Imperialism's world control: towards a defeat?

by Don Hoskins
Economic and Philosophic Science Review
July 3rd 2005

Middle East insurgency chaos and setbacks for US invasion are looking more and more like a catastrophic defeat for imperialism's world control. Iran vote for militancy and anti-westernism adds to the problems, combining with rising worldwide hostility from South America to Africa. But setbacks will not halt imperialism's plunge to Third World War war, driven by urgent necessity (as imperialism sees it) to deal with its now historically unprecedented depths of crisis contradictions. Plans for new prison camps in Iraq, revelations of death-squad paramilitarism by the Iraq stooge regime and tearing up of legal rights throughout "democracy" are signals of the turn to capitalism's fascist side. Africa "charriddee" is a useless posturing diversion from the real need --revolution and the ending of the capitalist system.

The Trot fake-"lefts" cowardly willingness to write off the growing worldwide tide of anti-imperialist struggle as nothing but "terrorism" to be "condemned" (thereby standing ideologically alongside Bush, Blair and every other warmongering imperialist) is increasingly exposed by the devastating impact of insurgency, rebellion and revolt across the planet on imperialist exploitation and domination and its crisis-driven warmongering plans.

The Bush neo-con White House order is now being talked of a "lame duck" (if not dead) regime, in the bourgeois press, with Bush's latest speech drawing deeper criticism and mockery than ever before. Even mainstream Republicans are jumping ship like so many rats, panicked by the disastrous failure of the warmongering blitzkrieging of Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Instead of cowing the "troublemakers" and "upstarts" the new warmongering has stirred up a hornets nest of revolt that grows more powerful and coherent with every passing day.

Assertions by the likes of arch neo-con Dick Cheney that the Iraqi revolts were in their "last throes" have caused ridicule even in the conservative and venerable International Herald Tribune; on the ground the signs are the exact opposite, with the masses stirring throughout the Middle East, South America and Asia. Aside from one or two exceptions such as the Nepalese Maoist struggle, little of this is overtly communist or socialist yet, and there will be a roller coaster of ups and downs to go before it begins to yet.

But the impact on imperialism is growing daily.

In Afghanistan the attacks on American and other western occupying forces have escalated. And Iraq's slight lull in struggle has ended with attacks on the US forces and its stooges getting bloodier by the day, forcing the US onto the backfoot and attempted talks with the once derided insurgency.

Sandwiched in between Iraq and Afghanistan, the shock result (for the west) of the Iranian presidential election underlines powerfully the subterranean spread of the masses' hatred and disgust for the "New World Order" of ever intensifying imperialist domination, and slave driving exploitation.

Iran could become a problem ten times the size the recalcitrant Iraq Saddam regime ever was for an increasingly nervous imperialism's world control plans, with Tehran's insistence on continuing nuclear development (peaceful or not) and a much larger, equally battle hardened and turmoil experienced population.

Fake-"lefts" like the monstrously anti-communist crypto-Trotskyite CPGB can criticise as much as they like the backwardness and reactionary feudal character of the Ayatollahocracy --and of new president Ahmadinejad. But true though much of that all may be, it is (deliberately) missing the key point of what is driving this astonishing eruption. Even the bourgeois press could spot that.

The "Islamic Revolution" was a diversion then, to head off the explosive anti-Shah revolt that ended 26 years of brutal pro-imperialist dictatorship, reflected a long tradition of anti-imperialism from the Second World War onwards at least and threatened to turn to communism --stymied only by the disastrous anti-revolutionary legacy of decades long Stalinist retreat from conflict with imperialism, reflected in the Tudeh communist party which failed to see or respond to what surrounded it spontaneously.

Parachuting in the Ayatollah Khomeini (conveniently living in Paris suburban comfort courtesy of French imperialism at the time) saved the day temporarily but has proved a thorn in imperialism's side ever since because of the anti-imperialist posturing the theocracy was forced to do.

It is still a diversion to some extent from Leninism and communism. But increasingly in the absence of any other leadership (because of the disastrous legacy of Stalinist revisionism) in many parts of the world, this Muslim ideology has also become the main carrier for anti-imperialist militancy and hostility, gaining its support precisely to the extent that it is willing to take on and confront imperialism, as witnessed by the continuing mass support for the anti-Zionist Hezbollah despite the manipulation by the west of Lebanon's (twisted) elections for anti-Syrian reasons, and as shown even more by the rise of the Intifada leading Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the central Palestinian resistance.

It is the rising anti-American struggle, responding to the deepest underlying capitalist crisis contradictions, threatening to plunge the world into economic chaos and warmongering mayhem, which is driving events and which has already inflicted significant defeat on the US-led world capitalist Empire.

The same tide is rising in South America, its own "backyard".

Bolivia is in revolt alongside Venezuela, Ecuador is stirring and in potentially the biggest Spanish speaking South American rebellion of all, Colombia held down by brutal CIA trained death squad barbarity and drug depravity, and US bribes ("aid") is less comatose than supposed, as capitalist press reports make clear. And their support can only grow as the open western backing for the the death squads becomes more glaringly obvious.

All this has a long way to go to consolidate into anything like world revolution and the semi-revolutionary, semi-reformist and clearly non-Leninist character of many of the leaderships may, almost certainly, yet make for serious setbacks for the world working class.

But the momentum overall has to be with the working class eventually in a time when the 800 year old capitalist system has reached the end of its historical usefulness, worked out and tangled up in the appalling economic crises, environmental destruction, global warming, cultural bankruptcy and dumbing down of its antagonistic class-ridden anarchic contradictions.

As the EPSR alone has continuously emphasised against the parodies and misplaced ridicule (and ultimately anti-communist misleadership) of the fake-"left" of all shades, capitalism is facing the greatest slump collapse crisis of its entire historical lifetime.

The inevitable and intractable difficulties that accumulate within the profit plundering system have brought it not only (once again) to the edge of slump unemployment and waste, and destructive trade war disaster, as repeatedly, and with increasing destruction, throughout its history (see the unchallenged and unchallengeable analyses of Marx --Capital and much else-- Lenin and other writers) but almost certainly to the deepest and most profound crisis ever of the whole system.

It now covers the world because of the relentless "globalisation" of capital (nothing new but noted by Marx from the beginning) drawing in previously backward or ignorant people willy-nilly (ruthlessly destroying existing ways of life) to impose the world market.

The eruption of devastating world wars has already twice shown the end point of these gigantic convulsions in universal destruction and chaos as the ruling class uses the only mechanism it can to escape the ever growing and endemic contradictions of the profit system and its uneven and ultimately unsustainable development --destruction of capital on a large scale and the wiping out of as many rival capitalist challengers as possible.

Each of these giant spasms in the past has brought with it increasing development and maturity of the growing awareness of the proletariat of the intolerability of the system, and its translation into spontaneous and then evolutionarily conscious rebellion and revolution.

The first hesitant steps of revolution in 1848 and then the 1871 Paris Commune were drowned in blood but only helped feed the growing understanding which produced ultimately the staggering Soviet Revolution of 1917 under Lenin's genius.

The massive and unchangeable influence of this giant achievement (making hitherto unseen strides in economic, cultural social and philosophical development for all, throughout its 70 years) --which survived even the imperialist onslaught of Hitler Nazism (fully backed by all the imperialist powers despite their own crisis driven conflict with German imperialism) was ultimately undermined by the still growing world influence of imperialism and the disastrous collapse in and retreat from revolutionary grasp, which first ate away at and then eventually completely undermined the leadership of the Soviet proletarian dictatorship.

But counter-revolutionary victory has come at disastrous cost for imperialism which distorted the credit mechanisms of capitalism during the long Cold War standoff with ultimately better organised socialist production, to stretch its own production to unprecedented levels via the Bretton Woods currency agreement.

The stabilisation mechanism has transformed into its opposite.

Having established the dollar as the universal "gold" standard Nixon's 1973 forced retreat from convertibility --as the inflationary stimulation to world trading grew uncontrollable-- has turned the dollar into the universal underminer of all value standards with a swamping of the entire world trade system in ever accumulating paper dollars of increasingly less real value.

From an exporter of capital --analysed by Lenin as a central component of the imperialist domination of the planet-- the US has become the debtor par excellence, using the entire world's surplus capital to feed its grotesque sucking in of the world's labour created value in finished goods and raw materials. It is an unprecedented position for the imperialist power in history, now offering exactly nothing to justify its position but simply parasitically sucking the life out of the rest of the planet.

All historical systems which have worked through their contradictions to the point of being nothing but "a fetter" on mankind's development have been overthrown, from the immense slave empires of Greek and Roman times to the initially vibrant but ultimately restrictive land-based class structure of feudalism.

Revolution is the only way out of the descent into chaos and World War Three destruction that capitalist imperialism now has on the agenda.

Currently it survives by the distorted power of the capital it can still bring to bear ("legally", in "aid" and by bribery) and the immense physical firepower intimidation of the whole planet which backs that up, overtly and covertly through intelligence led interventions, coups and fraudulent and manipulated "elections".

But the very credit mountain of accumulated paper dollars that it uses still to command its power is also becoming a millstone round its neck --and threatens to collapse at any point into unknoweable chaos.

The exact ramifications of such an enormous distortion of the world's economy are fabulously complex and hard to analyse at this stage of human science.

But the political direction of the ruling class towards war and conflict as the only way out of the sickening and feverish difficulties it faces is already clear, from the pattern of thinly and lyingly "justified" wars around the planet under the insane notion of a "world terror threat to civilisation."

US imperialism has already taken on the mantle of the fascist warmongering leadership, because the rest of imperialism is still too uncertain and intimidated to do it and because it wants to make sure it gets in first with the "shock and awe" intimidation to make clear to the world who has the will and power to remain top dog.

But it is all going disastrously wrong: even the sinister arch warmonger Rumsfeld concedes in admissions.

Defeat large and small for imperialism --and its eventual total overthrow-- is the unstoppable movement of history in a world which is now too educated and sophisticated to tolerate the monstrous unfairness and brutality any longer.

It is defeat which is the answers to the questions once more being raised about "another Vietnam" and the siege conditions of the Bush administration. Defeat created the anti-Vietnam war movement and it is ripping through the USA now, further exposing the lies and fraud of the war on Iraq.

It has less impact in the UK because less losses have hammered British imperialism in the quieter Shia areas in the south of the area with less of a revolutionary and rebellious tradition than the Sunni triangle which led the post-war communist rebellions before they were hijacked by the CIA sponsored Saddamites.

A much better explanation is that of the defeats being suffered by imperialism --the central grasp of Lenin in guiding revolutionary development and struggle in the First World War and one that is avoided or misrepresented by all the fake-"left" groups who either divert the issue into futile "stop the war" protest or woodenly call for "support for the Resistance" as the newly formed (but old revisionist) Proletarian CPBML does for Iraq, which again misses the point and misleads the working class on the barmy ideologies of religion or other non-Leninist grasp.

It is defeat which produced the Vietnam anti-war movement and defeat which is leading to the now universal disquiet throughout the richest sections of the western world about the overall prospects for the capitalist way of life.

The preposterous and sanctimonious "charriddee" fraud of Live Eight tries to divert and head off some of this often well-intentioned , and even long term potentially revolutionary feeling that "something must be done" into a few token gestures and an overall anti-communist lining up behind "protest" to prevent discussion and attention being paid to the real issues of imperialist exploitation.

But the disquiet is forcing some interesting discussions to the surface in the capitalist press about the nature of the imperialist grip on the planet and the real exploitation reasons for the desperate poverty across the Third World.

Of course it is not simply a "failure" to enforce anything that has prevented this kind of battle taking place, but a combination of the most grotesque bribery to create stooge and compliant pro-imperialist regimes, and the threat of the big club of violence and destruction if the people dare resist, or even think about it.

Whether it be "dogs of war" mercenary interventions and coups to take control, as in Equatorial Guinea last year, organised by westerners with the most impeccable of connections and known in advance by official circles (Jack Straw admissions of British intelligence warnings) or the scorched earth dog-in-the-manger "you will not have it we can't" interventions in Angola and Mozambique e.g. the whole continent has been kept under exploitative and violent control by the west for its endless imperialist plundering. Even the roads are laid out solely for ripping out the raw materials.

The bribery spoils for the tiny minority of imperialism's usurpers and stooges have been grotesque from Mobutu onwards. The capitalist press occasionally teases the subject (though naturally without the endless press attentions and campaigns reserved for the non-compliant).

The current debt "write-offs" are of course nothing but a desperate (and utterly inadequate) reformist sop to try and head of the explosive consequences that such plundering is creating, which can only be revolutionary, covering over the fact that is imperialism which created and taught the entire bribery and corruption culture and which fosters its continuation precisely to keep its grip and head of the post-war anti-colonial revolt (stimulated by the last great capitalist crisis and the revolutionary inspiration of the Soviet Union's victory).

But as the man above says, the Africans will increasingly take matters into their own hands. It is such developments that frighten imperialism above all, not because of the capitalist trade ideas put forwards in that piece but because of the total revolution which it might unleash underneath.

Desperate anti-communist fear leads to the insane and hysterical campaigns against any who dare show this spirit of anti-imperialist struggle as Mugabe has done more and more in Zimbabwe for example. He has been getting both barrels of organised western counter-revolutionary intervention from the gamut of intelligence agencies, self-appointed "watchdog bodies" and lavishly-funded "charities" which make up much of the counter revolutionary network.

Endless organised provocations and pseudo-"democracy" campaigns by mysteriously suddenly-appearing but already large scale "parties" will be directed against the firm state control being exercised and wild un-evidenced allegations of killings, torture, repression and what have you (imperialism's oldest trick of accusing its enemies of the very crimes it carries out itself worldwide --hoping that those to will be laid at someone else's door), all eagerly and breathlessly embroidered by the scumbag and criminally liable petty bourgeois western press and TV lie machine --led by the "liberals".

But the west's campaign to organise disaffected petty bourgeois and ambitious potential stooges has been going badly wrong --and the lyingly named Movement for Democratic Change (caught out trying to organise an assassination early on for example --hardly very "democratic") repeatedly falls flat on its face, most recently in its ludicrous general strike call which elicited zero response.

That has not stopped the foul lie campaign in Britain, motivated by its most reactionary colonialist past of appropriated landholdings, though there is a desperation in the latest wild accusations against Robert Mugabe, with a stooge archbishop comparing him to Pol Pot, a comparison with an alleged systematic mass murder (at least in the highly suspect western mythology of Cambodia's history) so daft as to be certifiable (for many reasons). It takes the likes of Channel Four News to present this rubbish in a solemn interview without once asking for anything as awkward as a firm accusation let alone "proof".

But some rare admissions occasionally creep into a guilty capitalist press.

Even this piece's liberal "even handedness" conflates the brutality of imperialist evictions with the Mugabe moves and gives no context to decide on the possible urgent needs to control the deliberately western fostered anti-Mugabe tribalism and petty bourgeois and lumpen criminality and black economic activity which springs up in the illegal settlements.

But while even petty bourgeois critical realism is having its doubts, the anti-proletarian dictatorship fanaticism of the Trots remains imperialism's staunchest defender, outdoing the Goebbels lies of the western diehard colonialist spirit (still smarting at having its farms confiscated) by joining the monstrous artificial MDC against Mugabe.

Could misleadership of the working class be more treacherous and foul?

It will not ultimately stop the growth of the world's masses towards revolutionary understanding --but the importance of grasping a clear perspective is crucial.

To their credit the museum Stalinist Brarites have pitched onto the right side in this issue with useful material on the detail of western lies against Zimbabwe.

But they still do not begin to present a Marxist perspective of the overall world balance.

Even worse their revisionist confusion leads to support for such dire nonsense as the monstrous "2-state solution" in Palestine and the arch-collaborator Abbas --like the Trots over Iran they fail to see the significance of the militancy and fight of the Third World struggle in general and the impact it is having.

Clarity for the world's masses is not yet here and there is a massive effort needed to study a million and one questions and get the understanding much better.

And the most important part of that is to make clear to the world's working class that despite the setbacks and defeats on US imperialism it can only remain set on a warmongering path.

Capitalism is in crisis in all aspects. The economic signals come thick and fast that its economic foundation and everything built upon it is rotten ready to collapse.

If Bush in his recent speech, despite every revelation of lies and manipulation over Iraq and other issues, continues incredibly to insist on pursuing the nonsensical "war on terror" it is because imperialism needs war more and more.

The Iraqi prison camps continue to grow: human rights and freedoms to be stripped away from the façade of "democracy".

There is no other way out of crisis that imperialism knows.

The debt mountain can never be paid. The rest of the world has to pay.

Understanding the questions much more deeply is crucial work, to fight confusion. Build Leninism.