Download a poster version of the cover art of this statement here.
March 8th is celebrated around the world as International Women’s Day. In the United States, the rights of women, including reproductive rights, are currently under attack by right-wing reactionaries. The movement to defend and expand these rights is gaining momentum and takes inspiration from struggles waged around the world. For International Women’s Day 2024, Freedom Road Socialist Organization would like to emphasize showing solidarity with the brave and courageous women of Palestine as they fight not only for their own lives, but for the lives of their families and all the people of Palestine struggling against Zionist oppression. We encourage all those who support peace and justice to take action and celebrate International Women’s Day by holding a demonstration, march, program or gathering.
Support the Women of Palestine
The ongoing struggle to defeat Zionist oppression in Palestine is the single sharpest contradiction in the world today. Freedom Road Socialist Organization rejects proposed half-measures like the “two state solution” and proudly declares: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” All those around the world who love peace and justice must support the people of Palestine as they resist the attacks waged against them by Israeli forces, who themselves are supported by the U.S. government. We must also take action to help stop the genocide of Palestinian people – and every action, big or small, matters. On International Women’s Day 2024, we emphasize our never-ending solidarity with the women of Palestine who are fighting for peace, the right to return, and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.
A History of Struggle and Victory
International Women’s Day has been celebrated for more than a century. In 1908, the poor working and living conditions of garment workers in New York City were in need of a change. The workers, largely women, waged a heroic struggle to improve things. This victory led to the socialist movement formally adopting a worldwide celebration to honor women’s struggle against oppression – a proposal made by the famous German revolutionary Clara Zetkin. In many social justice struggles throughout history, from campaigns for workers rights to battles against police crimes, women have played a central role.
Defend Women’s and Reproductive Rights
It has been nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision which had previously been the legal basis for the right to have an abortion. Since that time, many people around the country have engaged in protests and actions aimed at defending and restoring this fundamental right. A person is not really free if they can’t have control over their own bodies. Freedom Road Socialist Organization believes that the struggle for women’s and reproductive rights is an important part of the struggle for liberation and justice for all oppressed people.
The Fight Continues
As long as the oppression of women has existed, so too has there been resistance and struggle. Our movement is diverse with strong fighters of all nationalities and genders – and that diversity makes our movement stronger. We can and will defend against the attacks on LGBTQ rights and will continue the fight against the reactionary attacks on Trans people.
The fight for a better world is what’s important. Mao Zedong famously said that “women hold up half the sky,” and anybody who’s ever been active in a trade union, student activist group, or social justice movement will tell you that women often hold up more than half.
The system of monopoly capitalism that dominates most of the world today is rotten and must be swept away. It’s a broken system that fails the overwhelming majority of humanity day in and day out. It’s a broken system that supports the exploitation of women, oppressed nationalities, and workers around the world. We need to replace that system with socialism so that we can address the fundamental roots of inequality in all its forms.
]]>In opposition to Israel’s U.S.-funded genocidal assault on Gaza, the Palestinian resistance and it’s allies continue to challenge imperialism. A powerful pro-Palestine movement continues to gain strength in the U.S., radicalizing large numbers of people. Members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization across the country have been active in this recent upsurge, just as we have supported the Palestinian liberation movement since our founding. We say: Stand with Palestine! Victory to the Palestinian Resistance! End U.S. aid to Israel!
Join us for a presentation and Q&A with leading organizers in this powerful movement: Husam Marajda of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and Meredith Aby of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.
You can read recent FRSO statements on Palestine and the broader conflict in the Middle East here:
Stand with Palestine! Victory to the Palestinian Resistance!
Join the organization that stands with the Palestinian resistance – Join FRSO!
]]>The Biden administration justifies its criminal attacks as some sort of legitimate “retaliation.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that the U.S. has military bases in Iraq that Iraqi people want gone. The U.S. is also illegally occupying portions of Syria. The Syrian government has told the U.S. to leave its soil on many occasions. An unwelcome invader of the other people’s homes, the warmakers of Washington, D.C. play the aggrieved party when resistance forces try to end these occupations. The hypocrisy of empire is unbelievable.
The United States is trying to maintain its domination of the Mideast, and it is the facilitator of the genocide taking place in Gaza. Currently the Pentagon is rushing munitions of all kinds to maintain the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The aim of the bombing campaign is to improve the strategic position of Israel and weaken the axis of resistance: Syria, Iran, Yemen, the Palestinian liberation movement, and the patriotic forces in Lebanon and Iraq. This is a case of lifting a rock to drop it on one’s own feet.
The Palestinian resistance has proved to be remarkably powerful and resilient. In Gaza and the West Bank, the resistance has successfully stood up to the occupation, so the Zionists have resorted to the mass murder of Palestinian moms, children and old folks. Their tactics range from bombs and air strikes to the blockade of goods and deliberate mass starvation.
The U.S. has long used Israel like a policemen’s club to beat the peoples of the Middle East when they step out of line and stand up for liberation and national independence. Now that it seems possible that the Palestinian people along with their allies might take that club away from the U.S. and end the occupation, the Biden administration is widening the war.
It’s critical that we stand with Palestine and embrace resistance. Each and every escalation by the U.S. should be met with opposition. A national week of action is set for February 5 – 11 to stop U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza. These protests should be supported. It is the right thing to do.
End all U.S aid to Israel!
U.S. stop bombing the Middle East!
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Comrades and friends,
On behalf of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, let’s start by thanking the organizers of this important event – Workers World Party – for bringing us together at a truly critical juncture in world history. By sharing views and analyses of the world as it actually is, we can learn from each other, and, from those insights, make plans to challenge the existing order of things.
We are certain this International Assembly against Imperialism in Solidarity with Palestine will be a great success. The old world is exploding, something new is coming into being.
The great revolution that is underway in Palestine is nothing short of amazing. In the face of genocide, the Palestinian people are waging a fight that has the potential to end the Zionist project and limit the influence of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Israel has always existed on stolen land and borrowed time. The clock is ticking.
Holding this Assembly on the 100th anniversary of the passing of the outstanding revolutionary V.I. Lenin was a good choice. This U.S. working class has a proud history that we sometimes lose sight of. For many years following Lenin’s death, revolutionaries held huge memorial meetings right here in New York City to mourn his passing and recommit to the revolutionary cause. For example, on January 21, 1937, more than 20,000 communists assembled in Madison Square Garden for that very purpose.
Lenin and imperialism
Lenin above all else was a revolutionary, who applied Marxism to the world around him and saw that competitive capitalism was giving way to monopoly capitalism. And this monopoly capitalism is what is referred to as imperialism. The two things are synonymous.
For today’s purposes, there isn’t time to recap Lenin’s great work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. If there is anyone in hearing range who has not read it, get yourself a copy and do so. You won’t regret it. If you have done so, there is no harm in going over it again – odds are you will get something out of it.
Lenin drew a number of extremely important conclusions from the reality that capitalism had entered its imperialist stage, and I am going to focus on a few of them.
First, noting the world had been divided up amongst a handful of great powers, Lenin pointed out that wars to redivide the world were inevitable. He stressed that the only way to end imperialist wars was by ending imperialism and replacing it with socialism.
Lenin also appreciated the vital role that the majority of humanity in the colonies and semi-colonies would exercise, and that the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed peoples of the world would occupy a vital place in the era of monopoly capitalism.
In his important 1913 article Backward Europe and Advanced Asia, Lenin contrasts the broad progressive national democratic movement in China with the monopoly capitalist rulers of Europe. Of China, he said “Hundreds of millions of people are awakening to life, light and freedom”, and of Europe’s rulers Lenin stated, “Advanced Europe is commanded by a bourgeoisie which supports everything that is backward.”
Lenin knew what all socialists and communists needed to realize as well, and, quite honestly, it is pretty likely everyone here today gets this – any movement of the oppressed that weakens imperialism is a good thing. It deserves our support and solidarity. It is like the question posed in the old labor song, “Which Side Are You On?”
Every setback for Wall Street is an advance for Main Street. Working and oppressed people in the U.S. have a common cause with all who are oppressed by imperialism. Every ship turned around by Yemen helps those of us who are fighting to end exploitation here in the U.S. – we have the same enemy. Do we want strong enemies? No, we want weak and defeated ones. By the same token, every blow that we are able to inflict on the class enemy aids those suffering under imperialism’s yoke.
Palestine and the decline of U.S. imperialism
The decline of U.S. imperialism is accelerating. The people of Palestine are showing the way. All of us need to learn from their will to sacrifice and determination to win.
Lenin stressed that imperialism was capitalism that is moribund; it is dying. And we can see the symptoms all around them, including their political representatives. I invite you to join us at the Republican National Convention, July 15 in Milwaukee, and at the Democratic National Convention, August 19, in Chicago to confront them.
Marx talked about the vampire-like nature of capitalism. Let’s build unity. The many against the few. The people of the world can and will unite. Together we will put a stake in the heart of imperialism.
]]>It was meant to frighten Yemen’s government and people. But the opposite took place. The government of Yemen has announced that it will continue to blockade shipping to Israeli-occupied Palestine. Backing that decision up were more than one million people rallying in the Yemeni capital city Sana’a.
Yemen’s response to the genocide in Gaza has been nothing short of heroic. Long a target of a brutal war waged by the Western powers and Arab reactionaries, Yemen’s choice to embrace the Palestinian resistance stands as an example to all yearn for liberation and justice.
In Palestine, the Israeli occupiers are losing the war, and the resistance movements in Lebanon and Iraq, along with the governments of Syria and Iran, are helping along the process that will end the occupation once and for all.
So, the Zionists have resorted to genocide. More than 30,000 are dead and they kill more every day. The mass murder is not an accident, it was embedded in the logic of the Zionist project from day one. And the imperial backers of the project, the U.S and Great Britain were, and still are, well aware of it.
Yemen’s courage stands as a beacon of hope where there is the darkness of oppression. It represents a step to a brighter future where the peoples of the Middle East will be free from imperialism and Zionism. When the monopoly capitalists that run the U.S. lose their hold on the Middle East, it will be milestone in the decline of the American empire.
For us in the U.S., standing with Palestine is important. The genocide Palestinians face would be impossible without U.S. backing. What we do here to stop it is important.
We need to stay in the streets and turn up the heat on all those who back Israel economically, with weapons, or who provide political cover to that apartheid state. Representatives of the Biden administration should be confronted about their support of genocide. All U.S. aid to Israel should stop!
There are two sides fighting in Palestine. It is not complicated at all. There is the oppressed and the oppressor. Israel exists on stolen land and borrowed time. The clock is ticking. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Hands off Yemen! End U.S./U.K. attacks!
]]>Demonstrations are taking place around the country as millions speak out against Israeli crimes and demand an end to all U.S. aid going to the occupation of Palestine. Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is proud to be among the builders to this movement. You may have seen us speaking at protests or carrying banners reading, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” We stand for justice. We stand on the side of the resistance!
FRSO has a long history of solidarity with Palestine. Since our inception we have made it clear that Israel exists on stolen land and borrowed time. We helped organize countless protests and demonstrations. We campaigned for freeing Palestinian political prisoners, such as Ahmad Sa’adat, the general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. We are working class internationalists who always stand with the oppressed against the oppressor.
The U.S. empire is declining. From Palestine to the Philippines and points in between, people are waging revolutionary struggles for freedom and liberation. An old world is dying and a new one is coming into being.
Freedom Road Socialist Organization is a revolutionary organization that is serious about real change. We work hard to build the international solidarity and anti-war movement. We are active in the trade unions, Black and Chicano liberation movements, and on many other fronts of the people’s struggle. In all these fights we are clear – monopoly capitalism must go. The power of the billionaires must be broken and the working class needs to take things into our own hands. We need socialism.
If you are sick and tired of endless wars for empire and are ready to fight for a socialist future, we urge you to join us. Go to our website and hit “join”. Together, the new world we need will become possible.
]]>Comrades and friends,
Let me begin by thanking the organizers of this important event, the People’s Resource for International Solidarity and Mass Mobilization (PRISM) and the International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS) for today’s opportunity to learn from each other and share our respective views, as we mark the birth of The Communist Manifesto.
Before speaking about this, note should be made of another important anniversary. December 16 marks one year since the passing of a truly great proletarian revolutionary and outstanding Marxist-Leninist, Jose Maria Sison. Comrade Sison’s great contributions to the struggle and his rich theoretical legacy have an international significance. Ka Joma lives in the collective fight we are waging for new world free of imperialism and exploitation!
175 years young
The Communist Manifesto was first published in February of 1848, so that is more than a few years ago, but the work itself remains remarkably vital and relevant. Not all books stand the test of time. The Manifesto of the Communist Party does – it continues to animate the thinking and practice of revolutionaries around the globe.
The authors of The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, were under 30 years old when this pathbreaking work was first published. In 1848, it represented new thinking of a emerging and ascending class, the proletariat, the modern working class that was starting to act independently – a class in itself developing a movement for itself.
The Communist Manifesto was at once a call to arms and a work of science. It expounds on the basic premises of historical materialism, including the importance of the development of the productive forces, the relationships of production, and resulting struggle between classes and their political representatives.
Written at a time when a wave of revolutionary struggle was unfolding in Europe, The Communist Manifesto concludes with this stirring declaration, “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”
For those of us who hate oppression and want to end it, what’s not to like about this straightforward declaration of war on capitalism? It rang true then and it rings true now.
Classes and class struggle
Class struggle is a fundamental theme of The Communist Manifesto that has extraordinary relevance to the conditions we are facing in the U.S. today. The developing competitive capitalism described with clarity by Marx and Engels arrived at a new stage, that of monopoly capitalism, a failed and moribund system. The decline of U.S. monopoly capitalism and the empire it created is accelerating, or to put it another way, the decline of U.S. imperialism is speeding up, and as it descends, every contradiction in U.S. society, including those with in the ruling class, are sharpening.
Mention here should be made of the world-shaking events in Palestine, where a heroic resistance movement is successfully confronting the Israeli occupation – and layered on top of this is the U.S.-backed genocide underway in Gaza. In the midst of these developments, the limits of U.S. power stand in stark relief. The resistance in Lebanon is pummeling the Zionists and ignoring U.S threats. The same goes for the armed forces of Yemen, who are striking ships heading for Israel. The U.S. tells the axis of resistance to stop fighting for liberation, but no one is listening at all.
The results of the accelerating decline can be seen everywhere in the economic and political landscape of the U.S. today. There is no consensus in the U.S ruling class and among its political representatives on how to maintain U.S. empire. The deeply unpopular President Joe Biden and the irrational Donald Trump stand as symptoms of a sick society, one that’s place in the world is growing ever smaller.
The standard of living for the U.S. working class is declining. National oppression, the systematic inequality visited upon African Americans, Chicano and Latinos, Asian Americans, indigenous peoples, and others, is intensifying. Democratic rights in general are under attack. The upshot is rising tide of resistance.
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx speaks of history being the history of class struggle, as well as the content of the present. In the U.S. today there is marked uptick in the level of class struggle, such as the protected and successful strike waged by the auto workers. It’s in this context we see a new openness to militant, class-struggle trade unionism.
The vast uprising following the murder of George Floyd represented a turning point in U.S. history. Involving tens of millions of people, the George Floyd uprising was a political experience that impacted the political understanding of an entire layer of society.
Members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization have been activists, leaders and builders of this growing tide of struggle. For example, through the mass organizations we are active in, we were able to play a significant role in the George Floyd rebellion. The growing polarization in U.S. society will be a test for our organization, a challenge we are determined to meet.
Reform and revolution
In every struggle, FRSO works to carry out three objectives. First, we want to win all that can be won and land the heaviest blows possible. Second, we work to raise the general level of consciousness and organization of the masses of people. Finally, we are trying to win the advanced, those who have stepped forward as activists and organizers, to Marxism-Leninism, thus building communist organization.
Marx and Engels are crystal clear in The Communist Manifesto about the need to fight for reforms, and the need to fight for immediate demands, such as free education, is talked about. There is also clarity about the need to represent the future, i.e. the need for proletarian political power – socialism – in the present.
There is a dialectical relationship between the fight for reforms and revolutionary change. Interacting with reality and fighting for what people want in the here and now is how people learn about the enemy and the capitalist system. Communists working shoulder to shoulder with the advanced is a way we accumulate forces and build communist organization. We don’t need a talking shops; we need revolutionary organization that has the capacity to think as it fights.
Marx and Engels are clear that socialism is much more that than an accumulation or extension of reforms. The point is made in the Manifesto that a radical rupture with existing property relations is needed, and a break with old ideas.
Lenin in the book The State and Revolution has an important discussion of this point, when he states,
“The only “correction” Marx thought it necessary to make to The Communist Manifesto he made on the basis of the revolutionary experience of the Paris Commune.
“The last preface to the new German edition of The Communist Manifesto, signed by both its authors, is dated June 24, 1872. In this preface the authors, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, say that the programme of The Communist Manifesto “has in some details become out-of-date”, and the go on to say: “… One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes’….”
Lenin goes on to say, “Thus, Marx and Engels regarded one principal and fundamental lesson of the Paris Commune as being of such enormous importance that they introduced it as an important correction into The Communist Manifesto.”
To put this another way, dictatorship of the capitalists needs to be smashed to atoms and replaced with the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Need of a communist party
In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels speak of the need for a proletarian conquest of political power. This is impossible without a communist party that’s armed with the science of Marxism-Leninism, that applies the mass line, and has close ties with the masses of people.
While we in Freedom Road Socialist Organization do play an important role in many struggles, at times mobilizing tens of thousands of people, we are not yet a communist party. We are building such a thing, but we are not there yet.
We think that a communist party that is a real communist party, a party of the working class and oppressed in deeds not words, needs to fuse Marxism-Leninism with the workers’ movement, and in that process incorporate a meaningful section of the advanced the activists, organizers and leaders into communist organization.
There is something silly about saying one is the party of the working class when they are not known to most workers. We need to learn as we teach, and it is important that communists are standing in the forefront of actually existing workers’ movement.
Every serious communist organization need to fight against opportunism, and The Communist Manifesto devotes considerable attention to doing exactly that in a rigorous and scientific way that all of us can learn from.
Conclusion
The current period is favorable one for communists to advance in a big way. In addition to being embedded in the popular struggles, we need to do like Marx said and disdain to conceal our aims. In the U.S. a growing number of people, especially young people, are looking for alternatives to capitalism, and many are reading the book we are discussing today – The Communist Manifesto. By grasping the Manifesto’s main lessons and points, we are picking up a powerful weapon for change. Whether it was in Russia, China, Korea, and so many more places, those that led the struggle for socialism read The Communist Manifesto and put the theory into practice. A bright future awaits all communists who do exactly that.
]]>Freedom Road Socialist Organization opposes APEC as a tool of imperialist exploitation, and stands in solidarity with those planning to protest this meeting, such as the People’s Counter-Summit being organized by the No to APEC Coalition.
APEC is a forum in which governments and big corporations collude and contend with each other to exploit the workers and oppressed peoples of the Asia-Pacific region. It is a part of the imperialist strategy of neoliberalism, which seeks to deregulate trade, privatize services, increase the exploitation of the oppressed nations, and advance the agenda of big corporations.
APEC exists for the same reasons as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), and the United States-Mexico-Canda Agreement (USMCA, known informally as “NAFTA 2.0”): to maximize profits at the expense of working and oppressed peoples.
Freedom Road Socialist Organization stands for a world free of capitalist domination. Institutions like APEC are notorious for meddling in the internal affairs of nations, offering economic ties or “development” loans on the condition of doing away with labor regulations, privatizing public services, or getting rid of tariffs. The U.S. has the most influence within APEC, and its chairperson is Joe Biden. In addition, the U.S. has launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which excludes People’s China, and seeks to limit Beijing’s growing influence.
Wherever the big corporations and their political representatives gather to plot and scheme how to better exploit the workers and oppressed peoples of the world, the people’s movements should be in the streets to denounce and expose them. Let’s make them feel our strength in San Francisco November 11 and 12.
No to APEC!
]]>Comrades and friends,
On behalf of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, I would like to extend our thanks to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and its member organizations for organizing this timely and important theoretical conference on imperialism and war. And we salute all of you in attendance today. We have much to gain by exchanging our respective views, seeking points of agreement to build unity, and putting proletarian internationalism into practice.
Marx famously noted that the point of understanding the world is to change it. To put this another way, theory must be weaponized. As revolutionaries, we strive to find the ways and means to strengthen our common efforts to drive imperialism and its tools to their extinction.
Sharpening contradictions on a world scale
The outstanding revolutionary Mao Zedong made the point, “There is great disorder under heaven, the situation is excellent.” This is an apt description of the situation we find ourselves in. The 4 fundamental contradictions – between labor and capital, between the oppressed nations and imperialism, between socialism and capitalism, and among the imperialist powers themselves – are intensifying. The factors for war and revolutionary struggle are on the rise.
The decline of U.S. monopoly capitalism is accelerating, a phenomenon that is a critical factor in shaping the development and motion of the other contradictions on a world scale. This decline is also shaping the contradictions within U.S. society, particularly the class struggle and the struggle against national oppression (the systematic inequality that is visited upon African Americans, Chicano/Latinos, Asian Americans, and the indigenous peoples) and is fueling a level of political polarization that is without parallel since the U.S. Civil War.
Features of a declining U.S. imperialism
The decline of American imperialism is not something new. It is a long-term process that has been underway since the early 1970s. In 1971, then-president Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system – where all currencies were fixed to the dollar (and countries that held dollars could demand payment for dollars in gold) – an important signal that the sun was setting on the American empire. Likewise, the rise of powerful movements for national liberation, and the U.S. defeats in Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea (Cambodia), demonstrated that the “American Century” was over.
The changing place of the U.S. in the world did not proceed along a straight line. The rise of revisionism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe following the death of Stalin ended in the final collapse of socialism in 1991. This allowed U.S. imperialism additional room to maneuver – not due to any internal development or strengthening, but because a constraining force had disappeared from the world stage.
While the monopoly capitalist rulers of the U.S. remain the main enemy of the world’s peoples, the place of the U.S. monopoly capitalists in the world is shrinking as their decline speeds up. The paralysis that pervades the appeals process of the World Trade Organization is one symptom. The stalling of large scale multilateral trade agreements since the Doha rounds and the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are others. Equally telling are some basic economic measurements. In 1960, the U.S. economy represented about 40% of the world economy. Today, it is about half that. The economy of the Peoples Republic of China is poised to surpass that of the U.S., and by some measures it has already done so.
In many respects former U.S. President Donald Trump was an ideal political representative of a declining empire, a practitioner of fraud and corruption who thinks in the short term and relies on contingency. Trump abandoned or undermined a large swath of the post-World War II economic and military topography that had Wall Street at its core and Washington DC as its capital. This meant weakening NATO and putting tariffs on allies and junior partners, accompanied by a bellicose go-it-alone approach.
Biden would like to revive and shore up the multilateral institutions of empire, but the U.S. lacks the muscle. It’s a colossus with clay feet that can no longer move the way it used to, and as a result Biden continues much of Trump’s protectionism and mimics Trump’s anti-China campaign.
Inter-imperialist rivalry
The declining fortunes of U.S. imperialism has led Washington to fear for capitalist supply chains, fueled in part by concerns about the ability of the economy to weather a major war. So, the Biden administration is fast-tracking new mining operations within the U.S. borders, subsidizing semiconductors, computer chips, and helping to underwrite the automakers’ transition to electric vehicles at the cost of autoworkers’ jobs. For his part, Trump who is the leading Republican contender for the presidency, says he will slap a 10% tariff on all imports, including those from Europe and Japan.
These practices, plans and polices are illustrative of increased inter-imperialist rivalry, and are contributing to rise of national chauvinism in the political superstructures of the major imperialist powers, along with war preparations.
Inter-imperialist rivalry can also be seen in Europe. The disintegration of the EU and moves such as the Brexit are good things, and they serve to weaken the respective European imperialist powers and provide a more favorable context for the working class of the Western European countries to advance their own interests.
At this juncture in time, the greatest inter-imperialist conflict is in Ukraine. The U.S provoked this war and in fact it is a proxy war against Russia. It is not a surprise that people in East Ukraine do not want to live under a bunch of reactionaries, and in fact they have waged a heroic struggle to avoid it . The Russian government correctly notes, with the passage of time, the war is increasingly a direct struggle with the U.S. and its accomplices in Western Europe, as the imperial powers pour in military aid such as advanced weapon systems, combat aircraft, tanks, moving troops closer to the war fronts, and providing intelligence and targeting information to the Ukrainian government.
We also need to be clear on the class nature of the war. It is an inter-imperialist conflict. Russia is an emerging imperialist power, where capitalist development has reached the stage of monopoly capitalism. It is a country that acts in its own “national interest.” In the early years following the fall of the USSR, Russia was dominated by compradors who sold the country to the West. This is no longer the case.
The U.S. and Western European powers speak of incorporating Ukraine into NATO and the European Union, while debating timetables and scenarios for this happening. This means that the war is likely to continue for an extended period, and that there is considerably more at stake than the fate of the Eastern Ukraine.
Working and oppressed people in the U.S. have nothing to gain from a U.S. victory – in fact a Washington/Wall Street win would strengthen the hand of our oppressor. Therefore, in our antiwar work we demand that the U.S. get out at once, and we will strive to utilize favorable conditions that result from any setback the U.S. ruling class is confronted with. It is like Lenn said, “During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.” A positive aspect of this conflict is that oppressed people can take advantage of this rivalry, as was recently illustrated by the meeting between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Russia.
Countries want independence, nations want liberation, and the people want revolution
There is a growing tide of anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
As we noted in the Main Political Report adopted at our 9th Congress:
“A great resurgence of the national liberation movement and the international communist movement is underway.
“In Asia, the socialist countries are on the rise. The national democratic struggle in the Philippines, led by the Communist Party of the Philippines, stands out in sharp relief and is an inspiration to people everywhere. The Philippines is a crucial base for the projection of U.S. power into the Pacific region. Millions of people are on the move in India, and revolutionary movements are growing in power throughout the region.
“In the Middle East, the center of gravity continues to be the heroic struggle of the people of Palestine to end the Zionist occupation and to liberate every inch of their land. A powerful camp of resistance has come into being that unites Iran, Syria, the Palestinian resistance, and the popular forces of Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — and it is fully capable of challenging imperialism, Zionism, and reaction of all kinds.
“In Latin America, a number of countries have broken out of the orbit of U.S. imperialism, including socialist Cuba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Across the continent, great advances in the popular and revolutionary movements are underway…In Africa, there are sharp struggles against imperialism, particularly in the horn of Africa.”
Two additional points should be made. In Palestine the reactionary right-wing rulers of Israel have rejected the “two state solution” favored by the U.S. and have opted for the logic of complete displacement of the Palestine people from their land. It is the logic of genocide. The Palestinian fight for national liberation has now moved into a phase where armed struggle is now the principal form of struggle. Looking at the emerging balance of forces in the Middle East, we can see the waning influence of U.S. imperialism and the end of the Zionist project.
In the Pacific, the liberation of Taiwan province by People’s China remains the great unfinished task of the Chinese revolution. The end of U.S. dominance in the Pacific region will mark the end of the U.S. as the core of a world empire.
Prospects in the U.S.
The situation is excellent. The science of Marxism-Leninism lays bare the general laws that are at work in a dying imperialism. For example, the intensification of uneven development gives rise to more wars; also, a contraction of world markets open to imperialism limits effective demand and contributes to new and greater crises of overproduction.
It is also possible to draw some general conclusions from recent events and experience.
Polarization is intensifying. The attempt by Trump to cling to power, including the storming of the U.S. Capitol are indicators of this. Trump is now the Republican frontrunner. If the elections are close, many will not accept the outcome. A declining, polarized U.S. imperialism is an unstable U.S. imperialism. This degree of instability is something new, and something that can be worked with.
Sharpening contradictions and polarization are fueling the class struggle. There are a growing number of strikes and sharp battles on the part of the working class. The recent fight of a third of a million Teamsters in the logistics industry and the strike by auto workers are but two examples of this.
The powerful uprising that took place after the police murder of George Floyd graphicly demonstrates U.S imperialism is a paper tiger. More than 23 million people participated in the protests. Thousands of buildings, including one of the main police stations in Minneapolis, Minnesota (the city of Floyd’s murder), were burned. This uprising showed the power of the Black freedom movement. It is also a fact that on the left, our organization – Freedom Road Socialist Organization – was the only communist group that played a significant role in those events nationally.
Also of note are the fights around democratic demands such as the fight to defend women’s and reproductive rights. In many cities, our organizations have played a major role in these struggles.
FRSO is working to build a new communist party. The current situation is excellent for doing exactly that, so we are experiencing an unprecedented wave of growth. Reality and modesty dictate we acknowledge we need to make substantially more progress in fusing Marxism-Leninism with the actually existing working class movement before such party is created. That said, the clock is ticking and if we continue to progress at our current rate, we will get there.
In 1956, Mao Zedong made the point, “Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn’t. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.” The peoples of the world, along with the people of the U.S., will be the wind and the rain that U.S. imperialism is unable to withstand. There will be difficulties to be sure. But our future is bright!
Long live the unity of the peoples of the world!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Victory is certain!
]]>