Anti-imperialist league: Ideological political
We pueblish the ideological political document from the Anti-imperialist League
Anti-imperialists of the World, Unite!
IDEOLOGICAL-POLITICAL CONTENT OF THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST LEAGUE
Imperialism, which is the highest stage of capitalism, is a monopolistic, decaying, dying, and determined by its own contradictions, it is an inevitably destructive system of oppression and exploitation. It is a system based on the striving for the greatest profit for monopoly capital. Deepening and widespread exploitation, unlimited destruction of nature and of the natural habitats of living beings, support of all kinds of reactionaries, creation and maintenance of hostilities between peoples, prevention of self-determination and national independence of the peoples, endless unjust wars for division and redivision of market, energy, cheap labor and raw material resources areas, the massive increases of resources for war budgets, all that serve only one purpose: to ensure at any cost the maintenance of the rule of the monopolies over the world. Since the transition from free competition capitalism to monopoly capitalism, until today, two major imperialist wars of world division have been fought in order to keep up this system, costing millions of lives, and dozens of regional wars have been witnessed, either through direct occupation by the imperialists or under their leadership, or through their provocation.
The first imperialist war of world of division costed 40 million lives, mainly in Europe. The second imperialist war of world of division costed nearly 100 million, more than 30 of which were from the Soviet Union when defeating fascism in the great patriotic war. During the second half of the 20th century and in the 21th century, the United States has occupied and waged aggression wars in Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti, Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, Syria, Philippines, Central Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan, among others . Only related to the US aggression of in the Greater Middle East since 2001, the deaths are estimated in 1 million and indirect deaths are estimated in 3.5 million . The US lackey, Israel, has occupied Palestine and killed over thousands of Palestinians, nearly 5,000 Palestinians are imprisoned as of March 2023 and thousands have been displaced. The European Imperialist countries have occupied – either unilaterally or in temporary imperialist alliances – the nations and countries of Ireland, Egypt, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Mali, Central African Republic, Ivory coast, Chad, Morocco among others. Considering only between 2014-2018, France alone has occupied – with 4,000 french troops – Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad, causing thousands of deaths and millions of displaced and refugee masses .Russian imperialism – after the collapse of the revisionist social-imperialists (a collapse that was also accelerated by its imperialist occupation of Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, among others) – has invaded Moldavia, Georgia and Ukraine. The list of imperialist military aggression falls short of all the devastation, death, rapes, and displacements caused – and all of it in the interest of the most rapacious imperialist plunder. China has participated in imperialist aggression to Mali and continues to occupy areas of the Philippines. All these occupations and aggression have been confronted with a fierce and heroic resistance from the oppressed peoples and nations.
In the current time period, these wars and military aggression continue. Unjust wars and occupations, while being the consequence of the imperialists’ domination policy, also mean the creation of enormous profit for the war industry. The total global sales of weapons and military services of the biggest 100 war industry companies in the world for the year 2011 were 465.770 millions of dollars – 47 of which are USA companies that hoard 60% of the total sales . Imperialism is responsible for billions of people living under conditions of slavery and peoples being kept under oppression. The number of people affected by hunger has raised to 828 million in 2021 while the fortune of the top 10 billionaires could end poverty .The burden of all kinds of exploitation and brutality applied for the domination of finance capital is borne by the workers and toilers of the world and the oppressed peoples and nations. Billions of people are struggling to survive in the most difficult conditions and are subjected to the oppression of the imperialists and their lackeys.
Since the second imperialist war of redivision until today, the hegemonic power of the imperialist system is US-imperialism and it is the main actor of all kinds of exploitation, plunder, unjust wars and occupations in the world. Due to the law of uneven development of capitalism, its position as the decisive hegemonic power is being eroded more and more and, although Chinese, Russian, British, German, French, etc. imperialism have a greater influence on the economic, political, and military parameters of the world than in the past, U.S. imperialism is still at the center of the imperialist system and is the main actor determining the course. On the other hand, parallel with the deepening contradictions between the imperialists, they are trying to consolidate their opposing positions by taking their dependent forces behind them. Therefore, despite of the contradictions between them, they form various economic, military, and political temporary alliances and agreements to ensure the continuity of the system and their own positions. As always, it is the workers, the poor and the oppressed peoples and nations of the world who are affected by the devastating consequences of the deepening contradictions and alliances between the imperialists and their lackeys.
The Great October Revolution of 1917 opened a wave of new-democratic and socialist revolutions, which achieved a third of the world’s population breaking away from the imperialist system, achieving the greatest development for the masses and proletariat ever seen in history. However, the restoration of capitalism in USSR and China paved the way for the continuation and increase of aggression against the workers and oppressed peoples and nations of the world. But the conditions that were relatively advantageous for the imperialists and their lackeys are coming to an end. The imperialist centers, propagating the “virtues” of the exploitation systems with the argument of being a “democratic regime”, are increasing the preponderance and authority of the repressive forces within of the bourgeois state day by day, both by law and de facto, due to the governmental problems created by the sharpening general crisis of capitalism, and are increasingly using state violence against the peoples and nations. While the armed forces themselves, as well as the police and gendarmerie, are confronted with the people, racist-fascist parties and organizations are being activated inside and outside the parliament, thus strengthening the reserve forces of the counterrevolution. The general crisis of the imperialist system and the deepening and spreading of contradictions lead the bourgeois states to make the means of violence more prominent, visible and practical. This is an indication of the sharpening of the class struggle and the fact that it will become harder in the coming periods and shows that the bourgeois sovereign states as well as in the States in the Oppressed countries, are organizing themselves against their “gravediggers”.
As the crisis of capitalism deepens and the price paid by the peoples for it increases, the manipulations of the bourgeoisie against the peoples – Such as opportunist “left” governments, workers aristocracy and opportunist acting within unions and struggles, and misleading propaganda like the use of the Pandemic to cover up the economic crisis – lose more and more their effect. Even in the central countries of the imperialist system, the working class and the oppressed masses are increasingly expressing their anger and resistance against the prevailing conditions on the streets. Despite the enormous possibilities and oppressive power of the imperialists and their lackeys, the workers, peasants and oppressed peoples and nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, are carrying out great protests and resistances.
Especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the workers, peasants and oppressed peoples are carrying out great protests and resistances. These developments are the signs that a new revolutionary wave is maturing.
THE IDEOLOGICAL CONTENT OF THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE
Our era is the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, and, despite temporary stalemates and retreats, revolution is the main tendency. This opposition and struggle is embodied in the brutal struggle between the proletariat, the most revolutionary class of our time, and the bourgeoisie, which is the source and carrier of all reactions in the world. The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the two main opposing classes of our time, also has the characteristic of determining the consequences[?] when the systems of the bourgeoisie, in the most diverse shades, are thrown on the garbage heap of history.
The ideology of the proletariat is a necessity in order to have a unfied understanding of anti-imperialism and a line of struggle. Therefore, anti-imperialism and the anti-imperialist struggle must be defined by the ideological norms of the most revolutionary class of our time.
Any genuine and consistent antiimperialist struggle is essentially an anti-capitalist struggle. Today’s capitalism is a monopoly capitalism, and without the struggle against the monopolies that sit at the center of the imperialist system and determine the system, there can be no anti-imperialist struggle.
In our time, the anti-imperialist struggle is also closely linked to the democratic struggle. The principles and values of democracy can no longer exist under the framework set by the bourgeoisie – which is now a reactionary class – and have acquired an integrity linked to the anti-imperialist character. This means a stronger integration of the democratic struggle and all the oppressed peoples and nations with the values, principles and political line of proletarian democracy. In this context, the democratic struggle on a world scale also gains its quality against the exploitation of imperialism – its worldview, its political hegemony and its ideological approach. This contradiction is bound to a consequent necessity. The political line of the proletariat also leads the struggle for democracy and freedom for the peoples against the obsolete and rotten bourgeoisie. To understand the democratic character of a movement, one must certainly look for it to some extent at its positioning against the imperialist system – this reveals its democratic side. However, the degree of proximity to proletarian democracy is what makes clear the antiimperialist characteristics and structure of this movement. A characteristic of the age of imperialism and proletarian revolutions finds a basis and gains importance in this relationship. We should meet, define and handle the national and social movements and democratic and progressive views and struggles, with this approach. Therefore it is important for the proletariat to lead the anti-imperialist front with a program that can mobilize and channel all the movements of the oppressed and exploited, struggling to give consistency to the democratic struggle by bringing it closer to the proletarian democracy.
Crucial for this task is to combat the action of revisionism and the work of opportunism within the struggles of the oppressed classes and nations that seek to channel the antiimperialist struggles to serve imperialism and reaction. It is even more valid what Lenin has said that the struggle against imperialism in only phrase-mongering if not indissolubly linked to the struggle against opportunism. In most cases, the petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the students, the teachers, the intellectuals, and other sectors, firmly stand against the dictates of imperialism and their lackeys and are willing to accept the proletarian democracy, it’s crucial that the proletariat struggles to gain this sectors and always maintain the criterion of consistency, combating the influence of revisionism, opportunism, as well as decadent imperialist ideology and politics.
THE CLASS CONTEND AND FUNDAMENTAL POINTS OF THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE
While the anti-imperialist struggle in imperialist-capitalist countries is a part of the socialist revolutionary struggle, in semi-colonial, semi-feudal countries it is a part of the people’s democratic revolution.
Therefore, in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, in the countries that we have generally divided into two parts, the anti-imperialist struggle, although the formal content differs, essentially leads to the same goal: to ensure the liberation of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples and nations through the defeat of the imperialists and their lackeys.
The proletariat is the main force of the anti-imperialist struggle. The proletariat is the only class capable of liberating the whole people with itself. Therefore, all anti-people economic, political, military, cultural and ideological reactions originating from and produced by the ruling system will be possible only with the ideological hegemony of the proletariat. The real liberation of all oppressed classes and strata and oppressed peoples and nations will be possible only through the leadership of the proletariat.
When we talk about imperialism, we talk about capitalism. What must be understood when one is against imperialism is that one is essentially against capitalism. The stage of imperialism is the transformation of capitalism into a world system. Unlike in the previous stage periods of free competition capitalism, in this stage, monopolistic finance capital – that is, the fusion of industrial and banking capital – becomes the main form and reaches the remotest corners of the world through great movements and flexibility. While in the previous stage phase of capitalism other regions were mainly commodity and market areas, this continued, but through the export of capital, which was mainly in the has come to the foreground,a deeper and wider network of exploitation was created. The world was divided into a handful of imperialist countries on the one hand, and oppressed nations on the other. The imperialist countries are the main exporters of financial capital and dominate the vast majority of nations and the whole world. In the oppressed nations imperialism unfolds capitalism of a bureaucratic type, based on unprecedented super-exploitation of the overwhelming majority of the masses in these nations, being unable to develop the productive forces and destroy pre-capitalistic forms existing in this countries, evolving them tied to and at the service of the deeper and wider network of imperialism. If capitalism cannot be understood in its full depth and results, the nature and consequences of imperialism cannot be properly understood.. The export of capital means a much more direct export of capitalist relations of production subjecting at its service all sort of evolved pre-capitalist relations, bringing other parts of the world to form a deeper and more organic connection with the network of monopolistic capitalism relations of production.
Without being against capitalism or its higher stage, imperialism , and its effects and the direct causes that produced them, and without waging a total struggle against it, but only being against a result or a form or policy that appears here and there, may be meaningful in itself, but cannot be defined as anti-imperialism in a complete sense. In fact, a view and a style of action that consciously or unconsciously separates the phenomenon of anti-imperialism from the main cause, and limits itself to the results, leads to the continuation of capitalism and limits the struggle with it. If one opposes the expropriation of indigenous peoples by the interests of international monopolies and their local lackeys, positioning oneself in the anti-war movement, as part of the environmental movements to anti-fascism, one is doing something good, but one remains fighting the single problem one is targeting without going beyond.
The anti-imperialist struggle must lead social and national liberation struggles against imperialism, its collaborators and lackeys in a revolutionary way, deal with all social problems and contradictions within the framework of the class struggle and does not go to the source of the problem monopolistic capitalism and direct itself against the political power, and makes its solidarity mainly with such struggles, otherwise it cannot be anti-imperialist. Because the source of all kinds of exploitation and oppression, poverty, misery, and injustice is the monopolistic capitalism system. The owners of this reactionary system are the monopoly bourgeoisie and its lackeys and collaborators. Therefore, independence, freedom, and peace cannot be possible without ending the economic, social, political, ideological, cultural and military domination of these reactionary classes, and without the power of the people under the leadership of the proletariat through smashing the states, which are the tools of the rulers of this reaction.
THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES OF SEMI-COLONIAL COUNTRIES
The process of development of capitalism into imperialism also brought the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to express itself in another contradiction, [it] brought forth another contradiction. This is the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations and oppressed peoples. The kind of cruelty and plunder imperialist system can most clearly be seen in is the hegemonic structures they have created in the colonial and semi-colonial countries either directly or through their servants. For the imperialists, the exploitation of colonial and semi-colonial countries, which make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population, is crucial. The ability of the imperialists to deal with the oppression of the working class and toilers in their own countries is only possible at the expense of the brutal exploitation of the peoples and of colonial and semi-colonial countries. Because of this reality, the struggles that have been and are being waged for the resolution of the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed peoples and nations in favor of the oppressed peoples and nations are very important for the overthrow of the imperialist system. Especially with the October Revolution of 1917, the struggles of the oppressed nations became part and allies of the world proletarian revolution:
“2) The liberation movement of the oppressed peoples and the proletarian revolution. In solving the national question Leninism proceeds from the following theses:
a) the world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilised nations, which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of the population of the globe; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited peoples in the colonies and dependent countries, which constitute the majority;
b) the colonies and the dependent countries, oppressed and exploited by finance capital, constitute a vast reserve and a very important source of strength for imperialism;
c) the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent and colonial countries against imperialism is the only road that leads to their emancipation from oppression and exploitation;
d) the most important colonial and dependent countries have already taken the path of the national liberation movement, which cannot but lead to the crisis of the worl capitalism;
e) the interests of the proletarian movement in the developed countries and of the national liberation movement in the colonies call for the union of these two forms of the revolutionary movement into a common front against the common enemy, against imperialism;
f) the victory of the working class in the developed countries and the liberation of the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism are impossible without the formation and the consolidation of a common revolutionary front;
g) the formation of a common revolutionary front is impossible unless the proletariat of the oppressor nations renders direct and determined support to the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples against the imperialism of its “own country,” for “no nation can be free if it oppresses other other nations” (Engels);
h) this support implies the upholding defence and implementation of the slogan of the right of nations to secession, to independent existence as states;
i) unless this slogan is implemented, the union and collaboration of nations within a single world economic system, which is the material basis for the victory of world socialism, cannot be brought about;
j) this union can only be voluntary, arising on the basis of mutual confidence and fraternal relations among peoples.” (The Foundations of Leninism, J. Stalin)
Again, from a similar standpoint, we see clearly in Comrade Mao’s words that the struggle of colonial and semi-colonial peoples with national and independence struggles and the struggle of the proletariat for political power and unity against the common enemy are important and necessary in the struggle against imperialism:
“From this it can be seen that there are two kinds of world revolution, the first belonging to the bourgeois or capitalist category. The era of this kind of world revolution is long past, having come to an end as far back as 1914 when the first imperialist world war broke out, and more particularly in 1917 when the October Revolution took place. The second kind, namely, the proletarian-socialist world revolution, thereupon began. This revolution has the proletariat of the capitalist countries as its main force and the oppressed peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies as its allies. No matter what classes, parties or individuals in an oppressed nation join the revolution, and no matter whether they themselves are conscious of the point or understand it, so long as they oppose imperialism, their revolution becomes part of the proletarian-socialist world revolution and they become its allies.”(Mao Zedong, On Democracy, Bd2/351)
When we talk about an imperialist state or the imperialist system in general, we are actually talking about the rule of monopolies. Monopolies dominate either directly or indirectly in all countries, imperialist-capitalist states and in to colonial or semi-colonial , and semi-feudal states. In imperialist-capitalist states, the monopolies dominate directly, in colonies and semi-colonies, they dominate through comprador-bureaucratic bourgeoisie and big landowners.
In colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries, the imperialists rely on the most reactionary classes in terms of politics, economy, culture, etc., and they secure and maintain their dominance through these reactionary classes. The fact that capitalist development cannot complete its normal development – due to the domination of imperialism, and that feudalism maintains its existence in various forms and degrees in these countries, – makes the struggle for the People’s Democratic Revolution, which includes the national independence struggles, directly intertwined with the anti-imperialist struggle and the removal of obstacles to the development of the productive forces. In these countries, the peasantry, and especially the poor and landless peasantry, constitutes the main force of the antiimperialist struggle. The anti-imperialist struggle and the anti-feudal struggle are so much intertwined that they cannot be dealt with independently.
In semi-colonial, semi-feudal countries, we see the regulations made according to the interests of the monopolies in all agricultural policies applied both at the national and international levels. The concreteness itself is the organization of agriculture according to the plans and calculations determined by the imperialist monopolies and the arrangement of agricultural land according to the needs of the monopolies, especially in the semi-colonial countries. The result of this reality is that the production of types of products [other than] the traditional types of products[,] according to the needs of the monopolies[,] is forced both by sheer force and by laws, and millions of peasants break away from production and flock to the districts and cities. The concentration of landownership, where the 10% of the landowners own and control 60% of the world’s farmland, in Latin America and South Asia reaching the value near 80% ,; the multinationals increasing large-scales acquisition and spoliation of land,[;] landlords and parasitic financial capital‘s land banking and unbearable debt-systems imposed on the peasantry, as well as the imperialist pillage to control natural resources; all of this highly exacerbates the struggle for land by the peasantry, and sharpens the contradiction masses- semi-feudality. Therefore, the poor and landless peasants – which even with underestimated data are said to constitute over 40% of the world‘s population- constitute the important force of the anti-imperialist struggle intertwined with the people’s Democratic Revolution in these contries.
Limit[ing] anti-imperialism [to] targeting any imperialist country in the colonies and semi-colonies is to be against [an] invasion or against this or that imperialist power, but it is not equivalent to being anti-imperialist on a total and consistent basis. Even though there is an anti-imperialist side, if we reduce anti-imperialism to anti-US imperialism or any other anti-imperialist power, as is often done, it does not mean that there is a complete anti-imperialism.
