Imperialism: The Example of the Russian Federation

Article by the Revolutionary Communist Youth League of Russia (Bolsheviks) RKSM(b):

Introduction

The question of the role of the Russian Federation in the global imperialist system is important now more than ever. The ongoing war in Ukraine, the growing tensions between large capitalist powers and the ongoing crisis in the international communist movement bring the topic to the forefront of the discussion. Being only one aspect of a greater discussion on the nature of imperialism, it highlights how a flawed understanding of a given phenomenon can have far-reaching consequences for the political analysis of the global situation as a whole. This, in turn, can undermine the theoretical and practical work of entire organisations.

Military coup in Bolivia: Is a coup d'état in progress?

By Camila Azeñas and Gustavo Baldiviezo*

Taking into account what happened on June 26, in when a group of soldiers was stationed in Murillo Square challenging the government of Luis Arce, it is necessary to review the background, the specific events and the possible objectives of this coup adventure. 

Bolivia is one of the countries that has had the most coups d'état throughout its history, so we believe that an event of this type cannot ignore the workers, nor be subject to trivialization, as has been the case on the part of the of the opposition and groups related to Evo Morales.

100th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union: Socialism proved its superiority over capitalism

By Nikos Mottas.

December 30th marked the 100th anniversary since the founding of the world's first workers' state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 

The creation of the USSR was the practical result of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution, the single most important event in modern history that became the first conscious step for the transition from capitalism to socialism and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man. 

Aspects of the ideological–political struggle in the ranks of the international communist movement

Article by the International Relations Section of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) about the recent international teleconference of the CPs:

Recently, in conditions of an ongoing 5th wave of the pandemic, an Extraordinary Teleconference of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties was held under the responsibility of the CP of Greece (KKE) and the CP of Turkey (TKP). The developments confirm that bourgeois governments were not able to tackle the coronavirus pandemic to the benefit of the workers. Moreover, the restrictions on travelling from one country to another hindered in-person meetings. This negative development is rooted in the enormous deficiencies in the public healthcare systems as a result of the anti-popular policy followed by governments serving the capital. 

KKE: The danger of the imperialist war and the stance of the Communists

Theses of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) at the 12th International Conference "V.I.Lenin and the Contemporary World".

The danger of the imperialist war and the stance of the Communists.

The inter-imperialist contradictions, which in the past led to dozens of local, regional wars and to two World Wars, continue to lead to tough economic, political and military confrontations, irrespective of the composition or recomposition, the changes in the structure and the framework of goals of the international imperialist unions, their so-called new "architecture". In any case, "war is the continuation of politics by other means", especially in the conditions of a deep crisis of capital's over-accumulation and important changes in the correlation of forces of the international imperialist system, in which the re-division of the markets rarely occurs without bloodshed.

Brinda Karat- Marxism and the Struggle for Women’s Emancipation in India

Marxism and the Struggle for Women’s Emancipation in Contemporary India

By Brinda Karat*.

Source: International Communist Review, Issue 8, 2018.

Introduction

The struggle for and the road to women’s emancipation depends on the nature of the State and the specific correlation of class forces in any given society. Which are the forces responsible for the unequal status of women, the violence against women, the daily humiliations and creation of multiple barriers in women’s struggles for freedom? 

KKE speech in Leningrad Conference: Our future isn't capitalism, it is the new world, socialism

Speech of the Communist Party of Greece at the the International Theoretical Conference of Communist and Workers parties: "100 years after the Great October Socialist Revolution, the lessons and tasks for the contemporary communists." (Leningrad, Russia 11-13/8/2017). 

Dear comrades,

On behalf of the CC of the KKE, we thank the RWCP for this initiative and for hosting our Conference Today.

The Central Committee of the KKE honours the 100th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. It honours the climactic world-historic event of the 20th century which demonstrated that capitalism is not invincible, that we can construct a superior organization of society, without the exploitation of man by man.

SYRIZA: The "left" servants of NATO

By Nikos Mottas*.

In the name of the so-called “geostrategic enhancement” doctrine of the country and following the path of the previous governments of New Democracy and PASOK, the SYRIZA-ANEL government has been proved NATO's "best student". Since its formation on January 2015, the governmental alliance between the social democratic SYRIZA and the nationalist ANEL party has aligned itself with the dangerous plans and goals of the imperialists.

Carolus Wimmer: The Great October Revolution and its Influence on Latin America

The Great October Revolution and its Influence on Latin America.

By Carolus Wimmer* / Source: International Communist Review, Issue 7, 2017.

I) Introduction

The hundredth anniversary of the Great October Revolution comes in the midst of a counteroffensive by imperialism and the forces of reaction against the social and political advances of the working class. In these conditions, it becomes especially important to deliver the objective truth about the first victorious proletarian Revolution, its historic global importance for the world’s worker movement, for the struggles to liberate the oppressed peoples from imperialism, and ultimately for all humanity.

Dimitris Koutsoumbas: The significance of the October Revolution in the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism-communism

By Dimitris Koutsoumbas*.

Source: International Communist Review, Issue 7, 2017.

In 2017 we will honour the 100th anniversary of the Great Socialist Revolution that took place in 1917 in Russia. This event marked and determined the course of millions of people, not just within the geographical confines of the first workers' state in the history of humanity, the USSR, but it also had an impact of every corner of the planet for many decades.

October demonstrates the working class's potential and capacity to implement its historical mission as the only truly revolutionary class, to lead the first attempt to construct socialism-communism.

At the same time, October shows the irreplaceable role of the guiding force of the socialist revolution, the communist party.

Great October demonstrates the enormous strength of proletarian internationalism. Despite the developments after the overthrow of socialism in 1989-1991, the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, with all the theoretical and practical experience and maturity that we have acquired over the years, makes us even more certain and categorical about the timeliness and necessity of socialism-communism.

Karl Marx: The Man Who Changed The World Forever

Karl Marx: The Man Who Changed The World Forever

By Nikos Mottas*.

"On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep-but forever”. With these words, Friedrich Engels had opened his speech during Karl Marx's funeral at London's Highgate cemetery. This year marks the 134^th anniversary since the death of the greatest thinker in the history of mankind; the man who tried not only to interpret the world but to change it. And, indeed, Marx's theoretical work became the basis for social change, highlighting the scientific perception of the class struggle as the driving force of History.

"The genius of Marx”, Lenin wrote, "lies in his having been the first to deduce from the lesson world history teaches and to apply that lesson consistently. The deduction he made is the doctribe of the class struggle” (V.I.Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism). Marx's thought and work consists a milestone in the history of philosophy, political economy and social sciences. As Lenin wrote, the Marxist theory “is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism”.

New Developments in Political Economy: The Demise of “Globalization”

New Developments in Political Economy: The Demise of “Globalization”.

By Zoltan Zigedy.

“Globalization” is a slippery term: 1. Sometimes it is used as a description of the quantitative changes in the global economy that emerged in the 1980s. 2. Sometimes it is used to express a set of policy prescriptions that gained traction in that same period. 3. Sometimes it is used to name a theory positing a new era, epoch, or stage of capitalism, a qualitative change in the way that contemporary capitalism functions.

And sometimes the word is used in all three senses:

The nature of SYRIZA and why it is supported by the bourgeoisie

Photo credit: IDC.

Source: Rizospastis / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

The identification of SYRIZA's political positioning requires first of all the clarification of the relationship between bourgeois politics and the opportunist (political) stream. In respect to its class substance, the opportunist political line is a bourgeois political line, but as it is manifested within the lines of the labour movement. While it is a policy which supports the strategic objectives of the capital in economy and politics, it appears with a socialist cloak and slogans. The fact that the opportunist perceptions objectively have a common "core" with the bourgeois ideology and politics is expressed both in the occasional convergences between opportunist and bourgeois parties as well as in the convertion of opportunist parties into parties of bourgeois governance, especially in times when this is necessary of capitalism.

When an opportunist party is called to manage the general interests of the bourgeois class from governmental posts, then it de facto becomes subject to a series of political, ideological and organisational adjustments that are characterized by the retreat of its opportunist elements and references without, of course, meaning that these do not continue to be utilized for the entrapment of popular forces in the bourgeois pursuits.

SYRIZA: Capitalism's social democratic servant

By Nikos Mottas*.

The 25^th of January marked the two years since SYRIZA's electoral victory. During these two years the political deception of SYRIZA and Alexis Tsipras was fully exposed. The promises of the “left-wing” SYRIZA- about the supposed “tearing” of the memorandums, the end of austerity, the abolition of unjust taxation, the incrase of wages and pensions- were proved a colossal piece of political knavery. During the last two years, the government of Alexis Tsipras was proved an excellent implementer of capital's anti-people policy, thus walking on the steps of its predecessors, the governments of New Democracy and PASOK.

Since January 2015 and its electoral triumph, the “left-wing” SYRIZA, in governmental alliance with the right-wing, nationalist party “ANEL”, managed to sign and vote a 3^rd memorandum of austerity with even harder measures than the previous two; to pass hundreds of harsh anti-people, anti-workers laws; to demolish pension rights; to impose additional heavy taxation to the popular strata; to proceed to further privatizations of state property; to attack social security rights through supposed “reforms” which demolishes whatever has remained from the workers'-people's rights.

Communist Party of Mexico- The class character of interstate unions in America

Class character of interstate unions in America.

By Pável Blanco Cabrera & Angel Chávez Mancilla*.

Source: International Communist Review, Issue 6, 2015.

A class approach that puts aside populist criteria is necessary, and this is done on a scientific basis, using the Marxist method of analysing reality, considering the degree of development of capitalism, the process of concentration and centralization in the imperialist phase, emphasizing what is general, without neglecting the peculiarities, and avoiding to place the part above the all. Marxist doctrine establishes the mutual connection between the phenomena of nature and society rather than analyse them in isolation. As V.S. Molodtsov noted "to deny the interdependence of phenomena goes against the possibility of knowledge as a single whole, as opposed to metaphysics Marxism-Leninism developed a truly scientific method of knowledge and transformation of reality. This method requires, first of all, considering all the phenomena of nature and society in mutual connection and interdependence"[1]. 

Obama's Legacy of War and Imperialist Crimes

When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, he had been presented by various media as a "peace pigeon", as a man whose "humanitarian spirit" would- supposedly- give an end to the bloody imperialist wars waged by the Bush administration. However, the presidency of Barack Obama proved, once more, the undoubted fact that the U.S. foreign policy isn't based on persons, but on the interests of the plutocracy, the monopoly interests of the United States. 

In his farewell speech in Chicago yesterday, President Obama praised the "values" of the United States which, as he said, "become more powerful when democracy works" and "when ordinary people participate in this". During his presidency, Barack Obama proved what kind of "values" he represents- these "values" are very well known to the people in the Middle East, in northern Africa and Ukraine where his government was involved.

A brief account of- Nobel Prize winner-Obama's foreign policy record is the following:

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- "Left Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder (1920) Part I

"Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published in 1920.

Source: 

V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.

PART I.

IN WHAT SENSE CAN WE SPEAK 

OF THE INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ?

    In the first months following the conquest of political power by the proletariat in Russia (October 25 [November 7], 1917), it might have seemed that the tremendous difference between backward Russia and the advanced countries of Western Europe would cause the proletarian revolution in these latter countries to have very little resemblance to ours. Now we already have very considerable international experience which most definitely shows that certain fundamental features of our revolution have a significance which is not local, not peculiarly national, not Russian only, but international. I speak here of international significance not in the broad sense of the term: not some, but all the fundamental and many of the secondary features of our revolution are of international significance in the sense that the revolution influences all countries. No, taking it in the narrowest sense, i.e., understanding international signifcance to mean the international validity or the historical inevitability of a repetition on an international scale of what has taken place in our country, it must be admitted that certain fundamental features of our revolution do possess such a significance.

Speech by Giorgos Marinos, KKE Politburo member, at the 18th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties

"Capitalist crisis and imperialist offensive-Strategy and Tactics of the Communist and Workers Parties in the struggle for peace, workers' and people's rights, for socialism." - Speech by Giorgos Marinos, member of the Political Bureau of the CC of KKE at the 18th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties. 

Source: inter.kke.gr.

Dear comrades,

The Communist Party of Greece salutes the 18th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties and warmly thanks the CP of Vietnam for its hospitality.

Our party has expressed its internationalist solidarity and has stood for many decades at the side of the Vietnamese people in their struggle against French and Japanese colonialism, against the imperialist intervention and crimes of the USA.

The glorious victory of the working class, of the people of Vietnam under the leadership of the Communist Party and its leader comrade Ho Chi Minh was a great victory of international significance and demonstrated that when the people are determined, well organized and armed, they can defeat the strongest opponents-dynasts and break the shackles of exploitation and oppression.

The history of the communist movement is full of heroic pages and is a valuable source for study and the drawing of conclusions that will lend strength to the communists so that they can meet the challenge of the complex conditions of the class struggle, fighting for the overthrow of capitalist exploitation and the construction of socialism-communism.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- The State and Revolution (1917) Part VI "The Vulgarisation of Marxism by Opportunists"

The State and Revolution.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published: 1918.

Source: V.I.Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 25, p.381-492.

The question of the relation of the state to the social revolution, and of the social revolution to the state, like the question of revolution generally, was given very little attention by the leading theoreticians and publicists of the Second International (1889-1914). But the most characteristic thing about the process of the gradual growth of opportunism that led to the collapse of the Second International in 1914 is the fact that even when these people were squarely faced with this question they tried to evade it or ignored it.

In general, it may be said that evasiveness over the question of the relation of the proletarian revolution to the state--an evasiveness which benefited and fostered opportunism--resulted in the distortion of Marxism and in its complete vulgarization.

To characterize this lamentable process, if only briefly, we shall take the most prominent theoreticians of Marxism: Plekhanov and Kautsky.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- The State and Revolution (1917) Part V "The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State"

The State and Revolution.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published: 1918.

Source: V.I.Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 25, p.381-492.

Marx explains this question most thoroughly in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (letter to Bracke, May 5, 1875, which was not published until 1891 when it was printed in Neue Zeit, vol. IX, 1, and which has appeared in Russian in a special edition). The polemical part of this remarkable work, which contains a criticism of Lassalleanism, has, so to speak, overshadowed its positive part, namely, the analysis of the connection between the development of communism and the withering away of the state.

1. Presentation of the Question by Marx

From a superficial comparison of Marx's letter to Bracke of May 5, 1875, with Engels' letter to Bebel of March 28, 1875, which we examined above, it might appear that Marx was much more of a "champion of the state" than Engels, and that the difference of opinion between the two writers on the question of the state was very considerable.