European Struggles: Forging links between students and workers in Italy
Image from original site of website page of “Organizzazione per il partito comunista del proletariato” (Italy) – “Organization for the Communist Party of the Proletariat. October 24, 2026; The main placard above reads: “Rents through the roof, pay is only half. We want the future, We want dignity”
Introduction from Editors MLRG.online
This is a response to the call for a General Strike in Italy, emanating from various grass-roots trades unions. It supports the student youth, but also has added demands as shown below. The original article is from the Italian affiliation of the International Conference of Marxist – Leninist Parties and Organisations (ICMLOP). The article below comes from the Italian affifiate “Organizzazione per il partito comunista del proletariato (Italia)”; i.e “Organization for the Communist Party of the Proletariat” (Italy)”. It marks a rising sense of the necessity of student and youth movements to unite with working class movements. This is happening across Europe currently. Tomorrow sees this manifestation in Italy. In the following days follow others across Europe including France and Germany.
MLRG.online, 29 October, 2026.
“October 30: an important day of strikes and mass struggle against austerity and war policies
The general strike on October 30, 2026, called by grassroots trade unions, represents a moment of mobilization for workers and students—a movement sparked by the decision of dockworkers to strike internationally against war, genocide, rearmament, and the militarization of ports.
October 30: an important day of strikes and mass struggle against austerity and war policies
October 24, 2026; Translated via google translated 28 October, 2026
The general strike on October 30, 2026, called by grassroots trade unions, represents a moment of mobilization for workers and students—a movement sparked by the decision of dockworkers to strike internationally against war, genocide, rearmament, and the militarization of ports.
However, it will not be only dockworkers who mobilize. Driven by the scourge of layoffs, the high cost of living, deepening impoverishment, and yet another austerity- and war-focused budget, they will be joined in protest by factory workers, the unemployed, students, small-scale farmers, truck drivers, and bakers—all crushed by big capital and its current government.
These events are part of a broader struggle by the masses across Europe (in Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Albania, etc.) in response to the housing crisis, the high cost of living, austerity, cuts to social spending, militarism, and pro-war policies.
Social anger is mounting in the face of the false promises and contempt shown by bourgeois politicians, who act solely in the interests of financial monopolies. These figures cry out over the shattered windows of luxury shops, while the pockets of the working class are empty, supermarket shelves are bare, and the wealth of these parasites continues to grow! The only responses the Meloni government offers to the needs of millions of young people are draconian penalties for minors and those who participate in road blockades, along with the deployment of another 500 soldiers in Milan.
Yet, the flames of resistance are rising in various countries; despite harsh repression, this fire has the potential to flare up and spread even further.
Let us work to unite these currents of struggle around a class-based platform, politicizing the existing discontent and directing it against the bourgeoisie and its reactionary government.
We demand:
- A total ban on layoffs.
- A substantial, across-the-board, tax-free wage increase.
- Full-salary wage support (CIG) funded by corporate profits.
- Abolition of precarious employment.
- An end to price hikes; abolition of VAT on essential goods.
- Drastic reduction in utility costs—electricity, water, gas, and telecommunications—for workers and students.
- Introduction of a 10% tax targeting the wealthiest 10% of society.
- Highly progressive taxation on profits, investment income, interest, and earnings.
- Recovery of 100 billion euros annually in lost tax revenue due to tax evasion.
- No to rearmament and military spending; a major increase in investment for education, healthcare, public transport, social housing, and environmental restoration.
- Abolition of “security” decrees and the removal of restrictions on the right to protest and strike.
- Withdrawal from NATO and the EU; removal of all US military bases.
- Severing of all ties with the genocidal state of Israel. Solidarity with the workers and peoples resisting imperialism, Zionism, and fascism!
We work toward unity of action among the exploited; we build struggle and strike committees; we develop class solidarity—linking the fight against exploitation, repression, militarism, and environmental devastation to the struggle to abolish the capitalist-imperialist system that gives rise to these conditions.
The key factor is the entry of the entire working class into the fray, in order to shift the balance of power against the bourgeoisie and draw in other oppressed social strata that are also suffering under the current situation.
Our immediate objective is to deepen the crisis of the Meloni government until it falls, and to prevent the rise of another far-right administration. We do this without fostering any illusions about liberal-reformists; instead, we fight in the factories and on the streets to defend the interests of the proletariat—striving for a government that secures bread, peace, employment, and freedom for workers, the exploited, and the youth!
Within this process of struggle, we must promote the formation of a broad popular front encompassing all sectors of the working masses—with the organized working class at the helm as the decisive leading force—to break the arbitrary and reactionary power of the capitalists, the parasites, and the millionaires.
In this new era of mobilization, a new generation of proletarian militants is already emerging. We call upon them to join our efforts to restore to the working class its own independent, revolutionary party—a party to guide the struggle toward a new and superior society: socialism.
Organization for the Communist Party of the Proletariat (Italy)
