Far-right Dutch coalition government collapses

Parwini Zora & Daniel Woreck

Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right party PVV, or Party for Freedom, talks to the media after a meeting with speaker of the House Vera Bergkamp, two days after Wilders won the most votes in a general election, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday November 24, 2023. [AP Photo/Peter Dejong]

The collapse of the far-right coalition government in the Netherlands on June 3 marks a new stage in the political crisis of Dutch and European capitalism. After only eleven months in office, Geert Wilders—the neo-fascist leader of the Freedom Party (PVV)—withdrew his party from the ruling coalition, bringing down the four-party government formed eight months after the November 2023 elections, in which the PVV emerged as the strongest force in parliament. This marks the downfall of the most right-wing government in the Netherlands since World War II. Fresh elections have been called for October 2025.

Wilders, the most seasoned and, with 27 years, longest-serving member of parliament, has functioned as the Dutch bourgeoisie’s leading far-right ideologist, playing a pivotal role in driving state policy ever further to the right. For over two decades, he has shaped migration policy and legitimised a steady expansion of repressive state measures, including policing powers, surveillance, and anti-terror laws—setting the tone for every successive government regardless of formal coalition composition. His central role in the present crisis is not an aberration, but the culmination of a prolonged authoritarian drift within the Dutch ruling class heightened by the surge of international class conflict.

The immediate pretext for the government’s collapse, as portrayed by both international and local media, is the supposed “refusal” of Wilders’ coalition partners—the right-wing People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the New Social Contract (NSC), and the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB)—to support his draconian “10-point asylum plan,” unveiled at a press conference in The Hague on May 26. This is a political lie.

While Wilders’ authoritarian and xenophobic proposals triggered the formal breakdown, the disagreement within the ruling elite, including the nominal left, is not over the repression of migrants—on which all factions broadly agree—but tactical issues on the form and timing of these draconian, anti-democratic measures.

In fact, the coalition’s governing agreement from May 2024 already enshrined the goal of establishing “the strictest admission regime for asylum” in the EU. All three parties were instrumental in passing legislation such as the Asylum Emergency Measures Act, restricting family reunification, instituting a two-tier refugee system, and reintroducing border controls.

The coalition parties are not opposed to Wilders’ plan in principle, but fear that an aggressive rollout could provoke further mass resistance. The collapse of the government and the accompanying rhetoric reflect not a divergence in policy, but in strategy—how best to impose a deeply unpopular agenda of imperialist war, austerity and state repression without igniting a broader political crisis that is already underway as part of an international development.

The NSC’s Nicolien van Vroonhoven admitted that the government’s asylum policies already “walked the edge of the law,” while criticising Wilders not for substance but for “presentation.” GroenLinks–PvdA and the Socialist Party (SP), the nominal left and opposition on the other hand, have supported the governing parties in backing rising military budgets and NATO’s war drive against Russia.

As the government collapses, representatives across the entire political establishment have voiced grievous concerns over any delay in enforcing its right-wing program both at home and abroad. The VVD’s Deputy Leader, Marieke de Jong, warned that “this collapse threatens the stability necessary to maintain our commitments to national security and economic growth,” emphasizing the “urgent need for swift elections to restore order.”

Pieter van Loon, leader of the BBB, expressed disappointment, stating, “Our efforts to support rural communities and maintain balanced policies have been undermined by internal conflicts, and this instability will hurt those who depend on us.” Jimmy Dijk, leader of the SP, responded to Wilders’ plan in an earlier reaction on X (May 26, 2025): “What a cry. You yourself formed this cabinet and you yourself put this failed minister in charge of migration. You have achieved nothing.”

While the ministers of Wilders’ PVV have left the government, unelected Prime Minister Dick Schoof, a former spy, is to remain in office as “caretaker prime minister.” He is attending the NATO summit on June 24 to reaffirm the Netherlands €19 billion defence budget and its pledges of F-16 deliveries to Ukraine as well as the continued political and logistical support to Israel in its genocide in Gaza.

As the Dutch financial and ruling elite contemplates the best course to push ahead its class interests, the Dutch working class, like its counterparts elsewhere, is mired in an intensifying social crisis and sharp rises in the cost of living. Inflation remains high at 3.2 percent, well above the eurozone average. Wages have failed to keep pace, thanks to the trade-union supported “collective labour agreements” yielding tiny increases, insufficient to offset years of real-term wage decline.

Essential services are increasingly out of reach: nearly 45 percent of Dutch residents cite rising costs as their primary concern. Average waiting times for social housing range from 7 to 19 years, due to systematic cuts and soaring rents. The privatised health care system continues to burden workers with a steady rise in mandatory insurance premiums. Nearly 60 percent of older workers struggle to remain employed past age 55, often forced into temporary or part-time contracts and with declining pensions that hardly cover basic expenses.

Amid this unravelling social crisis precipitated and intensified by the international and Dutch ruling elite, the political establishment, working hand-in-glove with its media accomplices, have escalated anti-immigrant rhetoric. Exploiting burning concerns over housing, jobs, adequate pay and access to deteriorating public services, they aim to pit workers against workers—to fracture class unity and obscure the real source of the crisis: the failure of capitalism to meet even the most basic needs of society.

Wilders’ newest asylum plan—which openly violates even bourgeois law such as the Geneva Conventions, Dutch law, and EU regulations—called for the suspension of all asylum and family reunification procedures, mass deportations (particularly of Syrians), the closure of refugee reception centres, and a ban on dual citizenship. It demanded military control over borders and intensified police crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests.

Particularly over the past months, a wave of protests and strikes across all sectors have swept the Netherlands. On May 18, in a protest that was hardly under the grip of official political parties and affiliated trade unions, over 100,000 people demonstrated in The Hague against the Israeli assault on Gaza—the largest anti-war protest in two decades. Tens of thousands marched in Amsterdam a week later on May 24 against xenophobia and racism, after Wilders had announced his 10-point plan.

Starting June 6, railway workers have entered strikes nationally demanding wage increases and improved working conditions. University staff and students are expected to strike in Amsterdam on June 10 against a planned €1.1 billion in education cuts to compensate for the hikes in military budgets. Another mass anti-genocide protest is planned to take place in The Hague on June 15, followed by a major demonstration against the NATO war summit on June 22.

Wilders’ calculated exit has also been shaped by drastically falling poll numbers for all coalition parties. As of the most recent polls, PVV is projected to drop from 37 to 29 seats, the BBB to 3, and the NSC to 1—losing 19 of its 20 seats. These figures reflect growing hostility to the entire political establishment and its policies, not just to Wilders and his party. Wilders hopes to make a comeback with a stronger PVV based on a vicious xenophobic and anti-Islamic campaign, to sweep to power in October.

It is politically fatal to place hopes in pseudo-left satellites and parties such as GroenLinks–PvdA or in the trade union bureaucracy. Dick Koerselman, interim chairman of FNV (Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging), one of the two largest trade union confederations in the Netherlands with an infamous record in suppressing strikes and upholding “social partnership” with the state apparatus, called the fall of the cabinet “good news for the Netherlands.”

Eighty-five years ago, Leon Trotsky wrote: “The bourgeoisie has managed to convert our planet into a foul prison.” That prison remains intact, presided over by an oligarchy that enriches itself through war, austerity, and genocide.

The Dutch bourgeoisie finds itself in a political impasse. Following decades of austerity, the working class faces soaring levels of social inequality, deteriorating public services, broader militarisation, and the persecution of immigrants and refugees in a country, where millionaires outnumber the number of refugees. The fall of the Wilders-led cabinet is not the end of far-right politics in the Netherlands but a signal that the bourgeoisie is recalibrating its methods for enforcing authoritarian forms of rule.

Framework deal to maintain US-China trade truce

Nick Beams

Top-level trade talks between the US and China being held in London ended late yesterday with the announcement that a “framework” deal had been reached to restore a truce in the trade war.

The agreement was reached after two days of intensive talks. No details were given.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent [AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File]

The US team, which was led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, is returning to Washington to present the deal to US president Trump.

China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Li Chenggang described the talks as “rational, in-depth and candid” and that the two sides had agreed to implement the consensus reached in Geneva last month.

But the fact they went deep into the second day indicated there were major sticking points.

The London talks were organised after a one-and-a-half-hour phone conversation between US President Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping last week.

The phone call, initiated by Washington, was held as it became clear that the “truce” agreed to in Geneva last month was about to break down with both sides denouncing the other for not carrying out the agreement. The US accused China of a slow rollout of rare earths while Beijing pointed to the imposition of additional high-tech controls and threats to exclude Chinese students.

Before getting underway the head of the White House’s National Economic Council Kevin Hassett indicated the talks would centre on the issue of US high-tech bans on China and the supply of rare earth minerals to the US.

He told the US business channel CNBC at the weekend that “after the handshake … export controls from the US will be eased and the rare earths will be released in volume.”

But Hasset made clear that the “very, very high-end Nvidia stuff is not what I’m talking about.”

Nvidia is the world’s leading manufacturer of the most advanced chips used in the development of artificial intelligence. Hassett indicated that there could be a loosening of controls on less advanced semi-conductors which were “very important” for China.

During the talks there was virtually no news on their content apart from limited comments by Lutnick and Bessent. Lutnick said at the start of the yesterday’s second round that they were “going well.”

At the end of the day, Bessent returned to Washington to testify before Congress. “We’ve had two days of productive talks, they are ongoing” he told reporters. The discussions would continue between Lutnick and Greer and their Chinese counterparts “as needed.”

It appears they centred on what bans on semi-conductors from the US would be lifted in return for an increased supply of rare earths.

Any concession on this score, when the framework is announced, provided Trump agrees with it, would represent a blow to the US. Its key objective is to crush China’s technological development which is regarded in all sections of the American political and military establishment as being central to the maintenance of US global dominance.

“A US decision to roll back some portion of the technology controls would very much be viewed as a win by China,” Dexter Roberts of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub told Bloomberg. The possibility of unwinding “any controls” had seemed “pretty much unthinkable” until recently.

The measures instigated by the US have certainly impacted China, but as is widely acknowledged they have not stopped its high-tech development.

As a recent article in the New York Times noted: “The US has tried almost everything to win the tech race against China—across areas as varied as AI, energy, autonomous vehicles, drones and EVs. So far, none of it has worked.”

No doubt with an eye on the profits to be made in China, Jensen Huang, the head of Nvidia which is at the centre of the bans, called into question their efficacy during an earnings call last month.

“Shielding Chinese chip makers from US competition only strengthens them abroad and weakens America’s position. Export restrictions have spurred China’s innovation and scale.”

If China has forced some concessions, it will be due to the stranglehold it has on critical minerals.

There have been concerns expressed that unless their supply is increased, sections of US industry, especially auto production, could start coming to a halt.

China has a near monopoly on the processing and manufacture of rare earths needed in the production of magnets which can function at high temperatures. Auto producers have warned they could run out of supplies in a matter of days or weeks.

The magnets are used in the electric motors that run brakes, steering and fuel injectors. According to a recent article by New York Times Beijing correspondent Keith Bradsher, who has made a study of rare earths for more than a decade, said: “The motors in a luxury car ... use as many as 13 magnets. Factory robots depend on rare earth magnets too.”

The problem with the supply of rare earths, which are also vital in semi-conductor production, is not so much finding them but in extracting and processing them. They are bound together chemically in the raw minerals and can require a sequence of possibly more than 100 processes using strong acids. China refines more than 99 percent of heavy rare earths, the least common.

“Processing rare earths is technically demanding,” Bradsher wrote, “but China has developed new processes. Rare earth chemistry programs are offered in 39 universities across the country, while the United States has no similar programs.”

In an article published this week, he drew attention to another rare earth, samarium, which is used almost entirely in military applications to make magnets that can stand temperatures high enough to melt lead without losing their magnetic force. Other rare earths can withstand the heat of a petrol engine but not the greater heat in a military application.

“The main American user of samarium is Lockheed Martin,” Bradsher wrote, “an aerospace and military contractor that puts about 50 pounds of samarium magnets in each F-35 fighter jet.”

While China eased some of the controls on rare earths, there had been no sign of the loosening of restrictions on the supply of samarium. The rare earth Mountain Pass mine in California, which has a history of opening and closing, attempted to produce samarium when it reopened in 2014. But it closed again a year later when it could not compete with China—problem for many sections of US industry.

If the US has been forced to make concessions to China in the London talks, it will not mean any lessening of its economic war against Beijing. Whatever tactical shifts it may be forced to make, the guiding strategy of suppressing China remains and the increasing failure of economic measures to achieve this goal, means military measures will be intensified.

The economic war is thus intimately connected to the ongoing coup by the Trump administration to establish a fascistic presidential dictatorship—war against the geo-political and geo-economic rivals of US imperialism requires the abolition of democratic rights at home.

Ukraine war escalates, as Russia warns of nuclear war should peace talks fail

Andrea Peters

An explosion is seen after a Russian air strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday, June 6, 2025. [AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka]

Russia has launched a series of large-scale air attacks over the last several days, in response to Kiev’s recent attempt to blow up the bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland and assaults on airfields thousands of miles away from the Russian-Ukrainian border and deep in Moscow’s territory.

Since Sunday night, more than 800 drones and missiles have been launched against Ukraine. While Kiev claims most were shot down, there were strikes across the country, including in the capital city and the Dubno airbase in the west, where American-made F-16 fighters are stationed. Poland reported scrambling jets in western Ukraine on Sunday night in response to the air assault.

On the ground, Russian troops have now retaken Sumy in Ukraine’s northeast, reversing gains Kiev made three years ago. Moscow also reports that it has pushed into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine. Kiev denies this, claiming Moscow is spreading “false information.” If true, this will “create new problems for Kyiv’s much-stretched forces,” noted CNN in an article on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Zelensky government is continuing its onslaught. This past weekend, drones damaged a Russian airfield in Nizhniy Novgorod and a factory in Cheboksary that makes war materiel, resulting in the suspension of production at the plant. Both are located far to the east of Moscow. On Tuesday, a chemical facility in Tula Oblast caught fire after being hit for the second time. Flights at airports serving Russia’s first and second largest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, were briefly halted that day due to drone attacks. Bombings in Belgorod, a Russian oblast bordering Ukraine, occur daily.

In April, President Zelensky reported that his soldiers are operating on the ground in Belgorod, a fact acknowledged at the time by unofficial Russian sources. This is Ukraine’s second incursion into Russian territory, after Kiev’s now-failed attempt to seize the region of Kursk in 2024.  

The escalation of the fighting, sought by NATO, risks instigating nuclear war. The European powers are vehemently opposed to any America-led peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, which threatens to shatter the Euro-Atlantic alliance and is likely to be made at their expense.

At the same time, the Trump administration is in no way encumbered by the president’s promises to end the war “within 24 hours” of taking office. It has its own calculations as to what is profitable for US imperialism and what concessions, if any, it is willing to make on the Russian front in order that it may concentrate on the Chinese one. Despite overtures to Moscow, the White House may retreat from efforts to settle the conflict.

On June 5, after a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump declared that Ukraine and Russia were akin to “two young children fighting like crazy.” “You’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” he said. Delivered in his usual crude style, the White House leader made clear that he sees a strategic advantage in allowing Russia and Ukraine to exhaust themselves through war.

Trump simultaneously threatened to punish both Kiev and Moscow with sanctions. “We’ll be very, very, very tough, and it could be on both countries to be honest,” he said.

Shortly before Trump issued these statements, Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey for a second round of US-brokered peace talks. The discussion lasted an hour and resulted in an agreement to exchange prisoners and war dead but nothing else. After delays over the weekend, the process began on Monday.

While some news sources say that the number of people, alive or not, changing hands is unknown, the British Guardian reported that 1,200 members of each side’s armed forces are returning home, namely those wounded and under the age of 25. Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky told the press on Monday that his country is prepared to return 6,000 soldiers’ bodies to Ukraine, but that the Zelensky government is refusing to accept them because it does not want to acknowledge the scale of its losses.

With his military facing a catastrophic situation and his far-right government fearing the prospect of a peace deal worked out at their expense, Zelensky vacillates between obsequiousness before Washington and pressing it for more guns.

On June 8, he gave an interview to ABC News in which he went back and forth between implying that the White House was undermining the war effort, demanding an expansion of the conflict with American backing and declaring that Ukraine was ready to lay down its arms.

In his exchange with ABC’s Martha Raddatz, Zelensky lamented that the US has reneged on its promise to send Kiev 20,000 missiles capable of taking out Russian drones. The White House sent them to the Middle East instead, he said.

Zelensky insisted that this was a mistake. “We can only counter” Russia “with force,” he declared. “We can stop [Russia] in their tracks, and probably then they will be ready for some kind of diplomacy and talks. We have to prepare such plans, and we are not stopping.

“I am convinced that the president of the United States has all the powers and enough leverage to step up,” he said, insisting that Trump must exert “hard pressure.”

Zelensky further claimed that Kiev was prepared to lay down all its arms, if Moscow did as well. Last week’s bombing run on Russian airfields makes clear, however, that Ukraine and, above all, NATO and the US are prepared to risk nuclear war should they not get what they want.

The same day that Zelensky gave his interview, several representatives of the Russian government outlined their country’s position. Speaking of Moscow’s recent territorial gains in central Ukraine, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that his country’s armed forces initiated their latest offensive after Ukraine refused to recognize Russian territorial control during the recent peace talks.

“Anyone who does not want to acknowledge the realities of war in negotiations will receive new realities on the ground,” Medvedev threatened on the social media outlet Telegram.

At the same time, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the press that peace depended on “practical steps aimed at eliminating the root causes of the fundamental contradictions between us in the area of security,” by which he meant halting the expansion of NATO.

Without this, he said, “it is simply impossible to resolve the current conflict in the Euro-Atlantic region.”

According to Reuters, Moscow is demanding a written commitment that NATO will not extend itself further east.

Identifying the United States and NATO as instigators of the war, Ryabkov said the ceasefire talks test “the seriousness of Washington’s intentions to straighten out our relations.” He further told TASS news agency that the war would not stop until NATO troops are pulled out of the Baltic.

In a demonstration, however, of its position, in late May, Germany deployed 4,800 soldiers to the Baltic country of Lithuania on a permanent mission, the first of its kind since the World War II.

The implications of what would happen should a peace deal fail to take into account Moscow’s central demand were made clear the very same day by Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s lead negotiator in the talks with Ukraine.

“If you stop the conflict along the front line and don’t agree on a real peace, just make some kind of truce, then it will be—you know, such a disputed region between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Karabakh—then this region will turn into a huge Karabakh. After some time, Ukraine together with NATO, with allies will join NATO, will try to reclaim it, and it will be the end of the planet, it will be a nuclear war,” Medinsky said.

In a Kremlin briefing likewise delivered on June 9, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia reserves the right to deploy short- and medium-range missiles if NATO’s aggression on its borders does not halt.

Merz government tightens migration policy and arms police

Johannes Stern

Alexander Dobrindt being sworn in as federal minister of the interior on May 6, 2025 [Photo by DBT / Thomas Imo / photothek]

While President Donald Trump is mobilising the National Guard and the military against the population in the United States, the German government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) is also moving towards an authoritarian police state. The latest decisions by the federal cabinet on migration policy and the planned arming of the federal police with Tasers mark a further escalation. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (Christian Social Union, CSU) is openly pursuing the agenda of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

In recent weeks, the cabinet has passed several draft laws that effectively abolish the right to asylum and humanitarian protection and facilitate the deportation of tens of thousands of people.

Among other things, the government wants to define so-called “safe countries of origin” by means of a statutory order, thereby massively expanding deportations to these countries. Unlike a formal law, such orders do not have to be debated and passed by the Bundestag or the Bundesrat (lower and upper houses of parliament). In their coalition agreement, the CDU, CSU and Social Democratic Party (SPD) had already announced that they would expand the list of safe countries of origin. Countries such as Algeria, India, Morocco and Tunisia are being discussed.

At the same time, key rights are being undermined: family reunification for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection is being stopped and facilitated naturalisation is being abolished. These measures not only violate fundamental human rights, they also contradict applicable European law. The right to respect for family life (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) is being trampled underfoot, as is the individual right to asylum.

The refugee organisation Pro Asyl reacted with horror to the measures. It said that this would close legal and safe escape routes. “It is a disaster for the families affected,” said Tareq Alaows. “The de facto separation will last longer than two years, especially for families who have been waiting for years for their applications to be processed.”

The entry rejections at Germany’s external borders are particularly extreme. Despite a ruling by the Berlin Administrative Court on June 2 that the rejection of asylum seekers at the borders is illegal, Interior Minister Dobrindt stated: “We will continue to act at the border if necessary. Germany must decide for itself who enters the country.”

With this openly unlawful stance, the government is following the example of Trump, who also ignores court rulings in the United States. The German constitution and international agreements are being undermined in an authoritarian manner.

The project to promote freedom of information, “FragDenStaat” (Ask the State), has filed a criminal complaint against the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the President of the Federal Police, Dieter Romann, for “inciting subordinates to commit a criminal offence.” “The rejections” are “criminal offences” and could be “considered coercion through abuse of official authority.” The Legal Tribune Online website also speaks of an “obvious breach of law.”

At the same time, the authorities are carrying out brutal deportations, which are increasingly meeting with opposition from the population. In Frankfurt, an Afghan family with two school-age children had 20 minutes to pack before being deported to India. In Offenbach, a nursery school teacher was deported to Lithuania—even though she was considered a much-needed skilled worker. Such individual fates are not exceptions, but the systematic expression of an inhumane deportation policy.

According to the federal government, this policy is to be tightened at European level as well. “We are working with a two-pillar strategy to combat illegal migration, namely a European pillar and a national pillar,” Dobrindt told the Bundestag on June 6.

The European pillar included, among other things, “the implementation and tightening of the Common European Asylum System, ... a common European return regulation and, yes, the establishment of European asylum centres at the external borders of the European Union.” In other words, mass deportations and the locking up of refugees in concentration camps at the external borders.

Significantly, after Dobrindt’s list of planned measures, the Bundestag minutes note the interjection of an AfD member of parliament: “The AfD is working, I would say!”

And that’s not all. Parallel to the tightening of migration policy, the state apparatus of repression is being massively beefed up. Dobrindt announced that the federal police would be equipped with “Tasers” across the board. He said it was “about expanding the repertoire of our forces and protecting lives.” This is pure cynicism.

Tasers are not harmless or even “life-saving” alternatives, but dangerous weapons. These electric shock guns fire high-voltage darts that penetrate clothing and hook themselves into body tissue. The electric pulse can be triggered multiple times and regularly causes serious injury or even death.

In the United States, where Tasers have long been part of everyday police practice, the number of deaths resulting from such use is well documented. An investigation by the Associated Press found that between 2012 and 2021, 538 people were killed by stun guns.

The planned arming of the police does not serve to protect the population, but rather to intimidate and violently repress it. Like the attacks on migrants, it is directed against the entire working class. Amid growing social inequality, massive rearmament and preparations for war, the ruling class wants to nip any opposition in the bud and, if necessary, suppress it with potentially lethal weapons.

The criticism of the latest decisions by the Greens and the Left Party is tame and hypocritical. The Greens spokesperson on refugee policy, Filiz Polat, described the “suspension of family reunification” as “problematic.” As part of the last federal government, the Greens themselves had constantly tightened refugee policy. The Left Party also criticises “the government’s right-wing policies” in its Sunday speeches, but, like the Greens, voted in the Bundesrat for the Merz government’s war credits. And, as a governing party at the state level, it is involved in brutal deportations.

The tightening of migration policy and the expansion of the police state are two sides of the same coin: they serve to prepare for social conflicts and to enforce the massive rearmament and war course against the enormous opposition in the population.

Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, Germany is to become “fit for war” again, as Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) already demanded in autumn 2023. The reintroduction of compulsory military service, a target military budget of 5 percent of gross domestic product (around €225 billion), preparations for war against the nuclear power Russia and growing tensions between the imperialist powers, especially the US—all this requires, as in the 1930s, a break with democratic rule and the establishment of a dictatorship.