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We are publishing here the report delivered by Evan Blake to the 2022 International May Day Online Rally held on May 1. Blake is a writer for the WSWS and the Coordinator of the Global Workers Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic. To view all speeches, visit wsws.org/mayday.

This is the third May Day where we meet under conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The official global death toll is approaching 6,260,000. Due to inadequate testing, reporting and data collection throughout much of the world, experts believe that the real death toll is three times this figure and now stands at 20 million worldwide.

The overwhelming majority of these deaths could have been prevented. The fundamental reason they were not is because world governments acting on behalf of their ruling classes consciously chose to subordinate public health to private profit and refused to coordinate internationally to stop the pandemic.

The pandemic profiteers have amassed trillions of dollars. This years Oxfam report notes that since the start of the pandemic, a new billionaire has been minted every 26 hours. The worlds 10 richest men have doubled their wealth as over 160 million people have been pushed into poverty.

Nothing has revealed more clearly that the capitalist system is at war with its populations.

Over the past year, the global death toll has more than doubled. These millions of deaths are all the more tragic because they took place after life-saving vaccines were first produced.

Private ownership of the pharmaceutical monopolies and the pursuit of vaccine nationalism have created a situation where today only 59 percent of the world population has received an initial vaccine series. Criminally, only 0.6 percent of all people in low income countries and only 1.5 percent of Africans have received a necessary booster shot.

In 2020 and 2021 global life expectancy dropped by a combined nearly two years. These were the first annual declines in this figure since the UN began tracking it in 1950.

On a per capita basis, Peru has been the hardest-hit country in the world. Two hundred thirty thousand Peruvians have died from COVID-19, or 1 out of every 143 people in the country.

In the United States, the center of world capitalism, 1.1 million people have been killed by the virus and life expectancy has declined by over two years.

In Russia, more than 1.2 million people have been killed by COVID, roughly four times the official figure and more than double the per capita death rate experienced in the US.

In India, 5.9 million people have succumbed to the virus, roughly 11 times higher than the official death toll.

The eldest and most vulnerable have been the primary victims of the pandemic, but millions of working-age adults and tens of thousands of children have also perished worldwide.

A study published in February found that by the end of last October over 5.2 million children worldwide had lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID-19. Every child impacted by these deaths has been deeply traumatized and faces a lifetime without these closest of their loved ones.

The 20 million avoidable deaths are the most tragic result of the pandemic. But hundreds of millions of people worldwide are now debilitated by Long COVID.

Numerous studies show that at least 10 percent of those infected with COVID go on to develop symptoms that linger for three months or more, with most suffering well over a year after their initial infection.

These symptoms can affect nearly every organ in the body, and COVID-19 infection has now been linked to an increased risk of all-cause mortality, as well as heart disease, brain damage, diabetes, kidney disease, a dysregulated immune system and more.

From the earliest stages of the pandemic, the International Committee of the Fourth International not only warned of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the uncontrolled spread of SARS-CoV-2. We also advanced a strategy to stop the pandemic. In a statement published on February 28, 2020, the World Socialist Web Site explained:

The response to the coronavirus cannot be coordinated on a nation by nation level. The virus does not respect borders or visa and immigration restrictions The solution must be global. Scientists from all over the world must be allowed to share their research and technology, unencumbered by the national interests and geopolitical conflicts that serve only to delay the development of effective countermeasures to contain, cure and ultimately eradicate the coronavirus.

The statement called for the utilization of all public health measures to stop the pandemic, the conversion of the giant health care companies into public utilities, and the provision of direct financial support to all workers and small business people.

In numerous statements published over the course of 2020, we developed this program and demanded an end to the homicidal herd immunity strategy based on the forced reopening of schools and workplaces. This criminal policy, pioneered in Sweden, the US, the UK, Brazil, India, and other countries, led to the vast majority of deaths in the first year of the pandemic.

On August 20, 2021, the WSWS warned:

As long as the virus spreads it will continue to mutate into new, more infectious, lethal and vaccine-resistant variants that threaten all of humanity. Unless it is eradicated on a world scale, the embers of COVID-19 will continue to burn and create the conditions for the virus to flare up anew.

This statement clarified the strategy of elimination-eradication as the only means to stop the pandemic and save lives. We explained, Eradication entails the universal deployment of every weapon in the arsenal of measures to combat COVID-19, coordinated on a global scale, to stamp out the virus once and for all.

In August and October, we held webinars which brought together leading scientists from throughout the world to elaborate this strategy. These events were viewed by thousands of workers from over 100 countries.

The ICFI, its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties and groups, and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees helped organize a series of global school strikes called by British parent Lisa Diaz. We assisted workers throughout the world in forming rank-and-file committees to fight for the elimination strategy.

In late November, the WSWS initiated the Global Workers Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic, to expose the lies and misinformation that have facilitated the murderous pandemic policies throughout the world.

The Inquest has begun gathering testimony from workers, scientists and experts internationally, some of whom are shown here. Work on the Inquest continues, but the initial findings already give a sense of the massive social crime that has been committed worldwide.

We have documented the cover-up of the science of airborne transmission and its corollary in the promotion of unscientific anti-masking policies. We have spoken with experts on the herd immunity policies implemented in Sweden, Brazil, the US and the UK, as well as scientists in Australia and other countries who have fought for elimination.

We have documented the real-life experiences of workers in different industries throughout the world, including nurses, autoworkers, musicians, doctors, educators, transit workers and more.

Underscoring how prescient the launching of the Inquest was, only four days later news broke that the highly infectious and vaccine-resistant Omicron variant was spreading rapidly throughout southern Africa.

Contrary to the lies of the politicians and media that Omicron is mild, global excess deaths reached roughly 40,000 per day in late January, the second-highest figure on record, and so far 3.3 million people have been killed globally in 2022.

During the Omicron surge, every country that had pursued a mitigationist approach fully embraced herd immunity, now based on the lie that COVID-19 is becoming endemic. In the process, they have systematically dismantled data surveillance and reporting, curtailed testing and scrapped all mitigation measures such as mask mandates.

The worlds ruling classes deliberately chose to abandon the fight against this novel infectious disease. Centuries of progress in human civilization, refracted through medical science and the development of public health, have been repudiated.

While the far-right has deliberately misled the public and denied the efficacy of vaccines, ostensibly liberal parties joined in the savage assault on public health. Even the most basic measures of isolation and quarantine, which date back to the Middle Ages, have been abandoned.

In response to these brutal policies, the class struggle intensified throughout the world. In January, in at least 15 cities across the US and in countries throughout Europe, students, teachers and parents took matters into their own hands and forced the closure of schools to stop viral transmission.

The outbreak of the war in Ukraine in late February was then seized upon to stop all reporting on the pandemic and divert attention away from the cover-up of data and the ending of all public health measures.

While doing nothing to stop the surge of Omicron BA.1, BA.2, and now further subvariants, the imperialist powers and their media continuously denounce China for maintaining a Zero-COVID policy.

Contrary to the dystopian portrayals of Zero-COVID in the Western media, there remains immense popular support for this policy within the Chinese working class. The effectiveness of Chinas Zero-COVID policy is empirical proof that elimination remains the only viable strategy to stop the pandemic.

The fundamental limitation of Zero-COVID in China arises from the fact that the policy is confined to its national borders. If the public health measures implemented in China were adopted worldwide, and combined with the airborne mitigations pioneered by scientists outside of China, the pandemic could be ended worldwide in a matter of months.

The experience of China and the strategy outlined by the ICFI make clear that the vast majority of the 20 million lives lost over the past two years could have been saved.

The pandemic has revealed the utter indifference of the ruling elites to mass death. They have now plunged mankind into a catastrophic war that threatens to spiral out of control and lead to nuclear war. The brutality of the pandemic has psychologically prepared them to carry out a war that could lead to the very extermination of mankind.

Similarly, for decades the capitalists and their politicians have consciously allowed climate change to worsen year after year, threatening to cause mass extinctions and kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide in the coming decades. A study published Thursday found that climate change will greatly increase the danger of future spillover events that could cause further pandemics in the coming years.

All over the world, thousands of scientists have studied the pandemic, warned of its dangers and fought to change policy in order to save lives. We are deeply gratified by their work. These courageous and selfless efforts have been sabotaged by capitalist governments.

But there is another social force whose objective interests align with the principles of public health: the international working class. It is to this powerful and progressive class that scientists must turn.

In the course of the pandemic, a monumental crime has been committed, the crime of social murder. There will be an accounting for this, and those responsible will be held accountable.

Workers, young people, scientists and progressive layers of the middle class must draw the necessary conclusions from this experience. The pandemic has exposed the economic, political, social and moral bankruptcy of world capitalism, which must be overthrown.

We call upon everyone participating in todays May Day rally:

Take up the fight for global elimination! Until there is a global mass movement to end the pandemic, there will be wave after wave of mass infections and deaths, potentially for years to come.

Participate in the Global Workers Inquest! This must be expanded in every country and every section of the working class. While the ruling elites and the media declare the pandemic over, we must dig deeper and document all the crimes that have taken place and are deepening each day.

Above all, the most critical task is the building of a Trotskyist revolutionary leadership in the working class of every country, fighting to stop the drive to world war and to initiate a global fight against COVID-19 and for world socialist revolution.

by David North, Chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board

40 minutes

by the Young Guard of the Bolshevik-Leninists in Russia

10 minutes

by Evan Blake, Coordinator of the Global Workers' Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic

14 minutes

by Michelle, a working parent in Michigan, USA

3 minutes

by Eric London, Socialist Equality Party (US)

12 minutes

by Keith Jones, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Canada)

10 minutes

by Tomas Castanheira, Socialist Equality Group (Brazil)

9 minutes

by Deepal Jayasekera, Assistant National Secretary of the Socialist Eequality Party (Sri Lanka)

11 minutes

by M. Thevarajah, Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)

14 minutes

by Christoph Vandreier, National Secretary of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Germany)

9 minutes

by Chris Marsden, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (UK)

8 minutes

by Alex Lantier, National Secretary of the Parti de l'Egalit Socialiste (France)

9 minutes

by Ula Atei, Sosyalist Eitlik (Turkey)

9 minutes

by Nick Beams, Socialist Equality Party (Australia)

13 minutes

by Gregor Link, International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Germany)

5 minutes

by Cheryl Crisp, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia)

10 minutes

by Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand)

8 minutes

by Joseph Kishore, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (US)

12 minutes

Read the original post:
May Day 2022: The COVID-19 pandemic and the fight for socialism - WSWS

This week and next, students and youth around Australia are participating in protests opposing government inaction on climate change and the degradation of the environment.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and its youth and student arm, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), fully support the widest involvement of youth in actions opposing climate change and fighting to secure their futures.

But we warn that the organisers of the events, School Strike 4 Climate (SS4C), are seeking to derail mass opposition and funnel it back behind the very political parties responsible for the environmental crisis. Any suggestion that the upcoming federal election on May 21 will help to resolve climate change, or any other substantive issue facing youth and workers, is a complete lie.

The only party standing in the upcoming elections advancing the interests of workers and youth is the Socialist Equality Party. Our candidates warn that the great problems confronting humanityclimate change, the threat of war, poverty, authoritarianism, COVID-19can only be dealt with on a world scale and by ending the capitalist profit system which is their cause.

Actions planned this month by the SS4C are deliberately narrow in focus. In the past, rallieswhich were attended by hundreds of thousands nationallywere part of global climate strikes involving millions of youth. This time, events planned are small and isolated as a deliberate attempt to smother increasingly radicalised young people.

Many of the SS4C events are specifically advertised as election climate strikes with regional centres and cities not even organising events. A number of the actions are not even strikes.

Instead, they are stunts outside the offices of Liberal-National Coalition members of parliament. The perspective is, in the first place, to pressure Coalition MPs. Failing that, it is the replacement of Prime Minister Scott Morrisons federal government with a government made up of the Labor Party and Greens.

But the record of these parties exposes this political perspective as a cynical fraud. You cannot stem climate change by appealing to the capitalist parties which represent the same corporate interests that are responsible for climate change in the first place.

The Labor Party, led by Anthony Albanese, is pitching itself as a friend of fossil fuel companies. This is part of a broader appeal to the corporations that Labor is better placed to implement sweeping austerity measures and pro-business restructuring than is the Coalition.

Albanese said last month that a Labor government would not block new coal and gas mines. Labor has foresworn even its own phony half-measures of the past such as a carbon tax. The declaration of net zero emissions by 2050 under Labor is a fairy tale, which it has no intention of implementing.

Greens MP Adam Bandt has repeatedly affirmed his partys aimto be a coalition partner of Labor. Despite talk of reducing emissions to zero by 2035, in practice the Greens will work with Labor on every substantive policy point in a government that would faithfully serve the mining barons.

To deal effectively with the consequences of climate change, itself caused by the unbridled and deliberate prioritisation of production and profit over the needs of society and the environment, requires a complete reorganisation of society and the productive forces. Albanese and Labor have already answered that. They are for renewal not revolution.

Bandt, in an address to the National Press Club in April, declared that the main task is to kick the Liberals out, stating that Anthony Albanese will be better than the current PM and that all the Greens needed to do was keep Labor on track. On climate change, all Bandt raised was an end to the opening of new coal and gas mines, which does nothing to address existing emissions, and contradicts the policy of Labor, whom Bandt is hoping to align with.

The record of the Greens is for all to see. During the period of the Greens-backed Gillard Labor government, greenhouse emissions actually increased through the implementation of the carbon-tax, supported by the Greens.

The crises of the past three years expose the incompatibility of capitalism with the continuation of life on the planet.

Unprecedented flooding in February and March in the states of Queensland and New South Wales (NSW) have laid waste to entire communities and led to 22 deaths. With no government assistance forthcoming, ordinary people were forced to fend for themselves.

The floods come after the 20192020 bushfires which burned around 30 million hectares, destroyed nearly 3,000 homes and killed 34 people. As climate change worsens and these extreme weather events become more severe and frequent, the response of governments has been to invest ever smaller amounts into climate change mitigation and community support policies.

This is mirrored in the abject disregard for human life expressed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, another devastating exposure of capitalism and the ruling class here and around the world. Over 7,000 Australians have died from COVID-19, more than half in the first few months of 2022 alone.

The murderous live with the virus policy of capitalist governments around the world, abandoning scientifically-determined public health measures to stem the viruss spread, is based on the profit interests of a tiny, wealthy capitalist class. Students have been herded back into dangerous schools and universities as part of the reopening of the economy where they are at risk of contracting and spreading COVID.

While thousands in Australia and millions worldwide have died in the pandemic, capitalist governments will have no qualms with more death as they threaten to plunge humanity into a third world war.

The current conflict in Ukrainea proxy war by the US and NATO against Russiaand the US-led preparations for conflict with China, raise the spectre of nuclear war. Liberal, Labor, the Greens and the entire political establishment in Australia have lined up with US aggression, backing every provocation against Beijing and pledging hundreds of billions to the war machine.

These military preparations have nothing to do with democracy or human rights. Having laid waste to entire nations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, American imperialism is preparing a world war aimed at reversing its decline. Russia and China are targets because they are viewed as the principal obstacles to US hegemony.

The drive to war comes not from the minds of individual capitalist politicians, but the objective contradictions of the capitalist system itself, between the socialised nature of production involving billions of workers worldwide and the private ownership of societys resources by a tiny handful of ultra-wealthy capitalists; and the division of the world economy into competing, antagonistic capitalist nation states.

War abroad also necessitates war against the working class at home. This means to suppress anti-war sentiment while gutting workers living and working conditions to pay for ever-expanding military budgets.

None of these existential threatsthe pandemic, nuclear war, climate changecan be solved on a national basis. They require international collaboration on a scientific and socialist basis.

Young people must turn to the international working class as the only social force capable of ending capitalism which is leading humanity through one catastrophe after another. Workers, confronted with declining living standards, misery, mass death and war are beginning to take matters into their own hands.

There is a massive upsurge in working-class militancy around the world. From increased strike action in Europe, Australia and the United States, to mass anti-government protests in Sri Lanka, Sudan and Peru, the working class is once again emerging as a powerful social force.

In order to take the struggle forward, workers and youth must break free of the shackles of the Labor Party, the Greens and all the pro-capitalist organisations, including the fake left and thoroughly corporatised trade unions. All of these forces are there to channel the growing mass anger back behind the capitalist system which is the cause of the existential threat to our planet.

The SEPs election campaign is aimed at winning workers and youth to the necessary revolutionary perspective of Marxism. We base ourselves on the key historical experiences of the working class in the twentieth century, including the 1917 Russian Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, and Trotskys fight against Stalinist counterrevolution.

Only through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism can a planned socialist economy based on social need, not private profit, be built. To join the fight for an egalitarian world free from war, poverty, environmental destruction, pandemics and fascism, we urge you to get in contact with the SEP and IYSSE, support the SEPs election campaign and join the world socialist movement today.

Contact the SEP:Phone:(02) 8218 3222Email:sep@sep.org.auFacebook:SocialistEqualityPartyAustraliaTwitter:@SEP_AustraliaInstagram:socialistequalityparty_auTikTok:@SEP_Australia

Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Suite 906, 185 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000.

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The fight for a future free of climate change and war is the fight for world socialism! - WSWS

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The business community has failed to turn workers into capitalists through profit and equity participation programs

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Lets be honest: capitalism is not working for many people. Its one of the reasons why capitalism has become a dirty word in some circles.

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I come from a working-class background, and Ive lived under various socio-economic systems. Ive always looked at these systems through the lens of what they could do to improve living standards, and whether or not they could reduce poverty.

Although capitalism is one of the greatest engines of wealth creation in human history, it has a fatal flaw: over time, more and more capital becomes concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

Consider this: in Canada, the top one per cent of the richest families own close to 25 per cent of the countrys wealth, according to statistics released last year from the Parliamentary Budget Office, while the bottom 40 per cent of Canadian families own barely more than one per cent. In the United States, the story is pretty much the same, with the top one per cent owning nearly one-third of the nations wealth, according to the Federal Reserve.

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The end result is that the rich are getting richer, and the gap between the wealthy and the workers is growing wider. Its not surprising, therefore, that more and more people are turning to socialist ideas.

The problem with socialism, however, is that it is based on the distribution of wealth, rather than the creation of wealth. What socialism fails to account for is that we must first create wealth before we can distribute it. This is why socialist systems, even though they may be noble in their intent, ultimately fail.

After the Second World War, Germany provided a fascinating living laboratory for studying the effect that economic systems can have on living standards. The country was split into two, with West Germany operating under a capitalist system and East Germany operating under a communist system.

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Free-market West Germany became one of the worlds most productive and successful economies. But socialist East Germany experienced a drastic increase in poverty and was ultimately no longer able to feed its population. East Germany was a textbook example of the economic reality that we must first create wealth before we can distribute it.

Today, were seeing a growing appetite for socialistic policies, particularly among the young. And who can blame them? They often graduate from college or university saddled with large debts to pay for an education that in many cases does not lead to good-paying jobs. They end up disappointed, disillusioned and filled with a feeling that the current system is rigged for the benefit of the few.

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In my view, business is largely to blame because it has failed to turn workers into capitalists through profit and equity participation programs. If workers dont feel that theyre getting a fair slice of the economic pie, they will be tempted to support government wealth redistribution policies, and we as a society will drift further and further toward a socialistic system.

Our number 1 priority, therefore, should be to find ways in which workers can get some of the wealth they create not from government taxation, but from the businesses they work for. One of the best ways for this to happen would be to give workers the opportunity to share in a portion of the profits they help make.

The creation and distribution of wealth is at the crux of any economic system. Every economic system must answer two fundamental questions: How do you create wealth? And who gets that wealth?

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Capitalism is extremely effective at creating wealth, but the concentration of capital in the hands of relatively few people ultimately leads to increased taxation and social programs designed to redistribute wealth on a more even basis, as we are now witnessing in Europe and North America. Socialism, meanwhile, is effective at distributing wealth, but in the process, it stifles productivity and wealth creation. It kills the goose that lays the golden egg.

There is another option. Its the system I call fair enterprise. Its an economic philosophy that recognizes that a successful business is driven by three forces: managers, workers and investors, and that all three driving forces have a moral right to share in the success of the business. Fair enterprise is designed to generate greater wealth, and then distribute that wealth in a way that is much fairer and more broadly based than any other system.

Bottom line: until businesses starts doing a better job of sharing the wealth they generate, we will have a problem. We will keep going down the road of socialism and wealth redistribution, and the day will come when theres going to be no more wealth to spread around.

National Post

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Frank Stronach: Capitalists have a role to play in countering the rise of socialism - National Post

This is the report delivered by Deepal Jayasekera to the 2022 International May Day Online Rally held on May 1. Jayasekera is the assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in Sri Lanka. To view all speeches, visit wsws.org/mayday.

Every bourgeois government in South Asia is engulfed by the immense economic, political and social crisis of global capitalism, highly intensified by the more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the present US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

As part of an international upsurge of the class struggle, the workers, youth and rural toilers throughout South Asia have entered into struggle, including strikes and mass protests against the ruling class onslaught on their basic social and democratic rights, which is placing the full burden of the economic crisis on them.

India has been caught up in the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine, with intensified pressure from Washington on Delhi to break its decades-long ties with Moscow and closely line up with the US against Russia, as in the US-India military-strategic partnership against China. The US-NATO war drive against Russia, with its associated harsh sanctions on Moscow and the resulting breakdown of the global supply chain, has severely intensified Indias economic crisis.

In this situation, the working class and rural toilers in India are entering into struggle against increased attacks on their social and democratic rights by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Several million workers participated in the March 28-29 general strike.

In Sri Lanka, the global crisis of capitalism finds its sharpest expression. Growing popular protests throughout the island demanding the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse have shaken the government to the core. Since April 9, thousands have engaged in continuous protests, day and night, at the main protest site at Galle Face Green, in central Colombo. These mass protests have been triggered mainly by widespread anger over shortages of essentials like fuel, cooking gas and medicines, skyrocketing prices and hours-long daily power outages.

Working people, youth, professionals and the rural poor are united in this popular uprising, which cuts across all linguistic and religious communal linesSinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Christiandefying decades-long reactionary efforts by all sections of ruling class to whip up communalism to divide and weaken the working class.

Now, the mass protests have reached a turning point, with the working class deciding to intervene. On April 25, about 250,000 teachers throughout the island joined a one-day strike demanding the resignation of the Rajapakse government. Three days later, millions of workers all over the country joined a one-day general strike with the same demand.

This intervention on the part of the working class has further deepened the political crisis confronting the Rajapakse government. The government is hanging by a thread, effectively losing its majority in parliament, with 40 of its members announcing that they will act independently in the future.

Desperate to cling to power, the Rajapakse government is biding its time and plans to unleash a brutal police-military repression against the mass uprising. On April 11, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, in an address to the nation, issued a thinly veiled threat to anti-government protesters that his government will launch a brutal crackdown if they fail to end their campaign.

Just eight days later, a heavily armed police battalion opened fire on thousands of people protesting against fuel price hikes in Rambukkana, killing one worker, Chaminda Lakshan, and injuring dozens more. This shooting is a clear warning to working people and rural toilers and also an obvious signal to investors and global bankers that the government is prepared to crush any popular opposition to its harsh austerity measures.

As with the government, the opposition bourgeois parties are terrified that the current anti-government uprising will develop into a militant movement challenging bourgeois rule as a whole. Sections of the ruling class and main parliamentary opposition parties, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), are working to trap dissent within capitalist rule through the formation of an interim government, which will definitely continue with same IMF-dictated austerity measures, further worsening the conditions confronting the working people and rural toilers.

In this situation of the governments preparations for a brutal crackdown and opposition parties interim government trap, the anti-government popular movement faces a grave danger flowing from its lack of a clear political perspective and program to fight bourgeois rule, despite its determination and militancy. This has been clearly shown by the list of demands published by the organizers of the Galle Face protests as the alternative, rejecting the Prime Ministers April 13 offer for talks with them.

While demanding the resignation of Gotabhaya and Mahinda Rajapakse, they have advocated an interim government formed from the existing parliament, excluding anyone from the Rajapakse family; empowerment of the 19th amendment to the constitution, which had made cosmetic changes to some powers of the widely hated executive presidency; a mechanism for taking back all the wealth plundered by members of the Rajapakse family and their associate officials; and holding presidential and general elections within a six-month period.

Galle Face protest organizers, while promoting no politics, are actually advocating politics similar to bourgeois parliamentary oppositionthe SJB and JVPwhich are exploiting popular anger against the government to bring an alternative capitalist government to power, which will not only not resolve any of the burning issues confronting the working people, but will makes them worse. The ruthless demands of global finance capital will not be lessened but further intensified in the near future.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is actively intervening in this popular movement, advocating an independent working class revolutionary socialist program and perspective.

As elaborated in its statement on April 7, the SEP, while standing squarely behind the demands of working people: Gota has to go! raises this demand: What is to replace him? It is not enough to demand Rajapakses removal . [A]s a key step in addressing the current political crisis, the SEP demands the immediate abolition of the executive presidency, which, with is sweeping autocratic powers, holds a gun to the heads of the working class.

The SEP is proposing that the working class fight for the establishment of a government of workers and peasants that will be committed to socialist policies. Such a government will be established through independent organs of the working class. Our proposal to the working people is to form their own action committees at every factory, workplace, plantation and neighborhood, breaking from the trade unions, which are acting as an industrial police force against workers on behalf of the government and employers.

The SEP statement on April 7 has proposed a program and policies to animate the work of the Action Committees to address the pressing needs of the masses, including the repudiation of the debt of the small farmers, fishermen, small industrialists and businessmen; for workers democratic control over the production and distribution of all essential items and other resources critical for the lives of people,; to nationalize the banks, big corporations, plantations and other major economic nerve centers; to repudiate all foreign debts; and to say, no to the austerity demands of the IMF and World Bank.

The fight of the Sri Lankan working class, rallying poor farmers and other oppressed masses, for a government of workers and peasants based on socialist policies is part of a broader struggle for socialism in South Asia and internationally, to be conducted with the unity of their class brothers in South Asia and globally.

Build the International Committee of the Fourth International in South Asia!

by David North, Chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board

40 minutes

by the Young Guard of the Bolshevik-Leninists in Russia

10 minutes

by Evan Blake, Coordinator of the Global Workers' Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic

14 minutes

by Michelle, a working parent in Michigan, USA

3 minutes

by Eric London, Socialist Equality Party (US)

12 minutes

by Keith Jones, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Canada)

10 minutes

by Tomas Castanheira, Socialist Equality Group (Brazil)

9 minutes

by Deepal Jayasekera, Assistant National Secretary of the Socialist Eequality Party (Sri Lanka)

11 minutes

by M. Thevarajah, Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)

14 minutes

by Christoph Vandreier, National Secretary of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Germany)

9 minutes

by Chris Marsden, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (UK)

8 minutes

by Alex Lantier, National Secretary of the Parti de l'Egalit Socialiste (France)

9 minutes

by Ula Atei, Sosyalist Eitlik (Turkey)

9 minutes

by Nick Beams, Socialist Equality Party (Australia)

13 minutes

by Gregor Link, International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Germany)

5 minutes

by Cheryl Crisp, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia)

10 minutes

by Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand)

8 minutes

by Joseph Kishore, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (US)

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France'slong-established Socialist Party has fallen into line behind the hard-left France Unbowed, joining a left-wing alliance aimed at depriving President Emmanuel Macron of a majority in parliament in next months elections. Some party heavyweights see it as the final nail in the coffin of the fracturedSocialists; others feel it's an opportunity for revival. But does the PS really have a choice?

Winning just 1.8 percent of the vote in the presidential election first round in April, the Socialist Party (PS) hit a new low in its steady decline towards political oblivion.

In the red corner, Jean-Luc Mlenchon with his hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) movement scorednearly 22 percent and is now running in whathes termed "the third round" vote. The 70-year-oldwantsto force the freshly re-elected Macron into a power-sharing government, with himself as prime minister.

It's a long shot, but Mlenchon inched a step closer on Wednesday when LFI convinced the PSto follow the French greens (EELV) and Communist Party (PCF) and join the "Social and Ecological People's Union"(NUPES).

It means they will field one list of candidates rather than compete against each other in legislative polls on 12and 19June.

Former Socialist president Franois Hollande hadwarned that snuggling up to LFI "called into question the very history of socialism" and could lead to the "disappearance of the the Socialists". Hevowed toturn down any deal.

But PCF leader Fabien Roussell gave a wake up call sayingno one on the left couldwin on their own. PS leaders subscribed to his message and ignored Hollande's.

"We want to elect MPs in a majority of constituencies to prevent Emmanuel Macron from moving ahead with his unjust and brutal policies and to beat the far-right," the PS and LFI said in a joint statement.

The alliance still needs to be approved by the PS's governing bodies on Thursday evening.

Someformer Socialist Party heavyweights, known as elephants, remainstaunchly opposed at what they see as a threat to the party's social-democratic identity.

Former Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve said he had quitthe party and would follow other prominent figures in rallying Macron.

But the elephants are no longer representative of the left.Indeed many disgruntled Socialistsblame Hollande himself for taking the party on a more economically liberal course, paving theway for Macron and soundingthe party's demise.

Arecent Ipsos pollshowed 56 percent of voters wanted Macron to lose the legislatives and go into a "cohabitation" with the hard left, while 57 percent supported the left uniting tofieldjoint candidates.

Sojoining NUPESmay be a gamble worth taking.

"What's certain is that given LFI's score, it's impossible [for the left] to remain outside of the LFI alliance," says political historianChristophe Batardy.

Parties have to win at least 12.5 percent of the vote to qualify for the second round. Presidential poll results based on France's 577 constituenciessuggest"the left wouldn't even feature in half of the constituencies in the second round", Batardy explained.

"Mlenchon alone would get 15 percent and the left alliance 30 percent," he told RFI.

The PS and its affiliateshold28 of the 577 seats in parliament peanuts compared to the ruling LREMs 267.

Under the deal, parties will run on the united ticket in a maximum of "winnable"seats.LFI is set to run in the most constituencies, EELV in 100, the PS in 70 and PCF in 50.

"Seventyconstituencies is a good deal," political scientist Christophe Bouilloud told RFI.

"After its memorable defeat in the first round, the only ambition PS leaders can have is to salvage what can be saved, to savethe outgoing MPs."

If the gamble pays off, it wouldbe "the affirmation of a political force on the left".

But someSocialists are refusing to stand down. Stephane Le Foll, a former minister under Hollande, said he was ready to lead them in a separate campaign.

"Its cobbled together,"snorted former Socialist prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, denouncing the "exorbitant price" the PS was paying by being absent in some 500 constitutuencies.

There are also solid financial reasons why the PS needs more MPs.

Like EELV andthe right-wing Republicans (LR), the PS got less than 5 percent of votein the first round of the presidential polls. This means campaign costs are not reimbursed.

MPs bring in much-needed funding.

"Parties get 37,000 per year for every MP, and there is also1.64for every vote a candidate gets," Batardyexplains.

"So there are both existential and very big financial stakes in this election."

"It was either lay down or perish,"says Jean Petaux, a political scientist in Bordeaux. "Some PS heavyweights think the party will just end up being a branch of LFI."

But Bouilloud is more upbeat, seeing the albeit risky alliance as "an extraordinary opportunity" to clarify the political chess board on the left.

"Peopleopposed to the deal will most probably rally around Macron's majorityand that will clarify a lot of things because LREM has always been, structurally, a breakaway of the right withinthe Socialist Party."

It's a reminder, he says, that a large part of Hollande's electorate in 2012 moved over to Macron in 2017 and are still with him in 2022.

"There's no need for a PS in the centre or to the right of the political spectrum.LREM more than enough occupies that role in French politics."

The deal reflects common ground between the PS and LFI, particularly on social policy.

Candidates running under the NUPES banner will defend raising the minimum wage, reducing retirement age from 62 to 60,capping prices on essential productsand rolling back some of the market reforms introduced underHollande.

But itinvolvesbig compromises, notably on Europe, with Mlenchons eurosceptism contrastingsharply with the Socialist Partys history as a driving force for European integration.

The agreement signed with EELV mentions unilaterally "disobeying"the provisions of some EU rules if they prevent the implementation of social and economic goals.

The deal signed by the PS, however, refers to "temporary exemptions" rather than disobedience and says they must remain "within the rule of law".

Nonetheless, the very notion of defying EU regulations has caused consternation in Brussels.

EU law is already suffering from verbal attacks from people like [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orban and [leader of Polands ruling Law and Justice party] Jarosaw Kaczyski,"Philippe Lamberts, co-leader of the Greens group in the European Parliament told Politico online.

"If the French do it too, there is a risk that the whole EU construction will collapse.

This could all be a storm in a tea cup, however, with observers suggestinga forced cohabitation between Macron and Mlenchon remains an unlikely scenario.

"It would be a democratic miracle if this left alliance were victorious," Bouilloud says.

"It's the first time there's been a push during a mandate to try and upturn the result of a presidential election by imposing a cohabitation on a newly re-elected president, and we have no idea how the electorate will react."

PS elephants may be riled over what they see as humiliating concessions to Mlenchon, who broke from their own partyin 2008after failing to dilute its pro-EU stance and has criticised it ever since. But LFI also needs the PS.

"LFI needs the rest of the left to get an absolute majority and govern," says Elisa Steier, author of Genesis of the Plural Left.

"There is still a big fragility within LFI and the PS hasn't forgotten that," she told RFI.

"LFI is not anchored locally, whereas the PS has both local notoriety and adeep knowledge of the country.

"It's difficult for the PS, but we probably shouldn't bury the party too soon."

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Will crawling into bed with France's hard left save or sink the Socialists? - RFI English