Joti Brar | Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
There is a general acceptance amongst serious analysts that a third world war is now unfolding, and that its core essence is the struggle between the forces of imperialism on one side and those of anti-imperialism on the other.
Despite their various rivalries and internal contradictions, the imperialist powers today have no option but to band together in order to save the US-led post-WW2 capitalist world order, which has been undermined by the imperialist economies’ accelerated industrial decay, the breaking of their technological domination and the outbreak of their deepest-ever crisis of overproduction – as well as by the inevitable advance and increasing cohesion of the socialist and liberated territories that today make up the anti-imperialist world.
Meanwhile, despite differences in social and economic forms, and in the resulting ideological frameworks, those countries that have achieved genuine sovereignty as a result of national-liberation or socialist revolutions are increasingly recognising their need to work more closely together if they wish to retain their independence in the teeth of a desperate and rabid imperialist bloc.
While the tasks that face the forces of socialism in this struggle can seem overwhelming, it is important to recognise the factors that are strengthening our hand and simultaneously weakening that of the enemy. In particular, the deepening global economic crisis and war drive are creating conditions that cannot but compel ever wider sections of the masses to be drawn towards anti-imperialist and socialist struggle as their lives become less and less bearable.
Each intensification of imperialist war activity is further exacerbating an already dire economic crisis, thus heightening and accelerating the process of creating fresh reserves for the proletarian and anti-imperialist struggles.
Of course, merely being forced to endure terrible conditions of life is not in itself enough to bring the masses to the point of revolutionary activity. The key role in moving the masses from passive victims to active proponents of the intensifying class struggle lies with the socialist forces. Only Marxist-Leninist science can explain clearly the core content of the struggle against imperialism, and only those guided by that science can be relied upon to work consistently for the unity of all the genuinely interested forces.
In the major imperialist heartlands, communists have an especially significant role to play. Given the huge accumulation of riches on which British, French, US, German and Japanese finance capital rest, fortunes which have been acquired over centuries of global plunder, there can be no final defeat for imperialism while those vast hoards remain intact and at the disposal of the capitalist-imperialist ruling elites.
For a final victory of the world’s masses that will allow the nations of the world to develop in genuine sovereignty and fraternal harmony, free from external threats and sabotage, socialist revolutions must take place in the centres of imperialism; the ill-gotten wealth of the western financiers must be expropriated and redeployed in the interests of those who created that wealth (ie, the working masses and oppressed peoples), and the entire system of capitalist-imperialist exploitation must be dismantled.
The role of terrorism in the third world war
From the Black Hundreds of revolutionary Russia to the Brownshirts of Nazi Germany, from Latin-American death squads and Ukrainian Banderites to Isis and al-Qaeda ‘jihadists’, terrorist proxy armies and militias have been a consistent tool of imperialist domination. In this era of the prolonged crisis and decay of global capitalism, such forces are a crucial component in the imperialist arsenal, deployed whenever brute force is needed to crush the rising struggle of working and oppressed peoples and to maintain the financiers’ grip on markets, raw materials and human labour-power.
The role of proxy forces and terrorist armies is particularly important when one takes into account the hostility to imperialist war that has been growing amongst western populations since the October Revolution of 1917. The bloody slaughter of WW1, the victory of the communist forces in WW2, the horrors of Korea and Vietnam, the treatment of soldiers and workers during these conflicts, the blatant war profiteering of the elites, the exposure of political and media lies regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the precipitous decline in western living standards have all added to the general feeling that there is no value in giving one’s life to defend the interests of a billionaire class that will commit any crime to further enrich itself.
In the post-1945 west, while workers were (temporarily) bought off from taking the revolutionary path, fewer and fewer of them have any real faith in the system under which they live. Journalists and politicians are the least-respected professionals in society, the imperialists’ wars are viewed with increasing hostility, and the ruling elites have great difficulty in recruiting even the relatively small numbers needed to maintain their shrinking professional armies.
Given all this, the imperialists have become extremely uneasy over the prospect of putting the wider population on a war footing via conscription. Despite their endless need for cannon fodder to feed their expanding war fronts, they are in no rush to arm workers whose mood is far from compliant. While they will not fail to move to a general mobilisation if all else fails (and to this end they are already preparing their populations to expect this eventuality, and to accept Russians, Chinese, north Koreans and Iranians as their natural enemies), it is clear that they will do their best to find other populations to do the majority of the frontline fighting and dying for as long as possible.
To this end, the imperialists deploy vast wealth, both to buy governments in neocolonial states and to bribe sections of the world’s oppressed peoples into doing their dirty work for them. They make a point of choosing populations whose poverty makes them desperate and susceptible, and whose history, culture and religion can be weaponised to create a justifying (usually supremacist) narrative. Such ideologies as jewish or Banderite supremacism, when blessed by religious figures and combined with money, weapons and promises of future power and glory, have been very effective at transforming chosen peoples into willing proxies for their imperialist masters.
The determined focus on technological development of socialist powers such as the USSR and China, and the consequent spread of modern weapons and production technologies around the world, is another factor that has led the imperialists to search for other ways besides open warfare to undermine those they wish to subdue.
The fact is that, more than a century after the October Revolution, imperialism can no longer conquer and plunder with impunity. Unable to quell opposition by the force of its awe-inspiring weaponry, it is forced now to resort to a variety of means that play to its strengths: huge financial resources, control of the international mechanisms of trade and payment, and overwhelming information dominance.
When we look at how war is being conducted across various fronts today, we can see a hybrid approach being employed by the imperialists, who have on each front preceded their direct assault by a combination of ‘softening’ attacks, often taking place over decades. The main aspects of this hybrid warfare are:
1. economic warfare (sanctions, sabotage, trade embargoes, genocidal attempts to starve civilian populations into submission);
2. propaganda and psyops (the creation of a deluge of hostile and disorienting propaganda across local, international, traditional and social media channels);
3. western NGO and ideological penetration of civil society, media, academia and politics (directly through the CIA, MI6 etc or ‘indirectly’ via such institutions as the NED, Soros Foundation etc).
4. terrorism (the funding, training and arming of brutal mercenary forces);
5. open piracy (the militarisation of economic blockades, as are now in effect against Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and – from a distance – China).
In all cases, even when the USA acknowledges its direct involvement, as it has done on the Iran front, the imperialists’ fighting is being done in the main by proxy forces, which allow them to indulge in ‘arms-length’ management of the war while presenting themselves as mere ‘allies’ or ‘supporters’ of the armies in question (or sometimes to deny any connection with them at all, as with Isis and al-Qaeda), rather than admitting their real, directing role.
With the war against the Axis of Resistance in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, for example, and now today with the war against Iran, the British government has consistently denied having any direct involvement, despite the fact that British bases have been consistently used, British advisors are to be found in all the war rooms, and British planes are routinely participating in both air defence and intelligence-gathering missions.
Declassified UK has released evidence that British spy flights over Gaza and over Lebanon have directly preceded targeted bombing campaigns by Israeli forces. And British special forces and secret services have been heavily involved in training Isis and its various offshoots, just as they have trained Banderite fascists, Uyghur jihadists and zionist stormtroopers.
In the case of such forces as Isis, the imperialists continue to try to pose as opponents to their proxies, but only so that they can use the ‘terrorist threat’ as a justification for sending their own troops and taking physical control of strategic territory and mineral wealth. (This approach was pioneered during the USA’s so-called ‘War on Drugs’ in Latin America, and has been widely used across Africa and west Asia during the supposed ‘War on Terror’, both of which remain ongoing and are playing a growing role in the present global conflict.)
In the wars against Russia and Iran, the main forces being deployed – the Ukrainian and Israeli armies – have been portrayed by western media as independent actors, although they are in fact entirely dependent on imperialist backing for all their weaponry and other essential capabilities. The truth is that neither Ukraine nor Israel would survive as states for more than a few months without the seemingly limitless economic subventions that keep their economies afloat and their administrators paid.
In the case of Ukraine, the war has continually been presented in western media as one of ‘defence’ by a ‘sovereign’ nation (Ukraine) that was ‘invaded’ by an unaccountably aggressive neighbour (Russia). But Ukraine lost the last shred of its sovereignty in 2014 after the US-sponsored Maidan coup, and its armed forces were long ago transformed into a Nato army in everything but name.
Ukrainian troops receive training and even in-the-field instruction from British, German, French and US officers. The imperialists are in overall charge of their war room, and their intelligence service is entirely subordinate to the CIA and MI6. Not only are their weapons provided by Nato, but US operatives are even required to provide target lists and to punch in the launch codes for stand-off ‘smart bombs’ such as Himars, Javelins etc. Moreover it is increasingly well documented that the terrorist operations being launched from Ukrainian soil against Russian civilians are being planned by British military ‘advisors’ (overseers).
Differing tactics and approach; same strategic goal
From all the above, it can be seen that the vast mass of humanity has a direct interest in working for the defeat of this parasitic, vampire-like system, which in its death throes is casting aside its mask and revealing its violent, ruthless and bloodthirsty essence. It can also be seen that humanity is being presented with a real opportunity to bring about the complete defeat of the capitalist-imperialist global system, since even the mighty USA is now declining rapidly in all essential fields: economically, industrially, technologically, militarily, educationally and culturally.
Nevertheless, with so much wealth at their command, the system and its overlords remain powerful and extremely dangerous. So what is needed to bring about victory for the anti-imperialist camp as WW3 unfolds?
The first requirement is unity of forces across fronts. This means we need to focus our efforts, depending on where we are living, on building:
• the maximum possible unity between anti-imperialist states;
• the maximum possible unity between anti-imperialist non-state forces;
• theoretically and organisationally hardened Marxist-Leninist forces that are able to provide the steel at the core of anti-imperialist movements everywhere.
The role of Marxist-Leninists is especially vital in popularising key concepts that will enable the struggle to be fought with maximum strength and unity. The most important of these are:
• the Leninist understanding of imperialism;
• a resulting clarity on the question of which countries are and are not imperialist powers;
• the necessity of forging strong links between working-class movements in the imperialist countries and anti-imperialist movements in the oppressed world;
• vigilance regarding the imperialists’ penetration of our movement with provocateurs and their use of psyops and doom-mongering (often dressed up as ‘left-wing’ commentary) to demoralise the most active cadres;
• the necessity of shifting from passive commentating or information consumption to active building – agitation and propaganda must be harnessed to the project of building a movement, not seen as ends in themselves or as paths to a paid career.
1. In the sovereign nations
In the anti-imperialist countries, comrades must learn the lessons of the past regarding retaining their ideological and organisation identity while also building maximum national unity against imperialism. Key aims for socialists in anti-imperialist countries that are now or expect soon to be facing the full onslaught of imperialist aggression must include:
• forging maximum possible unity of the people in defence of the nation;
• developing a Marxist-Leninist movement to provide theoretical clarity on questions of imperialism and anti-imperialism;
• propagating and supporting demands for military and defence preparedness;
• propagating and supporting demands for food, energy, industrial and technological sovereignty;
• propagating and supporting demands for the ejection of western NGOs, and the replacement of western electronic devices and communication methods for as much of the population as possible;
• propagating and supporting demands for media sovereignty, including the replacement of western social media platforms with local alternatives.
• building campaigns of popular mobilisation aimed at identifying and rooting out networks of intelligence agents and saboteurs.
The DPRK provides an excellent example of how a small country that combines all the above with socialist central planning and a proletarian dictatorship has been able to withstand imperialist pressure and delay the outbreak of war, despite the plans of the imperialists to renew hostilities against it and their non-stop attempts to destroy Korean socialism.
Meanwhile, the difficulties faced by Venezuela show that while a newly sovereign nation can make great strides in mobilising, educating and organising vast masses of the poor, raising their living standards and creating a revolutionary patriotic force that would be impossible to beat if a land invasion were attempted, nevertheless it is exceptionally difficult for even the most staunchly anti-imperialist government to fully withstand imperialist pressure when it has not yet attained energy, industrial, technological or media sovereignty, and when its inability to operate a planned economy at the national level leaves it open to various forms of economic sabotage.
The lessons of history and the course of the war must be used to help the people see that only socialism will bring a final and complete solution to their problems. In this respect, much important experience is summed up in the works of Mao Zedong, which document the Communist Party of China’s strategy and tactics in creating and sustaining a united front with the nationalist Kuomintang during the anti-Japanese war.
2. In the oppressed nations
In oppressed countries ruled by comprador governments, socialists must work with all genuinely patriotic forces to expose and oppose the role of their governments in acting as local gendarmes for the imperialists, holding down the people and facilitating imperialist resource extraction and superexploitation.
The hardships brought by the war must be harnessed to facilitate a new wave of revolutionary national-liberation energy – as we see being displayed today by the countries of the Sahel alliance.
As above, the pursuit of the unity of all genuinely patriotic anti-imperialist forces is key, along with the exposure of all those individuals, organisations and institutions that work to sustain imperialist domination.
3. In the imperialist nations
In imperialist countries, socialists must put forward a clear programme of demands to the workers that can provide a real route out of the downward spiral of deindustrialisation and impoverishment, building a new movement against war and for socialism. Core demands must include:
• the transformation of the trade union and antiwar organisations into movements that genuinely represent the interests of the working masses rather than being vehicles for bureaucratic control over workers’ anger and energy;
• the building of wide campaigns in defence of the supposed freedoms that bourgeois democracies constantly claim to uphold, such as freedom of opinion, of speech, of the press and of association, and which are at present being discarded in favour of overtly political and even fascistic policing regimes in every western nation;
• the building of broad campaigns against conscription in every Nato and Nato-aligned country;
• the building of mass campaigns of non-cooperation with the imperialist and zionist war machines, which must expand to include not only refusing to fight the wars but also refusing to make or move munitions and other supplies, refusing to provide logistical and support services, and refusing to write, broadcast or distribute the imperialists’ propaganda lies;
• the promotion of the slogans ‘No cooperation with the war machine’, ‘Build the axis of resistance in … (Britain, the USA etc)’ and ‘Victory to the resistance!’, through which workers can be brought to understand their common cause with all those fighting on the frontlines and motivated to work for the defeat of ‘their own’ imperialist rulers.
And workers across the capitalist world, in both imperialist and colonised countries, must resist the siren songs of the bourgeoisie, who are working overtime to deploy divide-and-rule tactics that aim to prevent a genuine anti-imperialist unity from emerging. This means, in particular:
• exposing the lie that immigrants, rather than capitalist economics, are to blame for the immiseration of workers (eg, it is this system that causes inflation, deindustrialisation, underdevelopment, unemployment, homelessness, austerity, poverty and war);
• exposing the ‘culture wars’ framing of various issues, from immigration and anti-racism to climate change, women’s liberation and the transgender issue, which acts to polarise debate and divide workers into hostile camps that are led by bourgeois ideas and imperialist-aligned political figures (eg ‘Maga’ v ‘No Kings’ in the USA; Reform v Greens/‘left’ Labour in Britain).
Victory is ours if we have the courage to work for it
Many well-meaning socialist-leaning workers, and even many of those who consider themselves ‘activists’, have allowed themselves to feel crushed by the size of the task that faces our movement, particularly given the history of revisionist capitulation by formerly powerful communist parties and state infiltration of our ranks.
The growth and militarisation of the imperialist state machineries, the development of powerful electronic tools for surveillance and manipulation, and the apparent indifference of many members of the working class to these problems and to the cause of their own liberation all combine to leave many would-be progressives feeling powerless and demoralised.
But this view is un-Marxist and ahistoric, and can be refuted by an examination of modern history as well as of the present course of the war on its various fronts.
To take just one example: we are endlessly assured by our class enemies and their mouthpieces that their new AI tools are too powerful to be resisted. Yet the example of the resistance struggles in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere shows clearly that determined and organised movements are already facing these tools, adapting their tactics and winning.
We must learn to look beyond the bluster and bravado of western politicians and Silicon Valley CEOs, which is as much fuelled by marketing and a desire to hold back the looming stock market crisis as it is to retain dominance over the minds of the masses.
When we do so, we find that beyond the mass murder of innocents and the increasingly heavy policing of social media, there is the same inability to defeat an organised and risen people that characterised every anti-imperialist and socialist struggle of the 20th century.
Long live the unity of the anti-imperialist and socialist struggles!
Defeat to Nato! Death to imperialism!
Victory to the resistance!
Venceremos!
