This report seeks to identify main features of the current situation in world politics and set out the internationalist tasks for socialists in Australia. In the time available, it is only possible to identify and elaborate briefly on these features. The tasks identified are what a socialist group in Australia should be doing. The extent to which our group, RED ANT, can carry out these tasks will depend on how our membership strengthens and our supporting network grows.
For more than century now, a small group of nations, each in the grip of their ruling capitalist classes, have maintained a stranglehold on the whole of the world's wealth. This small group of nations comprises the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the other rich countries of Western Europe as well as Japan and Canada. Australia and New Zealand are also among these countries, although smaller and less powerful.
These countries' dominant position evolved out of their location as the centre for the scientific revolution and then their role in the centuries long period of European colonialism. Driven by the merchants' and then the manufacturing capitalists' need for the accumulation of capital, scientific discovery and technological advance was not used for the mutual development of nations, but for conquest and domination.
This group of countries, while riddled through by their own rivalries, have shared the common goal of maintaining a world order based on this division of the world into rich and poor, exploiter and exploited, oppressor and oppressed countries. The preservation of this division, and the position of each of these countries in it, is what defines imperialism. We all live within in an imperialist world and three quarters of humanity lives not only within in it but under its oppression.
Since 1945, the United States (US) has been the dominant power among the imperialist nations. The US capitalist state is the richest and most armed of the imperialist states.
During the 20th century, the imperialist order has been faced by two major challenges. The first was the Russian revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union. Imperialism responded to this challenge first with direct military intervention against the revolution, which failed. After World War Two (WW2), the dominant imperialist power contained the Soviet Union with constant escalation of nuclear attack potential, forcing the USSR to do the same. The US could partly fund its war preparations through its exploitation of the Third World. The USSR could only finance such expenditure from within its own economy.
The second challenge to imperialism came after WW2 when anti-colonial revolutions, often lead by socialist forces, broke out across the world. These anti-colonial revolutions included the Chinese revolution and the Vietnamese Revolution – both lead by socialist forces. Other revolutions unfolded throughout Africa, the Arab world and Asia. In Latin America, the Cuban revolution advanced in the late 50s/early 60s and then other socialist and radical movements opposed to US domination also grew. This wave remained dynamic until into the 1980s, after which some defeats weakened it. Key defeats over its lifetime were in Indonesia and Chile, but there were setbacks elsewhere.
During the last 30 years, while there have been regular upsurges of protests in different countries, often against dictatorial forms of capitalist rule, there has been no escalating threat to imperialism. The example of Cuba or the resilience of the Chavista masses in Venezuela remain a threat due to their power of inspiration, but they are not escalating threats impending immediate challenges to imperialism. All the same, US imperialism continues a most aggressive containment of Cuba and Venezuela. Imperialist strategy is also pre-emptive.
None of these challenges to imperialism grew to a stage that threatened the continuation of the imperialist order. The immediate threat they posed was to the extent and depth of its dominance – the extent to which wealth could be sucked out of the rest of the world. But in a system where the maximisation of profit under conditions of a declining rate of profit operates, any and all threats to the maximisation of profits (especially if it presents the spectre of a future growth of such a threat) is dealt with in a hostile manner.
The US and other imperialist countries reflex pre-emptive actions against revolutionary national liberation and socialist movements reflects their awareness that in many Global South countries contradictions continue to sharpen so that the possibility of new revolutionary surges are always possible. There has been growth of progressive movements in countries like Colombia, Ecuador and Peru challenging the pro-imperialist status quo. Even the victory of the more moderate Workers Party candidate, Lula, in Brazil is a reflection of this volatility. In Asia, the Left is weaker but the social contradictions no less sharp, or even sharper. The Global South still has the potential to create new Cubas, or Venezuelas.
The 21st Century and A New Wave of Challenges
During the 20th century, almost all of the challenges to imperialism came from the Left, from either openly socialist forces or from radicalising, left national liberation forces. In the 21st century, challenges from such forces are still real, as with Cuba and Venezuela, or Palestine and Bolivia or even Brazil. However, a new axis of resistance to imperialism has opened up.
Countries still operating with mainly capitalist economies – China, Russia, Iran, for example – are having to defend themselves against both hostile economic and military containment by US led imperialism. These countries, either because of their economic and military strength, and political location, now have sufficient strength and confidence to resist many imperialist attempts to contain their growth and social progress – although we note that the concept of "social progress" in the current era needs separate discussion.
China, Russia and Iran are all sizeable countries, especially China. They are also all countries that have broken out of direct US imperialist stranglehold. Iran did this back in the 1970s. Russia did it after the end of Yeltsin's reign and the establishment of the United Russian Party government, led by Vladimir Putin. Since the mid-1970s, following a China-US reproachment and the entry of US manufacturing companies into China, the US received very favourable treatment for its investment and trade. During the last 10 years, it appears that China is pushing back against this.
At least in the case of Russia and China, the US is not simply motivated by resisting their push back, but by the desire for even deeper, or at least continuing, exploitative penetration. There is even some open discussion in US ruling class circles where they discuss the actual break-up of Russia after a regime change process. Resulting smaller and regional governments will be weaker and more unable to prevent imperialist business penetration.
The increasing aggressive containment of China and Russia is manifested in the proxy war against Russia taking place in the Ukraine and the economic war against China, as well as the sabre rattling by the US over Taiwan. The AUKUS Agreement and the formation of the Quad, in both of which the Australian state is participating, are also a part of this. This new wave of challenge to the imperialist order poses at least two challenges also to socialists everywhere, and to socialists in imperialist countries in specific ways.
Nations, Global Structures and the Defence of Non-Revolutionary States Against Imperialist Aggression
In the world as it exists today – that is a world made up of nations, most of whom have their own states – the recognition of national sovereignty is essential for there to be any effective inter-national cooperation. Conquest of one nation by another, or the subversion of one nation by another state, must be opposed. Further, any and all interventions aimed at strengthening the global imperialist (im)balance of power – the division of the world into oppressor and oppressed nations – must be opposed.
The existence of this institutionalised or embedded imbalance of power can complicate how the situation of nations, and their various classes, must be seen. A non-imperialist nation, through its ruling class's policy, can choose to either help the imperialist countries consolidate their power, or resist imperialism. In the former case, a pro-imperialist state can be acting to weaken the principle of national sovereignty in general, and be also weakening its own sovereignty at the same time. This is the role that the Ukrainian ruling class (or ruling clique?) is playing in imperialism's proxy war against Russia.
This third wave of challenges (the first and second waves being the revolutionary movements after the first and second world wars) comes not from a new wave of social revolutions but the resistance of capitalist states that Sam King has analysed as non-monopoly countries. The changed scenario compared to the first and second waves complicates the explanatory propaganda work that socialists must undertake. These complications work on at least four fronts, three of which I will comment on in this section of the report. I will comment on the fourth front at the end.
First, there is the constant need to explain the contradictions and tensions created around the question of national sovereignty when nations, through their ruling classes, actively help strengthen the imperialist order. In a world, where the majority of the population has not yet been won to an understanding of actual imperialism, the "natural" – assisted by massive propaganda – tendency is to see everything purely in terms of nations, countries. This has become also very true among many people who identify as socialists.
Since the decline of leftist and anti-imperialist movements, a big section of leftists around the world looks at the world in this way. They see nations but do not adequately comprehend the embedded global power structure that frames all political and economic development. To the extent they use the word "imperialist" it is used to describe activity of any stronger state to assert its interests over a weaker state, irrespective of the impact on the global imbalance of power favouring the small group of dominant states. Explaining the situation in relation this will not be an easy task, as it faces both the massive misdirection of imperialist propaganda as well as that of incorrect analysis by the Left.
Second, none of the states of these non-monopoly countries, being the executive committee of their ruling classes, are socialist or any other kind of participatory democracy. They are neither like the socialist democracy that exists in Cuba nor the liberal democracy of Venezuela with a huge socialist movement, whose parties are now in power and whose capitalist class previously lost control of the armed forces through a failed counter-revolutionary coup in 2012. Nor do they share those features of liberal democracy which a big section of the imperialist countries' population sees as defining democracy – multi-party elections and especially frequently changing governments (although Australia had Prime Minister Menzies for 23 years and the US Franklin Roosevelt for 16 years). From Iran to Russia to China the exact nature of the ruling class differs, although in no case are there institutions where the organised working class wields power. Some argue that the huge membership of the Communist Party of China (CCP) indicates a significant mass role in decision-making in China. Without a greater familiarity with the mechanisms at work in the CCP and related organisations, it is difficult for us to make a definitive assessment.
Furthermore, within liberal democratic political culture, the word "defence" draws its meaning from the legal world. Defence is defence against accusation. Any attempt to argue that China, or Russia or Iran should be defended from imperialist attack is immediately seen as arguing that these states should be defended against any criticism or accusation that comes from their citizens. It is necessary, but no doubt slow work, to explain that defending a country from attack or hostile, aggressive containment is completely separate from defending a government from criticism. At the same time, in the current climate of push-back from these countries, it is also necessary to be able to distinguish between justified criticism by their own people or popular movements on the one hand, and straight out lies and imperialist organised propaganda campaigns on the other.
Third, it is necessary to return again to the question of the nation. Earlier I discussed the complications for national sovereignty when a non-imperialist country adapts policies that strengthen the imperialist order. It is also necessary for us to reflect on the nature of nations themselves in any discussion of world politics. The Marxist position is that nations are a new form of community created as capitalism developed and later out of colonial capitalism and the resistance to it as it also created new national formations. On the one hand nations bear all the negative and destructive features of being the child of capitalism, including housing the class contradiction of capitalism. On the other hand, they are indeed the units into which the current world is divided and both economic and social development occur within these units and reflect the unique characteristics of each nation and its objective history.
A key characteristic of all the non-monopoly countries, of all the Global South/non-imperialist countries is that their overall national development has been held back because of their position within the global imbalance of power. Even a quick perusal of the various United Nations social development indices will show this, with the partial, but very significant exception of Cuba. Thus, socialists must understand and have empathy for all those endeavours throughout the Global South for national development, despite our natural tendency to look at classes over nations.
In the imperialist world, the nation has a different character. Nowhere is national development being held back by external hostile forces. In fact, in all practical terms, the imperialist world already experiences an abundance of the needs and of many irrational wants in their societies. Fidel Castro never tired in pointing out not only the waste in the United States monstrous expenditure on war preparations, including nuclear weapons, but also of no less morally dubious massive spending on the maintenance of pets and on cosmetics in the US while billions of people live in miserable poverty.
Socialist propaganda among the working classes of the imperialist classes must emphasise that aside from the redistribution of wealth and power within their societies, our classes attitude must be for international redistribution of wealth and power to end the constraints imposed for so long on the national development of other countries. Only by the optimal advance of national development in all fields, in the end most achievable under socialist power, can nations be sufficiently equal for genuine international cooperation to take place and thus the process of the withering away of national interests begin.
Internationalist Tasks for Socialists in Australia
Our tasks flow from the picture described above.
A first priority must be to continue to advocate and support all efforts for solidarity with the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions. In the Australian context, this means continuing to report on developments affecting their struggles and supporting any campaigns they call for – such as the Let Cuba Live campaign. Wherever feasible this should be in cooperation with the Australia Cuba Friendship Society groups and genuine Venezuelan solidarity activity.
A second priority must be advocating and participating in all opposition to the Australian state's participation in imperialism's hostile containment policies towards any of the non-monopoly countries whenever they are targeted. At the moment this means opposition to the anti-China propaganda and Australia's participation in AUKUS and the QUAD. It is necessary to continue to explain that China is neither an enemy to the Australian people nor a source of security instability in the Asia-Pacific Region. The United States hostile containment of China and the presence of the US navy thousands of miles away from the US coast patrolling off the Chinese coast is the main source of security instability.
Alongside this must be opposition to the misinformation and propaganda around the proxy war against Russia in the Ukraine and opposition to Australian indirect or direct military support for that war – this includes Australia's substantial military aid to Ukraine.
Framing even the two tasks above, is the necessity to continue to explain the nature of imperialism and of the global polarisation in wealth and the capacity for national development. This can have two levels. One is simply explaining again and again the statistics and other evidence of the huge divide between rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed nations.
Another level is to bring home to working people in Australia this reality as it exists in our own geographic reason, the Asia Pacific. While there are often statements that Australia's position in this region is primarily characterised by being a mainly culturally European society on the edge of a different cultural world, the more fundamental depiction of Australia's position is that of an outpost of imperialism, directly threatening neighbouring countries whose national development and prospects of prosperity are being held back by that imperialism.
Indonesia, including West Papua, and also East Timor, Papua New Guinea and South Pacific islands are all very low per capita income countries whose development has been and still is being held back by the colonial and then imperialist global structures. This reality, of the past and present plundering of their countries, and Australia's involvement and complicity in this needs to be continuously highlighted.
This is a major reason for ongoing direct collaboration with progressive and socialist groups in these countries, especially in educating the Australian working class on their plight and struggles and Australia's various complicities as well as solidarity. We should be considering relaunching, in whatever modest way is possible, the Asia Pacific Solidarity Network (APSN), whose internet presence has been outstandingly maintained by a comrade since the 1990s. Direct collaboration with progressives and socialists in the region underpins all political education work around the nature of imperialism. It works as a potent therapy against racism and chauvinism. It is also necessary in order to have an understanding of the political and social conditions in neighbouring societies.
The question of the United States
There can be no doubt that since World War Two, the US became and has remained the dominant imperialist power and still is the most destructive and exploiting entity on the earth. This is despite it having been defeated after WW2 in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; in Cuba; in Iran; in Afghanistan and, politically, to date in Venezuela. Of course, it has had its victories also, not least in our own region in 1965 in Indonesia, although the US itself did not have to do much in the very initial phase of the process. At this conference we should also remember the US victory in Chile 50 years ago in 1973. But in any case, we know from its defeats that it is not invulnerable. It seems to be heading for a defeat in Ukraine as well.
In this era of the continuing struggle of Cuba and Venezuela to survive US aggression and the push-back against the US by Russia, China and Iran, and maybe others soon also, opposition to US imperialism becomes a central plank in any socialist program. In Australia, this must take the form of opposition to Australian participation in AUKUS, the QUAD and the proxy war in the Ukraine. Obviously, socialists and progressives in the US will also be at the forefront of opposition to US aggression against Cuba and Venezuela and to warmongering against Russia and China. They will also be active in direct collaboration with Cuban and Venezuelan comrades. Latin America is to them what Southeast Asia must be to us – although because of the outstanding importance of the defence of Cuba for the whole world, we in Australia can never leave that behind either.
The growth and strengthening of the Left in the US is crucial for us all. We in Australia must seek to develop the closest possible relations with the Left in the US that is fighting its own ruling class's imperialist activities. RED ANT already has some cooperation with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and the People's Forum in the USA. RED ANT has reproduced writings from the PSL. We should aim to organise joint public zoom forums on issues of mutual interest, such as opposition to AUKUS. We should be on the alert for any opportunity for productive collaboration.
International Politics and Socialist Solutions
A major point in this report is the emergence as a major political fact, the push-back against US imperialism by China and Russia. I have argued that these countries are pursuing this push back as necessary to be able to advance their national development. Three questions arise from this. First, can a capitalist path today achieve national development, defined as a steadily increasing consumption of basic needs as well as of wants as socially defined in the capitalist era? Could this happen in even if imperialist containment was significantly weakened? Is some form of social democratic style welfare state possible in the non-monopoly capitalist states which has no access to abundant super-profits gathered from imperialist exploitation and are the subject of that exploitation?
Second, the only direct examples we have of capitalist societies achieving abundance are of societies that have benefited from centuries of colonialism and a century of imperialism. Can any non-imperialist country replicate that experience and if not, so what then? Where ultimately can these countries go? There are some arguments put that China, building on some of the positive legacies of its socialist revolution, is a hybrid socialist-capitalist formation responding to this new situation. Further study is needed and no doubt discussion of this must already be taking place in China.
Third, the two centuries of capitalist imperialist domination have defined social progress, while not totally, very definitively in terms of the ability to consume more and more goods and services, whose value is measured in money, and without reference to genuine usefulness, environmental impacts or cultural benefit. Medicine is first of all a consumer product and not a social service. Even in the technological advanced economies where labour saving devices are widely in use, working people are deprived of time for themselves. Spiritual or psychical needs are ignored or a dealt with through industrially produced distraction.
This report is not the place to try to answer these questions. However, it has been important to note the contradiction of this actually very new phenomenon of non-monopoly capitalist road to national development. It highlights the importance of us not losing sight of the ultimate goal of revolutionary humanist socialism where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. Because of the deprivations imposed by colonial era impoverishment and a long and severe economic embargo by the USA of Cuba, a perfection of such a situation is still a long way off. The revolution needs to spread. However, concretely, we can see the spirit of such a direction manifested in the achievements of the Cuban revolution up until now.
Combining responses to the actual prevailing conditions and the limits they impose without ever losing sight of the socialist solutions the world needs: that is our challenge.
- Long Live the Cuban Revolution!
- China is not an enemy – Out of AUKUS!
- Demand Negotiations not More War in Ukraine!
- Solidarity with Asia-Pacific Struggles for Social Justice and against Imperialism!
- Socialism for Humanity – Yes!
Source: https://red-ant.org/2023/09/24/world-politics-today-and-our-internationalist-tasks-in-australia/