When the
international conference of Marxist Leninist parties and organizations will hold
its session, one year will have passed since the terror attacks of the 11th
of September, which hit the symbols of the power of the North American
imperialism. At the moment of writing of this text, the preparation of the war
decided by US imperialism against Iraq has begun.
The conference of
Mexico which took place some time after these events, has issued a first
evaluation about these terror attacks and has immediately condemned “the plans
of war of US imperialism and its allies, which, in the name of a so-called
“unlimited justice” are launching a crusade against the people of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other countries. They also attack the patriots,
the anti imperialists and revolutionaries of all over the world, which they want
to present as terrorists in order to criminalize their struggle and to suppress
them. This makes more necessary then aver to forge the great anti imperialist
unity.”
The evolution of the
US imperialism has largely proved the rightness of this general appreciation.
If we have proposed
to dedicate a large part of this conference to the discussion about the
situation that developed after the 11th of September (more than about
the events of the 11th themselves), it is because we think it
important that the parties and organizations of the conference deepen together
the analysis of the actual policy of imperialism, of its possible evolution:
that they evaluate objectively the level of the struggle of the labour class and
of the peoples; that they exchange their experience in the political work, and
their organizational labour, that they learn from their common work in order to
develop the anti imperialist unity, the solidarity with the struggles of the
working class and the peoples and to play their leading role.
Each member of the
conference has developed its analyse in its press, its public positions, of the
general situation and of the particular aspects linked to its country and region
in which he is struggling.
The points of unity
are important and numerous. We do not know all these positions, especially
because we have not the possibility to translate them or simply because they
have not been transmitted to us.
We think that it is
important to discuss and deepen some questions of the analyse. These questions
have to do with the evaluation of the reinforcement of worldwide hegemony of US
imperialism, its consequences on the contradictions between imperialist powers
and the question of the resistance of the working class and the people towards
this policy of hegemony of US imperialism.
Plan:
A)
the reinforcement of
worldwide hegemony of US imperialism
1)
from the collapse of the
block dominated by social imperialism to Bush’s crusade
2)
“the crusade against
terrorism”
B)
The fight back of the
working class and the peoples.
The strategy of US imperialism has always ambitioned to reach the
greatest hegemony possible, in all fields ; first of all in the economical
field, but also in the military, diplomatic, cultural one, etc. Each imperialist
war has meant its reinforcement, at the disadvantage of other imperialist
powers.
One can say that so far as the collapse of the block dominated by social
imperialism (at the end of the eighties, beginning of the nineties), the
struggle for worldwide hegemony was principally directed against this block. It
was question in those times of a “bipolar” world, a notion invented by
bourgeoisie which was inclined to analyse everything through this prism,
ignoring at the same time the others contradictions of imperialist system. All
the struggles for liberation were automatically analysed and “treated” as
the mere expression of the rivalry between USSR and USA and the inter
imperialist contradictions were almost ignored, or, on the contrary,
overemphasized, as did the Maoist “three worlds theory”.
If imperialist powers such as Japan, France, Germany, etc. were
fundamentally in the camp of US imperialism, this did not mean that there are no
contradictions and no rivalry with US imperialism.
Japan, and its “sphere of co-prosperity” could, at a moment, as the more
serious opponent to US imperialism, at least on the economical level. It has
even been accused of trying to penetrate in the “backyard” of US
imperialism, namely Latin America, through Peru (and the Japanese community
living here).
The
coalition of imperialist powers and capitalist states of Europe,
with the German imperialism as dominating and leading power among that alliance,
was engaged in a process of economical, political and military unification,
(even if this process in the military field is still at an embryonic state).
This process has accelerated at the moment of collapse of the eastern block and
the German re unification. In this so called “united Europe”, French
imperialism hoped to maintain and extend its domination on a great part of
Africa, with its “exclusive” zone, its old colonies, and the German
imperialism hoped to reinforce itself by absorbing the old peripheral republics
of the USSR and to establish a partnership with Russia.
Russia, deeply weakened, hit by a total economical, social, military an
political chaos, was confronted with a multiplication of wars and national
conflicts (the wars of Chechnya being one example among tens of others) fuelled
more or less openly by USA and others.
The
Chinese bourgeoisie was
expecting to have time and to benefit some foreign capitals, maintaining at the
same time its system of political system, in order to develop itself in all
fields, becoming a serious candidate for the worldwide domination.
In
a longer future, the Indian bourgeoisie can nourish same ambitions.
The first imperialist
war against Iraq is the first war for a new international partition after the
collapse of the eastern block. It states the volition of US imperialism to gain
and settle its worldwide hegemony, without partnership. At that moment, it tried
to cover this war with the legitimacy of UN and the war coalition is supposed to
apply the resolutions of the UN.
After that, the war
of Balkans has taken place, with the partition of the “weak point” that was
Yugoslavia. If it is the German imperialism which has first precipitated the
process of disintegration (war of Bosnia), the US imperialism intervened with
brutality, militarily, to stop the ambitions of German imperialism. As we said
in the text ; “the war of Yugoslavia, product and manifestation of the
sharpening of the crisis of imperialism in Europe (x) : “the intervention,
decided by the US imperialism, marks its decision to settle its worldwide
leadership on the economical and military levels and to hinder the expansion of
German imperialism in the Balkans and in central Europe (page 23 of number 6 of
the French edition of Unity and struggle). In this second war, the role of the
UN is merely formal and it is the Nato which becomes its “armed hand” (xx).
These two wars have
both been conducted under the pretext of the “defence of human rights”,
“defence of minorities” (the Kurds, Kosovars, and so on.)
2) Bush’s crusade against terrorism
Its features are well
known, we shape them roughly.
In a few months, a
huge military display of US imperialism has taken place, even in regions in
which it was not present as far as now. This display went along with a process
of militarisation at large scale of US economy and of the society in general. In
the USA, the concept of fascisization finds its more obvious expression:
- reinforcement of the more aggressive monopolies, especially those which
are linked to weaponry which are growing more powerful :
-
The budget of security has
been highly increased, bypassing largely the budgets of security of the others
imperialist powers. Four big companies are partaking these commands, thus
reinforcing their weight on the international level (they trust the markets of
weapons of the states belonging to the Nato.)
-
The representatives of these
monopolies occupy the decisive charges of the institutions, as it can be seen in
the overwhelming presence of militaries of high rank surrounding Bush.
Questioning of the democratic rights. If the first victims ate groups and
communities singled out as potential supports to terrorists reds, it is the
whole US population that is concerned (massive dispositions for spying the
population, ideological and hysterical campaign of chauvinism, etc.)
Laws and measures of exception, giving to the instruments of repression
huge powers, escaping to all kind of “democratic” control.
The rapidity
and the amplitude of this display let think of a vast plan elaborated by the
military-industrial lobby before the terrorist attacks.
These attacks (xxx)
have obviously served as a pretext to the accomplishment of this plan. They also
contributed to legitimise Bush’s team, which encountered dome difficulties to
impose itself (remind the episode of Bush’s election, designed at the end as
president by a court), a team which imposed itself brutally, in a atmosphere of
dramatization (for hours, Bush had been totally in the hands of the military
command, which became, from this moment, omnipresent).
Another component of
this team is formed by the men of the oil companies, directly interested in the
regions rich with oil and gas, or the regions strategic as for the transport of
these products (it is the case of Afghanistan);
US imperialism does
not hide its objective to reinforce and extend its control over the resources of
energy, with the oil resources in first plan, but also some strategic minerals,
the huge reserves of potable water (to insure especially the provision of its
ally Israel with water).
The question of oil
is the background of the war against Afghanistan, it is also the background of
the war, US imperialism wants to fight against Iraq. He wants to take over the
control of the oil of Iraq (which means the liquidation of Saddam’s regime and
its substitution with a regime subdued to US imperialism), in order to provoke a
new distribution of the oil market in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, accused to
support Bin Laden’s reds losing its “weight”) for a better control of the
Middle East oil (divide to rule), along with a policy of diversification of the
sources, with the oil of Russia and the Caucasian oil (which explains also the
closer links with Putin) and the oil of the African continent (the reserves of
Chad, Angola, of the basin of the Congo river, etc.)
So, we can say that
these terrorist attacks have permitted to these lobbies to take under control
the whole affairs of US imperialism. This is the true “change” which
occurred the 11th of September.
The US imperialism
alone defines who is an “enemy”. States, groups and organisations that
compete for their hegemony in one way or another are on the black list and
menaced with war. The international instances are ignored; US imperialism does
not even try to maintain a fiction of international law.
The ideological
justification of this crusade is formulated in plain terms: it is a crusade
between the “good” and the “evil”, between the “emancipating values of
occident” and the backward ones of “Islamic integrism”. When Bush speaks
of “islamic integrism”, he speaks in fact of the Muslim world and every body
knows it. This speech hides all the contradictions (between imperialism and the
peoples, and more generally the class contradictions) in favour of a
contradiction mixing religion and culture. It is the “shock of
civilizations”, a theory elaborated by US intellectuals (the same way that,
some years ago, Fukuyama has theorized the universal hegemony of capitalism and
more precisely its “liberal” US version, just after the collapse of the
block headed by social imperialism). This speech fuels, in return another
religious speech, especially in the Muslim countries.
In this crusade, the
alliance with Israel has reinforced and there is a strategic “axis”;
USA-Israel-Turkey in order to warrant the control of this region.
Us imperialism has a
worldwide strategy which declines itself on the economical and military fields;
this last one imposing the interests of the big US monopolies. The businessmen
accompany the soldiers: it is the alliance between the “neo-liberalism” and
the flying bomb.
This strategy hurts
the interests of its allies and seeks to impeach any concurrent to emerge and to
dispute its hegemony. Its favourite arm is the division of its concurrents, the
exacerbation of the tensions between them, the manipulation of the unsolved
national questions for destabilizing, etc.
For example, the
actual alliance with Russia seeks to impeach the alliance between Russia and
Germany. The protectionist measures against some European products seek also to
exacerbate the tensions amid the European Union (especially between France and
Germany). Japan is used to contain the expansion of China and reverse.
The
inert-imperialist contradictions do not smooth, on the contrary, they cannot but
exacerbate themselves. But the balance of forces is so much in favour of US
imperialism that no single imperialist power, or an alliance of imperialist
powers is able in a short future to contest militarily this hegemony.
This does not mean the end of the contradictions between the imperialist powers
(neither the other contradictions). US imperialism will continue to use the
military aggression, the provocations, the subversion, directly or through one
or a group of other countries, in order to maintain its domination, weaken,
divide and surround or contain its potential concurrents, among which China is
obviously an important one. This means that the principal responsible for
imperialist wars is the US imperialism; provoking instability in huge regions.
It is the way it provokes a new definition of the markets and zones of
influence.
This policy of being
everywhere and mixing in all the affairs of the world is also a weak point. He
is obliged to intervene everywhere, disseminating its forces and, more than
everything, he concentrates against himself more and more forces, of all hues,
with their own and conflicting interests: imperialist bourgeoisies, bourgeoisies
of dependent countries, peoples and oppressed nations. The weak links are
multiplying and with them grows the objective possibility of rupture of the
imperialist chain. The objective and subjective factors which permit us to
define these “weak links” are known. It would be useful to precise what are
today these potential weak links.
The brutality of the US military offensive, the barbarian war against the
miserable population of Afghanistan, the amplitude of the deployment of US
forces in the world, the hysteria of Bush’s speech and its open policy of two
weights, two measures, especially in he case of Palestine, have rapidly provoked
the opposition of the peoples. The anti-US sentiment has increased all over the
world.
In the imperialist countries, the movement against the imperialist
globalisation has not ceased, in spite of the operation of criminalizing it
(it has been accused to play for the “terrorists”) and the policy of terror
of the states (cf. the killing of the demonstrator in Genoa). Of course, there
are big illusions about the possibility to moralize the system, about the
possibility of relying on the European Union in order to oppose US hegemony,
illusions widespread by the different reformist currents. But this movement has
a potential of criticizing the system and of mobilizing of large sectors of the
populations of the imperialist countries, especially among the youth and the
workers. It facilitates the junction between the workers movement, especially
its trade union component, the peasants movement and the movement of struggle of
the dominated peoples of Africa, America and Asia.
The national struggle of the Palestinian people
meets a large current of sympathy. The solidarity goes far beyond the political
circles traditionally mobilized by this cause. The “missions of civilians”
are a manifestation of it. The open support of US imperialism to the savage war
of the Zionist government, their common will to inscribe this war in the
“crusade against terrorism” have as result the fact that the resistance of
the Palestinian people and its national demands are part of the general struggle
against the policy of US imperialism. It also nourish the contestation of the
Arab peoples against “their” regimes, which, because of their class
interests, collaborate in fact with the policy of US imperialism. It is also a
factor of internal contestation in Israel itself. The Israeli forces which
struggle for the true recognition of the Palestinian rights continue their
combat, in spite of the repression and the intense Zionist propaganda.
Some work has been engaged in order to come closer to organizations of
the Palestinian resistance who defend the more correct political positions. The
struggle of the Palestinian people has become (or again become) a symbol for the
peoples. But the purely military option imposed by Israel and the fact that some
Palestinian organizations put also the main weight on a military solution, are
limiting the field of action of the masses. Combining the military action with
the political activity, relying on the potential of the Palestinian people, on
the solidarity movement in Israel and internationally, will break the vice
imposed by Israel.
The movement against the war has developed in several countries of
Europe, in the USA, in Asia, in spite of the repression, the manoeuvres of the
social democracy and the revisionists in order to maintain it at the lowest
political level, putting on he same level the aggressor and the aggressed. An
intense political battle is traversing it in which the anti imperialist
consequent forces, the Marxist Leninist parties and organizations have played
and continue to play an important role. Embryos of anti-war fronts have been
created in several countries, they denounce the imperialist war waged by US
imperialism and the support and following of the other imperialist powers,
especially the European ones. In these mobilizations, the advanced elements of
the working class play an important role and the youth is getting more and more
politically involved. There are possibilities to coordinate more these
initiatives on a regional level, especially at the European level, or even on a
broader scale. This dimension must be present in the mobilizations against the
war announced against Iraq.
The questioning of the democratic rights, is a phenomenon which concerns
all the states of the international coalition. It provokes the opposition of
sectors of the little bourgeoisie which could have been confused by the
imperialist propaganda on the necessity of “preventing” themselves from the
terrorist manoeuvres.
The popular struggles against the policy of imperialist domination,
especially the US domination, over Latin and central America and the Caribbean
have developed in the last months. The “crusade against terrorism” is
directed against the organizations of guerrilla, especially in Colombia. It
means also a greater military presence of US troops all over the continent,
especially in the countries around Colombia.
A series of economical plans have been applied to reinforce the control
and the domination of US imperialism in what it considers as its “backyard”.
Entire countries have been transformed in laboratories at great scale for these
economical policies, with their tremendous fiasco which have impoverished the
broad masses, sectors of the petite bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie and even
some sectors of the bourgeoisie. Strong popular movements have developed, in as
in Argentina and the neighbour states.
We must have this context in mind when we analyse particular situations,
as for example, the situation in Venezuela. We must discuss it openly and deeply
in this conference, also because the brother party of Venezuela is in the
forefront in the actual political battle in hi country.
The resistance of the people of the continent against US domination is an
old one and it takes different forms. The fact that the policy of war of US
imperialism is more and more denounced, in other latitudes is a positive aspect
and makes it easer to work for making these struggles converge.
US imperialism is also interested in the mineral and oil reserves of the
African continent. The British-American interests are old in South Africa, but
it has extended its influence over the region of the “great lakes”, as far
as the Atlantic coast (especially the Zaire). But it wants to expand more and it
is combating the domination of French imperialism in its “exclusive zone”.
In order to maintain itself, French imperialism relies on all the dictators who
support him, a policy which provokes a growing anger of the people and reinforce
them in their determination to get rid of these dictators and their master. US
imperialism which tries to hide behind the “defence of democracy” is
assimilated to the IMF and its policy of misery. The rivalry between the
imperialists, especially the French and the US, is the background of the
conflicts which drench several countries in blood. All the countries are
concerned with these wars, the instability is everywhere. This points the
importance to develop the solidarity with the struggles of the Marxist Leninist
parties and the anti imperialist, democratic, forces in Africa which often face
both imperialist powers, even concurrent, but both responsible for the wars and
misery.
Dear comrades,
These are some of our reflections that we wanted to transmit you in order
to contribute to the work of the next conference.
Paris, 10th of September 2002
Workers’ Communist Party of France
Notes
(x) Text presented by the Communist Organisation October of Spain and the
Workers’ Communist Party of France, January 2000, issued in the 6th
French edition of Unity & Struggle.
(xx) Before, the military expeditions decided by the UN were
international coalitions with national detachments. With the war of Kosovo, it
is directly the NATO which conducts the different military detachments engaged.
(xxx) According to the information given by the US secret services, it
appears that these attacks were not a “surprise” for everybody, but this
does not mean that they have been executed by US secret services themselves.