The eighth issue of the Revolutionary Communist is now out! Read the editorial of this issue below, and set up a physical or digital subscription now. Or meet us at one of our regular stalls to buy a copy directly from our comrades. Every subscription and paper bought will help us strengthen the revolutionary press, produce more regular articles and analysis, and advance the fight for communism in Ireland!
If 2025 will be remembered as a watershed year for world capitalism – when the liberal post-war world order began to crumble – then 2026 promises to bring no respite for the ruling classes of this world.
This issue of the Revolutionary Communist focuses on analysing the main processes shaping the world situation, their implications for Ireland, North and South – and crucially, what they mean for communists.
World in turmoil
The New Year’s fireworks had barely faded when, in the early hours of 3 January, Trump launched a criminal strike against Venezuela, killing dozens of innocent civilians and kidnapping President Maduro and his wife.
You might ask: what’s new in that? The US has been responsible for countless coups, aggressions, and illegal acts since emerging as the dominant imperialist power from the ashes of the Second World War. And that is certainly true.
But, as Jorge Martín explains in “US attack on Venezuela – the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ in action”, this time there was no pretence, no fig leaf, no excuse. No talk of ‘defending democracy’ or ‘weapons of mass destruction’. By the admission of Donald J. Trump himself, this was simply about oil and naked imperialist domination of the Western Hemisphere. And Greenland is next, Trump barked.
The European imperialists are watching these events unfolding with mounting dismay. To say they are in full panic mode would be an understatement. For decades, they have leeched off of Washington’s domination of the globe under the hypocritical veil of the so-called ‘international rules-based order’. Now, in a world fracturing into rival imperialist blocs – with Russia emerging
strengthened from the war in Ukraine – they find themselves abandoned by their former guarantor. Worse still, the US administration treats them with open contempt, no longer as ‘partners’ but as enemies to be subdued. And – they reason – if the world’s most powerful imperialist state is discarding all pretences, what will stop Russia or China from doing the same?
In short, they fear losing their imperialist spheres of influence to the bigger predators. They fear becoming even more irrelevant than they already are. For them, the world is becoming a dangerous place indeed.
Surrounded by blades
Small, old Ireland is getting caught in the middle of all of this. With their characteristic cowardice, the Irish ruling class hoped to dodge Trump’s bullets by hiding – by being subservient to anyone and everyone, by making themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Instead, they have found themselves on the fault lines of the capitalist world.
Like a low-level grunt caught in a war between gangsters, they are now surrounded by blades on all side.
The US administration is applying pressure over Ireland’s corporate tax regime and widening trade imbalance. The Europeans, meanwhile, resent Ireland’s role as the military underbelly of their imperialist ‘bloc’ – as discussed in the article, “The ‘men-ace’ of Russia: neutrality and militarism”. Added to this are mounting economic dangers: unpopular trade deals, speculative bubbles, and the stagnation of European capitalism. In just a few months, Ireland will assume the rotating EU presidency – precisely as US–EU tensions sharpen and Europe shifts into militarist overdrive. One could hardly imagine a worse time or position.
The Irish ruling class would gladly capitulate to all imperialist powers and do as they are told. But it’s not so simple when those imperialist powers are pulling in different directions, and when at home they themselves are utterly discredited in the eyes of workers and youth; when they can scrape together barely one in ten votes in a presidential election; when the two main parties of Irish capitalism are in a terminal decline. And when the social crisis at home is spiralling without end in sight.
Economic, political, and diplomatic crises are compounding into an almighty firestorm for Irish capitalism.
North in permacrisis
The North of Ireland faces the worst of all worlds. Despite its ‘glorious’ past, the UK is in no better position than Ireland is. A small, weakened country, off the coast of Europe, from which it cut itself off with Brexit. The further erosion – or outright collapse – of NATO would be yet another nail in the coffin of decaying British imperialism. As a former RAF reservist put it on the BelTel podcast, “I just can imagine in Number 10 [Starmer] putting the pillow over his head, going: I don’t need this!”
But where will the money be found to shore up military spending? Britain’s debt-to-GDP ratio is hovering around 100 percent. Labour has already identified a “black hole” in the state finances. And yet the country has been hollowed out by austerity for nearly two decades.
For the North of Ireland, this means yet another round of brutal cuts – delivered through a meagre budget at the end of 2025, as we discuss in “Stormont: austerity without End”. Sinn Féin, for their part, are determined to prove that the statelet is somehow viable. After a few verbal sops, they proceed to dutifully implement Westminster’s austerity budget.
The DUP, with the TUV snapping at its heels, have now entered full election mode – shrilling and shouting at everything Sinn Féin proposes. But in reality, when it comes to the economy, their policies differ in no fundamental way.
Workers and youth have already been pushed to the brink – and then pushed again. Yet they can find no outlet for their anger within Stormont. But you cannot restrain anger forever. Without a safety valve to release the pressure, sooner or later the situation will provoke an almighty explosion of class struggle.
Revolutionary party urgently needed!
This is the world context in which we wish to draw readers’ attention to this issue’s centre pages: an unfinished article by Leon Trotsky, “The Class, the Party, and the Leadership”, focusing on the Spanish Revolution of 1936. Its central conclusion is of paramount importance for revolutionary communists in this epoch of capitalist upheaval.
Despite the most favourable material conditions, despite incredible heroism shown during the revolution and untold sacrifice, the Spanish working class was unable to conquer power. Instead, the bleakest fascist reaction drowned the revolution in blood.
The reason, Trotsky concludes, was the absence of the most fundamental element for a socialist revolution to succeed: a genuinely revolutionary leadership prepared to take the struggle through to the end.
The direction in which capitalism is heading is unmistakable: more crisis, more instability – and, inevitably, revolution. We must prepare now for the events that will arrive at our doorstep tomorrow.
A revolutionary party is urgently needed!
