Editorial note:

The following text has been written as a letter of Leninist Trotskyist Tendency to the Italian group Voce Operaia, aiming at a discussion on the thesis written by that group on the world political situation. Very soon Voce Operaia stopped all relations. The LTT consisted at that time of some German, Belgian and British comrades and later South African comrades. The LTT was dissolved in the mid-nineties.

We publish the text, because the debate about the chracter of the present era ist still of actual interest. In addition the part on the collapse of the workers states of the COMECON passed through the test of events.