China’s economic victories against the United States, and Russia’s own strategic triumphs, have provided lessons for anti-imperialists all around the globe. They’ve shown that the only way to gain dignity, sovereignty, and prosperity is by committing to the struggle against the hegemon. Those who fail to internalize this reality will doom themselves; while those who recognize it will become part of the cooperative and abundant future which multipolarity is letting societies build.
An unfortunate reality about this moment is that not all of the BRICS countries are under the full control of elements which intend to commit to anti-imperialism. India is overall U.S.-aligned; Brazil is led by the imperial asset Lula; and Iran hasn’t yet won the internal struggle against its liberal element. Iran’s president Pezeshkian, who was able to come to power because of how many hardliners had been assassinated, is now trying to build a friendship with the second Trump administration. There are some who will act like this is a good thing, but it’s absolutely not. The Pezeshkian faction’s “peace” effort is a cover for sidelining the Khamenei faction, and fully putting the country under the control of imperialist collaborators.
These pro-capitulation reformers, despite having lost much of their influence since the Nasrallah assassination, hope that through Trump they can get their wish for reinstating the Iran nuclear deal. This is how they want to respond to the Zionist entity’s attack on an Iranian nuclear facility, an action which was supposed to cross Iran’s red line; the reformers seek to again make the country constricted in how it can pursue its defense. Which would let the “Israeli” Nazi state commit aggressions against Iran without any serious punishment. It’s still possible that Khamenei will get his desired retaliation against “Israel,” but I believe this will depend on whether Iran’s people again take to the streets to demand action; and that shows Khamenei doesn’t have as much power as he should. If the balance of forces was where it ought to be, this momentum would be able to come from within the state itself.
The only way that Iran could become in place for fighting a serious war against the Nazi state is if it takes Russia’s path, and enacts major nationalizations; because as of now, Iran’s economy is too neoliberalized for it to be able to absorb a major conflict. Russia has shown everyone what must be done; but there are actors, like Pezeshkian, who pretend to align with the anti-imperialist fight while seeking appeasement at every opportunity.
It’s necessary for anti-imperialists everywhere to point out these issues Iran’s revolution must overcome, for the same reason that more communists should have been decrying Gorbachev’s liberal policies before he could destroy the Soviet countries. We can’t ignore the reality that history has a real chance of repeating itself in Iran; our takeaway from this, though, must not be doomerism but rather an invigoration of our fighting will. We must find where the sources of hope are, and nurture that hope. Nobody can directly contribute to the liberation movements outside their own countries, but we can all strengthen ties with the international forces which are fighting our collective anti-imperialist fight.
With Iran, we should help steer the discourse in favor of Khamenei’s faction; part of this means combating the arguments of the ultra-leftists whose main focus is on overthrowing Iran’s Islamic government, when this objectively helps the neoliberal capitulationists. Beyond Iran, there are other forces in the same region that deserve our attention and support; forces that I wasn’t even thinking about until quite recently, because the things they’re doing are harder to notice. But they are having an effect, and may prove instrumental in defeating the U.S./Zionist menace. They could also be important catalysts in the coming new wave of revolutions.
These forces are the Turkish workers, and the others who are in place to resist Erdogan’s effort at re-creating the Ottoman empire. I’m not talking about the Kurdish fascist YPG, or the “communist” parties within Turkey that set themselves up against Russia and China. I’m talking about the elements that support their government’s efforts to join BRICS, while also being willing to militantly resist Erdogan’s economic assistance to the Gaza genocide. There are many among the Turkish masses who’ve been rebelling in this way; last month, when it was revealed that the government had been secretly continuing business with “Israel,” Turks raided the port where goods were being shipped to the Zionist entity. It’s the same impulse that recently led Turks to assail U.S. troops in the streets of Izmir; there isn’t a cohesive organizational force behind it, but it’s a threat to both Erdogan and the hegemon.
The imperialists hope to divert the popular opposition towards Erdogan in a NATO-compatible direction, and ensure that if the present government falls, it will be followed by one that’s anti-BRICS. Washington may even advance Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman vision independently of Erdogan himself; when “Israel” dies, the hegemon is going to need a new proxy in west Asia.
This is the outcome that Washington’s hybrid warfare network hopes to bring about in many countries: revolutions which only end up installing more loyal U.S. puppets. But if the present trends continue, a new series of proletarian victories is instead what will come next. In 2019, Indian Marxist Saikat Bhattacharya concluded that a new wave of revolutions is approaching, and the events we’ve since witnessed have been consistent with his expectations:
The situation is turning ripe for the Third Wave of revolutions across the globe. The First Wave was from the French Revolution to Paris Commune (1789-1871) and Second Wave from Bolshevik Revolution to end of Sandinista Revolution of Nicaragua (1917-1979). The gap between the First and Second waves was marked by the transformation of competitive productive capitalism to monopoly productive capitalism…The gap between the Second and Third waves are marked by the transformation of monopoly productive capitalism, to monopoly financial capitalism and the national supply chain is replaced by the global supply chain…If another crisis hits the US economy which is highly likely, the US financial market will be even less important in driving the global demand. Socialist model of Chinese Globalisation 2.0 will start to dominate. Strategists say that China can already defeat the USA in the Indo-Pacific theatre and by 2025, the Chinese navy will be strong enough to flush out the US navy from the Indo-Pacific region. It is then that US soft powers will start to evaporate and many countries across the globe will fall into crisis.
The process of imperial collapse has been happening even faster than this paragraph suggested it would; because of Washington’s failed Ukraine gamble, many countries have already fallen into crisis. The chaos that we’ll see for the “rules-based order” during Trump’s second term is going to multiply the existing instability. And Global South countries, including ones that are strategically significant to the hegemon, have been reacting to these events by embracing anti-imperialism. Anura Dissanayake, Sri Lanka’s new communist president, is fully aligned with China given everything we’ve seen from him so far. His party’s victory represents a triumph over the color revolution apparatus, which manipulated Sri Lanka’s unrest in 2022 and then installed an anti-China government. Through the power of the masses, the country has now gotten on a path towards joining with the Eurasian economic center.
Ultimately, the masses will win everywhere else; how easily they’ll win depends on how well we all navigate the conditions of the countries we’re in. The crucial thing for us to do is not be complacent; whether we’re resisting the empire from the outside or the inside, we can’t underestimate the enemy. We must take example from China, Russia, Khamenei, and the struggle’s other consistent allies; they see that there is no making peace with a force which wants to destroy you.
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