Karen Shakhnikyan | Communist Party of Armenia
Dear comrades,
We are living in the midst of a Third World War. This World War is being fought in very different ways and on different kinds of fronts than the first two World Wars: proxy warfare, economic warfare through sanctions, political warfare through color revolutions, influence campaigns and bribery, hybrid warfare through assassinations and sabotage. The factor uniting all these fronts into a single World War is the fact that each of these is a struggle between the imperialist powers seeking to protect their hegemony and the peoples of the world seeking to protect their sovereignty.
Unlike the last World Wars, this one will not be over quickly. It may take twenty, thirty or even fifty years. If the war is not finished within the relatively near future, a global bloodbath seems unavoidable. That begs the question: what will it take to end this war? Only three outcomes seem likely to put an end to this war.
The first is that the capitalist powers of the world make peace among each other to avoid global destruction, and the current division of the world is generally maintained. This outcome seems to be the least likely. Even if it happens, it is more likely to be a pause in the fighting rather than a lasting peace. After all, this current status quo is what led to this World War to begin with. A deal between capitalist powers will not resolve the contradictions between them.
The second possibility is the victory of one of the capitalist powers through unimaginable destruction, quite possibly nuclear. Without the intervention of revolutionary forces, this is the most likely outcome.
The third possibility is a resolution of the conflict by a wave of socialist revolutions. The war creates a window of opportunity for revolutionary forces to achieve this goal. However, we must critically assess our own ranks in order to be properly prepared for this.
To be properly prepared for this, we must work on drastically expanding our numbers as organizations. Most of our organizations are relatively small and weak, and play no or just a marginal role in national politics. This issue is one which needs to urgently be addressed and overcome if we are to play the role we need to play in this historical moment.
Not only must we expand our members, but also the number of organisations under the umbrella of the Platform’s political line, either working with the Platform directly, or as organizations working separately from the Platform but can still be coalition partners in the struggle against imperialism. Political parties, educational organizations, labor unions, activist groups and in some countries even militias. We need a multi-front approach to struggle against imperialism, since imperialism is fighting a multi-front struggle against the peoples of the world.
In this work, there needs to be a greater role for the Platform to centralize the line on international issues and the struggle against imperialism, to create a more unified understanding and line on these matters among Platform members. This international coordination will increase the effectiveness of our joint struggle, making sure the actions of revolutionaries in imperialist countries, liberated countries, and subjugated countries reinforce one another’s effectiveness to the greatest possible extent and strengthening the Platform as an international revolutionary organization.
All member organizations of the Platform must thoroughly understand the role imperialism plays in all other political struggles, and they must be able to explain this understanding to all non-Platform organizations which are in opposition to the status quo in their countries on one issue or another. Labor unions of imperialist countries must come to understand that imperialism is driving the destruction of their welfare states. Civil rights groups must come to understand that it is the warfare state that will take away all liberties once society is mobilized for war.
This concept is the concept of the primary contradiction, as developed by Mao Zedong at the anti-Japanese Military and Political University. At all times, there is one contradiction to which all other contradictions are connected, and the resolution of which is required for historically progressive forces to advance on other contradictions. In Mao’s time, the primary contradiction in China was the contradiction between imperialism and national liberation. In our day, this is the primary contradiction globally. We must all become intimately familiar with this concept and learn to teach it to all social forces—Marxist and non-Marxist—in our countries.
Based on this understanding, we must make an assessment of what forces are in contradiction with imperialism—regardless of their ideological profile—and build a coalition with them to struggle against the primary contradiction of imperialism. This might also include right wing nationalist or bourgeois nationalist forces.
This perspective applies clearly to the situation in Armenia, for example. After the election last month, the liberal pro-Western regime of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held on to power through a series of manipulations and repressions. The leader of the largest opposition party, Samwel Karapetyan, has been under house arrest for over a year. This is not upon a conviction, but as detention awaiting trial, indefinitely.
Note that Mr. Karapetyan is not a socialist or a revolutionary in the slightest. He is a billionaire oligarch economically connected to the Russian economy rather than the Western economy. This leads him to a position of opposing the hostile course towards Moscow currently being pursued by Armenia. This simple fact alone is enough of a threat towards the interests of imperialism in Armenia that such repressive measures were taken. He is not alone. Every major opposition party has had members arrested on bogus charges, often related to critical speech against the government, in the run-up to the election.
The Communist Party of Armenia is unfortunately not safe from this repression either. Just before this conference in Istanbul, the government is carrying out repression of our activities by confiscating our party office. For the foreseeable future, it is likely that we will be forced to adapt and carry out our activities without having a party office. This has set the party back the furthest it’s been since the fall of the USSR.
Of course, the Western liberal governments, parties and NGOs do not have a bad word to say about these clear breaches of liberal principles. Earlier this year, Reporters Without Borders published their yearly press freedom index, in which they outright lie about the situation in Armenia and claim that zero journalists and zero media workers are currently being detained. This is despite the high-profile case of podcasters Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan being imprisoned for insulting the ruling party parliament speaker. Note that they also claim there are no journalists or media workers detained or killed in Ukraine. Similar abuses are plenty in other countries in the imperialist camp.
This is how political liberalism must manifest in order to stay in power: through illiberalism, repression of opposition, media, even individual citizens who are critical. Its liberal political allies in politics and NGOs will then ignore these abuses or lie about them whenever convenient. We must therefore not be deceived about what liberalism truly is. It is not a set of political principles, but it is the political dictatorship of capital.
Despite this, there is potential for hope. Under the current regime, Armenia is in the imperialist camp, but this is because of the vulnerability of imperialism, not its strength. Armenia lies on the crossroads for a land corridor from Europe to Central Asia and China, which imperialism needs, but it is also the location for a potential land corridor between Russia and Iran, which will be of vital importance for the anti-imperialist camp. The link between Russia and China has become unbreakable over the present decade, so if an physical unbreakable link between Russia and Iran also develops, this is a strategic disaster for imperialism.
To realize this, strategic cooperation with bourgeois nationalists is essential. The Armenian opposition is very much in favor of open relations and developing infrastructure with Russia and Iran, although their political character is almost exclusively bourgeois nationalist, favoring such relations for their capitalist economic interest. The same goes for Georgia, the other link between Iran and Russia, which is also ruled by a bourgeois nationalist regime. This government is not inclined to engage in such deep cooperation with anti-imperialist countries unless the financial gains are safe and tangible and the risks and costs are manageable.
Nonetheless, it should be a main priority of anti-imperialist forces in the Caucasus, considering the strategic importance for the Eurasian anti-imperialist bloc. This struggle is a case study for how broad anti-imperialist fronts are needed to advance anti-imperialism. The election victory by the Pashinyan regime might make it look like a strong political force, but it is not as secure as it seems to be. A lot of repression and manipulation was needed to get this victory, and Prime Minister Pashinyan’s popularity is extremely low, often polling between 10 and 20%. The same is the applies to many European governments.
Our global movement has been struggling for over 100 years. We have had great defeats and even greater victories. If we persist in our struggle, if we unify our struggle, understand the weakness of our enemy and find the strength of the people, if we maintain a consistent and well-informed political line, if we see the political opportunities the present World War will bring forward and decisively exploit them, victory will be ours.
Until victory, forever.
