France is once again a country of protests, strikes and growing popular anger. Young people are mobilizing against deteriorating schools and an increasingly uncertain future, while workers confront austerity, rising living costs and attacks on public services.
The French state finds enormous resources for military expenditure, yet workers and their families are told that sacrifices are unavoidable.
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| Ambassador Hernández during a KKE rally for Cuba (Archive) |
The Western ruling classes have developed a remarkable ability to distinguish between a “revolution” and a “violent riot". The criteria have little to do with the demands of the demonstrators or the methods of their struggle.
What matters is whose power is threatened, whose interests are served and whether the existing capitalist order is being challenged or strengthened. After all, democracy has never been independent of class interests.
The growing influence of nationalist and far-right forces across Europe is neither accidental nor a development occurring outside the capitalist system. It is closely connected with the needs of capitalist power itself, at a time when imperialist rivalries are intensifying, preparations for war are accelerating and the established bourgeois parties are finding it increasingly difficult to secure popular consent for their policies.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE), meeting at its Fifth Extraordinary Plenary Session, has analysed the political situation arising from the mobilisations for the right to housing, the calling of an early general election for 29 November, and the announcement of a general strike for 11 November.
Their courage remains a point of reference for the struggle of the working class to this day, and their experience also offers valuable political lessons that we must not forget.
