Analysis

Iran has for days been witnessing the transformation of the protests, which began on 28 December, into a revolt of the working masses spreading across the entire country. Triggered by the dramatic depreciation of the Iranian rial against the dollar and the subsequent mobilisation of bazaar merchants in Tehran, the demonstrations swiftly expanded into a broader social movement, voiced through slogans directly targeting the regime. Dozens of people have lost their lives and thousands have been detained as a result of assaults by regime forces. Yet the brutal repression of the mullah regime has failed to quell the revolt. Within ten days, the revolt has spread to all 31 provinces, intensifying not only in the streets but also through shuttered bazaars, workers’ strikes, and actions across dozens of universities. In many localities, police forces have retreated without resistance in the face of crowds storming police stations and seizing weapons, while in some areas they have even sided with the people. Reports indicate that in Kurdistan certain cities have been entirely taken over. And now, mass demonstrations are unfolding in Tehran itself. All of this points to the unfolding, once again, of a revolutionary situation in Iran.

While U.S. threats and assaults against Venezuela have persisted for months, the midnight abduction of President Maduro and his wife on January 3, and their removal from the country, marked a new threshold in imperialist banditry. Reinforced by Trump’s statements, this act demonstrates that capitalism has abandoned even the rhetorical remnants of international law, national sovereignty, the peoples’ democratic choice, and similar pretenses. The historical crisis and impasse we have long emphasized had already dragged capitalism’s “norms” into a vortex of destruction. As Trump’s rhetoric and actions reveal, not only is there no veil left to conceal the disgrace now exposed, but there is no longer any perceived need for one.

it is clear that not only the United States but also other major Western imperialists are seeking to further spread and escalate the ongoing World War. Russia and China, on the other side, see where things are heading and are preparing accordingly. It is very clear that the only thing the imperialists, plunderers and militarists will bring is more death. They are not pursuing peace, but rather more influence and more power. According to them, peace can only come "after the great victory"; until then, more weapons, more soldiers, and more powerful attacks will be needed. The people will be asked to make greater sacrifices and to unite tightly around the state in defence of the homeland. Those who pin their hopes for peace on the great powers, their negotiations, or international bourgeois institutions are deceiving not only themselves but also the world's workers. The truth is starkly clear: The only force capable of stopping the imperialists is the organised revolutionary working class.

The Trump line, in fact, in line with the general line of American imperialism, is based primarily on the reduction of China’s position as a global economic power and preventing it from becoming a global political/military power. At this point, Trump is making tactical attempts to drive a wedge between Russia and China, to neutralise Russia and to make the necessary concessions. If he fails to achieve his goal with these tactics, it is quite possible that he will take the opposite course and increase the dose of violence and war and legitimise this transformation as “look, you see, I did my best to compromise, but they rejected it, leaving us with no other choice”.

In the struggle against fascism today, the primary danger lies not in labelling every far-right party or repressive regime as fascist but in fixating on secondary details and ignoring the fascist reality before our eyes (and the global fascist threat). In Turkey, we have endured the stark and painful consequences of this blindness for years. Despite escalating repression, some still cling to the lie that elections can change everything, to parliamentary illusions, or to absurd notions like agreeing on a democratic constitution.

The world has been shaken for a quarter of a century by a deep system crisis and an accompanying imperialist struggle for sharing and hegemony. If the right-wing views that advocate eliminating globalization succeed in taking even a small step towards eliminating the global functioning of capitalism, the only meaning of this will be that both the economic crisis and the war will intensify even more. Nationalist policies, like globalist policies, cannot solve the current system crisis, cannot increase falling profit rates, cannot restore consumption to its former vitality, cannot melt debt mountains, and cannot eliminate the scourge of inflation. If they were to go beyond rhetoric and actually try to implement nationalist nonsense, they would themselves deal a blow to the capitalist system struggling in crisis and drag the world into a much more terrible chaos in every respect. The only solution to the problems that humanity is struggling with is not to try to eliminate the phenomenon of globalization in vain, but to build socialism on the material basis that it has matured. What will pave the way for this is the proletarian world revolution.

In the struggle against the regime and the capitalist order, the decisive factor remains the working class entering the arena as an organised force. This constitutes the urgent task demanding concentrated efforts from all socialists, advanced workers, and militant trade unionists.

What Trump (and American imperialism in general) wants is not to break up the world market, end free trade, eliminate globalization, etc., but to slow down, control, and extract significant concessions from China. It aims not to end globalization, but to reshape it in line with its own interests, to make its rivals accept its hegemony by teaching them a lesson. It is not possible for him to implement even most of the tariffs he has voiced, let alone all of them, permanently. He also knows that the opposite would mean cutting the branch he is sitting on while trying to undermine the Chinese economy.

We are witnessing a rapidly evolving, dynamic process. Despite escalating police violence and mass detentions, the movement persists – with the CHP leadership now framing the resistance as a “defiant stand against fascism,” student protests escalating to school boycotts, and regime-aligned business groups being targeted (albeit currently limited to consumer boycotts). These developments signal a critical juncture, whatever the motives behind Özgür Özel and the CHP’s stance may be – be it pressure from below, existential fear of the party’s suppression, or potential backing from factions within the ruling class. From the perspective of anti-fascist struggle, these events mark a broadly positive beginning. What becomes decisive now is whether organised labour –trade unions in particular– can escalate the fight by leveraging the working class’s power at the point of production.

The capitalist system, floundering in its historical crisis, continues to exist alongside the immense unemployment it has created, the deepening poverty of the masses, and the imperialist wars of division it has spread. The rulers of this system, which is turning our world into an increasingly chaotic and hellish place, maintain their dominance by intensifying their oppression of the masses and spreading authoritarian regimes. The United States, which presented itself as the champion of democracy to the world after the Second World War, is now, under the reckless leadership of the madman Trump, trying to bring countries into line with astonishing audacity. While Trump challenges the institutions that limit the powers of the president in the US and secures his seat of dominance, his crony Elon Musk puts on a show with Nazi salutes in his speeches. The bourgeois democracies that accompanied the rise of capitalism are increasingly giving way, in capitalism’s era of decay, to a general reality of authoritarianism and fascism in political life. What defines our era is the dominance of plutocracy shaped by dictators like Trump and Putin and the pinnacles of financial capital. There is no need to dwell on this point for too long. Because it is clear that wherever we look, filth is oozing from the seams of the capitalist system. Writers who have not sold their conscience to capitalism enough to ignore this reality cannot help but ask, “How will this filth be cleaned up?”