Indeed, the Chinese irruption characterised the world contention, with Beijing’s plans for a world-class military force triggering an arms race. And really the problem of how to confront Chinese imperialism, as well as to escape the pincer movement of Washington and Beijing, is confirmed as the strategic torment for European imperialism. Together with rearmament, in all the metropolises of imperialism colossal state intervention plans then mark the second half of the new strategic phase, which presages the next fifteen years as even more stormy.
In 2004 we argued that the new features of the contention required special attention to the third chapter of Class Struggles and the Revolutionary Party, the chapter on strategy. In the science-party, as well as in the strategy-party, lies the solution to facing the unprecedented conditions of the global confrontation, and to fighting the poisoned ideologies with which the masses will be mobilised and fanaticised: the liberal democracy of the West against Chinese authoritarianism, a Europe that protects against Beijing’s technological threat, and even an environmental social-imperialism against the giants of Asia devouring the environment.
The experience of the crisis of the pandemic of the century, however, has added a further confirmation to the Leninist theory of the party, that of the plan-party. In our book Their Politics and Ours, the conclusions of that battle were drawn: indeed, seizing the link in the organisational chain turned out to be the solution to facing a sudden and unpredictable crisis; indeed, that crisis has “educated” and “tempered” the militants, allowing us to collect and direct the unexpected energies that have emerged in our class. With that crucial experience behind them, the new generations will be able to face an increasingly tormented era. Class Struggles and the Revolutionary Party is confirmed as a vital text in the new battles that are already heralded.
25 Prefaces
27 Preface to the seventh Italian edition (G.L.)
31 Preface to the sixth Italian edition (G.L.)
49 Preface to the First Italian edition (A.C.)
51 Preface to the Fifth Italian edition (A.C.)
57 First Chapter
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FORMATION AND THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY
60 The Scientific Methodology of Capital
61 The Skeleton and Body of Marxist Analysis
63 From Capital to the Leninist Party
65 The Party, the Science’s Point of Arrival
67 The Political Description of Social Relations
68 The Materialist Formation of Political Consciousness
71 Political Consciousness Brought from Without
73 The Science Diffused and Recognised through Action
74 The Revolutionary Strategy in the Economic Process
74 Political Analysis as Social Analysis
75 The Science of the Revolution
93 Second Chapter
THE WORKERS’ STRUGGLE AND THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY
95 The Workers’ Coalition
97 The Working Class’s Political Struggle
98 The Party of the Workers’ Struggle
100 Wage Struggles
101 Strike Struggles
104 The Two Aspects of Workers’ Spontaneity
105 The Embryonic Form of Consciousness
106 The Influence of Bourgeois Ideology
108 How the Party Fights Spontaneity
111 The Strike: A School of War
112 The Strike: A Natural Economic Phenomenon
114 The Proletariat’s Natural Superiority
119 The Strike: A Proletarian Tool
120 The Interconnection of Strikes
123 Strike Statistics
129 Radicalising the Struggles
135 The Trade-Union Issue
136 The Third Period of Lenin’s theorisation
138 The Social Violence of Democracy
140 More Democracy, More Violence
141 The “School of Communism”
143 The Struggle for Revolutionary Influence in the Trade Unions
145 Revolutionary Work in Reactionary Trade Unions
159 Third Chapter
THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY AND REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY
167 Trotsky’s Strategy
185 Index of names and works
189 Index of illustrations
