[A-List] Fwd: Globalisation and revolution in the XXIst century

[Mark Jones <jones.mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 11:28:05 +0100
Subject: Globalisation and revolution in the XXIst century
From: Busselen <busselen@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "english group (3)" <busselen@xxxxxxxxx>

Dear Friends,

The attached document (in English, in French and in Spanish) entitled 
Counter-revolution and revolution in the XXIst century, by Ludo Martens, 
President of the Workers Party of Belgium
( http://www.wpb.be ), has been presented by its author at the Forum of Sao 
Paulo, Havana, Cuba, 4-7 December 2002.
Best wishes for the year 2002.

Tony Busselen
---------
Counter-revolution and revolution in the XXIst century




Ludo Martens

Workers¹ Party of Belgium

30th November 2001

wpb@xxxxxx

The 11th of September 2001 was foremost the anniversary of the coup d¹Etat 
organized by American imperialism against the nationalist and democratic 
government of Allende in Chili. From the 11th of September 1973 on, a tide 
of terrorism submerged the country, causing the death of 30.000 Chilean 
communists, revolutionaries and patriots.

But the 11th of September 2001 also became the day when in Asia, Africa and 
America, the peoples of the world became conscious that the monstrous 
crimes that imperialism imposes on them will sooner or later be avenged

On this day, the sole super power, the United States, that has given itself 
the right to rule the world, has been stricken by a series of war acts 
never before seen in the history of the U.S.A.

The symbols of the economic domination of American imperialism over the 
whole world, the twin towers of the Manhattan World Trade Centre, were 
destroyed by attacks. The Pentagon, that uses 300 billion dollars per year 
or more to plan the wars, interventions and covert operations carried out 
by the United States all over the world was struck in its centre by a great 
destructive force.

Had a famous film director suggested this event as the synopsis for a 
scenario, he would have received a strong "no" from all the American 
production companies: "This kind of scenario has no credibility!" A doubt 
still subsists: this incredible scenario may well have been carried out 
with the complicity of one or another of the American secret services.

I was in the Congo on that day. About 5 p.m., I met a member of parliament 
in the street. Very excited, he embraced me and exclaimed: "This is a 
magnificent, magnificent day! That night, in Kinshasa, in a poor 
neighbourhood where there was no electricity, people sitting in front of 
their homes in the darkness commented the event: "Bin Laden has become the 
strongest man on earth. The Americans are trembling!"

Juvénal Sibomana, a Congolese citizen living in France, was in Bukavu on 
the 11th of September, Bukavu, a martyred town occupied by the Rwandese 
army with the support of the U.S.A. Sibomana testifies: "When the attack 
was announced, everybody ran to their televisions. Upon seeing the images, 
many of them could not refrain from applauding. They were all Christians. 
They rejoiced: "At last the Americans can feel what it¹s like when the 
Rwandese bombs fall on us. On that very night, the news spread with 
lightning speed to furthest parts of the countryside. And it resounded as a 
victory."

In Kinshasa, I received an electronic mail communicating the reaction of 
the great Italian artist Dario Fo, Nobel Prise for literature in 1997: "The 
big speculators wallow in an economy that every year kills tens of millions 
of people through poverty; so what is the meaning of 20.000 deaths in New 
York? It doesn¹t matter who committed the massacre, this violence is the 
legitimate child of the Culture of violence, famine and inhuman exploitation."

Newsweek, a magazine of the American big bourgeoisie, wrote on the 8th of 
November that in many parts of our world "people were happy that the world 
super power had been toned down." "A pacifist demonstration in Rio de 
Janeiro carried a banner "150.000 deaths at Hiroshima. Who did it?" Another 
banner proclaimed: "One minute of silence for the American dead. 59 minutes 
for the victims of American policies." Andres Hurtado, famed Columbian 
journalist, wrote an open letter to the United States in the newspaper El 
Tiempo: "May heaven teach you some humility." Rosemarie Murano, a Brazilian 
feminist, compared the attacks against the United States to a "slave 
uprising".

The heart of the American military power had been hard hit, the twin towers 
that represent the dollar¹s world domination destroyed: the XXIst century 
set off with a highly symbolic act.

The XXst century has been a dress rehearsal of the world struggle against 
capitalism and imperialism, for independence and socialism.

The XXIst century witness the liquidation of imperialism and more 
specifically of American imperialism all over the world. This is the thesis 
we formulated in 1997 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the great 
October Revolution.

What is today called "globalisation" is essentially a new stage of the 
global crisis of the world imperialist system, characterised by a deepening 
of all the contradictions that are inherent to this system since its 
emergence at the start of the twentieth century.

This new phase started with the triumph of the counter-revolution in the 
Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Europe in 1989-1990. It was 
characterised by the liquidation of international law implemented following 
the victory of the anti-fascist war and by the setting off of a series of 
large-scale wars of aggression. The United States went on the warpath on a 
planetary scale.

This new phase available is also marked by a constant deepening of the 
economic crisis of the capitalist economy and a limitation of the 
"emergency issues" still available for the capitalist system.



Revolution and counter-revolution in the Soviet Union

Let us consider the first characteristic of the phase of the general crisis 
of imperialism: the integral restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union 
and Eastern Europe in 1989-1990, a restoration that eliminated a 
counter-power to imperialism on a planetary level and plunged these 
countries into horrendous economical and political crisis. To correctly 
place the counter-revolution one must speak first of the upsurge of 
revolutionary forces on a world scale during the first part of the XXth 
century.

This century started in Europe with the transformation of liberal 
capitalism into monopoly capitalism. To escape the consequences of crises 
on a national level and to obtain maximal profits, the monopolies pushed 
their governments to conquer colonies and exported capital there. Crises 
and rivalries finally led to the First World War that caused ten million 
deaths and marked the first phase of the general crisis of the 
international capitalist system. The social-democratic parties, then the 
leaders of the working class, shamefully betrayed the revolutionary 
principles of Marxism, lining up with the bellicose bourgeois and sending 
the workers to the imperialist butchery.

Only the Bolshevik party succeeded in leading the revolutionary struggle 
until the downfall of the reactionary classes, tsarism, the feudal 
landholders and the big capitalists. Following the political orientations 
initiated by Lenin, Stalin, from 1923 on, directed the construction of 
socialism. He transformed the Bolshevik party into a mass party that 
accomplished four miracles: the socialist industrialization, the 
collectivisation and modernization of agriculture, the cultural revolution 
that transformed a country of illiterates into a land of intellectuals and 
cultivated workers, the organization of the Red Army equipped with the most 
modern weapons.

As of 1929, the imperialist powers that were less well "endowed" with 
colonies once more feverishly prepared for war. This marked the beginning 
of the second phase of crisis of the imperialist system. The Second World 
War broke out in 1939 bringing proof, once again, that imperialism leads to 
war. Thanks to the perspicacity of Stalin and the Bolshevik Party and the 
heroism of the Red Army and the working masses, the Soviet Union emerged 
victorious from the largest and the most destructive war ever known in 
history. Socialism¹s prestige had reached a peak. All over the world, the 
workers and peasants saw that there was an alternative to the exploitation 
and barbarism of capitalism and imperialism.

World capitalism was very much weakened by the destruction that the war had 
caused in Europe and the Soviet Union was able to impose democratic 
principles in the Charter of the United Nations, principles that 
imperialism had never accepted-and that it was to trample each time the 
balance of power allowed them to.

1949. In the aftermath of the victory over Japanese fascism, the Chinese 
people, under the direction of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party, 
emerged victorious after 22 years of anti-imperialist and revolutionary war.

With the victory of socialism in China, capitalism and imperialism were 
submitted to a second strategic defeat and the balance of power on a world 
scale was transformed in favour of the peoples and the workers.

Inspired by the victory of the Soviet Union in the anti-fascist war and by 
China¹s liberation, the revolutionary working class movement gained a new 
momentum all over the world, the revolutionary struggles for independence 
surged forward from India to the Arab world and black Africa.

The ascending trend of socialist and anti-imperialist, national and 
democratic revolutions was disrupted as of 1956-1960, when the opportunist 
tendencies took power in the Bolshevik party.

Indeed, the capitalist counter-revolution of 1989-1990 was prepared 
politically and ideologically by the coming into power of the Khrushchev 
group in 1956. This initiated a radical rupture with the political policies 
applied under Lenin and Stalin. All the Marxist-Leninist principles were 
liquidated one after another. The revisionists declared that socialism had 
definitively triumphed, that the class struggle had ceased in the Soviet 
Union, and that, therefore, the proletarian dictatorship against the 
bourgeoisie and the bourgeois elements was no longer necessary. The 
struggle against imperialism was abandoned, Khrushchev declared: "We want 
to be friends with the United States and cooperate with them in the 
struggle for peace and prosperity for the peoples." Revolutionary theory 
was distorted and finally liquidated. Bourgeois ideas and acts set in 
amongst the cadres of the Party and the State. Principles of capitalist 
economy were progressively reintroduced with the re-establishment of the 
principle of capitalist profit in 1965. Personal enrichment was developed 
as well as a "black" sector of capitalist economy. The counter-revolution 
in the Soviet Union was essentially the work of "soviet" reactionary and 
anti-communist forces infiltrated in the Party and the State. Stalin had 
always stressed that fortresses can be the most easily taken from the inside

This revisionist current at the head of the Party was also encouraged and 
helped by the imperialist powers that simultaneously sustained overtly 
reactionary, even fascist movements.

The ideological, political and economical degeneration led, in 1990, to the 
integral restoration of capitalism under its most savage forms. The 
consequences for the working masses were devastating. In 1997, production 
in the ex-Soviet Union had fallen to 57% of its 1990 level (and that of 
Ukraine to only 39%). Population dropped by 6 millions in 8 years, the 
death rate was twice as high as the birth rate. The average life expectancy 
had fallen from 64 to 61 years old. 36% of the population¹s revenues are 
under the vital minimum.

Russia is now "gripped" by imperialism through its debt of 200 billions of 
dollars. The importance of the links between the Russian Mafiosi big 
bourgeoisie and international capitalism is illustrated by the illegal 
export of billion dollars over 10 years.

The experience of the XXth century has taught us that the elaboration and 
application of a revolutionary political and organisational line is 
determining for the victory of the socialist cause. The Soviet Union of 
Lenin and Stalin was faced, between 1917 and 1953, with problems and 
challenges that no other people have known in the history of liberation 
struggles. The difficulties were so immense that all the opportunists found 
"arguments" to predict the impossibility of the task. Some of them affirmed 
that the Soviet Union was not yet ready for socialism, others said that it 
was impossible to build socialism in one country only. But the fantastic 
political and organizational work carried out under Stalin allowed the 
Soviet people to overcome the most terrifying difficulties.

The XXth century also taught us that to assume and apply an opportunist 
political and organisational line can only lead to the regression of the 
revolution and, finally, to the liquidation of all that has been conquered 
and the re-establishment of bourgeois dictatorship.

Since 1968, we were confronted with different bourgeois currents with 
"left" phraseologies that informed us that it was impossible that a 
socialist State of proletarian dictatorship could degenerate to the point 
of going back to capitalism, except in case of counter-revolutionary civil 
war or imperialist aggression. All these opportunists affirmed that 
Khrushchev and Brejnev were correct in claiming that socialism had 
definitively triumphed in the Soviet Union and that the restoration of 
capitalism was now impossible. In fact, they were helping bourgeois and 
imperialist subversion to complete their efforts of destroying all that was 
still socialist.

At decisive moments, the counter-revolution demagogically uses "Marxist" or 
"Leninist" thesis¹s to camouflage its efforts to restore capitalism. In the 
same time, they carry out ceaseless and virulent campaigns to attack and 
destroy all the revolutionary principles, pretending that they are only 
opposed to so-called "Stalinism".

We have seen how Mister Gorbachev, after 1985, preached the "return to 
Leninism" in all his speeches so as to systematically accomplish the work 
of destruction started by Khrushchev and Brejnev.

It was in 1990, at the 28th Congress of the CPSU that Gorbachev publicly 
confessed that his struggle against "Stalinism" was mainly aimed at 
capitalist restoration. Gorbachev declared: "The totalitarian Stalinist 
regime is about to be surmounted. Ideological diktats give way to 
independence of the minds." "The advantages of market economy have been 
proven on a universal scale The transition to market relationships must be 
the main content of the radicalisation of the economic reform."

All over the world, many progressives and revolutionaries have been 
influenced, in one way or another, by anti-Stalinism, wrapped up in 
"Leninist" words; the historical course of "Glasnost" has revealed that 
true nature of this process. The soviet deputy Youri Kariakine declared: 
"Like many others, I was against Stalin but for Lenin. But if we really 
want to change, we must go back to the source. And the source is there: in 
each of us, there is Marx, Engels, and Lenin. But also Stalin." The chief 
ideologist of "Glasnost", Alexander Yakovelv, explained that the work of 
political destruction had been systematically and methodically carried out 
over many long years. The struggle against Stalin in fact targeted the 
entire Marxist heritage. "In politics, everything has to be se done at the 
right moment. One cannot disregard the people¹s state of mind  Everybody 
affirms that Marx created a doctrine concerning mankind. No, he did nothing 
of the sort. He created a doctrine of class struggle that we must get rid of."

Under the pretence of struggling against Stalinism, Khrushchev and Yakovlev 
not only restored capitalism under its Mafiosi form but also encouraged the 
rebirth of fascist movement in the USSR and the socialist countries of 
Eastern Europe.

Now that "the game is up", we can easily understand the real nature of 
certain forces that excels in "left" demagogy.

In Belgium, we had an Ernest Mandel that declared: "Perestroika is truly a 
new revolution. Our movement had upheld the same thesis for 55 years, and 
was for this reason called counter-revolutionary. Today, one understands 
better who were the real counter-revolutionaries and who were the real 
revolutionaries." "Yeltsin, the reformer, represents the tendency that 
wants to reduce the immense bureaucratic machine. By doing this, he follows 
in the steps of Trotsky." When in 1991, Yannaiev tried to stop the mad 
course towards disaster by carrying out a coup d¹Etat against Gorbachev, 
Mandel wrote: "It was necessary to oppose the coup, and, therefore, to 
struggle besides Yeltsin."

The consequences of the "Leninist" demagogy of Gorbachev and his group are 
well known: the restoration of savage, Mafiosi capitalism, the dismantling 
of the Soviet Union, the setting off of reactionary civil wars in Georgia, 
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, the seizing of power by fascist "islamist" 
forces in Chechnia etc.

Thus, the history of the years between 1960 and 1990 teaches us, in a 
negative way, what the years between 1930 and 1950 taught us, on the same 
subject, through positive examples of a firm and unrelenting struggle 
against the enemies of socialism and the imperialist conspiracy.

After the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union had taken place, I re-read 
the minutes of the "Trial of the anti-Soviet bloc of rightists and 
Trotskyites" that was carried out in 1938. During this process, Bukharin, 
Trotsky and their followers were accused of using pseudo-revolutionary 
language to attack the foundations of the socialist regime. They presented 
demagogical platforms in order to rally the former bourgeois and liege 
lords and all the forces that wanted the upsetting socialism in the Soviet 
Union. "Behind the glitter of the Trotskyist and Bukharinist phraseology, 
they are preparing the restoration of capitalism." To achieve their goals, 
the opponents had contacted the imperialist powers, including Nazi Germany, 
to make their taking of power easier. The account affirmed that "the 
rightists and the Trotskyistes are an advanced detachment of international 
fascism", "a bloc of traitors". "This trial reminds us that two worlds 
stand face to face, like two mortal and irreconcilable enemies, the world 
of capitalism and the world of socialism. The logic of class antagonisms 
lead the remains of the exploiting classes inside the USSR and the 
exploiting classes beyond our borders to ever more violent attacks against 
the worker¹s State." The trial stressed the importance of international 
social-democratic activity, a formation serving imperialism that upheld 
with all its might the conspiring forces in the Soviet Union. The trial 
showed the links between the conspirators and the occidental intelligence 
services. The act of accusation stated that the Bukharinists and the 
Trotskyistes were preparing: "the separation of Ukraine, Byelorussia and 
the dismembering of the Soviet Union."

Today, we realize that Gorbachev and Yeltsin effectively almost completely 
carried out the programme for which their predecessors, Bukharin and 
Trotsky, were condemned in 1938. Since then, leading civil servants of the 
Gorbachev era have boasted that they had been conspiring with American 
secret services since years! It is therefore not a minor issue that 
Gorbachev officially rehabilitated both Trotsky and Bukharin in 1990! By 
doing this, he recognized that he had adopted most of these two 
opportunists and traitors¹ line of conduct. It is also very significant 
that a Trotskyite leader such as Mandel recognized that Gorbachev "had put 
into practise" the programme of the Trotskyite international and that 
Yeltsin "struggled against bureaucratisme" just like Trotsky!



Crisis threatens the foundations or imperialist order

A worsening of the economical crises that rock the capitalist economy also 
marks the new phase of the general crisis of the world imperialist system. 
It is its second characteristic.

Especially American economy lives on economic bombs. The United States are 
heading towards an economic crisis that will shatter the world in an even 
more dizzying manner than the 1929 crisis.

At the eve of the 21st century, the United States are practically bankrupt. 
The total debt amounts to 184% of the GIP. Since 1995, the indebtedness of 
private individuals has grown by 7,9%, that of the companies by 9,7%. The 
total debt amounts to 18.000 billion dollars: 3.400 for the Federal State, 
1.300 for the local administrations, 7.200 for the "households", 6.500 for 
non-banking companies. And Bush wants to carry out a new programme of tax 
reduction, which will entail new budgetary deficits (or drastic slashing of 
social spending, that Clinton had already initiated). The households are 
more and more deeply indebted. Savings have become negative, which means 
that the consumer¹s spending is higher than their revenues.

United States stock exchange capitalization has grown from 3.000 billions 
in 1990 to 16.600 billions in 1999. Between 1991 and 1999, it has grown by 
19,2% by year. This growth has no equivalent in the sphere of production. 
The Gross Interior Product (GIP) that evaluates the merchant wealth 
produced by the country has grown only by an average 5,2% during this 
period (1991-1999). The financial markets are therefore over-evaluated. 
This was made obvious by the spectacular plunge of high-tech stocks in 
2000. The NASDAQ (that monitors the stock-exchange investments of 
technological values) then lost between 60 and 70% of its value, which 
means that more than 4.000 billions of dollars went up in smoke. The 
current balance of the United States, the revenue-producing operations with 
foreign countries (commerce, services, interests, dividends, transfers 
etc.), is strongly in deficit. A deficit that amounted to 445 billions of 
dollars in 2000. Such a sizable deficit can only exist if 445 billion 
dollars do not return to the United States, each year, under the form of 
capital, or investments of foreign multinationals (mainly European and 
Asian), of stock-exchange investments, banking loans etc. How can we expect 
that, each year the "foreign" capitalists and stockholders will invest 
445rs more? Especially if the American economy goes into recessionThe US¹s 
hegemony depends on the dollar. A stable dollar that attracts capital. But 
this could completely reverse itself. If the funds no longer pour in, for 
one reason or another, the balance of payments will become negative. In 
this case, the dollar will plunge and set off a negative spiral. One does 
not know when such a process will stop.

At world level, American imperialism can no longer count on "emergency 
exits" to the crisis as it did in the sixties and the seventies by 
indebting the Third World. The debt of the dominated countries amounted to 
2.141 billions of dollars in 2000 and the debt of the Eastern European 
countries and ex-USSR to 359 billions of dollars. Which amounts to almost 
exactly 2.500 billion dollars. The service of the debt amounts to 338 
billion dollars for the Third World and 50 billions for the Eastern 
European countries. It represents 21,8% of the export revenue of the Third 
World, with a peak of 49,6% for the countries of Latin America.

The "end of the crisis" is also made more and more difficult by the 
over-capacities existing in important sectors. In the automobile industry, 
the constructors are able to produce 375 million vehicles each year. But 
sales did not exceed 56 millions in 1999. There is therefore an 
over-capacity of about 20 million vehicles per year. The over-capacity in 
the steel-works field, according to OCDE data, is of 340 million tons of 
steel in 1998, as compared with 150 millions in 1989.

The economic laws of monopoly capitalism are implacable. When the system 
buckles beneath the weight of over-production and crises, the thirst for 
profit pushes the monopolies towards war, the ultimate way of "spurring 
production" and making substantial profits thanks to the sacrifices imposed 
on the workers

As concerns this point, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist wrote 
a great truth with disarming candour. Thomas L. Friedman explained that the 
"globalised liberal market" cannot exist without a military force on the 
international scale "For globalisation to work, America can¹t be afraid to 
act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market 
will never work without a hidden fist. McDonalds cannot flourish without 
McDonnell-Douglas, the designer of F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the 
world safe for silicon valley¹s technology is called the United States 
Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." This should be sufficient to open 
the eyes of those who believe in the fable spread by the apologists of 
capitalism who affirm that "free market and democracy" go hand in hand. No, 
free market and war are the inseparable couple



The United States are preparing wars on a planetary scale

The third characteristic of the current phase of the general crisis of 
imperialism is the orientation towards militarism and war.

Since the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, the United States reigns 
as the sole super-power in the world. The United States immediately took 
advantage of the situation to launch a first war of strategic importance 
against Iraq, aiming for military control of the oil resources of the 
Middle East, especially the Gulf and Saudi Arabia.

In 1991, in a document entitled "The new Hundred Years War" we analysed the 
meaning of the aggression that the imperialist coalition had carried out 
against Iraq. What we wrote ten years ago is now confirmed and reinforced 
by the latest aggression against Afghanistan.

"The war in the Gulf shows that the West is ready to mobilize all its 
capital and technologies to perpetuate its empire of exploitation and 
terror. Imperialism has become an inhuman and diabolical system whose 
survival is incompatible with the simple survival of billions of people in 
the Third WorldThe surrendering conditions imposed on Iraq are 
supplementary proof that the economic recolonisation of the Third World is 
now completed by a military and political one. We are returning to colonial 
enslavement The great victory of Western barbarism in the Gulf and this 
enormous hullabaloo about the "duty of interference" announces new warsThe 
popular reactions that have submerged the Third Word since the start of the 
Iraqi holocaust announce a new dawn for humankind. Five centuries of 
genocides, massacres and humiliations have fed the oppressed peoples with 
hatred for their oppressors. Despite the terror organized by the 
collaborator regimes, the peoples organize for struggle. They are doing 
their utmost to control science and technology as arms for their 
liberation. The heroism shown today by the Iraqi and Palestinian people 
will give new impetus to the struggle of all the oppressed peoples of 
Africa, Asia and South America and of all the workers of the imperialist 
world. Whatever the meanders of the new Hundred Year War, imperialism is 
going to its downfall and the peoples will finally emerge victorious."

After the aggression against Iraq, American imperialism instigated several 
wars in the ex-USSR: in Georgia, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in 
Tajikistan and especially in Chechnia, wars that have made several hundreds 
of thousands victims.

In its striving towards absolute world supremacy, American imperialism 
wants to keep capitalist Russia from becoming a rival. After the explosion 
of the Soviet Union, the United States now wants to dismember Russia. In 
Chechnia, the main rebel leader, Basayev, was trained in Afghanistan in a 
military camp financed by the CIA and directed by the "freedom fighter" 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Basayev led the first Chechnian war in 1995. His 
organization had close links with the Moscow mafia and also with the 
Mafiosi organizations in Albania. Basayev, the "freedom fighter" was active 
in the commerce of drugs, in international prostitution networks, in the 
printing of counterfeit dollars and the traffic of nuclear materialSo much 
for the portrait of a model solider of the free world "made in USA"

From 1991 on, German and American imperialism provoked armed conflicts 
between the different nationalities of Yugoslavia. The objective was to 
introduce NATO in the Balkans and establish military bases there. The 1998 
aggression against Yugoslavia was a terrorist aggression that violated the 
basic principals of the Charter of the United Nations. During 78 days, 
Yugoslavia underwent terrorist bombings that destroyed factories, 
hospitals, bridges, power stations and killed thousands of citizens. Serial 
destruction was estimated at least 100 billions of dollars! The 
implantation of the American army in the Balkans announces new wars in the 
Caspian Sea area for the control of oil sources and opens the way to the 
possibility of major wars against Russia.

Africa was especially stricken since counter-revolution in the Soviet Union 
created a new balance of power on world level. Africa underwent the 
American and Allied aggression in Somalia in 1993. The following year, 
there was the genocide of 1 million Tutsis and democratic Hutus in Rwanda, 
carried out by the extremist Hutu ethno-fascists with he support of France. 
Since the 2nd of August until today, in the heart of Africa, the Congo, a 
war of aggression and occupation backed by the United States has completely 
ravaged the country, causing the death of 3.750.000 Congolese!

The aggression war of the United States against Afghanistan on the 7th of 
October is a new development of the American orientation towards world war. 
The war against Kabul is not directly linked to the attacks against New 
York and Washington. The American intervention In Afghanistan to control 
the roads leading to the petroleum areas of Central Asia had already been 
previewed long before these incidents. The former Pakistani Minister of 
External Affairs, Niaz Naïk, declared in July 2001 that "American civil 
servants had told him about American plan aiming to launch a military 
action to the Taliban regime and install in its place a government of 
?moderate¹ Afghans. Was to be carried out from bases installed in 
Tajikistan. It was said to him that if the action was it maintained, it 
could be done before towards mid-October."

If, thanks to the occupation of Afghanistan, imperialism can control Asia¹s 
oil, this movement also expresses hostility towards Russia and China. China 
had plans to transport oil from central Asia. A lasting military presence 
of the United States in the area will make this impossible. The occupation 
of bases of the strategy of a in view of the wars of aggression to come.

The orientation of the United States to militarism, war and fascism was 
already very apparent before the 11th of September. The coming to power of 
Bush was in fact a coup d¹état carried out by the most reactionary 
fractions of the American monopolies and notably those linked with the war 
industry. It is to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, by fraud 
and other irregularities that the multinationals decided to impose a 
government of republican militarists. T of the commission for Foreign 
Affairs of the American Senate, Joseph Biden, declared that the 
anti-missile defence system that Bush wants to set up, could cost 500 
billions of dollars and it would be only 90% effective against an attack 
carried out with ballistic missiles.

The United States¹ orientation towards fascism has become even more marked 
after the 11th of September. The assistant chief of General Staff declared 
that the United States had not planned military operations of this 
importance since the Second Word war. And this was carried out against one 
of the poorest countries of the world, ruined by years of unceasing war! 
This clearly indicates that the aggression against Afghanistan is just an 
"exercise" previewing large-scale wars against China and eventually Russia 
. The chief of the British General Staff declared, after two weeks of 
bombing, that this conflict could "last 50 years"! Let us note that the 
orientation towards fascism also appears in American interior policies. On 
the 13th of November, Bush signed a military decree allowing "the judgement 
of presumed terrorists, of foreign nationality, by a special military court 
and not by civilian jurisdictions." The accusation¹s sources can remain 
secret, the accused will have no possibility of appeal and, as the New York 
Times puts it: "the rights of the defendants will be severely limited."

One can say that after the 11th of September 2001, American imperialism, by 
announcing a so-called "struggle against international terrorism" that will 
go on for many years, opens the way to an international dictatorship of a 
fascist type. This political orientation was already present amidst the 
American monopolist bourgeoisie since the end of the anti-fascist war.

As soon as 1944, the United States allowed the entrance of about 10.000 
high-ranked nazi war criminals, Germans, Ukrainians, Latvians, Russians 
etc. Many of them were recruited in the intelligence services, the services 
for anti-communist propaganda, the research institutes. The most famous of 
them was general Gehlen, chief of nazi espionage in the Soviet Union, that 
had given himself up to the Americans. Following the agreements between the 
Allies, he was to be delivered to the Soviet Union but Washington decided 
torecruit him for the American intelligence services to which he gave his 
files and his collaborators! Other Nazis hired by the United States were 
Klaus Barbie, Alois Bruner, a German nazi held responsible for the death of 
128.500 people, Otto von Bolschwing, one of the main assistants of Eichmann 
and hundreds of other major criminals.

In 1945, General Patton even proposed to reverse alliances and "was 
dreaming of rearming a couple of Waffen SS divisions to incorporate them 
into his US Third American army ?and lead them against the Reds¹!"

On the 6th and 9th of August 1945, American imperialism destroyed Hiroshima 
and Nagasaki, causing 443.000 deaths in an operation without military 
utility. This was a truly terrorist act, on a scale never before witnessed. 
The use of the nuclear bomb was foremost a "warning" addressed to the 
Soviet Union. The English marshal Alan Brooke declared: "Churchill was 
already seeing himself capable of eliminating all the Russian centres of 
industry."

The war of aggression against Korea begun in 1950 was part of the 
continuation of the anti-soviet, anti-communist war launched by the Nazis 
and continued by the Americans. Korea once destroyed and submitted, the 
policy of "roll-back" planned to attack China, or even the Soviet Union. 
American terror resulted in 5 million deaths amongst the Koreans.

The war of Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos was carried out in the same spirit and 
caused 4 million deaths.

But during the seventies, American imperialism was faced, all over the 
world, with ever more determined resistance.

The balance of power was dramatically inverted during the Eighties. This 
was caused by two major factors. First, the continual degeneration of the 
Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism that ensued. Then, in the 
formerly colonized countries, the opportunism of the bourgeoisie and the 
petite bourgeoisie that had participated in the liberation struggles to 
ensure their own interests and enrich themselves.

As soon as capitalism was restored in the Soviet Union, American 
imperialism resumed its policy of world domination "inherited" from Nazi 
Germany.

It is not a chance happening that the Charter of the United Nations, 
imposed after the great struggles of the Soviet Union and the revolutionary 
peoples following the anti-fascist war, was immediately discarded as a mere 
scrap of paper by he United States.



Towards great revolutionary struggles for peace, independence and socialism

The beginning of the XXth century was characterized by the emergence of the 
major capitalist monopolies that dominated various sectors of the 
imperialist countries. But the capitalist mode of production had not yet 
deeply penetrated the various countries and territories of Asia, South 
America and Africa.

The beginning of the XXIst century is characterized by the emergence of 
world-scale monopolies that dominate their sector on a planetary level.

The unification of capitalist Europe has triggered off a never-before seen 
tide of concentrations. "Mergers and acquisitions" in Europe amounted to 
1.218 billion dollars in 1999 and1.478 billions in 2.000. This is a truly 
qualitative leap. The maximum amount for the Eighties was of 148 billions 
of dollars. In 1996, the sum of 253 billions had been reached

According to the World Investment Report of 1988, the number of car 
manufacturers operating on the global world market will fall from 15 to 10, 
or even 5. "The men who sit on the German Management boards all fear that 
if they do not manage to be amongst the Top Five of the global companies in 
their market, they will no longer be competitive in the future."

This fundamental economic evolution has three consequences.

First, the struggle to death of the leading American, Japanese and European 
monopolies will become more and more ferocious and will be carried out on 
all the markets of all continents.

Then the oppressed all over the world will become conscious of the fact 
that their oppression and exploitation are caused by the same multinational 
forces, "protected" by the same military forces. The development of an 
internationalist revolutionary conscience is now possible amongst the 
masses and it is an urgent necessity.

Finally, the contradiction between these global monopolies, upheld by the 
different imperialist powers, and the dominated countries, will deepen ever 
more. Fractions of the local bourgeoisie in the Asian, South American and 
African countries will inevitably stand up against imperialist domination.

The experience of the great Chinese revolution has proved that only the 
Communist Party, sustained by the working class, the peasants and the 
patriotic petite-bourgeoisie, can lead the anti-imperialist revolution to 
its final goal, national and social liberation.

But globalisation and the intensification of imperialist domination all 
over the world will inevitably cause new forces, belonging to the 
bourgeoisie, to fight against imperialist domination. The American press 
gives indications that Bin Laden represents something altogether else than 
a small group of Islamo-Fascists. The American columnist William Pfaff 
writes: "Saudi Arabia is also attacked by the children of the Saudi elite, 
such as Mr. Bin Laden who are declared enemies of both America and their 
own leaders, that they consider corrupt." The New York Times confirms that 
Bin Laden represents an important trend in the big Saudi bourgeoisie: "They 
are the elite of the Saudi society, prosperous and respected men with 
investments all over the world and a reputation for generosity. But the US 
government now affirms that one of the most important personalities, Yasi 
al-Qadi, and many other influent Saudi citizens have transferred millions 
of dollars to Osama bin Laden." Are we in presence of a fraction of the 
Saudi grande bourgeoisie that is opposed to the 5.000 members of the 
dynastic elite because they have not created an industry and block the 
economic development of the country? This elite neglects their own country 
but serves American imperialism by placing the thousand billions of dollars 
generated by oil in the American banks, hence the violently anti-American 
stances of this fraction. The downfall of the feudal pro-American regime in 
Saudi Arabia and the setting up of an anti-American regime would change the 
whole strategic situation of the Middle East and the Gulf area.

Imperialist globalisation that pushes all the contradictions of the 
imperialist world to the utmost will inevitably produce a counter-offensive 
of all the popular forces crushed by poverty, super-exploitation, 
domination, terror and war.

More than ever, the three major revolutionary currents of our times must go 
forth hand in hand: the democratic, anti-imperialist revolution in the 
dominated countries, the socialist revolution in the capitalist countries 
and the construction of socialism in the countries that have torn 
themselves away from imperialist and capitalist exploitation.

All over the world, there is a growing awareness that the capitalist mode 
of production is no longer compatible with the simple survival of humanity, 
that imperialism has effectively become a genocidal system.

Never before was the contradiction so strong between the social character 
of production and the private character of the property of productive 
means, private property which fetters the productive potential with the 
untenable obligation of maximalising profits for a tiny class of capitalists.

The factories and other companies can multiply and produce only if they 
generate large profits for the capitalists, leaving the major part of 
humanity-which has become superfluous and useless- vegetate in inhuman 
situations.

The contradiction become sharper between, on one hand, the accelerated 
development of the productive forces and technologies, allowing practically 
unlimited production and, on the other hand, the narrowness of solvent 
markets, limited by the poverty and dire poverty of the immense majority of 
mankind. "Overproduction" becomes permanent in a world where billions of 
people are totally bereft!

Capitalism can guarantee the profits demanded by a small quantity of 
stock-holders only by destroying the physical and mental health of the 
workers, by maintaining obscurantism, by setting off reactionary civil 
wars, by promoting fascist gangs, by provoking genocide through armed 
violence, embargo, famine, uncontrolled extension of sicknesses and epidemics

Humanity can no longer resign itself to such a barbarous and inhuman state 
of things.

The exploitation, exclusion and terror that characterizes imperialist 
globalisation will inevitably spark off new national, anti-imperialist 
revolutions, on a scale even larger than those that marked the XXth century.

The development of national and democratic revolution, led by the 
communist, revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces, can allow the 
victorious peoples to go on to the stage of the socialist revolution. 
Confronted with all the violence of imperialism, which is nothing else than 
monopoly capitalism, the popular masses of the dominated countries realize 
that the capitalist system offers no way out. Experience has shown that 
even the revolutionary bourgeoisie, like the one that led the 
anticolonialist war in Algeria, has not been able to maintain the popular 
conquests. Impelled by their egoistical interests, fractions of this 
bourgeoisie have gone over, one after another, to imperialism, bringing 
Algeria back to the state of a colony.

Only the working class, in alliance with all the labouring classes and the 
patriotic forces, can consequently and completely carry out the 
anti-imperialist revolution and prepare the future transition to socialist 
revolution, which will banish all forms of exploitation of man by man.

More than ever, in the capitalist countries, socialism is an absolute 
necessity for the survival, the dignity and the spiritual and cultural 
development of the popular masses. And, more than ever, technological 
development makes socialism realizable.

The times are no longer when a part of the masses of the imperialist 
countries could "make profit" of the super-profits realized in the 
dominated countries. Over-exploitation, unemployment, repression, racism 
and fascism make the life of the masses more and more difficult. The 
orientation of a large fraction of the bourgeoisie towards war is fraught 
with extreme danger for all the workers.

Through prolonged struggles on different fronts, the working class will 
acquire a renewed class-consciousness, becoming once more aware that their 
freedom, material well-being and cultural development are incompatible with 
the maintaining of the capitalist system.

The power of the working class, upheld by the popular masses, taking all 
necessary measures to eradicate the dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, is 
imperative in order to change the current economic and social system. 
Stringent measures against capitalist and imperialist barbarism will allow 
for the first time the realization of a real democracy, a democracy that 
functions for the popular masses.

During these last tens of years, the prodigious development of the 
productive forces has put into the hands of humanity a potential that can 
allow all the peoples of the world to be liberated from their backward 
conditions of life. Thanks to these material means, society can rapidly 
surmount sickness, hunger and malnutrition, analphabetism and ignorance. 
The condition is that society rid itself of the satanic strait jacket with 
which private property fetters the means of production. The condition is 
the reorganization on a socialist basis.

Free market is the planning of maximum profit for the tiny minority that 
possesses the means of production. Today, the free market "plans" the 
maximal exploitation of the workers hired by the capitalist companies. In 
the same way, it plans "exclusion, dire poverty, famine for billions of 
"superfluous" human beings. 60.000 multinationals plan their production and 
their sales on a world scale and their expansion outside their country of 
origin. In 1999, they realized sales amounting to 14 thousand billions of 
dollars. Building on the basis of the collective appropriation of the means 
of production, socialism will plan production so it can satisfy to the 
utmost the needs of the popular masses. This planning will have national 
and super-national aspects.

Socialist planning and management will be carried out in a responsible, 
transparent way, under popular control, with the sole objective of 
satisfying the interests and the material and cultural needs of the popular 
masses.

Socialism will develop instruction for all, science and technology, and the 
means of production, faster and on an infinitely vaster scale than 
imperialism does today.

In the current international situation, solidarity with the countries that 
staunchly defend their independence from imperialism, while safeguarding 
their socialist system, is essential. In an extremely difficult 
international situation, even though they are faced with certain 
difficulties and contradictions just as all the Third World countries are, 
Cuba, China, the PDR of Korea, Vietnam and Laos represent the future of 
humanity.

Because they are internationalists, communists in no way struggle against 
to the objectively necessary process of globalisation.

In 1919, because of the foundation of the Third International, the 
communists were the best-organised force in the world. Because of 
opportunism and revisionism, the international communist movement 
disintegrated.

But imperialist globalisation confronts all workers with the same enemies. 
The exchanging of experiences and analyses, the development of common 
policies and the organization of common activities are more than ever 
necessary for the progress of all struggles. Facing the global policies of 
American imperialism, Nato, FMI, the WB and the WTO, the oppressed all over 
the world will have to oppose a common policy of liberation and development.

The Workers¹ Party of Belgium (PTB) brings its modest contribution by 
organizing, every year since 1992, from the 2nd to the 4th of May, an 
International Communist Seminary in which have participated nearly 150 
parties and organizations coming from Asia, Africa, South and North 
America, the former socialist countries and Europe.

Socialism will develop as an international system of federated Socialist 
Republics. It will be guided by principles of solidarity and mutual 
assistance so as to be able to share, in a planed fashion, the progresses 
stemming from development. Proletarian internationalism will guide the 
bringing together of the peoples, the liquidation of all national or 
ethnical barriers, the disappearance of discriminatory acts and attitudes 
and of chauvinism, the mutually advantageous exchanges between the peoples, 
the sharing of knowledge without mercantile considerations, the harmonious 
and proportionated development of all the regions of the world, if, on this 
basis, production is submitted a plan taking into account, in a cooperative 
mode, the needs of all mankind.