“All forces to the defense of the city of Lenin!”—1941 poster
When the Communist Party of Greece and its associated organizations promote the “neither Washington nor Beijing” stance, they’re engaging in the equivalent kind of opportunism to that of Trotsky during the first world war. This is the opportunism where, in a situation of imperialist war, a self-described socialist sidesteps their duty to back the revolutionary forces. Today, this practice looks like the KKE portraying the present third world war as an inter-imperialist conflict, and posturing as the true revolutionary camp. In Trotsky’s time, wrote Lenin, it looked like Trotsky refusing to support the defeat of one’s own government:
To desire Russia’s defeat, Trotsky writes, is “an uncalled-for and absolutely unjustifiable concession to the political methodology of social-patriotism, which would replace the revolutionary struggle against the war and the conditions causing it, with an orientation—highly arbitrary in the present conditions—towards the lesser evil” (Nashe Slovo No. 105). This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism. A “revolutionary struggle against the war” is merely an empty and meaning less exclamation, something at which the heroes of the Second International excel, unless it means revolutionary action against one’s own government even in wartime. One has only to do some thinking in order to understand this.
The modern political actors who’ve taken on Trotsky’s role are the ones which don’t desire defeat for the U.S. imperial hegemon; which depict all of Washington’s adversaries as themselves having imperialist tendencies (like the KKE does), and thereby opposes taking action against the actual imperialist forces. In the post-war world, when the United States has become the center of global capital and all the world’s capital exists peripherally to it, the U.S. is the only country that can properly be called imperialist. Even the European colonial powers are now just satellites to Washington, with their capitalist ruling classes being only extensions of American capital. Therefore, to be against both Washington and the countries it’s attacking is to do what the opportunists of World War I did, and effectively side with the capitalists in opposing revolutionary struggle.
In the historical context that Lenin was navigating, the correct strategy to apply was one of aiding in the defeat of his own government—which was imperialist at the time—to create an opening for workers victory. In our circumstances, the correct strategy for revolutionaries in all countries is to mutually aid in the defeat of the U.S. government. To stand against this project is to stand against national and class liberation, as Lenin observed the Second International was doing:
Those who stand for the “neither-victory-nor-defeat” slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of inter national revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments, and do not wish to help develop such action, which, though undoubtedly difficult, is the only task worthy of a proletarian, the only socialist task. It is the proletariat in the most backward of the belligerent Great Powers which, through the medium of their party, have had to adopt—especially in view of the shameful treachery of the German and French Social-Democrats—revolutionary tactics that are quite unfeasible unless they “contribute to the defeat” of their own government, but which alone lead to a European revolution, to the permanent peace of socialism, to the liberation of humanity from the horrors, misery, savagery and brutality now prevailing.
The KKE’s camp justifies opposing the victory of the anti-imperialist states by pointing to the capitalist elements within China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and so forth. If capitalists still exist in these countries, this camp argues, then siding with them means choosing one imperialism over another. But which role do these capitalists have in relation to the hub of global capital? Are these capitalists truly independent from the United States, as the KKE’s narrative says? They’re certainly not independent. In order to advance their interests, they’ve needed to do the best they can to connect with U.S. capital, because today it’s solely U.S. capital that has the ability to not be dependent. This is what it means to have global monopoly financial power centralized in one country: everywhere else, the bourgeoisie have to act subordinate to that country’s capital.
This reality alone disproves all assertions about imperialism coming from China or its partners, and it shows where the strongest of today’s revolutionary forces are. Inside the imperialist countries, the revolutionary momentum can be found among the class-conscious masses, and the workers parties or other institutions that these masses hold control over. China’s ruling communist party has successfully made the capitalists subordinate; Russia’s communist party has pressured the bourgeois government into waging the war against fascist Kiev; and even without any communist party being a real player within Iran, the Iranian economy has numerous socialist aspects that could only come from the proletariat’s influence.
This doesn’t mean the capitalist forces within these countries pose no danger. In Iran most of all, there is a real risk of the national bourgeoisie pushing aside the working class. For which purpose, though, are these capitalists seeking to gain more influence? It’s not to carry out a parallel imperialist project, because that’s not feasible under the present global financial system. It’s to sell their countries out to U.S. finance capital. This is the only thing that they would be in any position to do if they were to win: expand the power of the one imperialist power which still exists.
By creating confusion about the character and role of the states that are opposing the hegemon, the KKE’s lackeys are acting to de-mobilize the revolutionary forces at a critical moment. They’re getting much of the world’s non-ruling communist parties to repeat the Second International’s error, and seek neither-victory-nor-defeat in this anti-imperialist war. We within this struggle must respond by furthering our advance; by fighting against the hegemon’s global offensive much more ferociously than we are now.
Part of this means combating the KKE, whose role as a backer of numerous CPs makes it the largest problem within international Marxism at the moment. Our main task, though, is constructing a real alternative to the stagnant, backward “socialist” politics that the KKE represents. Our cause can only succeed on the basis of rebuilding the global workers movement, and using the proletariat’s unique economic leverage to undermine the hegemon. For the communists in the anti-imperialist countries, this means furthering the ability of the workers to make their governments resist the imperial aggressor. For those of us in the imperial sphere, this means organizing the workers towards sabotaging the war machine, and working to overthrow their governments. We know which roles we have; if we can stop the KKE from obscuring these roles, we’ll be able to advance our mission much faster.
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