Dimitrios Patelis | Founding member of the Revolutionary Theory Group (Greece)
Dear friends and comrades,
The invitation extended by the SOVINTERN organizing committee to the World Anti-Imperialist Platform (WAP) is a great honor.
I come from a country whose history includes heroic struggles against imperialism and fascism. During the WWII, the Greek people had been fighting since 1940. It was not until 30 August 1949 that the revolutionary communist Democratic Army of Greece was defeated by the US occupiers and their local collaborators, who but a few years ago were for the most part loyal collaborators of the Nazi occupiers. Tens of thousands of patriots-antifascists were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, exiled to concentration camps, while thousands were executed by the counter-revolutionary regime guided by the USA. The communists were under a regime of illegality and persecution.
The class of capital won this war thanks to the foreign invasion-intervention, in a highly unfavorable international situation for the revolutionary movement of the country. The occupation regime with its US-NATO bases and the suffocating Euro-Atlantic control of the basic structures and functions of the country derive from these legacies.
These historical events are of particular importance at the present situation of WWIII, which is escalating rapidly, especially from 2022 with the Special Military Operation of Russian Federation against Imperialist axis proxy nazi forces in Ukraine. That escalation at the military level involves several regions and countries in many potential and actual war theaters and battle fronts of the Third World War (WWIII) all over the planet: In Central and West Asia, Latin America, Africa, East Asia, Syria, Venezuela, Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, and most recently in Iran.
This escalation raises many theoretical and practical questions: Is the Imperialist axis aggression in Ukraine a local episode? Is the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran and the Axis of Resistance a local or regional conflict? What irreconcilable contradictions have led to the escalating WWIII? What are the camps and the issues at stake in this war? What are the objectives of the US-NATO-EU-Zionist aggressive axis, bearing the stigma of the Epstein criminal organization-gang, in WWIII? Where do they get the “right” to ruthlessly exterminate children in schools, hospitals, universities, vital public infrastructure, and entire national leaderships, to commit genocide, and to dictate their will across the entire planet using their weapons? What does Iran’s epic counterattack and victory signify for the peoples of the region and for the entire world?
Significant changes have taken place over the last few decades in the structure and balance of power on a global scale.
The bourgeois counterrevolutions in the USSR and in the early socialist countries of Europe led to crude imperialist interventions in collaboration with sections of the newly formed local bourgeoisie, to civil wars, separatist nationalist movements, the fragmentation of countries, coups and a series of fascist-style dictatorships. Typical are the cases of the racist regimes of the three Baltic ‘democracies’, openly led for decades by the descendants and spiritual successors of Nazi collaborators, with the full support of the US-NATO-EU.
Similar coup regimes were imposed in the states that emerged from the US-NATO-EU foreign intervention, the “civil war”, the “colour revolutions” and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, but also in the formations that emerged from the bourgeoisie counter-revolution and capitalist restoration in the USSR. Such were the juntas in Georgia and especially the successive coups in Ukraine, culminating in 2014, which led to the imposition of an openly nazi-racist regime by the Euro-Atlantic axis and the unleashing of a genocidal war against the insubordinate population of south-eastern Ukraine.
The world capitalist system today is not in the stage of 20th century imperialism, whose defining feature was state monopoly regulation at the level of the nation state.
Today, capitalism is in the stage of transnational monopoly imposition. This stage is characterised by the attempt to completely subordinate humanity to the most powerful international multi-branch monopoly groups, to the most powerful in terms of capital, to the imperialist countries and their transnational organs. The sphere of circulation (simple export of goods and capital) no longer plays the most important role in the structure of the relations of production of the present stage of imperialism. This role is now played by the sphere of production itself, distributed on a planetary scale and rooted in the technologies and organisation of this production. At this stage, there are structural changes in the global and regional division of labour, changes in the positions and roles in the global production process, linked to the redefinition of the conditions and limits of the extensive and intensive development of capitalist production and the correlation of forces between imperialism, anti-imperialism and socialism.
The division of the world between the most powerful international multi-branch monopoly groups and between the most powerful imperialist countries in terms of capital (which are the main headquarters of these groups) on the basis of inequality and the extraction of monopoly super-profits on a global scale has been completed, while a rapid shift of power is taking place with the rapid progress of the PRC and the emergence of a new pole led by the latter and Russia (BRICS, etc.): the pole of the forces of socialism and anti-imperialism.
WWIII also escalates the consequent shrinking of the parasitic capacities of the pole of the traditional imperialist centres, which causes the increase of the aggressiveness of the axis of global imperialism led by the USA.
Therefore, today, imperialism under the USA, despite the rampant push towards fascism in the countries of its territory, no longer has the need to establish outright “classic” fascist regimes in the frontline imperialist countries (as in inter-war Germany) with the claim to develop an independent and self-sufficient military-industrial complex and armed forces competitive with those of the USA. This would challenge the de facto US hegemony in this axis.
At the stage of transnational-monopoly imperialist imposition, the very instrumental use of fascism is subject to the transnational planning of the aggressor axis led by the USA.
Today, the US-NATO-EU imperialist axis is instrumentalising and “exporting” fascism and Nazism to install its subordinate regimes in countries that until the 1980s were part of the USSR, Yugoslavia or other countries that passed through phases of early socialism in Europe, and in other depended countries.
Fascism functions for modern imperialism as an instrumentally useful and expendable “strike force” in proxy wars against those who resist the continuation of its domination, against the forces of anti-imperialism and socialism in WWIII. Entire countries and peoples are placed under brutal and open foreign management, turned into expendable “private military companies” of the aggressor Euro-Atlantic axis.
This is evident in the way the imperialists are treating the people of Ukraine today (as “cannon fodder”) through the Kiev junta regime, against the people of the rebellious Donbass since 2014, and against Russia and its allies since 2022. The same fate awaits tomorrow the peoples of Poland, the Baltic States, South Korea, Taiwan, Greece and other Balkan countries, etc.
This is also evident in the actions of the Zionist racist formation of Israel, the war arm of the US-led Axis, which has been the brutal occupying power in Palestine for 7 decades, launching repeated genocidal operations against the Palestinian people, while acting as an aggressive imperialist bulwark and arm of the Axis in this strategically important region.
However, fascism was and remains the most consistent misanthropism and anti-communism, the most militant fighting force of counter-revolution, of the financial oligarchy of imperialism.
The struggle against fascism must be consistent, patriotic and internationalist/anti-imperialist, aiming its arrows at the attacking imperialist axis led by the USA and at the reactionary policies of every government that, through NATO-EU, facilitates fascist actions and supports nazi-fascist regimes, such as those of Ukraine and the Zionist state of Israel.
War and fascism reproduce each other. A necessary condition for the working people’s uprising is the destruction of both fascism and the imperialism that instrumentalises it when it’s appropriate. They go together; one cannot be done without the other. Imperialism is the matrix that produces and reproduces fascism at every historical stage and in every era.
During WWII, the formation of an anti-fascist front at national and global level to crush the fascist/anti-communist/anti-Comintern axis was a strategic task. The USSR, the Third International and the global communist movement concentrated their forces on this task. The Soviet foreign policy and diplomacy exploited the inter-imperialist contradictions with extraordinary skill to divide the imperialist world of that time, to inactivate a significant part of the imperialist powers (Great Britain, USA, France, etc.) and to integrate them in the anti-fascist alliance against the axis.
Thus, during WWII, the strategically important frontal policy, the victorious policy of alliances, had to prioritise anti-fascism/anti-nazism and only through this to pursue the anti-imperialist and socialist aims of the communists.
During WWIII, inter-imperialist conflicts cannot play such an important role due to tectonic rearrangements in the global balance of economic, political and military forces. Any continuation of the parasitic imperialist function of the Euro-Atlantic axis, any prolongation of its declining course requires, for existential reasons, the open consolidation and subordination of the former colonialist and the present neo-colonialist imperialist powers into a unified, united, aggressive axis led by the USA. This is evident in the imposition of ultimatums, the humiliation of the EU and Germany in terms of energy, etc. with new forms of “cannibalism”, economic and military strangulation and coercion by US imperialism (destruction of gas pipelines, de-industrialisation, subordination of the military-industrial complex to US purposes, increasingly direct involvement and transfer of the costs of supporting the nazi regime in Ukraine to the EU and NATO countries, etc.).
During WWIII, the strategically important frontal policy, the victorious policy of alliances, must give priority to the consistent and militant anti-imperialism, to the prioritisation of the aggressor united US-NATO-EU-Zionism axis as the No.1 enemy of humanity, whose tool is the current various forms and versions of fascism. Therefore, it is only through the consistent frontal anti-imperialist struggle that anti-fascism/anti-nazism today gains meaning and is organically linked to the socialist aims.
On 28 February 2026, the most aggressive factions of the financial oligarchy activated the U.S. and Zionist war apparatus to launch coordinated strikes on Iran, marking a major escalation of WWIII. This represents not a merely quantitative expansion but a qualitative and fundamental leap: for the first time, significant U.S. naval and air forces, along with strategic infrastructure in satellite states, have been decisively struck; likewise, the Zionist entity has suffered unprecedented strategic blows.
The key lesson is that imperialist aggression encountered not only serious resistance but a systematic counterattack that inflicted humiliating defeats, while establishing and steadfastly upholding ‘red lines’ without concession.
This demonstrates that an anti-imperialist revolution—born from the overthrow of a monarcho-fascist puppet regime, enjoying deep popular support, despite bureaucratisation and external pressures—retains vitality, dignity, and effectiveness against a superior invader.
Iran’s principled willingness to fight back constitutes a victory for the global anti-imperialist movement. This underscores that in any armed conflict, success depends on clear strategic objectives, appropriate tactical means, and the unwavering maintenance of strategic initiative.
The theoretical inability to diagnose the present era, the context and the de facto bipolar character of the war does not allow some people and organizations to prioritise the aims of the movement rationally and effectively, making their—possibly pure—anti-fascist intentions rather fruitless. Behind this weakness lie versions of modern opportunism and the consequent revisionism that conflates the monopoly stage of capitalism with the character of the imperialist state.
The most consistent version of this deception is linked to the irrational metaphysical dogma/ideological construction of the “imperialist pyramid”, which the current leadership of the “Communist” Party of Greece (KKE) shamelessly promotes. Based on this anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist deception, all existing states on the planet are projected as “more or less imperialist”, fully and/or “in the making”…
Some argue that it is senseless to create an anti-imperialist front that includes capitalist countries, because doing so would mean “falling under the banner of their bourgeoisie”. They even believe that for this reason “an alliance with capitalist Russia is unthinkable” …
The Russian bourgeoisie would naturally want to become an organic part or competitor of the consolidated imperialism of the axis. However, the axis has left it no room for development in this direction, as it wanted and still wants to maintain Russia’s position and role as an exporter of energy and raw materials to imperialism. They have been and are openly trying to weaken, disarm, fragment and completely enslave/colonise the territory of the former Soviet Union. Therefore, the Russian bourgeoisie was drawn into the war for existential reasons. Therefore, siding with the anti-imperialist and socialist pole in the war does not mean unconditional surrender to the Russian or any other bourgeoisie dragged into the conflict.
Scientific research has proved that—despite their particular differences and emphases in rhetorical demagoguery, ideology, and practices—the political parties of the U.S. two-party regime, as well as those of all imperialist countries, are unable to deviate substantially from serving the strategic interests of the most aggressive elements of the financial oligarchy. This fact becomes even more indisputable as the WWIII escalates, at which point, the respective parties and leaders of these countries are, in effect, appointed by this oligarchy to uncompromisingly advance their strategic interests, primarily in the field of military struggle.
Hence, there are people and organisations who see events in the US and the world in the light of an extremely dangerously oversimplified bipolar “globalist”—“anti-globalist”, “liberal multiculturalist”—“conservative believer in the age-old values of the nation” and so on, as a “revolution” of the latter against the US “deep state”. This confusion is echoed by some official propaganda figures.
This, of course, requires zero reference to the class basis of the poles in question and to the fact that both stand for versions of the fascisation of the declining superpower at the head of the Euro-Atlantic axis in crisis and war. There is no reference to the global mechanism of exploitation / siphoning off monopoly super-profits by the imperialist powers of the axis led by the USA and the global devastation they prescribe, especially as their decline, wavering and decay under the conditions of the imperialist WWIII becomes increasingly obvious.
There is no other way to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) than by striving to regain and consolidate global hegemony, to unimpededly extract the surplus value in various forms of monopoly superprofits from all over the world. This is not a matter of choice by leaders, but a law of the political economy of the monopolistic stage of capitalism, of imperialism, and thus an inviolable principle for the politics and war waged by the financial oligarchy as the “collective capitalist” at the state and inter-state level.
The consistent progressive forces must make it clear to the people that in the conditions of rapid escalation of WWIII, there exists and acts subversively a 5th column. This 5th column is comprised of two interconnected, alternating and cooperating because of their strategic unity components/tendencies: 1. Cosmopolitan neo-liberalism and 2. Aggressive conservative nationalism. The 2nd tendency is placed today under the hegemony of Trump and “Trumpism”, rallying in the “far right international” the most reactionary and obscurantist elements brought to the surface by the crisis and war, everything that is instrumentalised today in the service of the lethal mechanism of imperialism: from the “anarcho-liberalism” of Javier Milei, to the Nazism of the Kiev junta, the Zionism of Netanyahu and several irrational and misanthropic versions of monarcho-fascism everywhere…
It is therefore necessary to expose and unmask versions of a malignant deception based on vulgar illusions, educational deficits and prejudices. A deception peddled by opportunist profiteers as “anti-imperialism”. The nonsense about the “radical, anti-establishment revolutionary” Trump, who—riding on a white horse of “traditional values”, in blissful collaboration with the fascist international—“will crush the globalists and contribute to the prosperity of the “multipolar paradise” of the anti-globalists on earth”, with or without compensation, has already caused inordinate damage to many. Detoxification from the extremely destructive disease of necrophilia-Trumpophilia will take time and effort. However, we must make systematic and scientifically documented efforts to prevent the destructive influence of this kind of deadly to the movement poison as well…
Humanity and the progressive movement are called upon to face the problems, the solution of which is impossible without the science of the Logic of History.
The three main goals of WAP are:
• The victory of the forces of socialism and anti-imperialism, and the defeat of the US-NATO-EU-Zionism axis of aggression in all fields of the conflict, including the ideological field.
• The theoretical unmasking of manipulative bourgeois and opportunist/revisionist ideological constructions and dogmas that cause confusion and prevent the realisation of the need for, and practical steps towards the formation of the collective subject of the victorious anti-imperialist struggle.
• The theoretical and practical strengthening and unification of all consistent communist forces on an internationalist basis, so they can fulfil their vanguard role in the victorious frontal struggle with the prospect of socialist revolution and communism.
In line with our theoretical and practical objectives, we at WAP welcome any initiative that critically reflects on the experience of the great achievements, victories, and defeats of the first early socialist revolution in history: the Great October Socialist Revolution, the socialist construction in the USSR, and the Anti-Fascist Victory. We are ready to cooperate constructively with any activity that promotes the united struggle to defeat imperialism in its brutal aggression against the forces of anti-imperialism and socialism, against humanity, at the national, regional, and international levels. That is why we gladly accepted SOVINTERN’s invitation, wishing success to our common struggles.