The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 11 From the series News from the Silk Road Zheng Yongnian, a senior political analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen, and a figure to whom the Politburo lends an ear, reflects on the unexpected consequences of the American attack on Iran. The backdrop of the attack is the erosion of the framework established by the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but the catalyst for the crisis is the transformation of the United States from a nuclear guarantor into a destructive factor in the world order. According to Zheng, it is foreseeable that the United States’ attack on Iran’s three nuclear plants will inevitably lead to a new wave of nuclear proliferation all over the world . The NPT framework was the expression of the five postwar powers legitimately armed with nuclear bombs: the US, the USSR, China, France, and the UK. Four countries which did not sign the treaty represent the exception: Isra...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 10 From the series Asian giants The Chinese bourgeoisie is reflecting on the crisis in the world order and looking towards Asia: towards the tumultuous capitalist development of the continent’s working-class conurbations; towards the political and military upheavals that this development generates and continually exacerbates; towards rearmament; and towards the foreign policy initiatives of the middle powers, on the move to make room for themselves in the twilight of the old global order. The world today is at a turning point of profound turmoil. The Russian-Ukrainian war is not just an isolated conflict; it is a microcosm of the disintegration and reorganisation of the global order. From the White House to the Kremlin, from Paris to Brussels, from changes in national defence strategy to the restructuring of national security logic, it is becoming increasingly clear that the old rules-based system is failing...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 9 Amid constant contradictions and deliberate ambiguities, Donald Trump has never clarified to what extent his trade war is conceived as an end in itself – new protectionist barriers to stymie global competition – or as a means of international intimidation, serving other political objectives. So far, this duplicitous lack of clarity remains: the powers that have come to terms with the American president, such as the European Union and Japan, and yielded to his main demands, are nonetheless suffering a significant increase in tariffs. The British model After declaring economic war on Liberation Day in April, Trump immediately changed course at the first signs of financial panic, proclaiming a three-month tariff truce. In May, Keir Starmer’s British Labour government was the first to accept the unilateral conditions imposed by the White House. Although it was not contributing to the US trade deficit, the...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 8 In the 1970s, the US Congress gave the Federal Reserve a dual mandate: to ensure price stability and promote maximum employment through interest rates. When a prevailing trend is clear, the Fed's course of action is simple: if inflation visibly rises, it must raise rates and increase the cost of money; if the economy is limping and the labour market is faltering, it must open the credit taps and reduce rates. That is the theory, but in practice there is political struggle, the interpretation of data, short- and long-term forecasts, and divergent interests among bourgeois fractions. Economic data is often contradictory, and this is what is happening in America today, with an added complication: an open struggle between the executive and the central bank for control of monetary policy. Between inflation and employment Fed Chairman Jerome Powell summed up the situation: The unemployment rate is...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 7 According to Herzi Halevi, former chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured in the war in Gaza : Not once in the course of the conflict were military operations inhibited by legal advice [...] This isn't a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute . According to The Times of Israel , a newspaper close to the Netanyahu government, Halevi's estimate is close to that provided by Palestinian sources of 64,000 dead and 165,000 wounded and, according to intelligence reports from Tel Aviv, 80% of those Palestinians killed so far [...] are civilians . The war in Gaza represents the bloodiest chapter in the Hundred Years' War in Palestine. The conflict has taken the form of a series of duels that Tel Aviv has engaged in successively: from Lebanon to Syria, from Yemen to Iran; from the confrontation with the components of...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 6 In June 1941, Germany launched its attack on Russia, taking by surprise the army and the air force, much of which was destroyed on the ground, because Stalin had refused to believe the reports that Hitler intended to break the 1939 Pact. From that moment onwards, the war on the eastern front took on massive dimensions and was waged with unprecedented violence. In her essay Le front Germano-Soviétique (1941-1945): Une apocalypse européenne [in A. Aglan and R. Frank, La Guerre-monde , 2015], Masha Cerovic writes that about fourteen million soldiers lost their lives ; more precisely, nine million Soviets, four million Germans, and almost one million among their allies . It is calculated that the Russian population paid a price of over twenty million human lives, including the fallen and those who died of illness and starvation: hundreds of thousands of them were partisans, executed without pity. A hug...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 5 This article was originally published in our Russian comrades’ newspaper Proletarskij Internatzionalism. On June 20 th , at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russian President Vladimir Putin explained that wherever the foot of a Russian soldier steps, it is Russian land [ Kremlin.ru , June 20 th , 2025]. This statement was made in the context of discussions about the state of the Russian economy. It clearly reflects the Kremlin’s intention to keep the occupied territories of Ukraine, but perhaps it also conceals the desire to take advantage of the situation to expand. It is indicative that the demands from the hawks’ camp in Russia for a final solution to the Ukrainian issue are becoming increasingly louder. Then there is the usual capitalist question of price: how much will it cost? The state of the Russian economy is not rosy. Let us look a...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 4 For our analysis, Asia has always been the realm of multipolarism . There was no Asian Yalta to divide and constrain the region; the American victor could not prevent the uneven development of imperialism in the Asian epicentre. It is no coincidence that Asia, with a quarter, perhaps a third, of global military spending, is the focal point of accumulating tensions in the crisis in the world order . It is no coincidence that the shifts in relations between the powers are most noticeable in that region. Zhao Huasheng, of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, considers China, Russia, the United States, Europe, India, and Japan to be the key players in the global system. The Institute, directed by Wu Xinbo, has merged with the Centre for American Studies, founded in 1985. They are part of the network of Chinese think tanks that comment on current foreign policy, expressing ...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 3 From the series European news Battlelines for a new world order based on power are being drawn right now. [...] This must be Europe's Independence Moment . So said Ursula von der Leyen in her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament on September 10 th . On the military front, the Commission president praised the historic progress made in recent years in building a European Defence Union . She referred to Readiness 2030 , the programme launched in early 2025, which aims to mobilise up to €800 billion in defence investment, and the SAFE programme, which provides €150 billion in European loans for joint military purchases. The Commission also wants to create a drone wall along the Union's eastern borders and an Eastern Flank Watch . Von der Leyen announced that a clear roadmap for getting new common defence projects off the ground, setting clear goals for 2030, and creating...