselves are responsible for, the rich billionaires, the capitalist class, exploiting the working class, globally making huge profits.There's been migration ever since capitalism has existed. The United States is the country of migration, and at the peak... When he talks about the golden age, the golden age of United States, massive influx of migrants. Why? Because the economy was booming and they were going there.So the cause of the crisis is not the immigrants, but it's something that you can point to and say, 'Look, these people are coming in big numbers.' They exaggerate the numbers, of course, as well. They don't highlight the fact that who is actually cutting the funding for health care? Who is cutting the funding for education? Who is insisting that we increase the age of retirement, that we cut pensions, and at the same time we massively increase military spending? It's not the immigrants who are doing that. It's the capitalist class. It's the ruling classes of Europe, under pressure, obviously, from from the Americans.But Trump is, is basically telling the Europeans this. It seems like a big turnaround. You know what he says about the Ukraine War? 'Ah, they can take back everything, including Crimea, all of that. They can take it all back at a certain point.' But what he's saying to the Europeans is this, 'Yeah, you can do that, if you guys are prepared to pay for it. We're pulling out. We provide you the weapons. You've got to pay for them.' That's what they're saying. And they're putting increased pressure on the Europeans.This latest thing about... In his speech, he makes fun of the Europeans because he says, 'You're importing oil and gas from the Russians. You're paying the enemy, basically, to finance his war against you. This is so ridiculous, you know?'Now he's got a point in the sense that, yes, they are still importing oil and gas from Russia. They have massively reduced it under the pressure, but they cannot reduce it to zero because they don't have the alternatives. But what is the alternative?Just recently, Chris Wright, who is the US Secretary for Energy, in an interview in the Financial Times, said to the Europeans, 'You've got to reduce your imports to zero, and the alternative is to buy the liquefied gas and the oil from America,' right. Which means at massively increased prices.In his speech yesterday, Trump makes fun of the Europeans, basically saying, 'With all these policies of yours,' you know, the green stuff and climate policy, 'you've massively increased the cost of energy. Electricity costs three, four times what it costs...'But he conveniently ignored the little detail that a contributing factor has been Europe not being able to buy the cheap oil and gas that it used to buy from Russia under US pressure. And what do they want from the Europeans? To increase that, to make it even worse. They want to bend Europe and make it completely dependent on US energy, which means massive exports of oil and gas from America at much higher prices.And when it comes to the military, 'We're not going to pay. You have to pay.' So what he's saying to the Europeans is basically, 'You can't count on America anymore.'NATO de facto is an alliance in which the biggest contributor, the one with the biggest army, the biggest weaponry, the most powerful military force in this alliance, is saying to the others, 'You can't count on me. You got to do it yourselves. Pay up and build up your military. And by the way, as you haven't got the weaponry, the advanced weaponry, you got to buy it from us. So basically, pay for it, pay us. We make a packet out of it, get on with it.' That is a massive threat to the European ruling classes, which is causing a huge crisis in Europe.Hamid Yeah. I mean what you're referring to, or part of what you're referring to, goes back to two Truth Social posts that Trump has made in the past few weeks. One was on 13 September, where he basically came out and said that he's ready to do major sanctions on Russia. That was the headline. If all of NATO agrees, which it doesn't, it's divided. And if, basically, the Europeans put 100% tariffs on what is it? Let me see. They have to stop buying Russian oil, and they have to put tariffs on India and on China.What does that mean? That is a way for him to say, 'If you don't take the lead, I'm out.' Right? That's him washing his hands, basically. Then few days ago, he came out – immediately after meeting with Zelensky, by the way, which is typical Trump – and said that he now understands the situation in the Ukraine war much better and he's convinced that, with the support of the European Union, Ukraine can take back all of the land that Russia has taken.Now, what does all of this mean? This has been portrayed, partially in the media as, 'Oh, Trump is changing his opinion on Ukraine.' But in reality, this is Trump saying, 'I don't want to have anything to do with this.' And this is leaving the Europeans in a state of panic.This is a major blow to Europe, because who's going to fund this war? This is becoming Europe's war now. The Ukrainians are, this is according to The Economist, it says "Even in the rosiest forecast, there's a $45 billion shortfall in the Ukrainian state budget next year." That's the rosiest forecast. In reality, it's probably more around 60 billion. Where are the Europeans going to find that? Who's going to pay that in Europe? And more importantly, what are the political consequences and social consequences that will have inside of Europe.That I think... Well, let me know what are your thoughts on this first of all?Fred Well, look across Europe, what we're seeing is parties that are opposed to the Ukraine war, that are coming out saying, 'Why are we spending all this money on the Ukraine war?' It's combined also with a kind of anti-European Union rhetoric. 'They're imposing austerity on us. They're forcing us to do all this.'And it's like the AfD in Germany, Le Pen in France. Here in Britain, Farage is riding high. And Trump was helping all these people yesterday in his speech, by the way. But why are they growing?Part of their rhetoric is on the Ukraine war, because there is a section – In Italy you can see it – there is a section, it's not the majority, but there is a section of the bourgeois who are looking at this and saying, 'How long can we keep this going? How long can we keep financing this war? How long can we keep increasing this level of spending when debt is already at astronomical levels?'France is in a deep financial crisis. They're talking about France facing a Greek type scenario and this pressure is being put on them. And the pressure to take responsibility for the Ukraine war is Americans saying, 'We're not going to help. We're out.' He doesn't want to spend that money on the Ukraine war. And it's causing huge panic amongst the rulers of Europe.I think we could connect this to the recent spate of so-called 'Russian provocation'. I've been looking at it. I mean, the drones in Poland and the Russian MiGs over the Baltic Sea and Estonia, and Von der Leyen's plane. Every little thing gets blown out of proportion. You notice it. It hits the headlines as 'We're on the verge of the Third World War.' Some papers have said that. Because basically, if they can show that Russia has attacked one NATO country, then they can bring in Article Four, and then discuss whether they need the help of other NATO countries to intervene, to defend.In effect, you're talking about launching an all out war of NATO and Russia. But you notice how it all ends. It ends up with a clarification that it wasn't what they were saying it was. It can happen. Drones in a war can drift across a border, that is a fact. But even these quite this case of the jets, it's happened before, the other way around. American or British jets, say, in the Black Sea, going close to the Russians and getting escorted out. And what usually happens is, and this does happen, is the plane will get, at best, escorted away, and there'll be no conflict.But they're using it in the headlines. What they're trying to do is whip up this idea in the minds of millions of people across Europe, that, 'We're under threat. Russia is the threat. They could invade us. We've got to prepare.' And it's to get people ready to accept the inevitable austerity which comes with a massive increase in military spending. They're finding it difficult to convince the people of Europe that that is what is necessary. It's difficult to convince people that you've got to – look at the French – that you've got to increase the age of retirement. It's difficult...Hamid In France, it's directly connected with military spending, because they've said 'We're going to double the military spending within the next three to five years, and all of this has to be done without taking up any new debt, which means that it is directly going to be taken from the budget, from social expenditure.'Fred That means retiring later, lower pensions. It means massive cuts to healthcare, massive cuts to education. It means an onslaught against the working class across Europe.Before we go on with this, I just wanted to say one little thing. What you were referring to earlier, when Trump insists that the Europeans pay for themselves and they stop completely importing Russian oil and gas. Trump actually thinks that he can hit Russia by doing that. But what we've seen in the last three years is attempts to squeeze Russia have not had the desired effect because they don't seem to realise the changes that have taken place globally.You know, when they talk about the international community, this imaginary community of the good people, the democratic people, the people who defend humanity, human rights. All this, which is supposedly the West. It's about a quarter of the world.There's a huge part out there. It's called China, it's called India, it's called Russia, and a lot of other countries. And these countries are buying Russian oil and gas. They're redirecting. Russia is redirecting to other markets, and it's still bringing in the money for the oil. On the other side of it, China is redirecting. The attempts to squeeze China in the American market has pushed China to find other sources, and it's actually massively exporting everywhere else.The balance has changed globally. The old imperialist powers, the West... The Europeans are the ones who are really at rock bottom. The American power, which is still number one, we've said it many times, has been weakened relatively to the rest of the globe. And therefore the idea that you can just, you know, stomp around the world telling people what to do. It's not working. It's not working because the power of the West has been reduced as a part of the global scenario.Hamid In fact, I would say Trump has consistently, recognising this, wanted to withdraw from the Ukraine war. The interesting thing is, he's kind of stuck in a pickle, because when he came to power, he had a certain room for manoeuvre, because he was resting partially on a working class base. Demagogically, he leaned on a part of the working class, he mobilised them, and on that basis, he was unstoppable faced with the opposing section of the ruling class, with the dominant section of the ruling class.But. As he has disappointed his base, as his base has started fracturing and becoming less supportive, much more withdrawn, he's now forced to rely more and more on the old traditional parts of the ruling class. In particular in his own party, it's people like Lindsey Graham, who has put forward this bill of extremely high sanctions against Russia, and is now pushing Trump basically to sanction Russia. Basically to stay in the in the Ukraine war. To maintain the position, to try to maintain the position of America as that global hegemon, as the global world policeman.Not that Trump is a peace loving person as such. But he does realise, I think, that those days are over. But there's a wing of the American and Western ruling class which doesn't. The neocons in the US and the whole of the European ruling class are desperate to keep America in that position. To claw back, by whatever means necessary...The Europeans, obviously, they have a lot to lose. European imperialism controls all of Eastern Europe. If they lose Russia, they're going to lose a lot of that. And in the rest of the world, they're going to lose a lot. So if they lose Ukraine, they're going to lose their influence there.And financially, they're under pressure. If America withdraws militarily, they have to kind of step in, and they have to take the social consequences as well.So there is a concerted effort... You can say there's a conspiracy, in a way, between all of these ruling classes to tie down Trump into this war, right. But he doesn't have the strength to walk away, he doesn't have the power to walk away. He's so dependent on these guys.And this is kind of his bratty little child way of saying, 'Okay, well, if you want to do that, fight that war, do it. But you're gonna pay for it. You pay for it. We'll give you intelligence, which means we have, we have some skin in the game. But you're gonna pay for it.'And that also reminds me a little bit... We talked about it, I think, last week. When the British Empire was declining, when it reached its peak, it couldn't develop the productive forces anymore, industry and so on.What it started relying on increasingly was draining the colonies. And it squeezed them and squeezed them. What was the result in the colonies? Waves of revolution. The colonial revolution. Well, you have a similarity here in that America – having reached this peak as a capitalist force, not developing productivity industry as it used to, going into economic crisis, crisis on all levels – is increasingly squeezing its dependencies, including Europe. And what's the result in Europe?Fred We'll talk about that in a minute.Hamid Increasing social tensions.Fred You see the Europeans, the old European imperialist powers: I mean historically, the British, the French and even the Belgians. The Dutch, they had their imperial interests and colonies. The Germans.All of them, when they were at their peak, developed into imperialist powers. And then one of the elements of imperialism is you exploit your colonies or the countries you dominate in order also to try and maintain some kind of social stability on the home front. And to a degree, when they were at their peak, they achieve that.When that ceases to be possible, the home front starts to become less stable. That is what the ruling classes of Europe are looking at. And the Americans are not helping. They're not helping. But why? Because the Americans have their own problems at home.So they're telling the Europeans, 'You pay.' Offloading all the burden onto them.Hamid And making money off of them.Fred The European ruling classes have seen their influence globally massively cut back. Look at the French: kicked out of one country after another in Africa. The global influence of Europe has been massively reduced. I think in terms of its GDP, it's like 15% of the global GDP. It's been reduced.And in this situation, how can they maintain the stability of their system? How can they govern their system without some kind of revolt coming from below? But they're desperately trying to hold on to their influence globally, but they're paying a huge price for that, and they're going to prove incapable of doing it.I was listening to different ministers in different countries. Occasionally they come out with the truth. A lot of European countries, their armies, they would not stand up to a serious invasion by a powerful force. Their armies have been reduced in terms of numbers, in terms of training, in terms of weapons. They've been they don't have the forces. And they don't have the ability to sustain the supply of weapons in a major war. This is what is actually facing them. They're terrified of that. They're terrified of losing control of their own local sphere of influence even, because they're losing part of it in Eastern Europe to the Russians.Hamid In Africa, France is losing its old colonies, which which were still dominated by it.Fred If you look at it, economically speaking, South America trades more with China than with the United States. A lot of countries are in that position. So the old, historically powerful imperialist countries... The Europeans, are in a steep decline. The Americans have had this relative weakening. They're all looking at this situation, and they're all looking, obviously, to protect their own interests. And the Americans under Trump, are basically saying 'It's not really in our interest to support these guys like we did before. They've got to do it themselves. We've got our own local problems to solve.'Hamid 'America first.' Isn't that? You have to pay for us to stabilise our system. That's what..Fred So the Europeans are looking at a huge dilemma now, because the decline in living standards and the policies they're being forced to carry out... The austerity that, in effect, has hardly started, if we think of what is actually necessary to get down their debt. They're actually staring class struggle in the face. That's what's happened.Hamid Just speaking of what you just said there, this morning I was reading City AM, which is a London kind of financial paper. They've been doing a lot of articles about the British economy. It's a damning thing. But one thing they were saying, 'It's not true that there's been austerity.' Now, if you ask any British person...First of all, let me just say. They were talking about the debt, how it's gone up ninefold in the past 25 years, and is now such a huge burden that just interest payments are gobbling up more than defence and education in the budget. But they said the only way to do it is through austerity. And they said there hasn't been any austerity.If you ask any British person, they would laugh at you, because there's been nothing but austerity. The school system is falling apart. The education, the healthcare system is literally falling apart. Everything. Roads, infrastructure. Everything is collapsing. But from a bourgeois point of view, it's not even made a dent yet.Fred We haven't even started.Hamid We haven't even started yet. That is the future that the European working class is facing. Trotsky made the point, and Lenin also, that in an epoch of imperialism, the greater imperialist powers can use some of the profits that they get from the colonies and from the dependencies, from the markets that they control, to give certain concessions to the working class at home in order to buy social peace.That has been part of the explanation for the enormously high standards of living in Europe for the past 60 or 70 years. With the collapse, the complete meltdown of European imperialism, that is going to be out. Not only is that income not going to come anymore. The world economy is grinding to a halt. America is now asking it to pay extra for energy. To pay double or triple the price for energy by cutting its Russian ties. America is now asking it to buy weapons from them and double its own military.By the way, they're not going to build a European military force to face Russia. They're not going to be able to do that anytime soon, if ever. But they are going to be forced to buy American goods. They are being forced to move their production to America. They're being hit by tariffs. It's a perfect storm. And the living standards that the capitalist... If the capitalist class wants to defend it's own position, its own profits and its own privileges, there is only one way. If it wants to stay competitive, it needs to make the most brutal attacks against the working class in its history which will lead to social...Fred That's right. In the period after the Second World War. I remember the discussions we used to have in the 70s about this. The way – we can discuss this in a moments, I don't want to go into the details of this – capitalism was able to survive the crisis that it was facing at the end of the Second World War. It survived a wave of revolutionary movements and was able to stabilise for a period. The biggest and longest boom in its history created relative social peace in the advanced capitalist countries for about 20 years, after the 40s. It started to break down with '68 and then the 70s.But there was... Let's put it this way, the class struggle globally, the struggle of the colonial peoples for national liberation was out of sync with the revolution in the advanced capitalist countries because of the delay of the revolution. And this had a series of consequences in terms of the turmoil in the colonial countries and the kind of regimes that appeared. And there was this contradiction in the situation.Today, what we're seeing is that the revolution in the advanced capitalist countries is now coming into sync with the revolution globally, because the crisis is much deeper. And while we're having movements... You listed them earlier on, and we can go into them. It's not just Nepal or Indonesia, which we can touch on in a minute. Big things are starting to happen in the heart of the capitalist world, i.e. in France, in Italy and other countries. We're seeing mass movements and a reawakening of the working class. That is what is beginning to happen, and, in this case, it'd be worth here going into the what's happening in Gaza, what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people, because...Hamid Yeah, before you say that, I mean, just on that point. Staying with the UN, there's been a whole series of countries which have come out and recognised Palestine at the UN, right. I have the list here somewhere: France, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Andorra, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Portugal and the UK have now recognised a Palestinian state. And this has been praised as a major significance.Fred It is utter hypocrisy.Hamid But I think you were saying the other day, 'What state is there left to recognise? What is there left to recognise?'Fred They recognise a state which not only doesn't exist. The territory upon which it might have been feasible to imagine has been completely devastated. Gaza has been destroyed, and in the West Bank, they are constantly encroaching, taking land, increasing the settlers, physically attacking and killing Palestinians.It is absolutely clear the right-wing, which now have a huge influence inside the Netanyahu government, they're pushing for an all-out second Nakba. That's what they're doing. They want to push them out. They keep moving them from north to south, from south to north, to the coast. They are constantly bombing them, starving them to death.What is happening in Gaza is criminal from every point of view. The destruction of a whole people. Now, do you remember when if you used the word genocide, you'd be attacked? 'That's anti-semitism.' Well, they all now admit it. They use the word genocide. Because the term genocide doesn't mean only the killing of a people. It's the destroying of a people as a nation, and you kill enough to destroy them, to disperse them, to expel them. That is what they're doing.The thing is this: whereas this is in the interests of the Zionist ruling elite, these monsters that govern Israel, it is having a hugely radicalising effect globally. Ordinary working class people, they're not being taken in by the the official story, you know, 'Oh, Israel has the right to defend itself. And remember, remember this...'People are seeing children being blown to pieces, people queuing up for food, starving people, being shot at by snipers of the Israeli Defence Forces. This is sickening millions and millions of people, and rightly so. How can you watch what's happening in Gaza and not be enraged by all this? But this is... What it's doing is feeding in to the class struggle in Europe, and it's connecting up, particularly in Europe.I think the flotilla is having this effect, because... I mean, the flotilla, okay, it's not an army, and they haven't got the forces to actually physically do much for the Gazan people. But it's a hugely symbolic act of challenging the Israeli State. And this flotilla is gaining huge support across Europe, especially in those countries where the boats have actually come from: Spain, Italy. Now there's Greek ones who are going to be joining.There's already been some attacks. Right in the early days of the flotilla, there were some attacks on the boats. This has enraged people. Look at what's happening in Italy, for instance. It started to have an effect.There are Italian MPs. There are some, you know, celebrities, let's call them, from different countries on these boats travelling to Israel. Israel has already clearly attacked them when they were in Tunisian waters, and now there's been these latest attacks.Look at what's happening in Italy. Italy was the country where, if you spoke... This always happens. I find this... I don't know whether it's funny or makes you angry. People on the left, some of the old, tired lefts. You see them, they say, 'Oh, Italians, they do nothing'. For years it would be, 'Ah, there's, there's no movement. Ah, we should be like the French, or we should be like this.'And I remember thinking, the Italians will move just like every other working class, and they have a fantastic historical tradition of class struggle. It's the responsibility of the so-called left leaders and the union leaders that have clamped it down, not giving them an alternative.Gaza is proving to be like the catalyst in Italian society, bringing to the surface all the class anger that has built up over these years in Italy. And you saw that the other day.Hamid On Monday. Just to say, on Monday there were mass protests all over Italy called by a small union, USB, in support of the flotilla. They called for a general strike and half a million people came out. 100,000 people, at least, in Rome. 40,000 in Milan. Thousands of people. Tens of thousands all over in more than 80 cities all over Italy.Fred 80 cities, right. From the north to the south. Sardinia, Sicily. Everywhere you could imagine. Cities that have never seen this level of mobilisation. I've read some of the reports. You know, in Trieste, the biggest demonstration they'd ever seen, right? All across the country. Half a million people responded.But what's interesting here is that it's a marginal, sort of left union, USB, which hasn't got a mass influence. But it called for action which corresponds to what people want. They've sort of, in effect, they've tapped into a massive mood that exists there.And we see here the mistakes of the official union. The CGIL, the biggest official trade union confederation, they called for a general strike of two hours last Friday. You can see the thinking of these bureaucrats: Give them a couple of hours separate from the 22nd to try and diffuse... They massively miscalculated. They massively miscalculated because.One: the fact that they actually called a strike meant, in the consciousness of people, 'So a general strike is possible. Taking action for Gaza is possible.' It actually strengthened the mobilisation on the Monday with a massive turnout. Now it wasn't a general strike, in the sense that, it wasn't a total stoppage. But for instance, huge numbers of teachers came out, in spite of the union hardly organising anything. Public sector workers, healthcare workers. There were some sectors that significant numbers came out.But even more significant is a huge number of young people, school students, in some cases without any organisation, turned out in massive numbers. University students in massive numbers. You know, 100,000 in Rome. And the mood was one of extreme anger and also very open to revolutionary ideas and conclusions.Now, as I said, it's like the catalyst that's brought to the surface the anger in society. But the most interesting piece of news is this from today. The CGIL, our comrades were telling us.Hamid The main trade union confederation.Fred The main trade union. Historically speaking, the left Trade Union Confederation. In the past, it was dominated by the Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Still seen today as the left union, although there's hardly much difference between them and the other unions in terms of the bureaucracy.But the bureaucracy was shocked by what they saw on Monday. They did not realise how big the mobilisation could be. And I was talking to comrades, they were telling me, our worker comrades in the unions: all the bureaucrats, they're all talking. They're frustrated, even down. Depressed about what's happening. 'We've really got it wrong here, right?' They're losing the authority which they claim to have.And now the CGIL has been forced to make a sudden turn. The biggest Trade Union Confederation in Italy has announced that if the flotilla is attacked, they will call a general strike. Now, a general strike called by the biggest confederation. You know what this reminds me of? The Hot Autumn in 1969.Hamid You better explain the Hot Autumn.Fred The hot autumn in 1969. I think everybody, has heard of May 68 in France.Hamid 10 million workers going on strike, taking over factories.Fred Italy had an equally powerful movement, if not even more powerful, in terms of it lasted for years. 1969 is the Hot Autumn. It was hot because there was a massive explosion of class struggle.Hamid Factory cccupations.Fred Factory walkouts. And it was originally called, not by the official unions, but by rank and file committees, factory councils, the local bodies not controlled by the official unions. They tapped into a mood of anger which was developing. A huge explosion of class struggle. The unions realised that they'd lost touch with the ranks. In order to recover their position, they had to start making the strikes official, making them official strikes. And in the process, the unions actually were forced to the left, started to regain authority, and the mass influx of workers into the unions started to take place, and a wave of unprecedented class struggle went on for years.There's an element of this here. The USB calls the strike. Taps into a real mood. And the union bureaucrats realise there's a break... They're saying things like 'There's a breakdown in communication. We didn't understand what was happening. We didn't realise...' when they see the huge mobilisations.In some places where union people were speaking, they were booed and shouted at: 'Traitors, you sold out.' It was very embarrassing for them. Now they're under pressure to recover.This is an indication that all the pent up anger of the working class is coming finally to the surface. Gaza has been the trigger. People think... it is Gaza. It is the genuine solidarity with the Palestinians. But it goes even beyond that.I just wanted to give you the real crisis that they're facing. Italian debt last year was 140% of GDP. It was something close to 3 trillion euros. Productivity is stagnant, investment is low. Italy has amongst the lowest wages in Europe. The average wage I was looking at, 1700 euros, is about half the wage in Germany. And it's not just that they've stagnated. Wages in Italy have actually gone down in real terms, a huge percentage cut in real terms. The age of retirement has been increased. Food inflation, 4%. Just this figure, 70% of Italians have changed their food spending habits due to inflation. 35% have actually cut what they spend on groceries. This is how deep the crisis is. Unemployment is creeping up. It's 7%. Youth unemployment, however, is close to 22%. And the people's attitude towards the MPs, the parties, the government... Trust in parliament is at 19%, which means 80% of the Italian population don't trust the Parliament.It brings to mind, I'm not advocating it, but I'd imagine a lot of people in Italy, when they see the Nepalese or the Indonesian Parliament buildings being burned down, they're probably thinking 'Ours. could do with that too.'Because the MPs are hated. They're seen as corrupt, thinking only of themselves. The huge number of people not turning out to vote. We've said it before. You know, all the propaganda is about, 'Oh, the right wing has won, the right wing has won.'Well, in Italy, the coalition of three parties – Fratelli d'Italia, the Lega and the Forza Italia – they got a combined vote of 43% and they won the elections. But that 43% is 43% of a 63% turnout. In reality, just a little bit over one in four Italians actually voted for this government.Now this is a common trait. It's the same in France. Macron, last time when he won in the first round, he got 25%. Starmer, last year, they got 34% on paper, but as a percentage of the electorate, 20% and now that's even gone down. So even where they have these majority governments...What I was saying about the United Nations. The United Nations, the people sitting there represent the governments, but the governments don't represent the people. They represent 20, 25% of the electorate, and then they proceed to try and impose this austerity. You don't have the authority, you don't have the real support.What you have is a kind of... There's no alternative. The masses can't see a way out. They sort of tolerate these governments. But there's a limit to what people can take. What it takes, sometimes, is a trigger. Something can trigger it. And in the case of Italy, it's actually Gaza. An international event, the devastation of Gaza. The butchery that's taking place there is creating this indignation of the masses in Italy. And they're coming out big time.I find it funny, actually, when you read some of these old lefts who are now proud of being Italian. Before it was like, 'Oh, the Italian people.' It really makes...Hamid I mean, speaking of, I think what it really shows is what we've been saying for a long time about the Palestine movement. We've been saying that the struggle against the war in Gaza is the same as the struggle against our ruling classes. Right?Because, for the reasons that you mentioned, because this anger exists and it has potential political problems for the ruling class, that's why they're doing all this recognising Palestine. While they keep sending bombs and funds and supporting...But what I wanted to say is that the working class... the disasterous thing is, as you say, how will these governments be able to survive when they actually have no support? There are more people not voting in Italy than the people who voted for the three parties put together, who are now in governments, right?It's because there's no alternative. The unions, the top union leaders, didn't support this thing. They disconnected, consciously, they disconnected the movement against the war in Gaza from the ordinary class struggle.And also, we have to say, unfortunately, the leaders of the Palestine movement so far have disconnected that struggle from the struggle against austerity, against attacks, from the class struggle in the...Fred There's an example here in Britain, yeah. The mobilisation of the right wing. Right? Here is a right wing movement. We've analysed the nature of it. Obviously, there's a working class element of people who are disappointed with the left and can be taken in by these people. Like Trump in America.But there's also a huge layer looking to the left that could have been mobilised. And the Palestinian solidarity... Couldn't you connect up the fact that the leader of this movement is an open Zionist and pro-Israel? And therefore you shouldn't have solidarity with Palestine separate from the class struggle in Britain. You should bring them together and point out that the same people that are attacking the British working class, whether they're Tories or whether it's Labour, they cut, they apply austerity, they attack the working class. The same people support the butchery in Gaza. The two things are connected. In Italy...Hamid As a matter of fact, the left doesn't attack the ruling class for any of that. That protest that day was, what was it? The main slogans were aimed at the protesters on the other side who are what? Most of them, a big part of them, are working class people, angry at the corruption, at the disconnection, at all of the things that everyone else is. But seeing no alternative from the working class, seeing no alternative on the left, have been lured into this trap by Farage, right?And the left – by not connecting any of these things, and by not putting forward a class position, by not attacking the Starmer government, by not attacking the rich and the ruling class as a whole – is creating a space for these people.In reality, that movement reflects just as much this anger that exists as the movement in Italy did. But in a more distorted way, of course. Now, this thing in Italy. I think, we can now talk about a new period of the class struggle in the world. Obviously, it's still early days in Italy. It's still early days everywhere.There were protests in France a couple of weeks ago. We reported on the, what's it called? Block everything protest. Interestingly, in Italy as well, the movement was block everything. It took up the same slogan. It shows that the working classes and the movements are learning from each other. The same flags, the pirate flags that we saw in Indonesia and Nepal, have been on the streets in Italy, in in France.Fred Look Spain. Yeah, the Spain that La Vuelta, the bike race in Spain, was interrupted and couldn't finish because of 100,000 people turning up and just blocking everything, and the police just couldn't deal with it. That reflects the same mood in Spain.Going back to this question of recognising Palestine, why do they recognise Palestine? It doesn't cost them a penny, a cent. It's utter hypocrisy. While they're still providing the weapons, while they're still backing Netanyahu, who's destroying the territory of the Palestinians, destroying Gaza, attacking the West Bank, making it impossible to envisage this state which they talk about, this non-existent state. They wash their mouths out with recognising the Palestinian state. It's trying to cover their left-flank a little bit by saying, 'Look, we're recognising Palestine.'Hamid Also, while they're cutting and attacking the working class at home.Fred But I think, millions of people can see straight through it. The people protesting in favour of Palestine, they can see what this is. It's a sop. It's a desperate attempt to be seen to be supporting the Palestinians. It's words. In practice, it's nothing.France. What you mentioned about France. All the talk in the financial world, experts, is that France is facing a major crisis. France has... I was looking at the figures. The cost of servicing French debt has actually now become higher than Greek debt. Well, if you think about it, in Greece, they have applied austerity. Talk about austerity. They have massively cut back on...I remember this week speaking to some of our older Greek comrades who were saying, 'This is the second time they've cut my pension.' Literally cut it, not just in terms of percentage in the future, but literally a cut. France is looking at a crisis. But the difference is this. Greece, I think, is 2% of European GDP. France is the second after Germany in the European Union. It's a major European country, a huge economy,Hamid Has a three and a half trillion Euro debt. Not something you just bail out.Fred And you saw the mobilisations. But even there, what's interesting is this. The big mobilisations... and again, beyond the control of the official left and organisations. They have weak governments that follow one upon the other, coalitions. And the weakness is, what? As soon as they try and apply the austerity, it provokes a huge response of the French workers.And what the bourgeois are concerned about in France is, they really need to cut. Severely. The Bayrou government announced 44 billion euros in cuts. And then the other side of it is 'We've got to increase military spending.'But they're looking at a crisis of unprecedented proportions. And inside the CGT, we have a left opposition.Hamid The CGT is the old communist trade union federation.Fred The CGT is like the CGIL in Italy. It's the equivalent. The left trade union. There's a faction called Unité CGT that has actually come out and called for factory occupations and a general strike within the union!This is the kind of language which is emerging in both France and Italy. And these are two countries... May 68 was France and the Hot Autumn was Italy. What the bourgeois are doing is they're preparing the conditions for a new May 68 and a new Hot Autumn on a much higher scale.Because last time around, the crisis was severe in the 70s, but nowhere near the levels it's reached today. In the 70s, you had the big movements in Spain, in Greece, Italy, France. In the more North European countries you had strikes, etc. But it wasn't quite at the same level as crisis and class struggle.Today, you look at France. Well, just look across the border to Germany. Germany is not this powerful economy that's moving ahead. It's under severe pressure. Living standards there have been massively attacked. The country is becoming more unstable. So if a movement erupts in countries like Italy and France today, it would have a huge effect around the whole of Europe and beyond Europe, because we could talk about what's happening outside of Europe...Hamid Well, yeah, I mean, let's move on to that. Because I think it's correct to say that we're now dealing with a global phenomenon. Of a new wave of class struggle and revolutionary movements everywhere. We don't have a revolution yet in France or Italy, but the process is, the direction is clear.Now,I would like to just draw out.. There's been three waves of revolution in the present epoch. If we say that this historical epoch started in 2008. You had the waves of revolution coming immediately after that, between 2008 and 2012. You had the Arab revolution. You had the Indignados Movement in Spain. Occupy Wall Street in the US. The Syntagma Square movement in Greece, which later took on a much more political form. They all were defeated one way or another. They died, they fizzled out, and the ruling class managed to temporarily re-establish stability.Then in 2018 and 19, you saw a rise in class struggle. Very explosive. You saw the revolution in Sudan, the revolution in Lebanon, revolution in Iraq. In fact, 2019 was one of the years with the highest amount of social unrest.And I remember there was a report from ... unfortunately, I forgot to bring it today. But they were predicting a massive explosionof class struggle and social and political unrest in 2020. But that was cut across by the pandemic, the spending after the pandemic. This was spending by the way that the capitalists did in order to stabilise the situation. They were afraid that they could lose everything.And now you see a revival of all of that again, after another six years or five years of, you know, relentless pressure on all fronts, and at the same time, a complete decay at the top. The amount of scandals and corruption. It's almost like, the deeper the crisis has been at the bottom, the more detached and insane, in a way, the rulers have been acting in just gobbling up as much as they could. The disparity between the rich and the poor, the flaunting of this wealth, the corruption.And now we see a new period. The list of the countries I mentioned before, Indonesia, Nepal. And I think there are some themes that are recurring that I wanted to list.First of all – this goes for all revolutionary movements – there's a sort of a combined and uneven development, in the sense that every movement, a revolution, doesn't respect any borders, and they inspire each other. And you see the way that, you know, now we're talking about a 'Gen Z revolution' in Asia, because in in Nepal, they called it a Gen Z revolution. There's now movements in Philippines that take up that name. In Indonesia. In India, I saw Ladakh, the province of India, there's been mass protests taking up the call for a Gen Z revolution. They're learning from each other. 'Block Everything' in coming from France.That's something that's different than the previous waves, because here you have direct intervention by the masses, by the working class, blocking everything, attacking state institutions. In Nepal, they burn down the parliament. In all of these countries, they've been attacking the houses, the presidential palaces, the houses of the ministers – by the way, which is something that came from Sri Lanka a couple of years ago.So those are some of the things that really unify these and also stand out from... If we look at the Arab revolutions and some of those protests, which was gathering a lot of people in a square and then going home again, right? And the leaders being able to restrict the movement to that. Whereas now you have a situation where, no, masses of people attack these institutions head on.Another thing is, is the youth, the youthfulness of this. The youth leading this. Not just university youth, but also working class youth. I mean, one of the big things that made the Indonesian movement explode was that a delivery driver was killed, and you had delivery drivers everywhere coming to the fore.In Italy, in France, young workers taking the lead in many of these calls for strikes and these movements. Then, as you said, grassroot organisations. It's almost as if it's a non...You know, for years, the established organisations have just completely disregarded this mood on the ground. And now it's almost as if, if a call is made by some unknown entity, it almost has a bigger effect initially. In France, the movement was called on by some obscure right-wing groups who just said, 'Let's do a block everything'. And it was just taken up by the working class and by the left and by the left wing of the CGT.In Italy, you had this small union calling for it. In Nepal, it's just spontaneous, more or less. And the question of corruption and this hatred for the ruling class. Morality playing an important role in this.Now, a lot of people have said, 'Oh, these are not real revolutions, because they're about corruption.' Well, corruption and moral indignation at all of this injustice is how capitalism reflects itself inside human beings.Fred Well, you have the TikTok videos of the wealthy, the children of the wealthy, showing off their wealth: parties, weddings, showing their jewellery, their watches, everything. And the thing about the internet today and social media is that, when they show off this wealth, they don't realise what they're doing. By doing a video and showing it. They're exposing themselves to millions of people that can't afford that lifestyle.Millions of people, young people, with no future, no jobs, or if they have jobs, precarious, temporary jobs. Long hours, low wages. The difference between the rich and the poor is glaring, and it reaches a point where anything can spark a movement. And the fact that it's happening over and over again... We had Sri Lanka. We had Bangladesh. We recently had Indonesia. Amazing scenes in Indonesia. Nepal, an explosion there. The movement in the Philippines. Peru, similar movement. Today, Madagascar, we're hearing. It's like one...There's explosions everywhere. Why is that happening? It's the pressure of capitalism on all countries, and it's the pressure on the working class and the youth in all countries. And it's a truly global crisis.You know, in the postwar period, there was a bit of, as I said earlier, differentiation between the conditions in the colonial countries and the advanced capitalist countries. Now, the crisis is hitting everybody at the same time, and therefore we're seeing the eruption of class struggle in all these former colonial countries, like Indonesia, Nepal and others. But we're also seeing the beginnings of big movement in countries like Italy, France. We can see the signs of it in Spain. And other countries. It's having a political reflection in the growing instability, the collapse of authority of all the established parties. And anybody that turns up that seems like an alternative, people are prepared to say, 'Well, let's give them a go. Let's try... They can't be worse than these guys that we've got now!'Of course, this is going to feed in. We are going to see, you know, workers learn from experience. They've learned. They've realised life is intolerable and there's an explosive mood taking place, developing everywhere. But the tragedy is, there's no real force, a working class based organisation, on the left, a genuine organisation that can give the workers a lead from a class point of view and explain the crisis. Not like the the right wing populists who blame the immigrants and this and that. They're telling a pack of lies, obviously. But they they can get away with it because nobody's explaining the actual, real situation.Hamid In fact, there is... because of all of the betrayals of that the working class has experienced in the past whole period, the generation we see today has only experienced attacks and betrayals. That's all they've seen, right? There is a rejection of all parties. There's almost a rejection of parties as such. There's a mistrust. Because it's not just been the bourgeois parties carrying out attacks and austerity, it's also been... In Nepal, you've had communist parties constantly in government since 2006! Right? So called communist parties. In France, you've had the Socialist Party and the Communist Party participating in the most disgusting...Fred You see that is connected to something that we have to understand. The ruling class has different ways of governing society, right? And what we've seen in the recent period is, for instance, in Britain, when the Tories finally reached the limits and their popularity collapsed, the bourgeois was looking at an unstable scenario.Who did they use? They used the leader of the Labour Party, the second eleven. In Greece. Who did they use? Going back. They used Tsipras, the leader of Syriza. They have this reserve tool, you could say. Use the leaders of the labour movement itself. Use the leaders of what are traditionally seen as the parties of the working class.But there's a limit to that, and the reason is, what they're called on to do exposes them very quickly. This is not the postwar boom. This is, Labour comes in and it has to start slashing, attacking pensioners, attacking the disabled, creating this huge indignation amongst ordinary working class people. The same is true of other countries where the official left has governed. And it creates room for these people to gain support. It's almost like, as I said before, anything that looks new can be attractive. Look in Italy, you had the Five Stars. They reached... There was one moment where, in Southern Italy, they had over 50% support in the votes. They came almost from nothing, launched by a comedian!Hamid The slogan was, 'Fuck them all.'Fred Well they had a day. It was actually the Vaffanculo Day day, the fuck off day. And people turned out to say to all of them, right? It reflected a mood. But it also shows... Because even they, they didn't have a programme to solve the problems of capitalism. Once they're in Parliament, what did they do? Coalitions with this. Coalitions with that. Disappointed enormously their supporters, and now they're barely at, what, 15% or whatever it is. They've been exposed in the eyes of people. As I said, you can fool all of the people all of the time. You can't fool... I keep getting it wrong. You can't fool all of the people all the time. And the Five Stars got the support for a period and then lost it.We can confidently say this. In Britain, Farage is growing, and he will get big support. The AfD in Germany, Le Pen. But in Italy, we have the right wing in government. We have Meloni in government. What is she doing? She's carrying out Draghi's programme! She attacked Draghi, the banker, and this and that. It was a luxury for her. She had 4% as the only party that wasn't in the Draghi coalition. So she had the luxury of being able to say, 'I'm the only alternative.' And a lot of people thought, 'Well, she must be better than these people, this gang of...'But she's carrying out the same policies. So she will also reach the limit and will lose... And the movement that's growing has a huge hatred towards her and her government for what they're doing. Miloni fate gives you an idea of how Farage will end up one day, once... He'll go through his glory moment. But then he'll have to govern. The same will happen in France. The same will happen in Germany.But what this is doing, it is radicalising further the youth and the workers. Every step they're taking, they're drawing conclusions. The conclusions they're drawing now in Italy and France is 'We've got to do it ourselves. We can't trust these people.' And so they're mobilising. They're coming out in huge numbers, expressing this anger.And within this there's a layer that is looking for the answers. It's looking for 'Where does this crisis come from?' That means you've got to look at the nature of capitalism. You've got to look at the nature of the capitalist class and the way they behave, the way they invest, and all the rest of it.What actually has been happening for decades confirms what Marx said. Marx analysed capitalism. One of the things he explained was, there's the process of concentration of capital in the hands of fewer and fewer people at one end of society. But the effect of that at the other end was growing levels of poverty.Now for decades, the clever University academics and all these people who write about Marxism and try and interpret it, say that 'Marx got it wrong, because he predicted that people would get poorer, huh? Look at the post war boom.' You know?What Marx did was analyse a process which inevitably leads in a certain direction. And what we've seen in the last few decades is an incredible confirmation, a glaring confirmation, of what Marx predicted. He actually talked about the 'accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery at the opposite pole, and the accumulation of immense wealth at the other.' I ask the question, is that a description of what was happening in the days of Marx, or is it a description of what we have before our very eyes today?Hamid I mean, exactly. I think that's a great point to end the show with, because what that Nepalese or Indonesian worker or youth sees when they see a 'Nepo kid' on Instagram posing with their Gucci bags, and, you know, flaunting their wealth, is precisely that. And our task as communists... Or, you know, people on the left think 'Ah, this is not a revolution. This is just about corruption.' Well, no, it is the unconscious expression of what Marx explained scientifically in his writings, and the task of communists is to precisely link that up. Is precisely to approach these movements, and explain patiently that all of these immediate problems that are pushing you onto the streets and into this struggle is directly connected with this system, and the only solution is to end the system, to take it down. And that is the what we have to build.Until then we will see this process. But gradually, at every step... This process, as you say, of radicalisation. In 2008 there was a first wave. Again, you had five years later, a few years later, a second wave, and now a third wave. At every step, the consciousness is becoming clearer...Fred It's moving more clearly in the direction of open class struggle. When, in Italy, the call is for a general strike, it's not just a street protest. It's the call for a general strike combined with direct action. 'We have to block the ports, block the transport system. We've got to take this action.' This is class action. This is the working class methods, and that is what is appearing more and more clearly. In effect, this is a step forward in the understanding of millions of ordinary workers and students. And we as communists have a role to play, of bringing all this out in a clear analysis and explaining where this all comes from, but also where it inevitably is moving towards. It's moving towards intensified class struggle, and it's starting to have an effect.Why is it that the Italian CGIL bureaucrats are in this dilemma? 'What do we do? Oh, we've got, oh, we've got to be...' Threaten a general strike if they attack the flotilla. And in France the same. That's the direction we're moving towards.And that also explains, and i'll our finish on this, my experience of talking to comrades in different countries: Brazil, United States, Britain, Italy, whatever. The layer of particularly the young ones who are openly seeking communist ideas, they've realised that the system is is rotten and that you cannot reform this system. It has to be removed. A revolution is necessary. Get rid of all of them.Well, the only way you can do that is with a united working class and with a leadership. That is actually the one element that's missing, and that's what needs to be built. That's what we're about.Hamid I think that's a perfect end there Fred. Thank you very much for that. And thank you all of you guys for tuning in. This was Against the Stream. We'll be back again next Thursday, 6pm UK, time. Thank you very much.Fred See you. Bye.
