Global capitalism in the age of electronics and the attendant neoliberal policies have created a huge and widening gap between wealth and poverty across the world. Repression of all opposition to neocolonial states whose political systems serve global capitalism has for decades succeeded in maintaining the status quo.
The current crisis of global capitalism – a consequence of the transformation from production based on electro-mechanics to one based on electronics – is threatening the capitalist relations of production based on the exploitation of wage labor. The capitalists in the advanced countries are squeezing their own workers in an effort to escape the crisis. However, the devastation brought about by neoliberal policies on workers in the neocolonies has been much more severe.
The social revolutions that have recently occurred in Latin American countries (e.g Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador) are a consequence of this world economic transformation that is taking place before our eyes. The Tunisian and Egyptian upheavals that overthrew two vicious dictators, who were allied with global capitalism and neoliberal policies through the U.S. imperial project, are but the two most recent examples of the same process.
The main features of the Latin American political transformation are rather clear. They are anti-imperialist, but not anti-capitalist. These are nationalist regimes that are trying to solve economic, social, and political contradictions within global capitalism.
The participation of all sectors of society in the Tunisian and Egyptian upheavals indicates the nationalist character of those upheavals. They also have a pan-Arab nationalist character that has no counterpart in the Latin American examples (i.e., no Pan-Latin American character to the extent of the Pan-Arab). This is critical, especially as the upheavals spread to other parts of the Arab world.
This stage of the revolutionary process is different from the previous stage where colonies fought against direct colonialism under the leadership of the national bourgeoisie. The revolutions against direct colonialism fitted the needs of global capital so long as a national bourgeoisie dependent on neo-imperialism led them.
Even though this stage of the revolutionary process has begun as all-class nationalism, it cannot be sustained under conditions of crisis in global capitalism caused by the epoch-making transformations in production.
The outstanding feature of the struggle today is that there are no longer two paths. No matter the ideological veneers – that struggle must turn against private property and for some form of communist reconstruction.
This is the reason we see the idea presented by the ruling class that what is needed is to get rid of the dictators and corruption and everything will be all right. This is the reason why the “liberal” wing of the national bourgeoisie suddenly appears on the stage in every neocolony.
An entire new epoch is emerging. Today, the bellies are the determining factor. The polarization of wealth and poverty is creating tensions that have inevitably broken the chain at its weakest links (e.g. Tunisia and Egypt).
Given all the general factors – liberation with capitalism simply won’t work as a base for social liberation. Since there is no going back, the emerging of class interests will compel the process to move to the next stage – direct struggle against private property in the form of nationalization (the reversal of privatization) and ultimately, the distribution of the social product according to need, regardless of ability to pay for the necessities of life.
Humanity is living through dangerous times. It is a time when revolutionaries fully expect the capitalists to fight to the death for the survival of private property in one form or another. The danger lies in that revolutionary parties over the past half-century (with few exceptions) have been devastated. They have been physically liquidated or made peace with the class enemy. They have been replaced by “civil society” organizations who advocate peaceful change within the system while vehemently opposing a communist resolution to the crisis that humanity is facing. That solution is the public ownership of the means of production and distribution according to need.
The proletariat, the large mass of humanity, is facing a vicious enemy with no organization and program that is capable of carrying the revolutionary process to its conclusion. What is required of revolutionaries is to determine the line of march and build organizations capable of seeing that revolutionary process reaches its ultimate conclusion.
For the first time an objective communist class is forming to become the foundation for a communist political movement. Globalization creates this new class everywhere. Global unity is the condition of its national emancipation. The League extends its hand of comradeship around the globe.
January-March.2011.Vol21.Ed1
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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