02.04.2026

Assessments and perspectives

After a raft of amendments, the following perspectives were unanimously agreed at the March 22 AGM of CPGB members

1. Besides everyday certainties such as further pandemics, economic downturns and yet further jolting rounds of living labour being replaced by dead labour (eg, artificial intelligence), it is altogether clear nowadays that civilisation - even the continued existence of humanity itself - is at risk.

2. The immediate danger comes from one or another local conflict - Ukraine, Iran, Taiwan, Israel-Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba - spiralling into a global war and ending in a generalised nuclear exchange. If we somehow manage to avoid that danger, there is global warming and the real prospect of a hothouse earth.

3. The warmest year on record was 2024: 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels. Last year, 2025, was either the second or third warmest year. They followed a decade of warmest years. There is now no hope whatsoever of keeping to the Paris 1.5°C limit. The danger is of a 2°C, a 2.5°C, a 3°C, or even a 4°C temperature rise during the 21st century. That means melting ice caps, devastating rises in sea levels, the inundation of many big cities, extreme fires and the degrading of existing agricultural land and wildlife habitats.

4. Market forces are not the solution - that is to state the obvious. Indeed, with the climate crisis, capitalism approaches its absolute limits. Actuaries warn of a 50% loss of GDP between 2070-90 due to the climate crisis. We seek to give the climate crisis movement a clear, strategic perspective. Demonstrations, petitions, road sit-downs, sabotage, stunts, media stardom - none of that can bring about the fundamental system change that is required. Hence, the dominant mood at the moment seems to be one of resignation, brought about by the failure of protest politics. Stiff prison sentences and draconian legislation have served to cow.

5. Given the all too apparent failure of protest politics, the fraught birth of Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party and February’s by-election in Gorton and Denton, many tens of thousands have flocked to join the Green Party. The twofold expectation being that: (1) Zack Polanski will shift the party further to the left - even, perhaps, give it an eco-socialist rebrand; (2) a future Green government, or a Green-dominated coalition, will push through a Green New Deal. However, if that happened, it would, in reality, still be within the narrow confines of capitalism and, the nearer the Greens get to government, the more ‘no strings’ donations from the mega-rich there will be. As in Germany, the Greens will be bought, bribed and tamed by the capitalist class. Meanwhile, programmatically, the Green Party remains a petty bourgeois political formation.

6. Regular articles in the Weekly Worker and our pamphlet The little red climate book have provided a clear Marxist approach. We have warned about the danger of elitist terrorist actions or even some sort of climate socialism - imposed by, or agreed in close collaboration with, the capitalist state. Something which is, at the moment, a mere theoretical possibility. What is noticeable at this particular juncture is the refusal, the inability, of mainstream politicians, and therefore the capitalist class, to do anything remotely serious about the climate crisis. They remain in thrall to ‘production for the sake of production’. In point of fact, there is a growing body of opinion which either dismisses the climate crisis as a con - that, or nothing needs to be done apart from incremental, business-as-usual adaptation.

7. Socialism and the transition to communism offer the only rational solution. Despite that, nowhere is the working class remotely in a position to take power. Because of a string of political and economic defeats, because of the left’s systematic failure to learn from the past, because of a now cemented bourgeois triumphalism over the collapse of bureaucratic socialism in the USSR and eastern Europe, class consciousness - that is, the class consciousness of the working class - is at an extraordinarily low ebb.

8. Overall, politics continues to move to the right. The evidence, sadly, is all too abundant: (1) a left that clings to liberalism and commits itself to cross-class popular frontism; a left that cannot rise above strikes and streets economism; a left that tails the Greens; a left that easily flips to the right over issues such as Brexit, Ukraine and trans rights; a left that happily tolerates social imperialism; a left that is mired in localism, self-indulgent talking shops and amorphous ‘organisations’ which require little or no actual discipline or commitment; (2) the rise of parties such as National Rally, AfD, Austria’s FPÖ, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands and Reform UK, and their very real governmental aspirations; (3) governments in India, Russia, Japan, Argentina, Ukraine, Iran, Turkey, the Philippines, Italy, Israel and Hungary.

9. Most importantly, of course, there is the US and Trump 2.0. Donald Trump should not be dismissed as either stupid or ignorant. He is a right populist with an almost instinctive understanding of his base. Nor should Trump, Maga and ICE be equated with fascism. Fascism is first and foremost about smashing the organised working class and negatively resolving a revolutionary situation. To state the obvious, there is no revolutionary situation in the US and the organised working class poses no threat to the capitalist class.

10. Nonetheless, with the Supreme Court striking down his ‘Freedom day’ tariffs and November’s midterm elections threatening the GOP’s majority in Congress, we should take seriously the possibility of Trump resorting to non-constitutional means. Remember, on January 6 2021, he mobilised a mob, including fascist forces such as the Proud Boys and various other boogaloos, in an attempted self-coup. It was never going to succeed. We cannot say the same in 2026.

11. Those on the left who look for salvation to the Democrats - a straightforward capitalist party - betray the elementary interests of the working class and the cause of socialism. Lesser evilism is not a Marxist strategy. Nor should we look to ‘progressives’ such as AOC. There has to be a break with the Democrats. When, and over what, is a matter of tactics.

12. Obviously, Trump 2.0 has had a global impact. Leaving aside the Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland, the threat of swingeing tariffs saw climbdowns across the board. The only exception being China - a fact of enormous significance. America is dramatically upping the tribute it exacts from the rest of the world, not least Europe. Far-right governments in France, Germany, the UK, etc would make not a jot of difference here. On the contrary, they would act as US agents, outposts and satraps. That is why pro-Trump actors, state and non-state, are actively promoting far-right parties, projects and formations in Europe.

13. Capitalism has failed to unify Europe. We should not, however, discount the possibility of a far-right unification of Europe: eg, by a Bonapartist regime in Germany or France. However, any such unification, almost by definition, cannot be carried out peacefully and democratically. It would require blood and iron.

14. Confirming the general shift to the right, we note the reversal of the ‘pink tide’ in Latin America and the Donroe Doctrine. Left governments in Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru and Bolivia have all been voted out of office. The US tolerates Brazil, Mexico and Colombia - for the moment - but has made an example of Venezuela and Cuba. Kidnap, oil embargo, crippling sanctions, a mass population exodus: it is siege warfare. Investing hopes in the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes was always hopelessly mistaken. Naturally, though, we demand the end of sanctions, threats and illegitimate trials.

15. While Trump talks about bringing peace to Gaza, his solution amounts to a new form of colonialism, which, in the end, can only serve Israel. Israel being the attack dog of the United States in the Middle East. The reconstruction of Gaza, if it happens, will amount to another nakba. The West Bank is already de facto annexed. Remarkably, the pro-Palestine movement has continued almost unabated.

16. Israel has fought regional wars too: Lebanon, Syria and now, once again alongside the US, Iran. Within Iran we argue for a position of revolutionary defencism. This means demands such as a system of rationing to meet immediate needs, the provision of air raid shelters, taking over empty apartments to house the homeless, ending the control exercised by the IRGC and religious foundations over key sectors of the economy, the separation of the mosque from all aspects of the state, freedom to organise, to speak and assemble, the dissolving of the IRGC and the Basiji and the arming of the people. That helps create the conditions needed for the overthrow of the theocratic regime and the formation of a provisional revolutionary government, which organises for national defence and, as soon as possible, free and fair elections to a constituent assembly.

17. We oppose US-Israeli attacks, imperialist sanctions and the extraordinary dangers represented by US plans for regime change from above. Along with Hopi, we stand for regime change from below. Note the considerable audience for our ideas in Iran and the Iranian diaspora.

18. While the CPGB rightly recognises the reactionary nature of Hamas, we have correctly supported the BDS campaign, opposed the erosion of civil liberties and highlighted the settler-colonial political economy that lies behind ethnic cleansing and the danger of genocide. We emphatically reject the idea of putting an equals sign between Hamas and the Zionist state and calling for defeatism on both sides. If we had forces on the ground in Palestine, we would definitely be part of the resistance. Above all, though, we have provided a clear strategic perspective. We uphold an immediate programme of equal national rights within Israel, oppose Zionist colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza and yet recognise that the only genuine, the only viable solution comes from the working class taking the lead in bringing about Arab national unification that also fights for the voluntary affiliation/merger of the Jewish/Hebrew nation with an Arab Socialist Republic. Calls for a one-state or a two-state solution within Mandate Palestine are illusory.

19. It is vital not to be naive about Ukraine. It is highly unlikely that peace is just about to break out. Trump’s offer to Russia that it keeps what it has gained after four years of bloody war has been widely condemned by liberal opinion as analogous to Czechoslovakia 1938. Of course, Russia is in no way equivalent to Nazi Germany. Apart from its nuclear arsenal, it is decidedly a second-rate power. Why then doesn’t Putin and the FSB regime in Moscow grab at Trump’s peace offer? Nato troops stationed along Russia’s southern border and US security guarantees for Ukraine provide the obvious explanation. Note, Trump has threatened to unleash all hell against Russia if he does not get a satisfactory deal. The risk of shifting from a proxy war to Nato direct involvement and even escalating to the point of an exchange of nuclear weapons is all too real.

20. Nor does Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Kyiv regime really want Trump’s deal. It plays along, but knows that it faces stiff internal opposition - even potential revolt - in the event of Trump’s deal becoming a reality: eg, by the Banderites and the army’s Azov units.

21. We have rightly placed great emphasis on Ukraine. From the beginning of the ‘special military operation’, we have consistently upheld revolutionary defeatism. This applies not only to our ‘own’ side - ie, the Zelensky regime in Kyiv - but Russia too. Though Russia is, of course, in no way an imperialist power: eg, the capitalist extraction of surplus value from abroad plays only a marginal role in its economy. No, the Putin FSB regime seeks to build a neo-tsarist empire and join the imperialist club. Needless to say, the Putin FSB regime is anti-working class, authoritarian and thoroughly reactionary. No communist should have the slightest illusion that Russia’s murderous war in Ukraine is in any way progressive.

22. Within Britain, we have also correctly denounced the outright treachery of social imperialism, the illusions peddled by social pacifism and the particular dangers of centrist conciliationism. Revolutionary defeatism is more than a moral stance. It is not a call for merely upping the politics of protest: no, it is a call for the politics of power - ie, replacing the rule of capital with the rule of the working class.

23. The Ukraine war and Russia’s “no limits” partnership with China must be put into the global context. The US has only one serious rival, and that is China: the world’s second-largest economy and a proto- or even fully imperialist power. The EU is hopelessly divided and militarily weak. Russia has actually proved itself militarily weak too with the Ukraine quagmire. Japan is held in military subordination and the UK is little more than a useful minion. China alone is a full-spectrum challenger - economic, military, diplomatic, technological and ideological. Hence the well-financed propaganda over freedom of navigation opportunities (FONOPs) in the South China Sea, Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, Hong Kong democracy and the so-called Uyghur genocide - all carefully crafted to cover for the push to surround, strangle and subordinate China. The left must adopt a clear defeatist line in relation to the bellicose policy being pursued by the US and its allies, without in any way prettifying the Beijing regime.

24. The US is without doubt in relative decline, but we would be foolish in the extreme to declare that American hegemony is over and done for. Firstly, the dollar remains the global reserve currency. Secondly, the US possesses unequalled economic, military, technological, diplomatic and ideological power. Thirdly, there is the US-dominated system of alliances: Nato, the Five Eyes, the Quad and Aukus.

25. While it is clear that China will not be a viable alternative hegemon any time soon, over the last three decades the country has seen massive, historically unprecedented, economic growth, especially since 2001 and WTO membership. Modern China’s revolutionary origins, state-controlled capitalist development, successful integration into the world market and Mao-Deng-Xi ‘official communism’ have made it into a model for some. ‘Official communist’ parties have started to take their lead from China: eg, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. In the UK too there is the Morning Star’s CPB and former Trotskyite sects such as Socialist Action. Surely there will be many more leftwing Sinophiles . As should be all too obvious, the working class does not rule in China. Marxists - ie, genuine communists - need to develop a concrete analysis of China in all its contradictory complexity, not content themselves with either bestowing trite labels or echoing the nonsense of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’.

26. Sir Keir Starmer presides over the most rightwing Labour government ever. The only thing positively recommending Labour in the July 2024 general election was that they were not the Tories. Hardly inspiring. The correct approach was: ‘Vote left where you can, vote Labour where you must’ - a slogan which posed the necessity of breaking with auto-Labourism, but recognised that Labour remains a bourgeois workers’ party.

27. The Labour Party won a parliamentary landslide; however, this was the result of the peculiarities of the ‘first past the post’ system. Labour secured 411 MPs with just 33.7% of the vote. If the Tory and Reform vote was combined, it would have given them a clear victory. We note the continued talk of some sort of Tory-Reform electoral pact. There is, moreover, the election of Kemi Badenoch as Tory leader - another step to the right. Historically, of course, the Tories are a party of the far right.

28. Labour has, of course, since slumped in the opinion polls, but instead of, as was once normal, the main opposition party taking a commanding lead, it is Reform which has done that. Nonetheless, predictions about Nigel Farage being the next prime minister are, to put it mildly, wildly premature.

29. The Labour left has, for the moment, been completely marginalised. In part, this is due to the power of the Labour right and the historically established connections it has with the state, the ruling class and the US hegemon. In part, however, it is due to the self-inflicted political failure of the Labour left in general and the Corbyn movement in particular. The anti-democratic coup in Momentum and actually joining in with the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ big lie proved decisive. We should expect the revival of the Labour left in one form or another. That could come from left-led trade unions and/or from ambitious career politicians posing left. Then there is the possibility of transforming the Labour Party into a united front of a special kind - an idea that we should not give up on, no matter how dim that prospect appears at the moment.

30. Showing that there is a deep social well of leftwing discontent, not only did five pro-Palestine MPs get elected in July 2024: after much dithering and delay, Jeremy Corbyn was effectively pushed into launching what is now called Your Party. Initially, over 800,000 expressed an interest. However, because of the schism between Corbyn’s HQ and Zarah Sultana, because of the control-freakery, because of the red-baiting, that number has massively shrunk. Many went to the Green Party, especially after the election of Zack Polanski. Despite that, Your Party remains a site of struggle.

31. Once, great hopes were placed in so-called parties of recomposition. In practice, as we consistently argued, they have proved to be merely reformist and easily slotted into the politics of bourgeois coalitionism: Syriza, Podemos, the Workers Party of Brazil, Communist Refoundation, Die Linke. That, or they proved to be dead ends: the New Anticapitalist Party, Respect, Left Unity, the Scottish Socialist Party, etc. Despite that sorry record, Jeremy Corbyn’s The Many faction and its plans for Your Party promise little more than a repeat of what is a hopelessly failed model. Not that Grassroots Left should be considered anything more than a temporary arrangement. Most of its components are committed to popular frontism: eg, with the Green Party.

32. Our organisation remains pitifully small and we should not expect any dramatic change in the immediate term. We live in an extended period of reaction. Blame culture, demoralisation, attempts to conciliate those to our right. All are manifest dangers - we need to be brutally honest about that. There are no easy answers. We are under a ‘state of siege’ and, therefore, it is essential to undeviatingly defend our culture of robust open polemic, our programme and our political ideas.

33. That the fusion talks between the CPGB, Talking About Socialism and the Prometheus editorial board got nowhere is of little surprise. Opportunists naturally recoil from unity around firm principle - unity around a clear communist programme, unity where minorities accept their minority position. Not that we should dismiss the future prospects of communist rapprochement. On the contrary, that remains a key task.

34. Communist University has long been a highlight of our year. In-person attendance is far too low and that dampens discussion and debate. We should once again seek the active involvement of overseas comrades in 2026 and build on the cultural programme introduced last year.

35. While a proto-Communist Party might well be built through recruiting the ones, the twos … even the hundreds, our strategic expectation is that the initial breakthrough will come through a series of splits in the existing left groups - including those inside the Labour Party – and, from that, fusions. In terms of going through the existing left, there are good reasons for optimism. What the Weekly Worker says matters.

36. Whatever various leaderships say, the existing left is either stagnant or shrinking - something that applies more or less across the board. Claims of soaraway success for this or that group invariably prove to be fleeting or chimeric. No less to the point, there has been a general decline in the culture of the left. Entirely secondary questions are elevated to prime importance, class politics downgraded to the level of narrow trade unionism and a commitment to elementary principles is too often replaced by abject tailism. That, or dead-headed dogmatism rules. Hence, everywhere there is the miseducation of new recruits.

37. As a general approach, we are against comrades in existing left groups simply resigning. That is, unfortunately, an all too common occurrence. Instead, we say: ‘Stay, organise and openly fight’. This way, lessons can be learnt for the entire left and comrades can develop themselves.

38. Given its ‘slow burn’ success, we really need a second, updated edition of Mike Macnair’s 2008 Revolutionary strategy. It has already been translated into a number of languages by sympathetic comrades. Putting together and editing his articles on imperialism, identity politics and partyism would be more than a good idea too. In terms of our publication list, we will add Jack Conrad’s USSR: a Marxist post-mortem. Book 1 has been completed and is being proofread prior to publication. It is subtitled: Internal contradictions. Three other books are envisaged: book 2, The production and reproduction of social relations; book 3, International relations; book 4, Theories of bureaucratic socialism. We should explore recording audio versions of these and our other publications.

39. The PCC, working with appropriate cells, will explore the creation of supporters networks and reading circles to extend the influence of our ideas and look for ways to recruit and give sympathetic Weekly Worker readers an opportunity to be actively involved in developing our work organisationally.

40. To maintain and boost our healthy financial situation, we commit to a Summer Offensive target of £25,000.