At the most fundamental of levels, imperialism, as it has existed since the beginning of the 20^th century, is a structure. This structure's primary feature is the concentration, in just a handful of countries, of the capacity to continually revolutionise the means of production: to continually upgrade the productivity of labour across the whole of society through the use of increasingly powerful and complex technologies.

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.

The following in-depth, 8000 word article was originally published in 2016. However, it has become as relevant as ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 27, 2022.

Red Ant republishes it here to contribute to the debate around the nature of the Russian invasion, of Russia itself and its relationship with the bloc of rich, imperialist countries like the USA, UK, Germany and Australia.

The war in Ukraine has presented left-wing theorists and commentators with a difficult analytical challenge.

Arrayed against Russia in this war is a bloc of the world's richest and most developed countries, providing armaments, funding and satellite intelligence to Ukraine and directing a propaganda onslaught unmatched since the days of the Cold War. At the same time, global North sanctions aim to strangle Russia's economy.

In today's imperialist world, which is starkly polarised between rich and poor societies, revolutionary Internationalism is the most basic principle of Marxist politics.

It is not enough simply to support the struggle of workers in our own country for better lives. Redistribution of wealth within a rich, imperialist country like Australia – if the workers movement is limited to that – is historically a social democratic project.

The working class in China carries on its backs a great part of the labour of the whole world. For that reason, it is generally assumed that the Chinese capitalist class (or the Chinese state) will soon hold in its hands the fate of the whole world.

In the previous article in this series it was argued that China is not imperialist in the Marxist sense because its capitalist class is not able to capture, in a widespread way, value that is produced by workers in other countries. That privilege is held only by the capitalist classes of the rich countries such as Australia, the United States, Japan, South Korea and the countries of Western Europe. It is also the reason these countries are rich and China is not.

According to the mainstream definition, China perhaps is imperialist. For example, Beijing claims territory in the South China Sea that is closer to the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam than it is to China. It is also increasing military expenditure. On these facts alone, China might be “imperialist” in the dictionary sense.

For more than a hundred years – since the First World War – revolutionary socialists have used the concept of “imperialism” to analyse the relations between different countries. In that whole period, or at least since the Second World War, there has been no major example of a non-imperialist country (i.e. a poor, colonial, “semi-colonial”, “underdeveloped” or “Third World” country) breaking free of domination and forcing an entry into the small club of rich nations.

I was born in 1951. I was in my early teens when the American war in Vietnam started to become news. I just missed out on being old enough or exposed directly enough to be fully caught up in the 60s radicalisation, but it was the 60s all the same that framed the picture of the world that I gazed upon and eventually engaged with. The 60s was a period of multiple, myriad, kaleidoscopic, even hallucinogenic angles of gaze and questioning. Engagement with social and political realities exploded with militant protest movements, subversive culture and the sharing of songs hitherto without voices.