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Political Battles of European Leninism

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 1 Thirty years after the death of Arrigo Cervetto , we are publishing here the concluding passages of the introduction to his Opere Scelte (“Selected Works”) for the series Biblioteca Giovani (“Publications for young people”), soon to be published in Italian. The 1944-45 partisan war in Italy. The political battle within libertarian communism. The Korean War, and the watchword of “neither Washington nor Moscow”. The layoffs at the Ilva and Ansaldo factories, the political battle and trade union defence in the struggles of post-war restructuring. From 1953 onwards, the crisis of Stalinism, the 1956 Suez crisis, the Hungarian uprising, the 1957 Theses and the challenge of theory and strategy vis-à-vis the tendencies of unitary imperialism. The political struggle within Azione Comunista (“Communist Action”) and the Movimento della Sinistra Comunista (“Movement of the Communist Left”). From the 1950s to the early 1970s, t...
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Parallel Appeasements in the Gulf

Internationalism No. 89, July 2026 Page 2 On June 17th, during the closing banquet of the G7 summit in Evian against the highly symbolic backdrop of Versailles, Donald Trump, accompanied by his host Emmanuel Macron, initialled a memorandum of understanding with Tehran. The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, did the same via video-conference in Tehran. The document had already been digitally signed in Geneva on the 14th. For former diplomat Michel Duclos, this was a surprise organised by the French presidency, which had taken care to invite Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to the G7 proceedings. Trump, aware of the criticism within the Republican camp over his backing down in the face of Iran , and of the fact that his international prestige did not emerge strengthened from the third Gulf War , was offered a lavish stage on which to save face. Or, in Japanes...

The Strategic Infirmity of Television and Digital Politics

Internationalism No. 89, July 2026 Page 1 From the series Artificial intelligence One of the most penetrating reflections on the anthropological question linked to artificial intelligence (AI) was put forward by Henry Kissinger. In his view, AI and communication through digital networks – the web – undermine the principle of reality defined by the Enlightenment in two ways: the web tends to fragment our perception of reality, being based on algorithms that tailor information to individuals in order to cater to their preferences; secondly, perceptions of reality are mediated by a mechanism – the probabilistic filtering of a volume of data far beyond the capacity of the human mind – whose internal workings cannot be reconstructed through rational analysis. The web fragments perceptions of reality, tailoring it to individuals according to the ten...

Beijing in the Factory

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 16 Beijing in the Factory China Shock 2.0 . This means that Beijing has long since moved beyond being the world’s factory merely for T-shirts, shoes, refrigerators, or laptops. While the capital it has channelled abroad via the Silk Road exceeds $1 trillion, China has moved up the value chain to more technologically advanced and complex manufacturing. This is evident in the global battle over cars and electric vehicles, where Chinese exports have reached seven million units. The consequences of the first shocks have by no means been absorbed; the reaction to American deindustrialisation is among the forces that brought a chaotic huckster to the White House. Today, Europe is the epicentre of the second shock . Among the large corporate groups, their lobbies, and their political parties, there...

The Hurdles of the Energy Transition

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 15 From the series The world energy battle The war against Iran has highlighted the dependence on fossil fuels and the need for world economies to reduce dependence on the Middle East and on these energy sources. The European Union's “Green Deal” aims to achieve these goals, but the structure of the economy and the economic and social costs pose significant obstacles for the energy transition. Problems of renewables versus fossil fuels According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), during the period 2015-2024 global cumulative investments in renewable energy production amounted to $12.5 trillion, surpassing the $11.8 trillion invested in fossil fuels; despite this, the share of total energy supply accounted for by fossil fuels fell only from 85% in 1990 to 81% in 2023 [United Nations, Energy Statistics Pocketbook 2...

Fox and “The Wall Street Journal” in the White House

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 14 From the series Chronicles of the new American nationalism The mass media empire financed by Rupert Murdoch includes, in America, Fox Broadcasting, established in 1986, the 24-hour cable news channel Fox News , launched in 1996, and Fox Business , created in 2007; the same year Murdoch acquired the prestigious newspaper The Wall Street Journal . Murdoch, who since 2020 has also owned the streaming platform Tubi, first arrived in the country in the 1970s with the tabloid New York Post . In terms of trade and foreign policy, as well as style, the group covers a wide range of positions. Fox is the TV network that has most favoured Donald Trump and most benefited from his political rise, compared to its competitors. Within the group, Fox News is the brand most in tune with the current administration: some commentators have ...

Rearmament and State Policies in the Battle for Minerals

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 13 In 2025, China was the only power to respond decisively to Donald Trump's trade war, forcing him into an autumn truce through tariffs and, primarily, by blocking exports of some critical minerals. According to the White House, Beijing made a mistake in using the nuclear weapon of its near-monopoly on rare earths, as it triggered a global rush to diversify supplies. That process is indeed underway, but given its high costs and long timescales, it does not seem able to neutralise, at least in the short term, the powerful mineral deterrent established by the Chinese government. A multilateral Trump The US government's counteroffensive is underway both domestically, in an attempt to rebuild an industrial sector for the extraction and processing of these substances in the US, and internationally, through a series of agreements. Among the mo...

Oil as a Weapon

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 12 In its editorial on May 17th, the Financial Times sounded the alarm over the looming energy crunch . In reality, the alarm has been sounding ever since Iran took full control of the Strait of Hormuz on March 4th, and even more so since the United States, despite the ceasefire of April 8th, imposed its own counter-blockade, with dozens of warships, on April 13th. Negotiations, whether genuine or feigned, Omani mediation, and American threats to finish the job — a campaign stretched on February 28th with the killings of Tehran’s leaders — have prolonged the stalemate in the third American war in the Persian Gulf. The alarm over the looming energy crisis became official on May 13th, when the International Energy Agency (IEA) published its report on the global oil market: More than ten weeks after the war in the Middle East began, mounting supply losses...

Tokyo’s Deterrence Mirrors Europe’s

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 11 We are living in an era in which the ‘Pax Americana’ is nearing an end without any substitute order taking its place . So wrote, in a 1980 report, the study group on Comprehensive national security , established by the then Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōira. According to Michitaka Kaiya, deputy editor of the Yomiuri Shimbun , this observation remains valid today, given the Trump administration’s dismissive attitude towards allies , a China that challenges the US-led order, the war in Ukraine, and the conflict in the Gulf. At the end of April, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attended the inaugural meeting of the committee of fifteen experts tasked with conducting the review of the National Security Strategy (NSS), presented at the end of 2022, through which Tokyo has defined its rearmament. On March 31st, the operational deployment of domestica...