Skip to main content

Euro-solubility

Before capsules and pods, there was freeze-dried instant coffee powder, which of course tasted nothing like a real espresso. Now: for some time we have been following the vicissitudes of sovereigntists and populists with the idea that their political future depended on their Euro-solubility. Referring to the law-and-order, xenophobic and immigrant-hostile traits that have become common currency in European debates, we wrote that a Europe that protects could use the anti-immigration rhetoric of the sovereigntists to keep them on the leash of the pro-European strategic consensus.

No sooner said that done. In Italy, as in France and other European countries, that phenomenon is in full swing. In Italy, the Five Star Movement has already embarked on its path to conversion a year and a half ago, entrusted with no less than the direction of Italian diplomacy. And even the Lega, believe it or not, has become a pro-European party overnight. In France, a similar process has seized Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National: the relationship with Europe has changed, there is no longer any talk of Frexit, and even the euro has become a currency that protects. It is certainly a sign of the times: sovereignism is in a bad place, the pandemic of the century is not something for adventurers and amateurs, and the sovereigntist-in-chief, Donald Trump, in the White House has exited the stage with a tragicomic and grotesque curtain call. But above all it is a sign of Europe's money in its recovery plan, which no one wants to give up.

Draghi, Macron, and Merkel, together with the other European leaders, will be the interpreters at the highest level of the strategic guidelines of the EU, with the task of directing a European restructuring that will define this decade. It will be a long battle, and a formidable challenge for a class opposition. The enemy is at home: disguised as the Europe which protects, European imperialism is preparing new confrontations in the world contention and new wars. All the more reason not to swallow the swill of these complete and sudden political turncoats. There is another politics, a communist politics, based on trustworthiness, knowledge and passion for struggle. Proletarian opposition to European imperialism.

Euro-solubility. (2021, March). Internationalism, 12.

Popular posts in the last week

The EU Commission Plans for Rearmament and a Clean Industrial Deal

Internationalism No. 71, January 2025 Page 2 From the series European news Following the European elections which took place on June 6th - 9th, the leaders of the Member States met on June 27th at the European Council. Ursula von der Leyen was nominated as president of the next European Commission, after she was chosen as the European People’s Party’s (EPP) Spitzenkandidat (“leading candidate”). The agreement also included the election of former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa as president of the European Council, and the appointment of former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Subsequently, on July 18th, Parliament elected von der Leyen as president of the Commission by an absolute majority, with 401 votes out of 719 MEPs. On September 17th, von der Leyen presented her team of commissioners to the European Parliament and, two days later, the Council adopted this list of...

Lotta Comunista: The Origins 1943-1952

Guido La Barbera Contents 9. Preface to the English Edition 13. Preface 19. Useful dates 21. Chapter One «ONE OUGHT TO KNOW WITH WHOM ONE IS DEALING» 25. The balance-of-power theory 27. Theory and the ‘strategy-party’ 29. Chapter Two THE FOUNDRY AND THE PARTISAN STRUGGLE 31. The Savona group 39. Passion disciplined by reason 40. Never again a tool in the hands of others 41. The Genoa group 46. The Sestri Ponente group 48. The groups in Rome and Tuscany 52. The strength of GAAP: ‘only a handful’ 55. Chapter Three LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM: A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMMUNISM 58. Reckoning with Bordiga...

Historical Constants and Strategic Surprise

The Strategic Surprise of the Agreement between Beijing and Tehran and the Suggestion of a Six-Power Concert The agreement between Beijing and Tehran falls under the definition of strategic surprise , i.e., events that entirely appertain to the political realm and mark a change or an about-turn in the balance among the powers. New alliances, the breakdown of alliances, the overturning of coalitions, diplomatic openings or unexpected military sorties: these are the regular novelties of international politics that Arrigo Cervetto wrote about. However, if the agreement was an unforeseeable event in itself, the long-term objective economic and political trends. that have determined it and made it possible are entirely investigable. The invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR at the end of December 1979 was interpreted by the United States as a potential threat to the oil routes of the Persian Gulf, and it was a contemporary revival of the Great Game , which had set the British Empire agai...

Supplementary Materials

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1   A. Cervetto , Class Struggles and the Revolutionary Party , éditions Science Marxiste 2000. First published as Lotte di classe e partito rivoluzionario by Lotta Comunista Editions and now in its 6 th edition (Milan 2004). The volume gathers together articles published in Azione Comunista from April to November 1964. 2  Guido La Barbera, Introduction to the 2 nd edition of A. Cervetto ’s Lotta Comunista (‘The Difficult Question of Times’), Lotta Comunista Editions, Milan 2010. Reproduced in English in Our Internationalist Struggle , éditions Science Marxiste (2011). 3  Ibid. 4  A. Cervetto , ‘The True Partition of the World between the USSR and the USA’. First published in Lotta Comunista , September-October 1968. Subsequently included in Imperialismo Unitario (Unitary Imperialism), Lotta Comunista Editions, Milan 1996. 5  A. Cervetto , ‘Eu...

ByteDance & TikTok

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 10 From the series The telecommunications battle Imagine that a full-screen video turns your phone into a window. You can see a vast world through this window. Douyin is a projection of this colourful world . Douyin is the Chinese version of TikTok, and these words were spoken by Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, the Beijing-based parent company of both applications. Matthew Brennan notes this in his book Attention Factory: The Story of TikTok &ampersand; China's ByteDance . The front page of the ByteDance website reads: Our Mission: Inspire Creativity, Enrich Life . A colourful and fun world, built on short videos, is also capable of generating major business. It is estimated that global users have exceeded two billion in total, mostly very young people. ByteDance is not yet listed, and its revenue is estimated by ana...

American Unknowns in the Crisis in the World Order

Plurality of Powers and the Atlantic Crisis Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Pages 1 and 2 In general terms, the United States is [the model of] society we will arrive at in a few years . It was 1962 and Arrigo Cervetto was addressing the conference of the Movement of the Communist Left, pointing to the American script as the direction in which Italian society was developing: the accelerated disintegration of the peasant world, the growth of a vast industrial proletariat, the emergence of white-collar workers , and the wage-earning strata of the service sector. The Americanisation of Italian and European society was driven primarily by the laws of capitalist development and class change, but, to some extent, it also influenced political forms through the transformation of social psychologies. I thought Marx’s observation that the most advanced capitalist country shows the way forward to the most backward was valid , Cervetto commented twenty year...

The deep strata of workers in an opulent Europe

The inauguration of the Draghi government has revived top trade union leaders anxious to be involved by the government of all , all the more so in the era of the Recovery Fund. The word consultation has been the most used in some recent trade union comments. Annamaria Furlan, of the CIS [Italian Confederation of Trade Unions] is explicit in calling for a great consultative pact [ Il Messaggero , 8 th February]. Pierpaolo Bombardier, secretary of the UIL [Italian Labour Union], adds that the consultation must become a method to help the country restart . Maurizio Landini, of the CGIL [Italian General Confederation of Labor] sees the novelty in the fact that social partners have been involved in the establishment of the new government [ Conquiste del lavoro , 11 th February]. The two phases of European imperialist politics In this sense there are many comparisons to the Ciampi govemment of 1993, omitting that consultation was functional to limiting the costs of labour. There ...

Beijing Parades Its Rearmament

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 14 From the series The war industry in China The grand military parade held in Beijing to celebrate the 80 th anniversary of victory in the Chinese people’s War of Resistance against Japanese aggression , attended by 26 heads of State and government from Latin American, African, and Asian countries, was first and foremost a show of force. CCTV, China’s State television, said: The parade featured unmanned intelligent systems, underwater combat units, cyber and electronic forces, and hypersonic weapons, highlighting the growing capacity of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to harness emerging technologies, adapt to the evolving character of warfare, and prevail in future conflicts ( South China Morning Post , September 4 th ). The French newspaper Les Echos commented ironically, yet with concern: The only symbol of peace was the arrival at the end of the flight of 80,000 white doves and 80,000 balloons....

Missiles, Gas, and Oil

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 12 The third US Gulf War has entered its fourth week. Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), was quick to describe it as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market , due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In normal times, 20 million barrels per day (Mb/d) of crude oil and refined products flow through the Strait of Hormuz. 80% of the total flow is destined for Asia, rising to 90% in the case of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Iran claims that the Strait is closed only to its enemies, but, for all practical purposes, the risk of crossing it is such that insurance premiums for oil tankers not explicitly authorised to do so are prohibitively high. With no storage capacity for the extracted crude and hoping to reduce the number of targets, the Gulf States have cut their oil production by at least 10 Mb/d. Acc...

The New Electro-Nuclear Era

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 14 From the series The world energy battle A weather phenomenon dubbed Dunkelflaute is causing havoc in Germany and pushing energy prices to two-decade highs ( Fortune, December 12th, 2024 ). Uncertainty in renewables and nuclear energy The German term Dunkelflaute combines the words Dunkel (dark) and Flaute (lull, absence of wind) and refers to a series of days when dense clouds descend over northern Europe. During a Dunkelflaute event, solar panels produce little energy and wind turbines slow to a halt. This weather phenomenon can occur two to ten times a year, usually in autumn and winter, and lasts 24 hours or more ( The New York Times, December 30th, 2024 ). A decade ago, it was not a problem: Europe obtained electricity from stable sources, namely nuclear power plants and fossil fuels. The situatio...