Myanmar - April 12th, 2021   More than two months after the bloody military coup… The revolutionary response of the working class and the exploited continues "How can the revolution win?" (1) From the Collective for the Refoundation of the Fourth International / FLTI, we have published the extensive statement on the revolutionary events that take place in Myanmar issued by the International Socialist Alternative (ISA) * current, which claims to be socialist and comes from the former Trotskyist movement. This declaration even has an annex entitled "How we got here: the history of Myanmar", which gives an account of a historical vision of the brutal looting by imperialism and the impoverishment to which that country and its exploited classes were led as a consequence. We have decided to publish this statement since it gives a truthful account of the events that are taking place in Myanmar, which must be closely followed by advanced workers and revolutionary currents around the world. A new focus of violent clashes between revolution and counterrevolution is developing in that country and impacts internationally. The immediate future and the interests of the Chinese working class, the Indochina Peninsula and the whole of Asia are largely at stake in the fighting in Myanmar, as it was yesterday in Hong Kong. The note that ISA develops is based on a program written from the point of view of the working class and its needs, and tries to propose a way to achieve victory. "How can the revolution win?" is the title of this 03/11 statement that we publish beyond this or that difference we have, and despite the fact that some are not minor. But such a statement tries (and largely succeeds) to provide a socialist and revolutionary perspective on the events that unfold daily and in a dizzying way in Myanmar. As we write this note where we introduce the reading of the ISA declaration, a harsh repression does not cease on the rebellious masses in Myanmar. This has already claimed the lives of more than 700 martyrs, more than 3,500 detainees and hundreds of disappeared. The workers, youth and poor people of Myanmar have not stopped a single day in facing the military coup of February 1 in the streets. To this day the masses continue to respond with pickets, barricade fights, and paralyzing the country with a revolutionary general strike that shakes that nation and also the entire region.   The decisive weight of the working class in the current combats is evident, as they are intervening with their own methods of struggle such as the barricades, the revolutionary strike, the self-defense committees, as the ISA declaration raises. This question places the working class as the leader of the revolutionary uprising of all the oppressed masses who are winning the streets. The demand for the right to self-determination of the oppressed ethnic groups in Myanmar, as also stated in this declaration, is part of the battle for the working class to lead the national struggle and against the big capitalists, imperialism and their counterrevolutionary officers' caste. The working class must take in its hands the fight against all oppression of ethnic groups and nationalities, which are the way through which the bourgeoisie and imperialism impose the super-exploitation of broad layers of the working class and the poor peasantry, fratricidal struggles and a double exploitation and oppression. The militias and the armament of the masses doubly exploited by the Burmese great bourgeoisie must begin to organize together with the strike committees of the working class that has already entered the revolutionary struggle. That is the task of the moment. In this sense, the fight against the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leadership of the Army-Parties that have imposed parliamentary deviations of class conciliation, co-governing together with the military party, is fundamental, as the ISA declaration correctly states. This is the case of the pro-NATO bourgeois wing of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which co-governed with the murderous military and which historically did not resolve even the slightest of the demands for which the masses have risen in years past and they are rising again today. The current counterrevolutionary coup d'état, encouraged in the back rooms by the generals of the "red businessmen" of Beijing, seeks to consolidate itself to establish a maquila that will finally put the workers of Myanmar in prison-factories, without any right to organize or unionize, in the same or worse conditions than in China. US and world imperialism are not at all bothered with this situation and with these perspectives. They save themselves as a "democratic replacement" in case the counterrevolutionary crushing attempt is defeated by the masses. Actually, both in Myanmar, as in neighboring China, Thailand and the entire Indochina Peninsula, the bourgeois slave governments subject the proletariat to conditions of unprecedented misery and wage slavery to feed the imperialist companies that plunder the region, under regimes of terror. A victory of the revolutionary struggle against the coup in Myanmar would be a sudden, high-impact shock on the working class of China, Thailand and the entire region. It would be a call for the uprising of the slaves. This would put the masses of Myanmar immediately on the doorstep of the success of an insurrection of the exploited, which is the only way this revolutionary uprising can win. For this, the destruction of the murderous officer caste of the Armed Forces at the hands of a workers and popular militia, and the setting up of committees of workers, private soldiers, students and all the oppressed popular sectors that today enter the combat, are the tasks of the moment.   The revolutionary general strike of the exploited has already risen to mass political struggle. An insurrectionary process has begun. It is about putting up the dual power that leads the insurrection to victory. For this, the need for a revolutionary combat and insurrectionary party becomes decisive. We will put all our strength at the service of it. In this sense, we publish the ISA declaration that contributes to opening this path and this perspective and from now on, we call on all currents of revolutionary socialism to decisively intervene in this revolution that has begun to arrive in time to collaborate in putting the revolutionary leadership that the rebellious proletariat of Myanmar and all of Asia deserve.   How can the revolution win? This ISA declaration defines the centrality of the events, together with the counterrevolutionary military coup, which is that "the working class occupies a central place: the strike has been the main weapon of the movement and, once again, it is especially effective" . As we have already said, this note correctly describes the military coup and the development of the general strike that is led by a large proletariat of the imperialist maquilas, which is already facing the Military Junta violently with hard fighting in the streets of the entire nation. In relation to this, ISA delves into the general strike day of February 22, when “millions of people went on strike. Not only in sectors where strikes were already taking place, but in all sectors of the economy. From mines and factories to restaurants and informal street vendors. Everything closed and stayed like that all day long. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in all cities and in the countryside”. Likewise, the statement in question gives an account of the union organization of the nation's labor movement: “There is no long tradition of trade unions in Myanmar. Unions were re-established in the 1988 movement against the military junta and have only been functioning legally since 2011. The General Confederation of Trade Unions had only 65,000 members in 2018 out of a population of 54 million. There are some particularly militant unions that have grown on the basis of worker action. This is the case, for example, of the clothing sector, which has grown particularly rapidly in recent years and in which workers have begun to claim their share of the pie”. Along with this, ISA correctly calls for the creation of self-organization and self-defense bodies of the working class and the sectors in struggle: “The power of strikes is important, but at the same time it must be harnessed by the organization of strike committees and regional action committees. (…) Now that the majority of the population of Myanmar is seeking to completely get rid of the military regime, it will be necessary for the movement to establish and control its own organizations and instruments of struggle. The General Strike Committee that was created for the February 22 strike was a promising start. (…) These committees are also necessary to organize self-defense against repression. These committees must be coordinated at the local and national levels, while also managing key aspects of the daily lives of workers and the poor such as the distribution of food, medical care and other urgent needs ”. As we already highlighted in the introduction to this note, the ISA declaration ends by stating the need to unite the workers of the different ethnic groups of the nation, denouncing that: “The military regime has a long tradition of violence against minorities. (…) Uniting the workers and oppressed of the majority population of Bamar with the Shan, the Karen, the Rakhine, (Chinese descendants TN). strengthens the movement. This unity requires respect and, therefore, recognition of the right to self-determination ”. To understand current events, it is essential to read the box that accompanies this statement, entitled, as we said, “How We Got Here: The History of Myanmar”, which presents a chronology and a precise historical description of the dynamics of classes and of the complex situation in that nation, especially in relation to ethnic minorities that are relegated to living as outcasts in their land, lacking the slightest democratic rights, when they are not expelled and condemned to true genocides as in the case of the Rohingya ethnic minority.   Our contribution to conquer the conditions of victory We want to contribute to the search and the conquest of a revolutionary program for the victory of the proletariat of Myanmar and the entire region. For us it is fundamental and decisive to fight for the rising working class of Myanmar to call for a common fight and see its destiny linked to the Chinese proletariat, which, facing the government of the "red businessmen" of that country, has in its hands the possibility of defeat the support the latter give to the counterrevolutionary government of the Myanmar Military Junta. The pro-US imperialism "pseudo-democratic" bourgeoisie tries to make the masses believe that their enemies are not the imperialist transnationals that plunder Myanmar and all of Asia, but that the enemy is China. This perfidious policy of "democratic counterrevolution" tries to put a noose around the neck of the revolutionary struggle of the Myanmar workers and separate them from the struggle of the working class of the entire region. An internationalist and revolutionary program for the proletariat of Myanmar, China and all of Asia is fundamental. This includes a bold call on the Japanese working class to go in support of their oppressed class brothers in the rebellious Myanmar, facing their own imperialist government. On the other hand, for the revolution to triumph, the limits of a revolutionary general strike are clear, which can even defeat the military coup, but cannot resolve the question of power. Therefore, the task of the moment is the struggle to develop, extend, coordinate and set up the armed dual power of the workers, the poor peasants, the popular sectors of the doubly oppressed ethnic groups and their militias. The fight for dual power is the direct consequence of the revolutionary general strike that puts the organization of a victorious insurrection on the order of the day. The general strike, as Trotsky affirms in "Whither France?", poses the problem of power, calls into question which class governs (whether the bourgeoisie or the working class), but does not solve it.   Likewise, as in any revolutionary situation, the fight is for the army base. The struggle for the soldiers' committees and for the arming of the exploited layers of ethnic minorities to be put at the service of setting up a powerful workers and popular militia, is the decisive task. Disarming the police is a combat inseparable from the rise of the workers' militia and the committees of rank and file soldiers, capable of assembling a vigorous dual power. Ultimately, what crowns a revolutionary program in Myanmar today is the struggle for workers 'and peasants' power, based on the struggling mass organizations.   A FLTI Proposal to Myanmar Socialists Let us jointly call for the uprising of the enslaved Chinese workers, the masses of the Indochina Peninsula and the proletariat and youth of Hong Kong, to extend the revolutionary struggle of the working class of Myanmar. Let us call to fill it with solidarity and to carry out common actions so that Myanmar is the revolutionary spark that reignites all of Asia. Because a victorious revolution in Myanmar can only succeed and consolidate itself in the revolutionary uprising of the masses of Asia and the entire world working class.   (1) Title of the statement on the events in Myanmar of the International Socialist Alternative (ISA) of 03/11/21, published on the FLTI website