Joti Brar | Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Back in 1906, Josef Stalin wrote: “The dialectical method tells us that we must regard life … in its motion and ask: Where is life going? We have seen that life presents a picture of constant destruction and creation; consequently, we must examine life in its process of destruction and creation and ask: What is being destroyed and what is being created in life?” (Anarchism or Socialism? My emphasis)
When we look at the world today, we can see signs of the destruction of the US-led imperialist bloc in every field. Economically, the USA and its imperialist allies are essentially bankrupt. Their largest corporations survive on government subsidies and their national budgets run on debt that is paid for by harsh austerity and endless money-printing, which in turn fuels inflation and drives inequality and social unrest.
Socially and culturally, the imperialists have lost all ability to inject their people with confidence or optimism. Film studios, TV stations and computer games manufacturers pump out a toxic mixture of mindless consumerism, escapist fantasy and nihilistic dystopias. Graphic and disturbing violence and pornography are everywhere. The average age that a child in Britain is first exposed to pornographic video images stands now at 11, and is falling every year.
Militarily, the US-led Nato alliance has been roundly beaten by Russia in Ukraine. Three full armies of west-trained personnel and the combined arsenals of the collective west have been thrown into the Donbass and been destroyed. Russia’s armed forces are not only superior in terms of highly-motivated soldiers and firepower, they are also far better at learning from and adapting to the realities of the modern battlefield, mastering the use of drone warfare to devastating effect.
In the middle east, no amount of western munitions or genocidal bombardment has been sufficient to crush or disarm Palestinian, Lebanese or Yemeni resistance. In the Red Sea, Yemen has waged a brilliant and creative air and sea campaign that has successfully defeated Nato’s combined naval and air power, repeatedly forcing US aircraft carriers to retreat from the vicinity, destroying and capturing hi-tec Reaper drones, and even bringing down two F-18 bombers. Israeli ports have been bankrupted, its society is in meltdown and its economy on the verge of collapse.
Russia and Iran have both demonstrated military capabilities that simply cannot be countered by the west. Even with no missile attached, the Oreshnik showed what can now be done with Russia’s most advanced non-nuclear technologies. Iran’s hypersonic capability has likewise proven that air defences are powerless to protect zionist military bases in the event of all-out war. Even Yemen, despite its distance from Israel, has repeatedly hit targets in Tel Aviv, including Ben Gurion airport. In Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, as in the DPRK and Vietnam, the resistance has mastered the art of tunnel warfare and keeps its arsenals well concealed from imperialist bombers.
In response, the USA, Britain and their Nato allies have fallen back on reprisal bombings and terror attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure as their only means of trying to bludgeon the people into submission.
In the fields of diplomacy and information war, Russia and China have been skilful in bringing the majority of world opinion round to their side, despite the huge propaganda campaigns waged against them by the imperialists. The development of Chinese and Russian domestic and global media, social media and communications technologies are beginning to undermine the imperialists’ domination of the global information space.
The exposure in real time of imperialist governments’ complicity in zionist crimes in Gaza has further deepened their social crisis at home. Western countries are turning to authoritarian measures to stop protest and silence dissent, and are thus alienating their own people still further.
The economic and military defeat of Nato in Ukraine has given renewed hope and confidence to liberation forces worldwide. We have seen the successful renewal of the struggle for independence and sovereignty in the Sahel, as well as a resurgence of armed liberation struggle across the Arab world.
Despite the imperialists’ inability to win any of the wars they have started, the logic of their position is such that they must keep trying to bring every liberated territory to heel. For their survival as a class, victory over China and Russia is simply indispensable. Their desperation to achieve this goal has not abated but rather been reinforced by their failures in Russia and Gaza, since the economic crisis is made worse by every defeat.
The deepening of US imperialism’s war drive in the east is revealed in the construction of new military bases in the Philippines, in the arming and training of proxy forces in Taiwan, in the insane provocations of the south Korean puppet state against the DPRK, and in the ratcheting up of the economic war against China to fever pitch. In Latin America, fascist proxies are being unleashed against popular governments, US bases are proliferating across the continent, and Colombia has joined Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand as a Nato ‘partner country’.
While all this goes on, the British and European imperialists are trying to somehow keep the war going in Ukraine, hoping to avoid any public admission of defeat and to keep the door open to rearmament and new offensives in the future.
All of this shows us that while the imperialist system may be in a state of advanced decay, like a wounded beast it remains exceptionally dangerous. In their quest to save their failing system, there is no crime the imperialists are not prepared to commit; no level of death and destruction they consider to be too high.
The social crisis at home means that the imperialists’ preferred method for waging war today is via proxy forces. While this is undoubtedly a sign of weakness, the fall of Syria reminds us that however senile the present system is becoming, its mastery of divide-and-rule tactics, and its extensive ability to fund and direct psychological operations, terror attacks and proxy warfare mean that it remains a formidable enemy.
Syria’s fate also illustrates that the key to socialist and anti-imperialist nations’ success in the face of imperialism’s relentless war drive lies in increasing their cooperation and integration – integrating their military capabilities, building trade partnerships, assisting in one another’s economic development and sharing technologies.
Only in this way will each nation separately and the whole bloc together be able to withstand the USA’s economic and military blackmail. Socialists living in these countries must do everything in their power to help reinforce the military and economic cohesion of the anti-imperialist camp, while simultaneously strengthening the influence and position of the communist forces within each broad national front.
In this context, the news that DPRK troops have helped their Russian allies to liberate Kursk is extremely welcome. This is an important milestone in the deepening of ties between two frontline states, and it sends a clear message to the imperialists: the DPRK has Russia at its back and combat experience under its belt. It is fully prepared to defend itself, and if the USA succeeds in re-igniting the Korean war, it will surely regret its recklessness.
As the imperialists are cut off from avenues of profit-taking in many parts of the world, from Venezuela to Russia to the Sahel, their system is being weakened and their crisis is getting deeper. These developments are extremely positive for humanity and bring us closer to our goal of liberty, sovereignty and socialism for all.
But this is not leading the exploiting class to retire gracefully; as their position declines, they are becoming more rabid and desperate. Progressive workers in the imperialist heartlands cannot simply sit back and applaud the advances of the anti-imperialist camp. We must understand that our ruling class will never be truly defeated until their entire system has been dismantled – and that for this to happen, it needs to be decisively beaten on both its fronts.
Ultimately, the system’s final death blows will be delivered by workers on the home front. Genuinely revolutionary parties must be built in the imperialist countries, and they must establish strong connections with the masses, bringing them a Marxist analysis and popularise a programme of anti-imperialist activities and socialist demands.
There is an especially urgent need to build a genuinely anti-imperialist antiwar movement capable of delivering real solidarity to all those fighting our class enemies on the frontlines, whether in Gaza, Yemen or Donbass.
We need a mass movement of non-cooperation with imperialist war. In organising workers to sabotage and obstruct the war machine, we will also be giving them lessons in the use of their power as a class.
History shows us what this looks like. Back in 1920, when the British working class was mobilised around the communist-led Hands Off Russia movement, a panicked ruling class was forced to pull out of its war against Soviet Russia. This was a moment when the British proletariat came very close to revolutionary uprising. Every imperialist country has seen similar periods of anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle, whose successes we must replicate and whose failures we must learn from and avoid.
And we must always be guided by the understanding that to be truly effective, the fight for peace must be developed into a movement to overthrow the capitalist system entirely. In the words of Josef Stalin: “To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism.” (Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, 1951)
