Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action)
Index
Part 1: Critical approach to the positions of the CPG
• Reasons for a response to the Communist Party of Greece (CPG)
• Greece must leave NATO! Or should not it?
• The CPG’s subterfuge to avoid debate
• No support for capitalists?
• Reactionary Venezuela?
• The member organizations of the Platform “ignore or deny” that the current mode of production in the world is capitalist…
Part 2: Criticism of the ideological foundations of the CPG
• A handful of countries?
• “Imperialist pyramid” or Lenin’s theory of imperialism?
• Idealism hidden in “Imperialist pyramid”
• Methodological error
• No participation of communists in governments led by the bourgeoisie?
• Are there no stages between capitalism and socialism?
• Erroneous positions are not harmless
• Incorrect and damaging derivations
Part 3: Imperialism vs. imperialism?
• A long work
• Brief and concise summary of the “imperialist pyramid” and the CPG study method
• A big mess
• China and Russia belong to the G20
• State presence in Russian companies
• Foreign penetration of the Russian economy
• “Gigantic amounts” of capital export from Russia
• The “big” Russian banking
• Warmongering Russia?
• A brief parenthesis
(The previous sections have been published in past issues.)
A brief parenthesis
Dear readers, we had announced that this time we would focus on the Russian productive structure. However, in the last few days there has been an event of great importance which we cannot ignore and which requires a few words on our part, so we will continue the thread of this work in the next issue… although the event to which we refer is part of the central theme we are dealing with.
We refer here to Iran’s retaliatory attack against the Zionist regime of Israel, called True Promise, in response to the latter’s (i.e. Israel’s) attack against the Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus, Syria.
We express our strong support for the True Promise retaliatory attack. We would like to point out that Iran has taken a balanced (some would say overly moderate) stance in the face of the immeasurable crimes of the Zionist State of Israel and the US (and with the participation of the UK, Germany, France and other countries) against the Semitic Palestinian people, the constant provocations against its own country and the ongoing attacks against Syria.
Yemen, Hezbollah and resistance forces in Iraq joined the Iranian response.
The United States, for its part, asked Iran not to attack US forces in the region, to which Iran responded that it would not do so unless they intervened, demonstrating its firm determination not to allow anyone to dictate what to do.
Iran’s current reaction seems to us inevitable, forced and desired by Israel and the US and certainly welcomed by the vast majority of the peoples of the region. The international bourgeois press will defame Iran. It will label it as an aggressor. We have known this media manipulation in the past and we also see it in the present, for example in the way information is delivered about the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine and in the Palestinian conflict. Victims are turned into aggressors, aggressors into victims.
Iran did not intend to attack Israel on a large scale, but wanted to leave a message: Israel must know that its actions would no longer go unpunished. It would surely have suited Israel if Iran had attacked its country in such a way that the US would have been forced to intervene in its defense against Iran.
The proof that Iran never intended to launch a full-scale military attack against Israel is the fact that if US and Israeli intelligence had actually had information about such an attack by Iran, the US would have moved warships from the western to the eastern Mediterranean and many more aircraft would have moved to bases near Iran, such as Cyprus, although not to countries in the region, because Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and even Turkey have denied the US NATO bases for a confrontation with Iran. The latter is indicative of a trend in the Middle East region: that countries in the region look with increasing respect to Iran and with decreasing respect to the United States.
Iran’s political posture and military actions are historically diametrically opposed to those of Israel. While Israel is preferentially engaged in attacking the civilian population of Gaza, Iran concentrated exclusively on military targets in Israel.
The great dream of the Israeli bourgeoisie and its representatives in parliament and government, practically since the foundation of the Zionist state, has been the destruction of its “enemies”, that is, of all those states that oppose its expansionist policy, its geographic role as a NATO “military base” in the region, the occupation of Palestine, the genocide and racial discrimination of the Palestinian Semitic people, etc. Israel is the only country in the world that has not defined its borders. For Israel, Saudi Arabia is part of the “hostile” world, but it has not been able to confront it in the desired way because Saudi Arabia has been and is a privileged ally of the United States in the region. Therefore, Israel was forced to seek agreements with Saudi Arabia, such as the “Abraham Accords”. But wherever the protective hand of the US has not been there, it has pursued an almost unbelievable policy of aggression. In Iraq, for example, Israel’s policy was to overthrow Saddam Hussein, who opposed Israel. In Syria, Israel supported all the jihadists, including the Islamic State itself, in order to support the overthrow of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, without success, whose wounded were treated in Israeli hospitals. In Lebanon, Israel has waged three wars to wipe out the country and Hezbollah in particular, also without success. With this policy of aggression, rooted in its origins, Israel has created an unstable situation in the region and for itself. The only more or less secure border Israel has left is the border with Egypt. It is difficult to predict for how long….
The facts show that the two-state solution is unfeasible and that the only solution is the one proposed by Iran itself: a single state in which Palestinians, Jews and Christians coexist on an equal footing. In our opinion, the State of Israel, essentially the product of British imperialism, has no moral right to exist, at least since the beginning of its territorial expansion and the start of the forced displacement and genocide of the Palestinian Semitic people.
In the midst of this growing instability that Israel has brought to the region and which has finally turned against itself, a state has emerged that can confront it: precisely Iran. The Communist Party of Greece criticizes in this way our support for Iran for its resolutely anti-imperialist role:
“On the contrary, it is considered that ‘Russia and China are not aggressive imperialist powers’ and together with others, such as North Korea and Iran, are presented as ‘anti-imperialist’, which, together with the so-called progressive governments of Latin America, resist imperialism.
Moreover, we see that any class-based approach is abandoned as various regional unions, ‘such as ALBA and CELAC’, which basically involve capitalist states but the WAP believes that will ‘bring together the oppressed nations of Latin America’, are praised.”[1]
For the CPG, the resolute anti-imperialist stances of Iran and other countries such as Russia and socialist China and socialist DPRK would be nothing but a farce. In other words, the Iranian retaliatory attack True Promise would not be worth celebrating because it supposedly would not constitute an anti-imperialist gesture. The CPG issued a tepid statement in which, as expected, it did not celebrate True Promise, but merely warned against military escalation:
“Iran’s expected attack on Israel, in retaliation for the criminal attack by the Israeli state on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, with the death of Iranian officials, constitutes a dangerous escalation of the war in the Middle East that could take on frightening proportions in the event of an attack by Israel and its allies against Iran.
The KKE had warned from the very first moment that the Israeli occupation and genocide against the Palestinian people, with the support of the US, NATO and the EU, the Israeli attacks in Syria and Lebanon, as well as the imperialist antagonisms in the Red Sea, with the presence of Euro-Atlantic military forces and the participation of Greece, form the conditions for the generalisation of war and open the ‘gates of hell’. The peoples of the region, including the Greek people, are in the vortex of great dangers.”[2]
It is noteworthy, however, that the CPG did not blame Iran or use words of reproach against it.
Iran is the only country in the region that poses a real threat to Israel, which is de facto a US military base in the middle of the Middle East. Israel alone could not stand up to Iran. The support of US and British imperialism (and other countries such as Germany and France) are essential for its survival. Iran’s first real response to Israel’s permanent and vile provocations meant the flight of more than 300,000 Zionist settlers from the country. This shows that they have no confidence in the ability of their army or their government to protect them from a possible Iranian wrath. If more than 300,000 settlers left Israel as a result of a single attack, it is left to the imagination to estimate how many there would be if Iran were to mount a serious response.
Proof that Israel cannot act with impunity and that it is vulnerable is not the only positive consequence of this important event. An even more important consequence is that the Sunni-Shia divide is narrowing. Hamas’ statement supporting the Iranian reaction is significant. On Sunday, April 14 of this year Hamas declared:
“We, in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), consider the military operation of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the Zionist occupation regime as a natural right and a deserved response to the crime of attacking the Iranian consulate in Damascus and assassinating several leaders of the Revolutionary Guards there.”
Yet another important consequence of the True Promise is that Iran has not only demonstrated with this reaction that it can reach any part of Israeli territory, but also any part of the region where U.S. troops are located. It is not for nothing that the United States asked Iran not to attack its soldiers in the region.
But perhaps the most relevant fact has been the reactions of China and Russia. China, in its characteristic diplomatic posture, has given its approval and support to Iran while maintaining a diplomatic silence, just as it did with Russia and the special military operation in Ukraine. Reading between the lines of recent publications, China’s support and positioning on Iran’s side is clear. In the Global Times one can read the following:
“The fundamental cause of the current conflict between Israel and Iran is the Palestine-Israel conflict. Yet the US turned a blind eye to the root causes of the Middle East crisis. Worse, since the Palestine-Israel conflict began, the US has not made enough effort to stop Israel’s actions, instead it has provided a large amount of military aid and political support to Israel, turning itself into an absolute accomplice and conspirator in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.”[3]
One wonders what argument the CPG would use to qualify such words as imperialist. But in reality we know their reasoning, because according to them, “Russia, China and Iran do not express their support […] because they stand with the peoples’ just cause but because they want to hinder the US plans in the region, to impede it, to afflict it.”[4] Better, it seems, to “not impede” the US….
When China recently defended the Palestinian people’s right to armed struggle before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, it did not do so, of course, “because it supports what is ‘just for the peoples’ but because it wants to hinder US plans in the region, to make it difficult for them”. With these words, the Chinese representative in The Hague, Ma Xinmin, “wanted to impede” the US:
“In pursuit of their right to self-determination, the use of force by the Palestinian people to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is an inalienable right well grounded in international law. […]
The GA resolution 3070 of 1973, I quout: ‘Reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle.’ End of quout. This recognition is also reflected in international conventions, for example, the Arab Convention for Suppressing of Terrorism of 1998 affirms I quout: ‘The right of peoples for combat foreign occupation, aggression by what ever means including arm struggle in order to liberate territories and to secure the right of self definition and independence.’ End of quout. Armed struggle in this context is distinguished form ext of terrorism. It is grounded in the international law. This distinction is acknowledged by several international conventions. For example: Article 3 of the OAU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism, of 1999. I quout: ‘The struggle waged by peoples in accordance with the principles of international law for their liberation or self-determination, including armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression and domination by foreign forces shall not be considered as terrorist acts.’”[5]
Remarkable words that even go beyond China’s traditionally moderate and diplomatic approach to international politics. Russia’s support for Iran’s True Promise was, as usual, rather more direct:
“What was done by the Islamic Republic of Iran in response to this criminal act and in the shadow of the inaction of the (UN) Security Council was the best way to punish the aggressor and a manifestation of the tact and rationality of the Iranian authorities.”
The overt or covert support of Russia and China for Iran and the growing cooperation between these three countries point to a promising future from the point of view of the defeat of imperialism. In the late 1990s Brzezinski had pointed out that potentially the most dangerous scenario for the US and its goal of perpetrating as long as possible its hegemony over the world would be a coalition between China, Russia and perhaps Iran:
“Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘antihegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.”[6]
We are seeing in the present that such a constellation has been constituted….
Notes
[1] Communist Party of Greece (CPG), “On the so-called World Anti-Imperialist Platform and its damaging and disorienting position”, in: https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/On-the-so-called-World-Anti-Imperialist-Platform-and-its-damaging-and-disorienting-position/
[2] Communist Party of Greece (CPG), “Ανακοίνωση του Γραφείου Τύπου για την κλιμάκωση του πολέμου στη Μέση Ανατολή” (in Eglish: “Press Office statement on the escalation of the war in the Middle East”), in: https://www.902.gr/eidisi/politiki/361613/na-dynamosei-i-laiki-apaitisi-gia-apemploki-tis-horas-mas-apo-toys
[3] Global Times: “West wields big stick of sanctions against Iran again, revealing blatant double standards”, Apr 17, 2024 09:17 PM, in: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202404/1310780.shtml
[4] Communist Party of Greece (PCG), “Short answers to current ideological-political questions concerning the Israeli attack and massacre against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip”, in: https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Short-answers-to-current-ideological-political-questions-concerning-the-Israeli-attack-and-massacre-against-the-Palestinian-people-in-the-Gaza-Strip/
[5] TeleSUR, “China defiende lucha armada palestina contra ocupación israelí” (in English: “China defends Palestinian armed struggle against Israeli occupation”), February 22, 2024, in: https://www.telesurtv.net/news/china-cij-derecho-uso-fuerza-palestina-ocupacion-israel–20240222-0014.html
[6] Brzezinski, Zbigniew, “The Grand Chessboard, American Primacz and Its―Geostratgic Imperatives”, Perseus Books Group, April 1997, p. 55