The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 11 From the series Chronicles of the new American nationalism Donald Trump has plunged Atlantic relations into crisis and launched military operations in Africa, Venezuela, and the Middle East, culminating in the war against Iran. In Congress, a dozen Republicans have criticised these actions. The GOP rebellion is limited in scope and has various internal factions; but it is significant that the party leaders, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have distanced themselves from some of Donald Trump’s positions. The Atlanticist faction Johnson and Thune have dismissed Trump’s threats against Greenland – a territory included in NATO via Denmark and the EU – as unrealistic. For Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, they are weapons-grade stupid , while Mitch McConnell, Thune’s predecessor, ...

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...

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 9 From the series Pages from the history of the workers’ movement Revolution is a dramatic and oscillating historical process, marked by brutal accelerations, sudden freezes, and deceptive moments of dead calm. Hence the need to develop the party in the preceding years, so that it can act consciously as a vanguard rooted in the masses — as the premise for the revolutionary process rather than the result . Arrigo Cervetto wrote in his article “The General Task” , now in Opere, vol. 2 : If the party does not want to fall into adventurism, it cannot regulate its conduct on accelerated and unexpected movements but must always continue in its systematic work of organisation and education of the proletariat. The more the party is able to work according to this plan [...] the more it will have the possibility of not being caught off guard b...

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 8 From the series Spain 1936 Spain, Marx observed in 1854 in the article Revolutionary Spain , was the first European feudal State to develop absolutism in its most unmitigated form , but political and fiscal centralisation never really took hold there. Similarly, it was Spanish caravels that opened up the era of the world market, and the Kingdom of Spain was the first great bourgeois maritime-trading empire. Yet that early and rapid rise ended up transforming itself from a favourable precondition for development into the cause of Spain's subsequent failure. In fact, the maritime overextension of the empire, combined with the failed political and fiscal centralisation of the Iberian heartland, resulted in stagnation and a subsequently inglorious and protracted putrefaction . While the economic and social arteries were becoming scl...

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 7 From the series Industry and pharmaceuticals I Since the beginning of the 21 st century, the life sciences sector has undergone profound transformations. Great scientific and technological innovations rooted in the achievements of the 20 th century have affected the whole of the world's healthcare system, revolutionising diagnostic procedures and therapies. However, the fruits of this acceleration of scientific development only reach a minority of humanity. In many cases, the high costs and the limited number of adequate structures — think of gene and cell therapies — make them inaccessible to most of the population, which barely receives even the most basic and lifesaving medicines. Their economic sustainability is a challenge even for the more advanced healthcare and welfare systems. Biotechnology is ...

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 6 On February 28 th , the attack launched by the United States and Israel against Iran ignited the third Gulf War . Already dealing with the conflict in Ukraine on its eastern flank, Europe now finds itself facing a second war on its borders, this time to the south. Unlike in 1991 and 2003, in the current conflict Washington has made no effort to build a coalition. No European or NATO country, nor any regional power, has been formally involved in the plans for intervention. European exclusion and the Atlantic crisis Europe’s initial exclusion – despite now being called upon to bear the energy, economic, and political consequences of Washington’s new war of choice – is the latest chapter of the Atlantic crisis . The issue has been at the centre of the European press’s commentary. Particularly in the early days, Brussels’ delays and impotence...

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Pages 4 and 5 According to The Economist , the war that began on February 28th with the American and Israeli attack on Iran has rightly earned the label third Gulf War . A clarification is needed: the war between Iran and Iraq, from 1980 to 1988, cost at least half a million lives and left its mark on the Persian Gulf no less than the subsequent conflicts. However, if we consider only the wars initiated by the United States in an attempt to manage its own decline, the current conflict follows on from those of 1991 and 2003. Hence, the third Gulf War . The conflict has already transcended regional boundaries, involving all countries in the area; the unprecedented assassination of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s religious and political leader, on the first day of the war, was the turning point. The war’s objectives are unclear: it is a war without a strategy , writes The...