Amid the enormous dangers the hegemon’s war escalations are bringing about, it’s crucial that we also see how pivotal this moment is within the struggle for national and class liberation. How the imperialists are putting their own system at great risk, instigating a conflict that they’re going to lose. We know they can’t win the third world war because monopoly finance capital is already in a desperate state; the reason why Washington has been pursuing these confrontations is because it needs a big war to alleviate the crises within our economic system. It’s the countries Washington is fighting that are secure; that are growing in their industrial strength, and in their ability to gain global respect. The Gaza genocide has been the final confirmation that the “collective West” will keep losing its global standing, while the Eurasian powers which have stood with Palestine will keep rising.
The hegemon has hoped to divide these countries, and to weaken their resolve towards resisting aggression. The U.S. and its “Israeli” proxy have assassinated many principled anti-imperialist leaders within Iran, allowing for capitulationist forces to gain more influence. And for a time, these forces succeeded at holding Iran back. Following this July’s assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh, Iran’s new president made a deal with Netanyahu not to retaliate in exchange for a supposed “ceasefire” deal. When “Israel” broke its promise, and murdered Nasrallah while massacring more Lebanese civilians, Iran’s people demonstrated against their government’s appeasement policies. And Khamanei, who was previously blocked from striking against the Zionist entity, became able to exact justice.
This development from the last week has been extremely important in the effort to defeat the hegemon, because it’s shown that Iran is not going to be a weak link among the forces opposing imperialism. The will of its people is too strong; the capitulationists know that they must obey this will for the sake of self-preservation. And if Iran is going to stay on this path, then it’s certain that the broader anti-U.S. bloc will be prepared to counter whatever Washington tries next.
Prior to when Iran underwent this process, Russia was the country that had to choose whether it wanted to please the hegemon or commit towards resistance. The decisive moment came in February of 2022, when Ukraine’s fascist U.S. coup regime increased its shelling of the Donbass by around 400%. Kiev was doing this because it believed Russia wouldn’t stop it; because it thought it could invade the region’s Russian-speaking communities, and fulfill its stated goals for ethnic cleansing, without being held to account. But the principled forces within Russia won out, like they just did in Iran. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation successfully pressured the government into taking action, and into protecting the imperiled communities by any means necessary. Not only were the Donbass people rescued, but U.S. power was further weakened, with many more countries then deciding to break from the dollar and join BRICS. And it was because of the popular will of the Russian masses, who had the communists to represent them.
It’s these losses that the imperialists are reacting to as they try to start war with China, and to bring about a new wave of color revolutions. They’ve tried to take advantage of the escalations in west Asia, but Iran’s people have refused to let these schemes succeed. Now the hegemon is facing an anti-imperialist front that’s more unified and self-assured than ever, because this front’s resilience has been tested. Russia and Iran have chosen the path of self-defense upon being confronted with the enemy’s aggressions. While China and the DPRK, the other two countries that Washington seeks proxy wars with, are already certain not to capitulate. When Washington carries out its next provocations in east Asia, all four military powers will be united in defiance.
This means that however much force the imperialists apply, they won’t be able to re-colonize Eurasia. The shock and awe tactics that they just used in Lebanon have not been enough to weaken the Axis of Resistance, or the broader anti-imperialist bloc; these tactics have instead strengthened the hegemon’s resistors, provoking a mass reaction that’s sidelined the U.S.-friendly elements. These terroristic maneuvers are designed to demoralize the targets, to make people doubt that the liberation struggle can succeed. But these psychological attacks become ineffectual when those who oppose the empire are spurred into action, and the anti-U.S. bloc shows its full potential.
Iran hasn’t needed to enter into a full war; it’s only had to prove that the “Israeli” security system doesn’t truly work. Because of this, Zionism’s unraveling has been accelerated, while the future of BRICS has become more secured. As Stephen Cho has said in this month’s issue of the anti-imperialist journal The Platform: “The anti-imperialist camp is taking the initiative in the confrontation with the imperialist camp because it has a just pretext, overwhelming forces, and superior operations. The imperialist camp is being pushed into a corner in every aspect.”
Monopoly capital wishes it could destabilize Eurasia, but the Eurasian front within this conflict has already been won by the revolutionary side. So the main things we have to worry about are the fronts in which the empire could inflict other kinds of damage; harm that doesn’t involve the destruction of the eastern economic centers, but that does involve unjustly ending the lives of many people.
We’re seeing the imperialists do this in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Sudan, and in all the other places where they continue to have access to defenseless victims. Our job is to make it so that they can no longer get away with it in any corner of the globe. We need to do the equivalent of what Russia, Iran, and the other active agents within this struggle have done. For those of us within the United States, this means turning our country’s communist and anti-imperialist movement towards the same direction as these global liberation forces. Faced with our own moment of peril, we must choose the path of committing towards this fight, and sideline the elements which seek to appease the enemy.
Within Russia and Iran, the forces which tried to obstruct anti-imperialist actions believed that serious resistance would be too costly. It’s this same cowardly mindset that’s threatening to make U.S. revolutionary politics reformist and ineffective. Our communist organizations, confronted with the growing repression that the third world war is bringing about, must decide between capitulation and defiance. They must reject the impulse to forsake revolutionary practices out of hope that this will save them, and somehow convince the state not to crack down. The state is coming for everyone who speaks out against imperialist wars; the way forward is to build cadres and networks that can withstand whatever repression comes upon them, and operate in clandestine form if need be. We can take advantage of the empire’s defeat in this world war, but only if we survive as a movement.
————————————————————————
If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here.
To keep this platform effective amid the censorship against dissenting voices, join my Telegram channel.
