In order to understand the present era we must first start with a definition and description of imperialism. Lenin gave five essential features of imperialism. The first one is: “The concentration of production and capital developed to such a high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.” (“Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, LCW, 19:160, International Publishers edition, 1942) We see today that a few corporations and banks dominate the economy of the entire world.
The second feature is: “The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation on the basis of this finance capital, of a ’financial oligarchy’.” (Ibid.)
In the world of finance capital today perhaps the most famous and strongest members of this financial oligarchy are centered around the Rockefeller family. They control and dominate large portions of banking, oil, coal, uranium, shipping and other key industries on a international scale. On a political scale they set up the Trilateral Commission, which includes major politicians, monopoly capitalists, financiers, bourgeois intellectuals and labor aristocrats from the U.S., Western Europe, Canada, and Japan. Among members of the present government in the U.S. who are actually members of the Trilateral Commission are Carter, Mondale, Brzezinski, Secretary of State Vance, and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown. In addition, in previous administrations they have had Rockefeller as Vice President and Kissinger as Secretary of State.
The merger of industrial and bank capital has been carried out in a number of ways. There have been loans through which the banks gain information and control over corporations. The directorship of these banks and corporations generally include the same groups of people. A tremendous amount of stock of these corporations is owned by the largest banks. There was a study in 1978, done for the bourgeoisie by their lapdogs in the U.S. senate, of 122 major corporations. They found in these corporations that 41% of all the stock was controlled by less than two dozen institution groups. On the top of the list were two banks: Morgan Guaranty Bank and Citibank. So this gives us a brief idea of what we mean when we say that there is a ruling financial oligarchy.
The third feature of imperialism is: “The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as distinguished from the export of commodities.” (Ibid.) This export of capital is to areas where there are raw materials and markets. The loans from the imperialist countries tie the bourgeoisie of these various other oppressed countries to the whole financial oligarchy. The U.S. especially, has put almost the entire world in debt to it. Also important in the export of capital is investments. For this the so-called multinational corporations have been set up. They are actually imperialist corporations designed to squeeze as much superprofits as they can out of the colonies, semi-colonies, and dependent countries. For this they especially rely on cheap labor.
The fourth feature of imperialism is: “The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world among themselves.” (Ibid.) People are probably more or less familiar with the international petroleum cartel. There is also an international uranium cartel, although that is supposed to be a secret. The formation of cartels is also one of the functions of these so-called multinational corporations.
The fifth feature of imperialism is: The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capitalist powers is completed.” (Ibid.) In other words, today there are no more frontiers, and the only way that new territories can be gained by the imperialist powers is through redivison of the world. For these reasons Lenin said:
Imperialism is (1) monopolistic capitalism, (2) parasitic, or decaying capitalism, (3) moribund capitalism. (“Imperialism and the Split in the Socialist Movement”, LCW, 19:337, 1942 edition)
Beside the dominance of these giant monopolies we see the development of parasitism and decay. More and more the actual owners of the means of production are totally separated from the process of production and become what Lenin called “coupon clippers”, or parasites. We have also seen the moribund character of imperialism and that political life under imperialism becomes reaction all along the line.
This is also particularly seen in the intensification of national oppression. Imperialism intensifies all the contradictions to the utmost. It develops all the conditions necessary for the victory of proletarian revolution. There is no way out of the crisis it creates but proletarian revolution. Thus, it was under imperialism that the great Bolshevik Revolution in Russia ushered in the epoch of proletarian revolution.
The intensification of all the basic contradictions of capitalism in the era of imperialism made the victory of socialism an immediate possibility. It created the conditions for the proletariat to breach the imperialist front first in individual countries, and to completely construct socialism in one country. It also created the conditions for the final and complete victory of socialism in all countries, on a world scale. The Leninist analysis of imperialism verified the basic Marxist teaching that the victory of socialism over capitalism was inevitable, that capitalism was doomed to be overthrown and pass away into history as had all other systems of exploitation.
In the era of imperialism there was a further development of Marxism. Comrade Stalin explains this further development of Marxism and defines Leninism. He says:
Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. (“Foundations of Leninism”, Works, 6:73)
He goes on:
To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. (Ibid.)
We are still in the era of imperialism. We are not in the era of the so-called “three worlds”, or “contemporary imperialism”, or “neo-colonialism”, or any other distortion of Marxism-Leninism. We are also not in the era of “imperialism and the revolution”, but in the era of “imperialism and the proletarian revolution.”
In analyzing imperialism, Lenin also taught that “an essential feature of imperialism is the rivalry between a number of great powers in the striving for hegemony.” (Imperialism, op. cit., p. 162) It is important for U.S. Bolsheviks to be clear on what is the position of U.S. imperialism in the world and in this rivalry for world hegemony. This is especially important because it is our task to lead the proletariat and all the working people to overthrow U.S. imperialism right here.
In our book, Imperialism, Superprofits and the Bribery of the U.S. “Anti-Revisionist Communist Movement”, we described U.S. imperialism as being the top-dog imperialist. By this we mean that U.S. imperialism is the strongest imperialist power in the world. Let’s give some examples of this.
In 1978, the U.S. gross national product (GNP), which is the dollar value of the total goods and services produced was approximately 2.127 trillion dollars.
No other country’s GNP was even one trillion dollars. In fact, the GNP of the U.S. is a little bit more than the combined gross national product of numbers two, three and four, which is the Soviet Union, Japan and West Germany. These three countries, the Soviet Union, Japan, and West Germany together have twice the population that the U.S. has.
The U.S. dominates the capitalist world economy when it comes to industrial corporations. The two largest corporations in the world are General Motors and Exxon (a Rockefeller corporation). Seven out of the ten largest industrial corporations and eleven out of the largest fifteen in the world excluding the Russian - led bloc) are owned by the U.S. bourgeoisie. The output of many of these corporations alone is more than that of most countries in the world. The total output of just the top dozen U.S. corporations is more than that of any country in the world with the exception of the Soviet Union, Japan and West Germany. And the output of the five largest U.S. corporations alone is about equal to the total output of Great Britain. Nor is the situation different in banking. The largest commercial bank in the world is Bank of America. Except for the largest banks in West Germany and France, Citibank is also larger than any other bank in the world. And, after the largest bank in Japan, Chase Manhattan Bank (headed by David Rockefeller) is the next largest bank in the world.
If we look at other indication of U.S. economic strength, we see that whilethe U.S. has only about 5% of the world population, it produces about one-half the corn in the world. It also produces about 15% of the wheat in the world, placing second only to Russia, to whom it sells wheat. And it produces more wheat than China, which has more than four times the population of the U.S. The U.S. is first in production of aluminum, coal, uranium, natural gas, copper, salt. About 40% of all the world’s telephones are in the U.S.
Again, with 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. consumes 12% of the world’s sugar. It also consumes 10% of the world’s cotton, and one quarter of all the natural rubber and one third of all the synthetic rubber. It is also first in the production of books and newspapers. In the U.S. there are almost two radios for every person. No other country has an average of one radio per person.
The U.S. bourgeoisie also dominates the economy on a world scale. The domination of U.S. finance capital is seen in that the U.S. dollar is considered the mainstay of the world capitalist financial system. The dollar is considered “the reserve currency”. In a recent interview, Schmidt, the Chancellor of Germany, said that one of the functions of the European Monetary System is actually to help back up the American dollar. The International Monetary fund and the World Bank, which is nominally part of the United Nations, are also dominated by the U.S. Besides the U.S. being the main financial source for the I.M.F. and the World Bank, the head of the World Bank is Robert McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson. That voice of finance capital, the British journal The Economist, sums up the dominant economic position of the U.S. by saying it has “nearly 40% of the industrial democracies [sic] economic strength.” (August 18, 1979, page 13) We also see that U.S. imperialism is the most dominant when it comes to spheres of influence. Almost all of Latin America is dominated by the U.S. The imperialist countries in Western Europe are in a very tight alliance under the leadership of the U.S. The U.S. dominates much of Africa and the Middle East. It dominates most of Southern and Eastern Asia, with the exception of Indochina, and it dominates the entire Pacific. The domination of the U.S. bloc was recently seen in the United Nations. There was a vote on the question of the representative of Kampuchea. Those voting in favor of the reactionary Pol Pot regime, which is backed by the U.S. and China, got 71 votes in the United Nations. Those voting for the Russian and Vietnamese puppet regimes got only 35 votes. Incidentally, also voting, as part of the Russian-led bloc for their puppet regime was Albania.
U.S. imperialism has tremendous military strength through its various alliances. Its main military bloc is N.A.T.O. (National Atlantic Treaty Organization). It also exports arms and has all sorts of military alliances in Latin America, the Middle East, the Pacific and elsewhere. While until recently the U.S. was unchallenged as the world’s strongest military power, today the Soviet Union is trying to outstrip the U.S. militarily. The U.S. is much stronger economically, politically, and in terms of spheres of influence. Its bloc is dominant. The way the Russian imperialists can challenge the U.S. for “top-dog” position is by altering the balance of forces, finding ways of weakening its adversary, as well as at the same time increasing its own strength, and seeking a new redivison of the world based on that strength. The recent SALT negotiations have revealed that the military arsenals of the U.S.-led bloc and the Russian-led bloc are overall more or less equal, with one stronger in one type of weapon and the other in another. Thus, though the U.S. is still the strongest imperialist power, as number one it faces the inevitable challenge for world hegemony by its imperialist rivals.
It is the very fact that the U.S. is the strongest imperialist power that hastens its doom. By dominating the world economy, U.S. imperialism becomes the most parasitic country in the world. It depends on the world for its lifeblood, its superprofits, raw materials, and markets. Because it dominates the world economy, it suffers whenever there is a crisis anywhere in the world. The economic crisis within the U.S., as well as the contradiction among the U.S. bourgeoisie, in turn affect its imperialist partners and all those countries under its domination. Thus its strength is its weakness.
While still seeking to redivide the world, U.S. imperialism has lost import ant positions in the world to other imperialists. It is not as all powerful even economically as it once was. While still dominant, the erosion of its strength can be seen in that the U.S.’s share of world trade has shrunk from 20% in 1960 to only 14% today. While the U.S. produced 47% of the world’s steel in 1950, by 1978 it produced only 17%, now ranking behind the Soviet Union. Politically, it has lost important spheres of influence to its imperialist rivals, especially the Soviet Union, such as in Indochina and elsewhere. The decline of U.S. imperialism has made it even more vicious and aggressive, as its military build-up and recent events in Iran show.
By being the strongest imperialist power it has placed itself in a most vulnerable position, open to attack from all sides. When it loses positions, it not only strives to re-take them and to take new positions, but also must shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the proletariat of the U.S. and even more onto the backs of the proletariat and peasantry of the colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries, by intensifying its exploitation and oppression. It cannot thus maintain forever widespread corruption and bribery of sections of the proletariat. The sharpening of all these contradictions brings revolution. So, while various opportunists have maintained that the economic and political strength of U.S. imperialism means that there cannot be revolution in the U.S., in fact we see that the opposite is true, that the strength of U.S. imperialism leads to its weakness and its eventual overthrow.
It is only by understanding the nature of the imperialist system and the dialectics of its inevitable collapse and overthrow that we can accurately chart the course for the proletariat. However, in order to do so, we must demarcate from all revisionist positions that cover up the nature of imperialism. The “theory of the three worlds” has been widely discredited as a justification for imperialist rule. But more covered up than this naked social-chauvinism is the centrist line of the PLA, which also obscures the nature of imperialism and thus distorts the tasks of the proletariat. The revisionist Party of Labor of Albania puts out the theory that the two superpowers are the “main enemy”, and “in the same degree and to the same extent.” (Hoxha, PLA, 7th Congress Report, page 166) This theory of the two superpowers is actually a centrist view that is no different from the “theory of three worlds”. It covers up the imperialist system in a number of ways. First, it covers the fact that U.S. imperialism is the strongest in the world. Second, it covers the fact that the main enemy is not just one or another imperialist but the imperialist system as a whole. Third, it especially covers up for the imperialist countries in Western Europe. These are Hoxha’s so-called “well-intentioned capitalists”. Finally, the theory of two superpowers covers up that today there are the two imperialist blocs that are led by great powers, the U.S. and Russia. All the imperialist countries in the imperialist blocs, whether weak or strong, share in the plunder of the world. And it is the task of the international proletariat not just to overthrow the so-called superpowers, but to overthrow all the imperialists. Lenin described our task in imperialist wars in this way:
If the war is a reactionary imperialist war, that is, if it is being waged by two world coalitions of the imperialist, violent, predatory, reactionary, reactionary bourgeoisie, then every bourgeoisie (even of the smallest country) becomes a participant in the plunder, and my duty as a representative of the revolutionary proletariat is to prepare for the world proletarian revolution as the only escape from the horrors of a world war. (The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, FLPH, 1947, page 75)
It is not the task of the proletariat to help the so-called “small fish” or “well-intentioned capitalists”. Lenin said:
It is not the business of Socialists to help the younger and stronger robber (Germany) to rob the older and fatter bandits, but the Socialists must utilise the struggle between the bandits to overthrow them all. (“Socialism and War”, LCW, 18:2234, The Imperialist War, International Publishers Edition, 1930)
Nor is it, as the theory of “three worlds” says, the task to help the older and fatter robbers to help rob the younger robbers. So while we take account of U.S. imperialism as the strongest imperialist in the world, we demarcate from all the revisionist positions, “struggle against the superpowers”, “the principal contradiction”, “the main enemy”, etc., All of these theories are a justification for alliances with one imperialist bloc or another. It is the task of the international proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie on a world scale.
Judging the position of the U.S. as the strongest imperialist country, as we have said, does not mean that this situation is static. We must take full account of the Leninist law of uneven development. Stalin talks about the law of uneven development in this way:
What then, is the law of the uneven development of capitalist countries under imperialism? The law of uneven development in the period of imperialism means the spasmodic development of some countries relative to others, the rapid ousting from the world market of some countries by others, periodic re-division of the already divided world through military conflicts and catastrophic wars, the increasing profundity and acuteness of the conflicts in the imperialist camp, the weakening of the capitalist world front, the possibility of the victory of socialism in individual countries. (“The Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I.”, Works, 9:111)
In understanding this law of uneven development we must again go back to the analysis of the different imperialist blocs. The U.S. bloc includes Western Europe, Japan, Canada, China and other imperialist countries. Among its most important junior partners are Saudi Arabia. The second bloc headed by the Soviet Union principally includes the countries of Eastern Europe. And among its most important junior partners are Cuba and Vietnam. Every country in the world is actually aligned to one of these blocs. The recent farce of the non-aligned conference most vividly showed this. The conference was bitterly divided into two groups. The pro-Russian bloc was very vocally headed by Fidel Castro, who also “hosted” the conference. The pro-U.S. bloc was headed by the dog Tito of Yugoslavia. The theory of the non-aligned movement is a myth spread by revisionists and imperialists of all kinds. For example, the CPC openly supported the pro-U.S. bloc and its leader Tito. But what about the supposed opponents of the theory of non-aligned states, the PLA? In fact, Albania is itself aligned presently with the Russian bloc. This was especially seen in the recent war for the redivision of the Indochina in which Albania supported the Russian side and the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea. Nor is the PLA really opposed to the theory of non-alignment. It only demarcates from some of the supposedly non-aligned. It opposes “the ruling cliques of many states (emphasis added – BL) which call themselves ’non-aligned’, but which in fact are linked by one and a thousand threads to world imperialism ...” (Albania Today, No. 4, 1979, “The Theory of the Non-Aligned Countries Serves the Superpowers, the Bourgeoisie and Reaction,” page 36) To the PLA, not all the so-called non-aligned, by only many, meaning only some, are tied to imperialism. Thus, some others are not, according to their logic. This is further seen in that they only mention such obvious puppets of imperialism like Pinochet, Mobutu, Marcos and the ex-Shah of Iran. This covers for the bulk of the non-aligned movement and shows how in essence Albania has not broken with the theory of the non-aligned countries or the theory of “three worlds.” In fact Albania has its own version of the theory of “three worlds”. In place of the Chinese concept of the “third world”, we get the “developed countries”, or the “progressive world”. In place of the “second world”, we get the “small fish” and “well-intentioned capitalists”. And in place of the “superpowers”, well, we get actually the same thing, the “superpowers”.
This essentially covers up the necessity for imperialist countries to periodically redivide the world. Lenin talked of the imperialist countries’ “foreign policy, which reduces itself to the struggle of the Great Powers for the economic and political division of the world.” (Imperialism, op. cit., p. 157)
This struggle for redivision is both to gain and protect world hegemony and also to weaken the adversary imperialist countries. It is true that the U.S. is more powerful than other imperialist countries, but this does not mean that it is not seeking to redivide the world. It needs to expand and to get new markets and raw materials in order to export capital. And of course it wants to stay the top- dog imperialist. In order to do so it must struggle to weaken its adversaries. Today the rivalry between the great powers, the two imperialist blocs, is going on both in the economic and political spheres. It is going on “peacefully” and also “non-peacefully”. It goes on through trade so-called “aid”, trips, wars, coups and subversion. The aim to repartition the world will inevitably lead to imperialist wars. The imperialist cannot divide the world forever peacefully. They are not, as they paint themselves, civilised gentlemen, but a bunch of predatory beasts.
The focus of the struggle to redivide the world is the semi-colonies, colonies, and dependent countries. The reason is that these areas are the greatest areas for superprofits. Lenin said:
It is natural that the struggle for these semi-dependent countries should have become particularly bitter during the period of finance capital, when the rest of the world had already been divided up. (Ibid., p. 153)
Carter, in 1977, gave a speech in which he virtually admitted this. He outlined some of the aims of U.S. foreign policy. He said that the U.S. was going “to aggressively challenge” the Soviet Union in a number of areas in the world, or, in other words, strive to redivide the world. The countries he specifically mentioned at that time were Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Algeria, China and Cuba. Now, from among these countries they have only succeeded in two, Somalia and China. Yet they have also made tremendous inroads in a number of other countries which Carter did not mention, including Egypt, India, Sudan, Guinea, Nigeria and Tanzania. In addition, the U.S. is spreading its web of finance capital more and more to the colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries. This is especially being done with the I.M.F. and the World Bank.
At the end of 1978, the so-called “developing countries” owed 220 billion dollars to the Western imperialist countries. The amount that they owed was approximately one quarter of the total export of all these countries. 12% of the total export of these countries is used just to pay off these loans. The U.S. has particularly used these loans to tighten its grip on such countries as Turkey, Peru, Zaire and Jamaica. One of the purposes of these so-called benevolent loans and the so-called aid is to get these countries in a cycle of debt and get them in a situation where they cannot pay back their debts. Then, in order to guarantee that their debts get paid back, the U.S. and other imperialist countries send in so-called financial advisors to monitor the economy of these countries directly. This happened in the country of Zaire and was actually a step back to old-style colonialism. The purpose of this is of course not just to protect their superprofits, their markets and sources of raw materials, but also to counter the influence of the Soviet Union.
One of the methods that U.S. imperialism is employing now is a slick semi-colonial policy. Let’s examine the Andrew Young affair, as one example.
This is one of the most carefully planned and well-executed maneuvers by U.S. imperialism in a long time. Young, it should be known, is a member of the Trilateral Commission. The purpose of whipping up all this commotion about negotiations with the P.L.O. (Palestine Liberation Organization) is basically to use ex-civil rights reformist leaders and members of the Black bourgeoisie as a sort of shock brigade of U.S. imperialism to strike a deal with the P.L.O. Actually, all of this is really phase two of the Camp David agreements. Elements like Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson are being sent all over the Middle East and Africa telling the nationalist forces to disarm. In the Middle East these schemes of the imperialists and their lackeys are directed against the interests of the Palestinian people and the Arab people as a whole. Their aim is to set up a semi-colonial Palestinian state. This would exist side by side with the Zionist Israel.
But it is the position of the international proletariat on the Palestinian National Question that there is just one Palestine, and not a Palestine and an Israel side by side. The supporters of this Palestine and Israel next to each other include the revisionists in the Soviet Union, the revisionist C.P.C., the revisionists in the P.L.A., and the Trilateral Commission. Step one of this plan for the Middle East was the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel. After the fall of the Shah of Iran, Egypt has become one of the main military strongholds of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. This has meant tremendous devastation of the economy of Egypt. Egyptian workers have to go all over the Middle East in search of work. But the Camp David agreement could not fully resolve and fully satisfy the aims of U.S. imperialism in tightening its grip over the Middle East.
Step two, which is now being implemented, but a little more quietly, has a number of objectives. One thing the U.S. wants to do is unruffle the feathers of, and improve relations even more with, Saudi Arabia. The U.S. wants to bring in Saudi Arabia and Jordan into its so-called “peace process”. This is why the focus of the present talks is on the so-called autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For this deal there is increasing evidence that they have support of a section of the P.L.O. The recent warm embraces of Arafat to Jesse Jackson and Brzezinski is a sign of this. At the recent so-called non-aligned conference Arafat referred to Andrew Young as a “courageous individual”. This is the same Arafat that recently received a letter of praise by Enver Hoxha.
Again, the purpose of all these deals is a semi-colonial Palestinian state tied to the U.S., in which Saudi Arabia can have some dominance. And also, by no small coincidence, after this deal had begun to be started the Saudis upped their oil production.
But of course U.S. imperialism is still playing both sides of the street on this question. They also sent their lackey, Vernon Jordan, to Israel to give his full support for Zionism. This is because if this deal falls through in any way and they cannot unseat the Russian influence, especially in the PLO, they will still be on good terms with the present government in Israel. But even if a Palestinian state is set up next to Israel, we should not be fooled by this. Speaking at the Communist International, Lenin said:
It is necessary steadily to explain to and expose among the broadest masses of the toilers of all countries, and particularly of backward countries, the deception which the imperialist powers systematically practice by creating, in the guise of politically independent states, states which are absolutely dependent upon them economically, financially and militarily; in the present international situation there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics. (Preliminary Draft of Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, Selected Works, 10:237, Int’l. Pub. Edition, 1938)
It would be wrong to think, however, that there will be smooth sailing for the U.S. in pulling off this deal. Besides revealing their semi-colonial schemes, the Andrew Young affair reveals the sharp political crisis that the U.S. bourgeoisie faces. U.S. foreign policy is in a total crisis. The activity of Andrew Young himself was a focus of sharp division among various sections of the U.S. bourgeoisie for some time. Various presidential candidates, especially Connally, are openly opposing the tactics of Carter on the Middle East, despite the present so-called “delicate” negotiations. To pull off its plan, U.S. imperialism still must pass a number of almost insurmountable hurdles. It must reconcile the imperialist interests and rivalries between the aggressive Israeli Zionists and the feudal sheiks of the Middle East. So far, it has found no solution to the crisis in Lebanon. Despite some gains, it has been unable to oust the Soviet Union from the Middle East. There are still important pro-Russian factions in the PLO that oppose Arafat’s pro-U.S. deals. Israel refuses to even consider setting up a Palestinian state of any sort. In fact, Israel itself is wracked by a severe economic and political crisis, reflected in the recent defection of Dayan from the Begin government. And the Palestinian masses cannot wait forever for a return to their homeland or be expected to accept domination by the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Middle East is a time bomb for U.S. imperialism, which is trying to reconcile innumerable irreconcilable interests before it explodes again. Thus, despite its effort to solve the crisis in the Middle East and tighten its grip there, U.S. imperialism has thus far come up with nothing that has worked.
In Southern Africa the imperialists are playing the same semi-colonial game. There, also, Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young have been having their own round of shuttle diplomacy. The U.S. allies, Britain and France, have also been involved in the same game, e.g., the recent negotiations on Zimbabwe with the so-called Patriotic Front. In the negotiations in London, the Patriotic Front has agreed, first of all to a straight-out bourgeois democratic constitution which will allow all bourgeois and all racist parties to exist. They have agreed to allocate 20% of all the seats in the parliament to the white settlers. They have also approved the British version of the constitution for Zimbabwe. This was done because they themselves are bourgeois and also at the urging of the so-called Front-Line States of Africa, led by Tanzania, as well as the urging of China.
Despite the Marxist rhetoric of some elements in the Patriotic Front, these are none other than bourgeois democrats. We have seen how the bourgeoisie in power in the oppressed nations inevitably sells out to imperialism. So the international proletariat and the people of the colonies, semi-colonies, and dependent countries could not give any support to these traitors. In the era of imperialism we judge various national movements as revolutionary only if they weaken imperialism. But these elements of the so-called Patriotic Front are nothing more than what Lenin called “national reformists”. Despite the capitulationism of the Patriotic Front, the imperialists have not yet resolved this crisis. The London talks are still stalemated. Even if an agreement is reached, it is unlikely that it will last long. The white settler forces led by Ian Smith have said they will not agree to major concessions, even to the bourgeois Africans. The war continues, with periodic raids by the Rhodesian army on neighboring countries. Heightening this overall crisis in Southern Africa is the recent explosion by South Africa of an atomic bomb. The imperialists must, just as in the Middle East, try to reconcile the inter-imperialist contradictions of the white settlers and the bourgeois Black regimes.
The U.S.-led bloc is also threatened by growing Russian influence in this region. The western imperialists have not yet squashed Russian influence in the Patriotic Front. This can only lead to greater crisis, to the intensification of the exploitation and oppression of the African workers and peasants, and to the further development of wars and revolutions in that area. The U.S. has tried the “tough” line of Kissinger, as in Angola, and it did not work, as they lost ground to the Russians. Now they and their allies are trying the “soft” approach of Andrew Young. Yet the crisis still does not disappear.
France is playing the same semi-colonial game in Africa. In the Central African Republic they overthrew the Emperor Bokassa and placed their hand-picked representative as the leader. France has more foreign troops in Africa than any other country. The French imperialists have been re-asserting their colonial position in Africa of late. Both world wars weakened the position of French imperialism. Their aggressive activity in Africa thus has a two-fold purpose. On the one hand, they seek to strengthen the entire western, U.S.-led bloc. Their dispatching the vicious French Foreign Legion to Zaire last year to beat back pro-Russian forces served this end. But, on the other hand, it was done at a price. The Zaire situation also showed a scrambling for influence between the French and the other imperialist aggressors, who hypocritically complained about the brutality of the French Foreign Legion (Perhaps somebody forgot to tell the French Foreign Legion that they were representing the “well-intentioned capitalists”).
So while the U.S.-led bloc succeeded in at least temporarily securing Zaire and its rich copper deposits and cheap labor for itself, and keeping this away from the Russian-led bloc, this crisis heightened the contradictions within the U.S.-led bloc itself. So all roads lead to intensified crisis for U.S. imperialism.
In Latin America the U.S. is also trying to play a slick game. A few years ago in Nicaragua the U.S. cut off military aid to Somoza. The purpose was to bring to power a bourgeois democratic regime headed by the so-called Sandinista Liberation Front. The Sandinistas got to power by getting arms channeled through U.S. allies Panama, Venezuela, and Costa Rica. Now that they are in power they are openly going to Washington, D.C., to speak to Carter and negotiate for aid. They are also applying for loans from the I.M.F. The only thing they have expropriated in Nicaragua is the personal property of Somoza. They openly announce that they will protect the imperialists economically and politically. In a recent interview, a leader of the Sandinistas, H. Ortega, said that the “bourgeoisie has a major role to play in the reconstruction” of Nicaragua. (The Economist, Sept. 29, 1979.) At the same time they decided to disarm the workers and peasants who armed themselves against the Somoza regime. What took place in Nicaragua has been described by the PLA as an example for the revolution in Latin America.
Still, the situation in Nicaragua is far from stable. There are important pro-Russian as well as pro-U.S. factions in the Sandinistas. This alliance cannot last forever, but can only lead to a new crisis in the future. In addition, the Russians have been gaining spheres of influence in Latin America, especially in the Caribbean, at the expense of the U.S.-led bloc. The Sandinista regime itself supported the Russian-Vietnamese puppets in Kampuchea in the recent U.N. vote. Pro-Russian regimes have taken power in Grenada, Dominica, and St. Lucia. All this is assisted by Cuba. Many other similar pro-Russian guerilla groups are also active all throughout Latin America. To head off further losses of influence, in certain countries the U.S. has been supporting more bourgeois democratic regimes and even toppling certain local tyrants. This happened in Nicaragua and also in El Salvador. But this is a process that is not at all easy to control. Helping to foment political crisis can backfire on the U.S. It can also lead to contradictions with the fascist regimes it still backs, and even heighten contradictions between these regimes themselves. Witness the rivalry between Chile and Argentina over off-shore islands and claims in Antarctica, which involve enormous untapped reserves of oil, gas, and other minerals. Such political crises can be used by the workers and peasants of Latin America in making revolution. So while the U.S. wheels and deals in Nicaragua, its present solution can only temporarily alleviate its difficulties and actually lays the basis for even more serious problems to come.
The relations between the U.S. and Mexico also reveal the predatory nature of semi-colonialism. Recently there was the visit of his holiness the Pontiff of the Trilateral Commission to Mexico and all of Latin America. The Pope, who also happens to be a personal friend of Brzezinski, was sent there for very specific reasons. In Mexico there was the recent discovery of large reserves of oil. Vance, the U.S. Secretary of State, in a recent speech said that Mexico is the most important country in Latin America for the interests of the U.S., meaning for the U.S. bourgeoisie. So the aim of the Pope’s trip was to spread the opium of religion in order to help guarantee oil for the U.S. monopolies. Also, the U.S. and Mexico just recently signed a large deal for natural gas. But the U.S. does not want to deal with Mexico and is not going to deal with Mexico as an equal partner. They are especially using this recent Mexican oil spill to tighten their grip over the Mexican economy.
Likewise, recent events in Puerto Rico show how the U.S. is planning for an end to the much discredited old-style colonialism. The open colonial status of Puerto Rico has proved too embarrassing internationally to this bastion of “democracy”. First of all, U.S. imperialism wants to protect the superprofits it gets from the plunder of Puerto Rico. It also must keep the Soviet Union out. In the conditions of the wide exposure of the “commonwealth” status as being outright colonialism, it is more and more moving to force either statehood, which means outright annexation of Puerto Rico under the cloak of “American democracy”, or else a phoney political independence, which will keep Puerto Rico in economic bondage. There will be a “referendum” between statehood, commonwealth and independence in a few years.
Genuine Marxist-Leninists must expose all plots by U.S. imperialism and the Puerto Rican bourgeoisie, which is thoroughly national reformist, to impose a semi-colonial status on Puerto Rico. We must uphold the right of political secession for Puerto Rico. At the same time, we must point out that the only solution to exploitation and subjugation of the Puerto Rican masses is by a socialist revolution in Puerto Rico.
The events in Iran reveal the real predatory and aggressive nature of semi-colonialism. The shah’s regime had been a key military stronghold for U.S. imperialism in the Middle East (a position now being played by Saudi Arabia and Egypt). When the Shah was overthrown and his regime replaced by the feudal “Islamic revolution”, which is really a counter-revolution, contradictions sharpened between U.S. imperialism and the reactionary mullahs. Khomeini and company did not develop the oil industry enough to suit the U.S. For their own reactionary interests, the Iranian rulers also did not allow the U.S. to keep all of its sophisticated espionage stations and military apparatus to spy on the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Too open collaboration with U.S. imperialism was also made more difficult because of the unstable and potentially explosive situation continuing after the revolution that deposed the Shah. U.S. imperialism responded to this situation by instigating a crisis, bringing the ex-Shah to the U.S., supposedly for medical treatment, through the influence and pressure of David Rockefeller.
Waiting in the wings to take over are the more bourgeois and pro-U.S. elements in Iran, such as the recently resigned Prime Minister Bazargan and recently resigned Foreign Minister Yazdi. Both had met with Brzezinski in Algiers only a few days before the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Iran. All this shows that when U.S. imperialism loses positions in the world that it only becomes more aggressive and more adventurous in its quest to protect its superprofits and spheres of influence, to win back old areas lost, and to gain new ones.
While the Ayatollah Khomeini openly calls for the execution of communists and actually carries this out, the PLA calls Iran “a model for revolution.” Lenin was extremely clear on the attitude towards elements such as Khomieni. Speaking at the Communist International he said:
It is necessary to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with the strengthening of the positions of the Khans, the landlords, the mullahs, etc. (Preliminary Draft of Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, SW, 10:236, Int’l Publ., 1938 Edition)
Clearly this applies to the “Islamic revolution”, which today is actually nothing but a counter-revolution that opposes the U.S. only from the standpoint of feudalism. This is the only correct Leninist approach to these butchers, in spite of those who think that Leninism is out-dated, and has been “modernized” by Imperialism and the Revolution.
Another area where U.S. imperialists are sabre rattling is Asia. The U.S. is using the issue of the Indochinese refugees, especially the “boat people”, to make itself look like humanitarian lambs. It was not so long ago that the U.S. devastated Indochina. Now they are preparing for a new war there, this time on the grounds of saving the refugees, who, they argue, would not be in such dire straits if the U.S. was still there. Such hypocritical but slick maneuvers are aimed at winning back their lost spheres of influence in Indochina.
In Korea, too, the U.S. is increasing war preparations. The assassination of the fascist ruler Pak Jung Hee clearly served U.S. interests. An unpopular tyrant was eliminated, who had contradictions with important sections of the U.S. bourgeoisie because of the bribing of congressmen. Martial law was instituted to put down rebellions, while the U.S. troop withdrawal was very conveniently stopped. But by no means does this solve problems for the U.S. puppets, as Pak’s death only heightens the political crisis in South Korea.
The Russian imperialists are taking advantage of the crisis U.S. imperialism faces in the semi-colonies, colonies, and dependent countries. Overall, they have gained spheres of influence in these countries at the expense of the U.S. although they, too, have gotten mixed results and faced severe crisis in several regions.
One of their biggest prizes was Indochina. They have also been able to bring under their direct dominance Ethiopia, South Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola. They used their front-men, the Vietnamese, to grab up all of Indochina and to overthrow the Chinese puppet, Pol Pot. They have also directly brought several semi-colonial countries either to full membership of COMECON or as observers. In semi-colonial countries that they do not dominate politically, they have especially increased export of capital – e.g. Turkey and Morocco. The Russian imperialists have made special use of their lackeys from Cuba, sending their troops all over Africa to help re-carve it up for the Russian imperialist bloc. Their increasing success at this was seen at the non-aligned conference, where a sizeable bloc of countries were mouthpieces for the Russian imperialists. The PLA tries to cover this up by saying that only some of the countries in the non-aligned movement are not non-aligned. They go on to mention only obvious Western semi-colonies, while never calling out the Russian semi-colonies. In this way the PLA justifies the plunder of these countries by the Russian imperialists and defends their superprofits, which the Albanian leaders obviously want a share of.
The Russians’ aim is to try to grab all the weak links in the Western imperialist chain. They have been especially directly challenging the U.S. in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Still in the semi-colonies, colonies and dependent countries. Russia has no where near the strength of the U.S.
Also trying to get into this act is China. But China is extremely weak and its spheres of influence in these countries are small. In recent years the Chinese have lost ground in Africa. To attempt to bolster themselves up they tried to take advantage of the Zaire crisis. They actually sent military “advisors” to support the reactionary regime of Mobutu and helped prop up Egypt’s Sadat by selling Egypt arms. But what Chin;: can do is severely restricted by its own grave economic and political crisis. Even in these circumstances, the PLA calls China a “third superpower.” Aside from being anti-scientific and anti-Marxist, this is plainly ridiculous and absurd.
Overall, when we look at the struggle for the repartition of the world by the imperialists, and in particular in relation to the semi-colonies, colonies and dependent countries, we reach two general conclusions. First, we see an intensification of the struggle for the repartitioning of these countries and intensification of the general crisis of capitalism. Second, we see growing favorable conditions for the struggle of the workers and peasants in these countries and for national liberation struggles.
But the inter-imperialist struggle is not limited to the oppressed nations. Today there is an intense striving for economic and political redivision even within each others’ blocs.
It is first essential to understand the importance to imperialism of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. Stalin pointed out:
What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, and the positions of international communism would be lost. (“The Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I.”, Works, 9:28-29)
This is precisely what has happened, with the growing crisis of capitalism and a continuing crisis in the international communist movement. There is also the mistaken view that the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and its becoming an imperialist great power has eased the world-wide contradictions of the imperialist system. But actually this has only created a respite for imperialism. With the destruction of the socialist world market, there has been the development of another imperialist bloc, led by the Soviet Union. This has led not to an easing of inter-imperialist rivalries, but, on the contrary, to an intensification of inter-imperialist rivalry for repartition of the world by the development of a new and powerful imperialist rival.
In particular, this has allowed the U.S. to economically penetrate the countries of the old socialist world market. Recently U.S. trade with COMECON countries has been growing. The COMECON countries Rumania and Hungary have more trade with the Western capitalist countries than with the Soviet Union. Hungary recently changed around its economic laws specifically to facilitate trade and currency deals with the U.S. and the Western capitalist countries. Also, the debt of these various revisionist countries to the Western capitalist countries is growing tremendously. In 1977, the Soviet Union and the East European countries owed to the West approximately $54 billion. And this figure is actually growing each year.
One of the key focuses of U.S. attempts to penetrate into the revisionist countries and to redivide the world has been Poland. The U.S. believes that this is the weak link for the Soviet Union. Poland alone owes a debt of $15 billion to the West. Because of its tremendous debt, recently nine Western Banks, seven of them from the U.S., one from Canada, and one from Britain, have been directly monitoring the economy of Poland. They have been mandating budget cuts, cuts in subsidies, and so forth, to guarantee that their loans are paid back. We also see in this context why it is no coincidence that the new Pope is from Poland. In his recent trip to Poland, he openly incited pro-U.S., pro-Western, and anti-Russian sentiment. At the same time, the U.S. imperialists are encouraging the so-called “dissidents” in Poland and other East European revisionist countries. Of course, these “dissidents”, who are reactionary intellectuals, clergy and pro-imperialist elements, mostly led by CIA agents, are not the only opponents of the present revisionist regimes. There is also the struggle of the working class, peasants, and revolutionaries who uphold Lenin and Stalin. The U.S. imperialists and their lackeys like the Pope, while supporting the phoney “dissidents”, also oppose the righteous rebellions of the proletariat.
So, the U.S. is not content with just its own spheres of influence and is not content to let the Soviet Union dominate Eastern Europe, as both the PLA and the CPC contend. Neither is the Soviet Union content to let the U.S. continue its domination of Western Europe. For example, there has been a recent increase of trade between the Soviet Union and West Germany. The recent visit to Europe by Chinese Premier Hua Guofeng also revealed important inter-imperialist rivalries. When in West Germany, Hua was told by the hosts to tone down his anti-“hegemonism” rhetoric. There are contradictions between different factions of the West German bourgeoisie over the nature of their relations with Russia. While West Germany is a mainstay of NATO, its own imperialist interests bring it into contradiction with U.S. imperialism. They also have ambitions to reunite all of Germany, a goal Schmidt has vocally made know. In some European countries, especially Britain, Hua, as a rabid supporter of U.S. imperialism, got a better reception (also declaring that he sees China’s alliance with Western Europe as a “permanent relationship.”)
But this incident reflects that the Russian imperialists have also been able to take advantage of contradictions in the U.S.-led bloc to strengthen their own position at the expense of the U.S. All this has heightened the difficulties faced by U.S. imperialism. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union is still weaker than the U.S. in the struggle for the economic and political repartition of Europe. Their main economic gains have not been in Europe, but in the semi-colonies. It has proved much more difficult to get an economic foothold in the imperialist countries in the U.S.-led bloc in Europe. For an economic repartition of the world, there of course must be a political and territorial repartition. And this as we know, cannot be done merely by “peaceful” means such as trade, loans, etc.
In addition to the contradiction between the U.S.-led bloc and Russian-led bloc, there are also contradictions within each of these blocs.
There are important contradictions between the U.S. and the Western European countries. Within their own alliances, the U.S. is not as completely dominant as it once was immediately after World War II. The so-called European Monetary System was to an extent an attempt to challenge the complete dominance of the American dollar in financial capital. But of course it still has to back up the dollar. These Western European countries are just too tied up to the U.S. to be able to struggle to challenge them. This fact, coupled with the common threat of the Soviet Union, makes it unlikely that this alliance will completely break up at this point.
However, there are also important elements of the U.S. bourgeoisie that want to heighten these contradictions with the West European countries. Some of the political representatives of the bourgeoisie who are not members of the Trilateral Commission, such as Connally and Brown, have been proposing a so-called “North American Common Market.” This North American Common Market would include the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Part of the purpose of this would be to grab the oil and natural gas in Canada and Mexico, and partly also to challenge the European Common Market. Presently some of these elements are whipping up a tremendous hysteria to gain public support for increased U.S. plunder in Canada and Mexico.
The question of oil is also related to growing contradictions within the US. bloc. Western European capitalists, especially from West Germany, were not thrilled at the U.S. freezing of Iranian assets in the U.S., because that might lead to a massive withdrawal of funds by other OPEC countries from their deposits in Europe. This could lead to currency convulsions that could hurt the system of international finance overall. Most of Western Europe is almost totally dependent on foreign oil. France, for example, criticized the U.S. at the recent Tokyo Summit meeting for not further cutting its consumption of oil. France is also beefing up its own nuclear arsenal and conventional combat troops (as seen in their African adventures) to pursue their own imperialist interests.
The U.S. also has some important contradictions with Japan. Japan is virtually entirely dependent on foreign oil. Because of this, Japan is more openly leaning to the creation of a semi-colonial Palestinian state. They also criticized the U.S. at the Tokyo Summit for not openly declaring their support for a Palestinian State. The U.S. and Japan have also collided over the question of markets. In recent years, the U.S. bourgeoisie has been very upset by the increasing export by Japan to the U.S. of steel and color television sets. So the U.S. got Japan to agree to reduce the amount of these exports sent to the U.S.
The growth of countries such as West Germany and Japan, countries which were devastated at the end of World War II, is another example of the law of uneven development under imperialism. With the tremendous development of technology, in a relatively short period of time these countries were able to come back onto their feet as imperialist countries and actively participate in the redivison of the world. And, of course, U.S. imperialism helped this process along with its Marshall Plan and tremendous “aid” and investments in these countries.
In 1952, when U.S. imperialism still totally dominated Western Europe, Stalin foresaw the growth of these inter-imperialist contradictions. He said:
Outwardly, everything would seem to be ”going well”: the U.S.A. has put Western Europe, Japan and other capitalist countries on rations; Germany (Western), Britain, France, Italy and Japan have fallen into the clutches of the UJS.A. and are meekly obeying its commands, But it would be mistaken to think that things can continue to “go well” for “all eternity,” that these countries will tolerate the domination and oppression of the United States endlessly, that they will not endeavor to tear loose from American bondage and take the path of independent development.
Take, first of all, Britain and France. Undoubtedly, they are imperialist countries. Undoubtedly, cheap raw materials and secure markets are of paramount importance to them. Can it be assumed that they will endlessly tolerate the present situation, in which, under the guise of “Marshall plan aid,” Americans are penetrating into the economies of Britain and France and trying to covert them into adjuncts of the United States economy, and American capital is seizing raw materials and markets in the British and French colonies and thereby plotting disaster for the high profits of the British and French capitalists? Would it not be truer to say that capitalist Britain, and, after her, capitalist France, will be compelled in the end to break from the embrace of the U.S.A. and enter into conflict with it in order to secure an independent position and, of course, high profits?
Let us pass to the major vanquished countries, Germany (Western) and Japan. These countries are now languishing in misery under the jackboot of American imperialism. Their industry and agriculture, their trade, their foreign and home policies, and their whole life are fettered by the American occupation “regime.” Yet only yesterday these countries were great imperialist powers and were shaking the foundations of the domination of Britain, the U.S A. and France in Europe and Asia. To think that these countries will not try to get on their feet again, will not try to smash U.S. domination and force their way to independent development, is to believe in miracles. (Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., International Publishers, 1952, p. 28-29)
This is what has happened. The chief reason that the U.S.-led bloc has not completely burst apart is the emergence of the Russian imperialist bloc.
While there are contradictions within the U.S. bloc, we still have to see that its alliance is continuing and view these countries, the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, and Japan, as one imperialist bloc led by the U.S.
There are also important contradictions within the Russian bloc. One of course involves the question of oil. The Soviet Union has announced it will sharply reduce shipments of oil the East European countries. These contradictions are also evidenced on certain political questions. In the U.N. for example, Rumania, which is actually a member of the Warsaw Pact, voted with the U.S. and China to continue seating the Pol Pot regime. But again for various economic and political reasons, we must still view these countries in Eastern Europe, with the exception of Yugoslavia, as part of the Russian bloc.
Overall, the rivalry between the two imperialist blocs has been heightened by the developing economic crisis. The economic crisis is taking place within the context of the general crisis of capitalism. The particular crisis we are passing through now is a crisis of overproduction. Stalin describes the crisis of overproduction this way:
The basis, the cause, of economic crisis of overproduction lies in the capitalist system of economy itself. The basis of the crisis lies in the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist form of appropriation of the results of production. An expression of this fundamental contradiction of capitalism is the contradiction between the colossal growth of capitalism’s potentialities of production, calculated to yield the maximum of capitalist profit, and the relative reduction of the effective demand of the vast masses of the working people, whose standard of living the capitalists always try to keep at the minimum level. To be successful in competition and to squeeze out the utmost profit, the capitalists are compelled to develop their technical equipment, to introduce rationalisation, to intensify the exploitation of the workers and to increase the production potentialities of their enterprises to the utmost limits. So as not to lag behind one another, all the capitalists are compelled, in one way or another, to take this path of furiously developing production potentialities. The home market and the foreign market, however, the purchasing power of the vast masses of workers and peasants who, in the last analysis, constitute the bulk of the purchasers, remain on a low level. Hence overproduction crises. Hence the well-known results, recurring more or less periodically, as a consequence of which goods remain unsold, production is reduced, unemployment grows and wages are cut, and all this still further intensifies the contradiction between the level of production and the level of effective demand. Overproduction crises are a manifestation of this contradiction in turbulent and destructive forms.
If capitalism could adapt production not to the obtaining of the utmost profit, but to the systematic improvement of the material conditions of the masses of the people, and if it could turn profits not to the satisfaction of the whims of the parasitic classes, not to perfecting the methods of exploitation, not to the export of capital, but to the systematic improvement of the material conditions of the workers and peasants, then there would be no crises. But then capitalism would not be capitalism. To abolish crises it is necessary to abolish capitalism.
Such is the basis of economic crises of overproduction in general. (“Political Report of the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B)”, Works, 12:250-2)
This is precisely what is developing at this moment. The decline in industrial production in the U.S. is coupled with unanimous forecasts in the U.S. by the bourgeois economists that production will sink even further in 1980. These bourgeois economists openly state that they have no theoretical solutions to economic crisis. Gone is their bragging about an “American century” and the ability of Keynesian economics, especially its “pump-priming” of printing up more currency, to help capitalism. This has all been replaced by pessimistic forecasts of more economic gloom. At the same time, the current crisis is but one of innumerable proofs that the scientific political economy of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin remains valid today.
The crisis at this point is taking place in several major capitalist countries, including the U.S., Britain, Canada. There is also a lot of evidence that this same crisis of over-production is taking place in the Soviet Union and China. This is seen in the Soviet Union in the existence of all the features of the crisis inherent in capitalism. The crisis of overproduction has meant that the Russian capitalists have been unable to reach the goals of their phoney economic “plan”. Rising prices and unemployment are rampant in the Soviet Union as the bourgeoisie ruthlessly exploits the proletariat and the peasantry. The Soviet Union is also going through an agrarian crisis, trying to blame their disastrous crop harvest on bad weather. In China, the “four modernizations” program has almost collapsed. There is evidence of tremendous unemployment. China has recently started to export workers all over the world. This is a most graphic example of how labor power is a commodity in China. This is also a more modern version of the so-called “coolie” system. However this particular crisis of overproduction has not developed evenly around the world. Some important capitalist countries, such as West Germany and Japan, have not as yet been as affected by it.
This is only temporary. In the era of imperialism, when there is no socialist world market, the entire world economy is linked together. Overproduction crises always develop on an international scale. West Germany and Japan, for example, depend on sales of their exports much more than the U.S. does. With the decline in the ability of the working class to purchase goods on the market in many capitalist countries, coupled with inflation and the upward swing of the German mark and Japanese yen (which increases the price of their exports) West Germany and Japan will also face a loss of markets and hence, an overproduction crisis.
U.S. imperialism is also using (and orchestrating) the continued increases in oil prices to hurt the economies of West Germany and Japan and drag them into the crisis, and also feed it. We are thus only at the beginning of this world crisis of overproduction.
An important part of this economic crisis is the recent raising of interest rates, especially the prime rate. One of the important reasons that this was done was to bolster the strength of the dollar around the world by cutting the money supply. The U.S. dollar has tremendously weakened in recent years and is considered a joke by many international financiers. The rise in interest rates also is aimed at shifting the crisis to an extent onto other imperialist countries and to oust weaker monopolies from the market. The recent decline of stock prices, brought on by forecasts of lower profits that sparked a selling spree, also hurts the smaller capitalists the most and allows the largest monopolies to swallow them up. While inflation, to an extent, erodes the profits of the bourgeoisie, at the same time it leads to continued high prices while production is declining. This allowed profits to grow in the third quarter of 1979, although sales were sluggish. All the so-called “solutions” to inflation by the bourgeoisie, especially through budget cuts, actually will intensify the economic crisis. It will intensify the crisis of over-production by even further driving down the living standards of the masses, and thus making it even more difficult for the working class to buy goods on the market.
An extremely important part of the economic crisis is the world struggle for oil. Recently Carter has been openly trying to blame the whole oil situation on OPEC. Before the Iran crisis, Carter switched to a new “softer” line towards OPEC. Of course, they are going to use this blaming of OPEC for the purpose of demagogy. But the more “conciliatory” line of Carter actually revealed the stance of U.S. imperialism to OPEC.
The U.S. still controls a very important part of OPEC. Let’s examine Saudi Arabia, today perhaps the most important country in OPEC, and see what has happened with the revenue, the money obtained from the sale of oil. With the tremendous amount of funds, the tremendous fortunes that Saudi Arabia is taking in from the oil, it needs somebody who is going to be a financier, somebody to handle all that money. Who is very graciously handling the money for Saudi Arabia? None other than Chase Manhattan Bank, under the personal direction of its president, David Rockefeller.
Now let’s see specifically where this money goes. Between 1974 and 1977 the U.S. paid out to OPEC approximately 106 billion dollars for oil. The amount that the OPEC countries gave back to the U.S., both in the form of purchase of goods and services and investments, was 108 billion dollars. A large chunk of money was actually deposited in U.S. banks. Under the “direction” of Chase Manhattan, Saudi Arabia has been loaning out a lot of this money to other semi-colonial countries. Many of these countries have had their economies devastated by the great increase in oil prices. These countries such as Egypt and Somalia, then take a loan from Saudi Arabia and use the money from that loan to purchase goods from the U.S. and the other Western capitalist countries.
Some of these OPEC countries are using a portion of these funds for internal construction and industrial development of their own countries. Would the reader want to guess what countries these construction companies come from? The U.S. In fact, they are actually developing entire cities using U.S. companies, U.S. engineers, and so forth. But the actual workers doing the labor in Saudi Arabia are foreign workers, especially Egyptians, Palestinians and Yemenis. In addition Saudi Arabia has recently become the number one purchaser of U.S. arms in the world. Part of the U.S. strategy is to have Saudi Arabia as a military stronghold for it in the Middle East.
The Trilateral Commission has decided to make certain “minor concessions” to the OPEC countries, in order to continue economic, political and military dominance over them.
The U.S. hold on OPEC also extends to some countries that are generally considered more pro-Russian. For example, in Libya which is generally pro-Russian, the U.S. and Western companies still own approximately 1/3 of the oil. Libya has hired Billy Carter, the brother of Jimmy “Trilateral” Carter as a paid representative. In addition it’s also extremely obvious that the U.S. oil companies benefit tremendously from the price increases by OPEC. They use these price increases, most likely which they helped plan, as a justification for even higher oil price hikes. For example, on the excuse that the price of the foreign oil is increasing, these oil companies actually raise their own prices of refined oil even higher than the OPEC prices have been raised. This is done so that they can get more profits and expand investments.
The question of oil is also heightening the economic crisis for the Soviet Union. According to reports by the U.S. bourgeoisie, they expect that very soon the Soviet Union will have to start importing oil. As was stated earlier, the Soviet Union soon is going to reduce export of oil to its Eastern European allies. This is in spite of the fact that the Soviet Union is one of the largest producers of oil in the world , and also has one of the largest reserves of oil. It has attempted to intensify its struggle for spheres of influence within the OPEC countries.
In addition, there has recently been a discovery of large reserves of oil in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam. Much of this oil is in the seabed area which is disputed between China and Vietnam. China is bringing in mostly US oil companies in order to develop the oil in that region. This puts into a much clearer focus why there are so many sharp contradictions between China and Vietnam today. The war between China and Vietnam, and the invasion of Vietnam by China had less to do with punishment and more to do with petroleum. Oil, as we know, is very important for fuel, for transport, and for waging war. In 1928 Stalin said that oil was: “of decisive importance both for the development of the capitalist economy and for the purposes of war.” (Results of the July Plenum of the CC, CPSU(B), Works, Vol. 11, p. 207)
The struggle for oil is an important part of the general struggle for the re-partitioning of the world among the various imperialist powers. This struggle for oil is also being used to further shift the burden of the capitalist crisis onto the backs of the working class and the oppressed nations and peoples of the world. But while the oil companies are cleaning up with record profits, the so-called “energy crisis” is hurting the US capitalist economy as a whole. The higher prices have intensified every aspect of the overall economic crisis, including the crisis of overproduction, the trade deficit, the currency crisis and decline of the US dollar, etc. The reduction in automobile sales is a direct result of the increase in fuel prices. While the oil companies rake it in, the auto companies take a beating. The hardest effect has been felt by Chrysler, which has almost collapsed and is seeking a federal loan guarantee to keep it afloat. Aiding in the rescue of this monopoly is the labor aristocracy. As reward for a contract that shifts Chrysler’s economic troubles onto its workers, UAW head Fraser will join Chrysler’s board of directors. This shows that the economic crisis not only brings about the merger of the state apparatus and the corporations, but also the direct incorporation of the labor aristocracy with the bourgeoisie and the capitalist state.
As the economic crisis deepens, the political crisis in the bourgeoisie sharpens. Economically, the US oil companies and OPEC are aligned against the US auto companies. This has led to great convulsions for US foreign policy. A year before the 1980 presidential elections, the various candidates are openly and aggressively debating foreign policy. Gone are the days of the so-called “bi-partisan” foreign policy of Republicans and Democrats. Now all the candidates attack each other vigorously as being “dangerous,” etc. All this in-fighting will only intensify the economic crisis facing the US bourgeoisie. It is a sure sign of a decaying, sinking system.
How do the imperialists carry out the intensified struggle to repartition the world? Is there actually a situation in the world where there is equilibrium between the different imperialists? Here is what Hoxha says on this: “... between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, there is an obvious tendency towards maintaining the status quo.” (Imperialism and the Revolution, p. 28) As an example of this, he gives the SALT negotiations. This, is just so much eyewash, and is actually a repetition of the Kautskyite line of ultra-imperialism. In fact Kautsky was the centrist predecessor of Hoxha. Actually, the SALT 2 negotiations are a cover for imperialist arms expansion. In particular, SALT 2 is a deal to rationalize arms production and to create favorable conditions for the development of a whole new generation of nuclear arms. This proposed SALT treaty has been negotiated during, as we have explained before, a severe economic crisis and inflation for both the US and Russia. The aim is basically this — to limit spending, or to level off spending on the present types of weapons in their arsenals, to leave more funds for the development of new weapons. Already the US is developing the new MX missile, new cruise missiles, and announced it’s going to deploy the new Pershing 2 missiles in Western Europe. The USSR is also developing its new SS-20 missile. None of the new nuclear missiles, which are technologically superior to the ones already existing, are covered by this current SALT treaty. It is necessary for each of them to continue modernizing their nuclear weapons to keep up with the other one. Examining why the SALT treaty is being negotiated, we go back to the economic factor which is very important. In the context of the economic crisis both the US and USSR have found it economically more feasible to keep what they already have at the present level, so that they can then carry out an expansion of these new weapons and in that way prepare for war. Of course, this kind of deal can only take place in conditions where the contradictions between the imperialists have not yet sharpened to the point that they must have a world war. These contradictions develop independent of the will of the imperialists. But just because a world war is not immediately imminent, does not mean that preparations for it are not taking place.
All imperialist peace is really preparation for war. As Lenin said,
Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not in the banal philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German ’Marxist,’ Kautsky, ’inter-imperialist’ or ’ultra-imperialist’ alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a “truce” in periods between wars. Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; the one is the condition for the other, giving rise to alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle out of one and the same base of imperialist connections and the relations between world economies and world politics. (op. cit., p. 188-89)
But the SALT negotiations also reveal an important change in the military balance between the US and the Soviet Union in recent years. The Russians have been trying to outstrip the US in this area as a prelude to a re division of the world through war. The SALT talks show that the nuclear arsenals of the US and the Soviet Union are more or less equal. The treaty attempts to formalize this equalization. As we have shown, this does not mean a maintenance of the status quo, as Hoxha pretends, but greater arms expansion and war preparation, which is going on right now. As Lenin said, “there can be no other conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, of interests, of colonies, etc., than a calculation of the strength of the participants in the division, their general economic, financial, military strength etc.” (Ibid., p. 188) The past several years has seen a marked decline in the strength of US imperialism, although it is still number one, and a marked growth in the strength of Russian imperialism. The SALT treaty is a result of this new calculation of strength.
The weakening of US imperialism leads it not to going on the defensive as the Maoist “three-world”-ers pretend, but to it becoming more aggressive and bloodthirsty. The weakening of the US also heightens contradictions in the US bourgeoisie, as various monopoly groups scramble to maintain their position. Thus, a section of the US bourgeoisie is opposed to the SALT treaty.
This section of the bourgeoisie has a tactical difference with the (mainly) Trilateral Commission grouping (including Carter) over the tempo of the repartition of the world. Also, there is an economic factor here. Some of them would like to increase war spending much more openly with virtually no limits.
But in general the US bourgeoisie as a whole is developing more and more of a war hysteria.
Carter had said that we have to view the energy crisis as the “moral equivalent of war.” Besides trying to whip up support for so-called “sacrifices”, the bourgeoisie is creating conditions for the stockpiling of oil for war purposes. The entire structure of NATO is being modernized and the whole NATO system being bolstered and strengthened. Ideologically, more war propaganda is being spread.
At the same time the bourgeoisie is whipping up public opinion to reinstitute the draft. At this point they have the so-called volunteer army. In the period when war is not imminent, it serves the purpose of creating a good solid core of professional military men. The bourgeoisie does not want soldiers who come from the working class at the core of its army. It is also particularly upset that a large portion of the volunteer army is composed of soldiers from oppressed nationalities. And in a way it has cause to be upset, because in an imperialist war these are the soldiers — the workers and the oppressed nationalities – who turn their guns around on their officers (and in fact who did so) in imperialist wars. Preparations are being made to bring back the draft within the next few years. Another thing done to help whip up war hysteria is manufacturing the whole issue of the Russian troops in Cuba. These troops have actually been there for quite some time, as some of the bourgeois representatives, such as McGeorge Bundy, have admitted. But the US bourgeoisie has made a big issue of this, especially in order to develop its new Latin American Command. In order to whip up war hysteria further, it even had a so-called “practice marine invasion” of the Guantanamo base in Cuba. This war hysteria is aimed at what it feels is its main rival, the USSR.
In addition, in recent years there have been articles in the bourgeois press giving an idea of precisely what they think a new world war would look like. The strategy that was developed under Nixon and is now being elaborated by Defense Secretary Brown (again from the Trilateral Commission) is called “one and one-half wars.” This strategy means fighting what they call “one whole world war in Western Europe and one-half world war in the Middle East.” This shows which areas they think are most key to their interests, and also which areas they think might be directly threatened by the Russians.
Now although a war today is not imminent, Marxist-Leninists have always held that under imperialism war between capitalist countries is inevitable. The question is, why is this? As Lenin said, division of the world is based on calculations of overall strength. When this strength changes, it leads to a situation where there has to be a redivision. This can only be done through a war. After World War II, US imperialism took indisputable possession of first place among the imperialist countries. They cannot be peacefully knocked out of first place. This can only take place by means of war.
The CPC states that the US has already been knocked peacefully out of first place by the Russians.
The PLA says that the US and USSR are equal in strength and have a world equilibrium. All of this is just more Kautskyite eyewash. Now, as Lenin taught, “War is a continuation of politics by other means. Every war is inseparably connected with the political system which gave rise to it. The politics which a certain country, a certain class in that country, pursued for a long period before the war, are inevitably pursued by the very same class during the war; it merely changes its form of action.” (War and the Workers, International Publishers, 1940, p. 5; also known as “War and Revolution,” LCW, Vol. 24)
In other words, war is a continuation of the economic and political re-division of the world already going on prior to it. We have to judge the character of any world war by the whole economic and political development preceding it. If a world war does develop, and the imperialists are not overthrown, it will be a struggle or a war for the, repartition of the world. Such a war would be especially aimed at grabbing the semi-colonies, colonies, and dependent countries, and each others’ spheres of influence. It will be an inter-imperialist war, a war for superprofits, robbery and plunder of the colonies and semi-colonies. In judging its purpose, it is really not key where the war actually will start or on what territory it is fought. For example, World War I was mainly fought on the territory of Europe, but was mainly for the redivision of the colonies, especially Turkey, Persia and China.
While the US has its “one and a half war strategy, the main purpose of a world war between the US bloc and the Russian bloc would be for the redivision of all the semi-colonies, colonies, and dependent countries.
All the various social chauvinists side with one imperialist bloc or another. The revisionists of the CPC in fact openly try to instigate a world war. They know that only through a world war can China gain its spheres of influence and sources of markets and raw materials. The Chinese also are trying to instigate a war in Europe in the hopes of diverting a Russian attack on China. Through this they hope to maximize their own benefits from a new world war.
The Albanian revisionists take a somewhat different tactic. They talk of the theory of two “superpowers”. Despite the occasional Marxist-Leninist rhetoric they use, all they succeed in doing is spreading pacifist illusions. In fact, today the PLA is advocating a development of a peace movement. The PLA writes: “It is true that as long as imperialism and its policy of war and aggression (now war and aggression has become just a policy of imperialism – BL) another possibility exists. Namely the possibility to stay the hand of the imperialists and to prevent them from unleashing a new world war.” (“The Marxist-Leninist Stand of the PLA on the Problems of War and Peace,” Albania Today, p. 2, 1979, p. 4)
This kind of revisionism is very eloquently refuted by Comrade Stalin in Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. Stalin put it very bluntly: “To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism.” (op. cit. p. 30)
Clear one would think! But actually the pacifist demogogy spread by the PLA is merely just a cover for their own social-chauvinism.
Centrism is nothing more than camouflaged social-chauvinism. Very often in a severe crisis the mask comes off and you see the real ugly face beneath it. This was very clearly seen in the situation in Indochina, where the PLA sided with the Russian bloc. Now the PLA is trying to dress up its whole pacifist line as being the same as the line of Stalin.
First of all, as we have shown, they totally distort what Stalin actually said. Second of all, by comparing the present situation to the situation immediately after World War II, when the Soviet Union did lead a peace movement, they distort history. They do not deal with the different conditions that exist today.
Why do we not advocate the peace movement today, but in fact oppose the organization of a peace movement today? First of all, the situation in the world today is much more similar to that prior to World War I, where there were strictly inter-imperialist contradictions existing in the world.
Secondly, today the defense of the soviet Republic, the defense of the world proletarian revolution, is not a factor.
Thirdly, we do not have the situation that existed immediately after the Second World War of an imperialist camp fighting a camp of socialist countries and People’s Democracies.
Fourthly, we do not have a country in the world that is a bulwark of peace, as was the Soviet Union.
Today if a world war develops it would be an inter-imperialist war. Ultimately it can only be prevented by the overthrow of imperialism.
Through spreading social-pacifism the PLA is trying to sabotage the proletarian revolution. It wants a peace movement to protect its own bourgeois nationalist interests. If there is no world war, or at least no war in Europe, then everything would be fine. The PLA thus would like to see war in, say, Asia, which might divert an attack on Albania. Thus, the bourgeois nationalist interests of the CPC and PLA revisionists clash, giving rise to their unprincipled “polemics”. The PLA wants the “status quo” in Europe. Its franchised agent “parties” thus promote a peace movement for Europe. But proletarian revolution would also upset the sacred “status quo”. So the PLA works overtime to bolster opportunist, centrist “parties” who oppose the proletarian revolution by all sorts of revisionist schemes for a peace movement, two-stage revolution, and alliance with the bourgeoisie in imperialist countries, etc. In this way the PLA hopes to liquidate the proletarian revolution. In fact, the PLA has been fairly consistent in promoting social-pacifism. For example, it signed and upheld the 1957 and 1960 Moscow declarations along with the Russian revisionists, the Chinese revisionists, and all the other revisionists. Both these revisionist documents advocated a peace movement.
In the U.S., we clearly see the kind of opportunists that the PLA is supporting and promoting as the so-called “genuine Marxist-Leninists”. They have ties with the phoney COUSML, which is promoting the anti-nuclear movement, a social-pacifist movement.
They also have ties with the so-called CPUSA(M-L), which is openly calling for a peace movement. What slogan is raised by the PLA, in the event of imperialist war? The PLA says turn the “imperialist war into a liberation war“. All genuine Bolsheviks know that the only correct slogan is “turn the imperialist war into a civil war.” By calling for a liberation war, the PLA is actually covering up its real support for defense of the imperialist fatherland.
The Bolshevik League unites with the analysis by the Comrades of the Bolshevik Union of Canada in their journal Lines of Demarcation, No. 13, which has analysed the PLA as being social-nationalists.
In the article “Under a Stolen Flag,” Lenin exposed what social-nationalism is. He explained how the opportunist Potresov “has hoisted the flag of “internationalism’ in order more securely to transport under this flag the contraband cargo of national liberalism.” (“Under a Stolen Flag”, LCW, 18:119, 1930, International Publishers) Potresov covered his social-chauvinism with the stolen flag of internationalism. He did this by accusing Kautsky “of defending now the liberalism of one color, now of another color, that is to say, the liberalism of the colors of various nations.” (Ibid.) To this Potresov does not answer with proletarian internationalism, but with “multi-colored nationalism,” that is, the uniting of various bourgeois nationalism. As Lenin said, “In reality A. Potresov contrasts multicolored nationalism with national liberalism of one color, whereas Marxism is hostile and for the present historic situation it is absolutely hostile to any national liberalism.” (Ibid.)
This is exactly what the PLA does. They attempt to unite the bourgeois and (and even feudal) nationalists of the so-called “progressive world” with the “small fish” nationalism of the capitalists who are well-intentioned to Albania. The purpose is to find a common ground for bourgeois nationalists interests. In the case of the PLA, their social-nationalism leads directly to their social-pacifism and liquidation of the proletarian revolution.
The attitude of all genuine Marxist-Leninists of course is that we detest imperialist war. We try to prevent it with the only thing that it has absolutely nothing to gain from imperialist war, and has no interest in a mutual slaughter of workers from other lands. But if there is an imperialist war we raise the slogans; War Against War! Defeat of our Own Bourgeoisie! Turn the Imperialist War into a Civil War! Workers of All Countries Unite!
Analyzing the question of war and the world situation inevitably brings up the question of the prospects of revolution in the world and also in the U.S.
Since the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R. there has been no victorious proletarian revolution. Because of this the petty bourgeoisie throws up its hands and no longer sees socialism as inevitable. Yet the historic transition from one social system to another has never been a quick or easy one. It took capitalism centuries to defeat feudalism, although this was a social system with which it could make a deal, and actually did. In this context, the emergence of socialism on a world scale is a relatively young historical development. All the contradictions in the world that have been intensified by imperialism have made the victory of socialism on a world-wide scale inevitable. Analyzing the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R. we must first look at the question of capitalist encirclement.
The U.S.S.R., of course, at that time was the base of world revolution under Lenin and Stalin. Looking at the world situation, we can see the results of being without socialism in the U.S.S.R., without socialism anywhere in the world.
Mao Zedong Thought and the CPC say that this has been a zigzag, just a temporary defeat, and really no big deal. In fact it was a very important defeat for the international proletariat to lose this base of world revolution.
This is why when the Soviet Union was socialist under Lenin and Stalin it was the proletarian internationalist duty of the workers and oppressed peoples of the world to come to its defense.
In the time of Lenin and Stalin, when there was an international call for the defense of the Soviet Union, all kinds of Trotskyites denounced this as so-called Russian nationalism, “national narrow-mindedness,” etc., Today the semi-trotskyites in the U.S., with their book, the so-called Roots of Revisionism, also repeat the same theme. Actually the most proletarian internationalist thing that could have been done at the time was the defense of the Soviet Union. This was necessary because the interests of the proletariat of each particular country became subordinated to the interest of the U.S.S.R. as a whole in the overall interest of the world revolution, the interests of the entire international proletariat.
As we said the overall analysis and the implications of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union has not yet been completely done. In particular we have to study the effect on the national and colonial question. With the victory of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, the struggles in the colonies, semi-colonies, and dependent countries became part of the reserves of the world proletarian revolution. Without the leadership of the Soviet Union it has become much more difficult for there to be real victories of national liberation struggles. This is another reason why we have to view the conditions for revolution on an international scale.
Not only does the crisis of capitalism develop unevenly, but also revolutionary situations are developing unevenly. The social-chauvinists completely deny the conditions for revolution in the era of imperialism. The centrists, on the other hand, glorify the economic struggle and spontaneous movement by labelling it a revolutionary situation. For their own bourgeois , nationalist and social-nationalist reasons, they glorify what happened in Iran and Nicaragua as the “model” for world revolution and the path the proletariat should follow.
The PLA centrists’ purpose in doing this is to keep the proletariat from gaining hegemony of these struggles. Lenin very scientifically gave us a definition of what a revolutionary situation is. He gave three signs of it:
(1) it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their power unchanged; there is a crisis higher up taking one form or another; there is a crisis in the policy of the ruling class; as a result, there appears a crack through which the dissatisfaction and the revolt of the oppressed classes burst forth. If a revolution is to take place, it is usually insufficient that ’one does not wish way below’, but it is necessary that ’one is incapable of up above’ to continue in the old way;
(2) The wants and sufferings of the oppressed classes become more acute than usual;
(3) In consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses who in peace times allow themselves to be robbed without protest, but in stormy times are drawn both by the circumstances and the crisis and by the ’higher-ups’ themselves into independent historic actions.” (“Collapse of the Second International”, LCW, 18:279, International Publishers, 1930 edition)
Hoxha again obscures this analysis with the slogan that “Today the revolution is a problem taken up for solution.” This of course is true for the entire era of imperialism, which is actually the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. But he uses this vague slogan in order to obscure what is, and what is not, a revolutionary situation. In this way Hoxha wants the so-called Marxist-Leninist parties to become tails of the bourgeoisie. And this of course is what the PLA advocated and what was actually carried out in situations in Iran, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.
In the U.S. today the revolutionary movement is at an ebb. Today is the time to prepare for when there will be a revolutionary situation. Today is not the time for the mustering of forces for the immediate onslaught against capitalism, but of mustering forces for preparation for the armed onslaught against capitalism.
However, in judging the development of a revolutionary situation there are a number of things we have to keep in mind.
First, of all, as the economic crisis develops and inter-imperialist contradictions sharpen, this leads to more favorable conditions for the development of a revolutionary situation.
Second, with the development of the crisis of imperialism, the relative economic and political privileges which much of the U.S. proletariat has will be lessened and stripped away. This overall deterioration of the living standards of the masses also could be a factor in the development of a revolutionary situation. With the decline and collapse of U.S. imperialism, more workers can be brought to see that there are no saviors for them in this system. The crisis will also bring with it the growth of the ranks of the unemployed, and all the accompanying misery and economic insecurity. Unemployment also hurts the employed workers, who are threatened with the fate of joblessness if they rebel, and whose wages are held down when the ranks of the reserve army of labor are swelled. Even though the U.S. is “top dog” in the world, only a minority of the U.S. proletariat permanently benefits from imperialism. For the majority, the economic and political privileges are small and do not outweigh the intensified exploitation and oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie.
But we must also view this question of the stripping away of privileges from various angles. The development of an economic crisis does not automatically mean a revolutionary upsurge. As the number one imperialist country in the world, U.S. imperialism is able both to bribe an upper stratum of the proletariat and also to give various economic and political privileges to a large section of the proletariat of the oppressor nation.
When these privileges are stripped away, there also will be a struggle to regain these privileges. Trying to win back these crumbs from the superprofits of imperialism is precisely why the faithful dogs of U.S. imperialism, the labor aristocracy, have been calling for blood in Iran. We see today the stranglehold of the labor aristocracy and petty bourgeoisie over the working class movement. Also, as much as we would like it to, the so-called “Anti-Revisionist Communist Movement” is not just going to dry up and go away. Particularly in these conditions the bourgeoisie tries to fan all sorts of national chauvinism. Another part of the ruling class through the Andrew Young affair, is whipping-up a question of “Black vs. Jew”. The bourgeoisie is also more and more promoting all kinds of fascist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
With the development of the crisis, what becomes crucial is the role played by the conscious element.
What becomes extremely important is the question of the relationship between the proletariat and the oppressed nations, nationalities, and national minorities.
All that has been analyzed so far has been the objective conditions of a revolutionary situation. Lenin said that the development of these objective conditions was not enough for the victory of the revolution.
Because a revolution emerges not out of every revolutionary situation, but, out of such situations where, to the above-mentioned objective changes, subjective ones are added, namely, the ability of the revolutionary classes to carry out revolutionary mass actions strong enough to break (or to undermine) the old government, it being the rule that never, not even in a period of crisis, does a government “fall” of itself without ’being helped to fall.’ (Ibid., p. 229-230)
So in examining the prospects for revolution in the world and in the U.S. in particular, we thus not only have to examine the objective factors, but the subjective factors, as well.
We are in a situation where the international communist movement has been dominated by opportunism since the death of Stalin. In fact, the so-called “Anti-Revisionist Communist Movement” in the U.S. has played a very important part in the cover up of revisionism internationally. It has played a counter-revolutionary role internationally and has attempted to sabotage the revolution in what ever countries it can have influence.
In fact, in the conditions of today we see all the various centrist and social-chauvinist organizations in the U.S. increasing their international contacts. One of the important documents that has been promoted by many of these revisionist groups has been the CPC document, A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement. At the time it was put out by the CPC, this document was supported by the PLA. The PLA has never repudiated its support of this document. Today it is being peddled in the U.S. mainly by elements such as the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).
When Marxist-Leninists study it, we see that it is clearly a document of centrism and counter-revolution. The line it promotes for “revolution” in the imperialist countries is really no different than the open revisionist line of the anti-monopoly coalition. At the time of the debate between the U.S.S.R. and China and Albania, the CPC wrote an open letter to the CPUSA. In this document, the CPC laid out their basic “strategy” for the U.S. “revolution”: “In the U.S., there is a powerful working class, there are extensive democratic and progressive social forces, and there are many fair-minded and progressive peoples in the fields of science, art, journalism, literature and education. In the U.S. there are large-scale workers’ struggles, there is the ever growing struggle of the Negro people, and there is a movement for peace, democracy and social progress. In the U.S., there is a social-basis for a broad united front against monopoly capitalism and against the U.S. imperialist policies of aggression and war.” (“A Comment on the Statement of the Communist Party of the USA”, 1963, Peking, p. 16)
This idea of the so-called “broad united front against the imperialist policy of aggression and war” is also contained in the Chinese statement on the General Line.
Now let us examine the line of the letter that the U.S.S.R. sent the Chinese, and that the Chinese were supposedly replying to. This is what the U.S.S.R. lays out as their strategy and how they characterize monopoly capitalism: “This gives rise, on the other hand, to a joint anti-monopoly movement embracing the working class, the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, the working intellectuals, and certain other sections of capitalist society interested in freeing themselves from the sway of the monopolies and from exploitation, and interested in changing over to socialism.” (“Letter of the CC of the CPSU to the CC of the CPC, March 30, 1963, in A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, Peking p. 80) The only difference between these two united fronts is that the united front proposed by the U.S.S.R. calls for “socialism”, while the united front proposed by the CPC only calls for “social-progress”!
This is the kind of hogwash that is being promoted by the Maoists today. In fact, the anti-monopoly coalition remains the program and strategy of all the social-chauvinists and centrists.
In particular, the Chinese documents liquidate the national question within the U.S. Both the CPC and the PLA reduce the struggle against national oppression to one of “democracy” and social progress”. None of them has ever raised support for the right to political secession of the Black Nation, or, for that matter, the right to political secession of any other nations. So these disgraceful documents are not at all a strategy for revolution, but in fact “strategy” merely for reforms.
These are documents that call for peace with imperialism. When they came out, the only country that was described as imperialist was the U.S. And at the time they called for a broad united front with everyone else, of course including the imperialist and revisionists U.S.S.R. In addition, the strategy both by the CPC and the PLA for the imperialist countries works out to nothing more than a call for state capitalism. Mao Zedong, in his attack on Comrade Stalin’s work Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., openly calls for state capitalism in the U.S. Regarding the U.S. and Western Europe Mao talks of the “universal significance” of state capitalism. He says: “After a successful revolution in these countries monopoly capital will undoubtedly have to be expropriated, but will the small and middle capitalists likewise be uniformly expropriated? It may well be the case that some form of state capitalism will have to be adopted to transform them.” (A Critique of Soviet Economics, Monthly Review Press, p. 43) Another pearl of wisdom from Mao Zedong Thought! All this revisionism is the basis for the present day social-chauvinism. In fact, such a united front as proposed would actually warm the hearts of the likes of Tom Hayden.
Let us look at what the CPC and the PLA allies advocated for the strategy of the revolution in the other imperialist countries. The General Line says: “In the capitalist countries which U.S. imperialism controls or is trying to control, the working class and the people (again they are not saying who the people are – BL) should direct their attacks mainly against U.S. imperialism, but also against their own monopoly capitalists and other reactionary forces who are betraying the national interests.” (op. cit. p. 18)
In other words, the struggle becomes one to defend the “national interests” of these imperialist countries. Lenin long ago refuted this line. He said:
In those advanced countries (England, France, Germany, etc.) the national problem was solved long ago; national unity has long outlived its purposes, objectively, there are no “national tasks” to be fulfilled. Hence, only in those countries is it possible now to ’blow up’ national unity, and establish class unity. (“A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism,” LCW, 19: 246, International Publishers 1942 edition)
The strategy proposed in this “general line” is also just as reactionary when it comes to the semi-colonies, colonies and dependent countries. The document says: “In some of these countries (again not telling you who – BL) the patriotic national bourgeoisie continue to stand with the masses in the struggle against imperialism and colonialism and introduce certain measure of social progress. This requires the proletarian party to make a full appraisal of the progressive role of the patriotic national bourgeoisie and strengthen unity with them.” (op cit. p. 16)
This same document refers to many of these countries which were former colonies as “nationalist countries”, implying that they play some sort of progressive role. This is today the CPC version of the “third world” and the PLA’s “developing world” or “progressive world”.
Actually these elements are nothing more than national reformists. Lenin, in his Comintern report on the National and Colonial Questions, outlined the attitude of the proletariat to these elements. He said:
... the communists in these countries must fight against the reformist bourgeoisie, among which we include the heroes of the Second International.
Reformists parties already existing in colonial countries, and sometimes their representatives call themselves Social-Democrats and Socialists. (“Report of the Commission of the National and Colonial Questions at the Second Congress of the Communist International,” Selected Works, 10; 241, International Publishers, 1938)
Again we see for every country in the world this so-called “general line” is nothing but a general line for class collaboration and counterrevolution.
With the prolonged dominance of opportunism in the international communist movement, there has been a severe ideological crisis. But the complaint of Enver Hoxha during this ideological crisis is that there has been too much theory. This is what Hoxha says in Imperialism and Revolution: “To the Chinese revisionists the problem of the proletarian and national liberation revolution is simply not a current issue, also because, according to them, nowhere in the world is there a revolutionary situation. Therefore, they advise the proletariat to shut itself up in libraries and study “theory”, because the time for revolutionary actions has not come.” (p. 169)
Instead of studying Marxist-Leninist theory or going to libraries, what Hoxha advocates is that the proletariat should unite with the so-called middle bourgeoisie. This again actually shows that Hoxha’s book Imperialism and the Revolution, puts forward nothing more than a strategy for capitalism, and for the parties which they are influencing to become part of coalition governments with the bourgeoisie.
In our book on the U.S. movement we exposed how both COUSML and CPUSA(M-L) had the line of ̶anti-monopoly coalition.” We also see that all of the lines of all these U.S. centrists on fascism, trade unions, the liquidation of the national question, and so forth, are related to the revisionism and opportunism of the PLA. COUSML and CPUSA(M-L) are actually the U.S. branch of an international counter-revolutionary conspiracy to keep the proletariat out of power.
Therefore, it is necessary for a break, a complete rupture, on an international scale, with centrism. We must draw lines of demarcation on an international scale with these opportunists and unmask them as the revisionists that they are. For this reason we support the efforts of the Bolshevik Union of Canada, in Lines of Demarcation No. 13, to expose the PLA.
Comrades, we have said time and time again that we are guided by the principles of proletarian internationalism. Here is how Lenin defined proletarian internationalism.
There is one, and only one kind of internationalism in deed. Working wholeheartedly (for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy and ma tie nil aid) such, and only such a struggle and such a line in every country without exception. (“The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution,” SW, 10:4, op. cit.)
In the U.S. the greatest contribution we can make to the international proletariat, the best aid that we can give, is to overthrow that bastion of world capitalism, is to overthrow U.S. imperialism. In preparing for the seizure of power by the proletariat we see that today our principal task is to develop a new vanguard Marxist-Leninist Party, a Bolshevik Party, in the U.S.
And it is to carry out these tasks that the Bolshevik League proudly dedicates itself!