We publish this reflection by Vijay Prashad, Indian historian and journalist, CEO of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, which he presented at a left-wing conference held at the end of May 2026 in South Africa. The analysis he makes of the situation in South Africa and India, but also at the global level, seems very interesting to us, posing the need for the organization of the left-wing forces and the working class for the survival of humanity.
While a declining imperialist system struggles to preserve its order, the organization of the working class becomes not only necessary for the oppressed of the world, but essential to human survival.
Dear friends,
Greetings from Tricontinental: Social Research Institute.
From May 29 to 31, the forces of the South African left gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the Left Conference. It is important to understand the context of this meeting. More than thirty years after the official end of apartheid, the South African population is still struggling to meet their basic needs, with an official unemployment rate of 32.7% and 43.7% including workers in situations of discouragement – those who are available to work but no longer looking for employment.
Meanwhile, the country’s wealth is being exploited by multinationals. The inability to resolve these imbalances in the creation and distribution of wealth has led to the fragmentation of the African National Congress (ANC), once the main vector of the national liberation struggle, and to its transformation into a party of the rich. At the same time, the forces of the left are demoralized, while the right, including the former oligarchy of apartheid, acts without being controlled.
It was at this time that the Communist Party of South Africa (SACP) and the organizing committee of the conference brought together various political forces, many of which were separate formations of the ANC, to discuss urgent strategic issues for South Africa and other countries facing similar crises.
During a plenary session on the current situation, I spoke on behalf of our institute. The following reflections were extracted from this presentation.
Workers halted rail transport in various places across Tripura State. Photo CPI(M)
When we fight, we win. If we were too afraid of failing, we would do nothing.
Today, May 30, marks the 56th anniversary of the founding of the Central Indian Unions (CITU), a federation representing more than seven million workers. On February 12, 2026, the CITU joined other trade unions and agricultural organizations in a general strike against the new labor laws, which weaken workers’ rights to collective bargaining, encourage contracting and pave the way for longer working hours. It is estimated that about 300 million workers, farmers and other segments of the working class participated in strikes and mass mobilizations across the country. Indian workers continue to struggle in difficult conditions, following in the footsteps of the historic farmers’ uprising of 2020–2021, when hundreds of thousands of farmers organized a one-year demonstration, attracting the support of hundreds of millions of workers and farmers across the country and forcing the government to repeal its anti-farmer laws.
When we fight, we win. And even when we don’t reach our goals immediately, we gain confidence and experience for the next battle.
We are supported by more than a century of struggles of the organized working class, peasants and for national liberation. These struggles were expressed during the Paris Commune (1871), the October Revolution (1917), the Vietnamese Revolution (1945), the Chinese Revolution (1949), the Cuban Revolution (1959), and a series of anti-colonial victories, including the remarkable and little-understood events that take place in the Sahel. A discussion on the left does not necessarily have to start with a feeling of despair. The working class and the peasantry should be proud of the key role they play in these struggles and in their attempt to overcome capitalism and build a socialist society.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the global economy has experienced slow growth, high levels of debt, declining productive investment and profound social inequality. The sharpest declines have occurred in the North Atlantic economies, which continue to suffer from what we call the Third Great Depression. The United States and its allies have not succeeded in solving these economic problems or proposing a credible social project. As their grip on finance, technology and natural resources weakened, decadent and dangerous elites tightened their grip on information and intensified war conflicts to maintain their world order. This is the phase of hyper-imperialism. The evidence of these hyper-imperialist attacks is clear: China, Cuba, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Venezuela and Yemen are all targets. This dynamic is intensified by the New Cold War, in which the United States sought to contain the rise of China, in particular, and the transfer of the center of gravity to Asia in general.
These events clearly show that the central contradiction of our time lies between a declining imperialist system that seeks to preserve its domination and the aspirations of peoples and nations seeking sovereignty, development and social justice.
However, the weakening of imperialist power does not automatically lead to liberation. The story does not offer any automatic transition or guaranteed victory. The fragmentation of the old order creates opportunities, but also dangers: rivalry between capitalists, regional wars, harmful political ideologies and intensification of the extraction of wealth from the global South to the North. That is why the decisive question for humanity is the organization. Will the working classes and oppressed peoples be able to build enough organized power to intervene independently in this crisis? This is the main challenge of our time. Here, we must speak frankly of the very crisis of the left. In many countries, communist and labor movements suffered historic defeats during the neoliberal offensive of the late 20th century. The unions were weakening. The political formation has declined. The electoral conflict has replaced mass mobilization. NGOs have replaced popular structures.
Over the past forty years, historic national liberation parties (such as the Indian National Congress and the ANC) and Social Democratic parties have exhausted their missions — they no longer defend the fundamental principles of social welfare. These parties no longer believe in redistribution and have adopted the austerity framework of the International Monetary Fund as their own. This type of power-taking devastated the political landscape, allowing governments to ignore the immediate needs of their people while meeting the needs of the rich, including bondholders. The collapse of social democracy forced the left to expand its historical mission of fighting for revolutionary transformation to include the struggle for the immediate needs of the people. Despite its limited resources, it is the left that has been at the forefront of the fight to guarantee social assistance, food, water and medical care to increasingly desperate populations.
Gérard Sekoto – South Africa 1958 – « Soweto Street »
The future will not be decided by the calculations of the elites or by the benevolence of the institutions. The decision will be up to the organization. The ruling classes are organized worldwide through business, banks, media and military alliances. The peoples of the world must organize themselves with the same seriousness. It requires patience, ideological clarity and a dependence on socialist politics, not as nostalgia but as a necessity. Unity is essential. A living left will always harbor different traditions and debates, but we must recognize the main contradiction between work and capital, between the vast majority that produces social wealth and the tiny minority that appropriates it. As the Secretary General of the SACP, Solly Mapaila, said: « We are not enemies, despite our differences. When the left is fragmented, reactionary forces take advantage of despair. But when progressive movements act together through political education, mass mobilization and concrete struggle, workers begin to recognize their own collective power.
That is why rebuilding the power of the working class is the strategic task that awaits us. This involves not only electoral alliances or behind-the-scenes negotiations between elites, but also an organization rooted among workers, the unemployed, women, students, informal sector workers, peasants and communities. The left must find the traditions of political education, mass democratic organization, collective discipline and internationalism. It is not about charity between nations, but about the recognition that the working classes of the world face a common enemy: the system of capital accumulation and imperial domination.
Socialism is no longer just an aspiration. It is an essential condition for human survival. But socialism will not be born spontaneously. It must be built by struggle, by institutions of popular power and by organized movements anchored in the daily life of the people. We have examples of this type of construction in the cooperatives created by the left in Kerala, in the neighborhoods of the Rural Workers’ Movement without land in Brazil and in the Red Caravans of the SACP. These projects are the « steps yet »: fragments of a future that has not yet fully materialized, but which is already being built in the present. These experiences are what Karl Marx called « possible communism ».
That’s why this kind of meeting is important. They cannot immediately resolve all strategic issues but represent efforts to rebuild collective political capacity after decades of fragmentation. The road ahead will be difficult. But the story remains open. Imperialism is powerful, but it is not invincible. Capitalism is violent, but it is not eternal. The working classes and oppressed peoples continue to be the protagonists of history. Our task is to help organize this historical force in a conscious, international way and with revolutionary patience.
Our meeting took place not far from Soweto, where fifty years ago, on the morning of June 16, 1976, black students began a protest against the unworthyness of being deprived of the right to learn in their own language and forced to study in Afrikaans. As thousands of young students marched, police opened fire, killing at least 176 people and injuring more than a thousand. Hector Pieterson, 12, was one of the first students to be shot. Photographer Sam Nzima captured the image of student Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying Hector, dying, with Hector’s sister, Antoinette, running by their side. The now iconic photography inspired Dumile Feni’s 1987 painting presented above. The shooting did not stop.
« Just a small atrocity, in the heart of the city » Soweto Blues
These are the lyrics that Miriam Makeba, the South African singer and anti-apartheid activist, sang in « Soweto Blues », the powerful song composed by Hugh Masekela after the massacre. Fifty years after Soweto, South African children still need a life – and so do we.
Sincerely, Vijay Prashad
Published by: Luís Indriunas – Brasil de Fato – June 16, 2026
Photo of a cover: George Pemba – South Africa – 1973 « Shameless »
