Above: Trump with Erdogan at the 2018 G20 summit, photo by AFP
The only way the hegemon’s next efforts to create catastrophe will get thwarted is if the countries that it’s targeting–as well as the global working class–reject Washington’s narrative about its supposed strength. Where the U.S. empire has succeeded in making countries fall during its era of decline, this has not been because Washington is too strong for these countries to resist them. It’s been because the leaders and institutions which were supposed to keep resisting Washington refused to operate in a committed way, letting the enemy overrun them.
For more advances in the anti-imperialist struggle to happen, those within the movement must not be fooled by the hegemon’s promises of “peace”; the nature of imperialism is to keep attacking without end, which means the only path to peace is for imperialism to be defeated. Through Trump’s special envoy Steven Witkoff, the empire has been claiming to want “peace,” but it’s only trying to get those resisting it to lower their guard. And this trick depends on convincing the U.S. target countries that Washington can never be beaten, so the only option is to submit to its strong-arming efforts.
I emphasize this reality about Washinton’s “peace” offers not because the anti-imperialists in these countries need to be told about it, but because far too many of my fellow Americans aren’t aware of it. When it comes to Syria, many internalized the narratives about how Assad fell because he was a “dictator,” or was a puppet of the Zionist occupier. And many of the observers who saw through that propaganda, and didn’t want Assad to go, haven’t been able to find a clear explanation for why Syria fell–beyond the notion that it simply must not have been strong enough.
This would seem like the logical reason, yet it doesn’t explain why Syria’s anti-imperialist democracy had managed to fight back against Washington’s proxy war for thirteen years. There was real mass support for the Assad government throughout the war; the Syrian elections from this era proved that many of the people wanted to help fortify Ba’athism against the U.S.-backed jihadist threat. And since these terror forces had first been activated, there was a long period where the Ba’ath Party managed to make things more stable. So why did the defenses against the imperial forces suddenly break down?
To understand why, we need to apply a class analysis of the conditions behind this unraveling. Even though there was popular backing for Ba’athism, it’s evident that this support was largely in reaction to the larger problem of imperial aggression, and that it was in spite of the real problems which came with the Arab nationalist model. Arab nationalism, even if it calls itself socialist, is not about building a dictatorship of the proletariat; it doesn’t make the workers the defining source of authority, which leads to an unstable type of anti-imperialism that’s vague in its goals and inclusive towards the capitalist elements.
Because the national bourgeoisie could gain a major foothold, Syria was not able to develop to the extent that its people needed. And when Washington launched its war on Syria, the Syrian political actors who’d been working towards reforms lost any opportunities to improve their country’s governance. This weakened support for Assad, as well as made it much harder for the government to keep its military forces behind it. A crucial number of the armed personnel were not getting sufficient reward for their service, and this killed their will to keep fighting. When Washington took advantage of the escalated conflicts from the last year, and had its Turkish proxy carry out a jihadist blitz, this allowed for the long-awaited collapse to come.
Syria fell for the same reason the Soviet Union fell: because it hadn’t implemented Juche, the model for self-reliance and fortified proletarian power that’s kept the DPRK from collapsing. The only anti-imperialist countries that have not just survived, but ensured themselves against the kinds of instability which destroyed Syria, are the ones that have at least pursued a path resembling Juche; that have built up strong institutions and systems for keeping their military forces together, and maintaining social cohesion amid whatever crises they encounter.
These countries that have taken such serious measures–China with its proletarian dictatorship, Venezuela with its people’s militia, Belarus with its crackdowns on foreign NGOs–are able to do so because they’ve rejected the idealist liberal view of “peace.” When the empire tries to get countries to appease it using language about “peace,” it’s appealing towards a certain type of petty-bourgeois ideology: the ideology which says that there can be a “class peace,” where the bosses and the workers unify to end “class warfare.” This is the idea that’s guided the Arab nationalist projects when they’ve refused to disempower their capitalists. It’s also an idea that continues to hold great influence within Russia and Iran, despite the substantial power held by the proletarian forces of these countries; the bulk of the masses in these places support the anti-imperialist cause, but the bourgeoisie and the liberals want to sell their countries out to U.S. capital.
It’s this mentality, where one seeks “peace” even if it comes at the cost of a country’s autonomy, that can gain traction in the kinds of dissident circles that lack class consciousness. These are the spaces that the Witkoff psyop has targeted: ones where people wish the U.S. could come to cooperate with more countries, but don’t know the consequences that come with neglecting the class struggle.
The anti-imperialist movement needs to understand that any version of “peace” which involves business deals between the U.S. and these Eurasian capitalist countries will only empower the hegemon. In turn, any “dissident” movement inside the U.S. that ignores the class struggle will not be able to end the imperial system, because this system is something inherently capitalist. And until the country is no longer ruled by the capitalist class, any overture it makes towards collaboration with the Eurasian powers will be an imperialist scheme.
For our purposes as anti-imperialist actors in the USA, this is why it’s so important to identify the problem of the national bourgeoisie in these other countries: it stops us from being tricked into cheering on the efforts by the global capitalist class to launch a crippling attack on the worldwide workers movement, and to create an opening for war against China’s workers state. I speak of the global capitalist class as one force because when you look at the structure of modern capital, it becomes apparent that the bourgeoisie in Russia and Iran are not independent; their interests are tied in with the U.S. capitalist class, because the U.S. is the center of modern capital.
This is why if the proletarian forces in these places fail, their ruling classes will be enabled to fully integrate their respective countries into the global financial monopoly system. These revolutionary allies need our solidarity, and the workers in the U.S. need such a movement; one that will consistently fight for the international proletariat. Without that commitment to class struggle, we are lost, and we’re all in danger of being crushed by the capitalist boot.
————————————————————————
If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here.
To keep this platform effective amid the censorship against dissenting voices, join my Telegram channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment