Showing posts with label reconquest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reconquest. Show all posts
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Some Good Points on Pan-Third Worldism
Just thought I'd go ahead and promote this article as food for my readers' thought: Six Points on Third World Unity.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Periods of the Cold War
This post is just an addition to what I wrote here yesterday, March 31, 2011.
Although yesterday I indicated general agreement with the Workers' World article with the exception of the portion under the heading "Working class enters anti-war movement", my position on one other part should be clarified as well:
This part of the article is obviously key, as it addresses the historical record of the imperialist era of capitalism in very broad strokes. As indicated yesterday, I largely agree with the above quote, but my take on some aspects of the historical record might merit some clarification.
Following their correct summation of the period up through World War 2, Workers' World proceeds to lay out two distinctive periods that corresponded to actual U.S. government policies respectively called the Plan for the American Century (1947-1997) and the Plan for the New American Century (1997-present), which literally laid out/lay out (as applicable) strategies for world conquest. In the first of these post-WW2 periods, the U.S. won the basic victory, establishing itself as the sole surviving superpower. The second, current period is characterized by a drive to consolidate that victory by eliminating the phenomenon of "rogue states". All of this is correct. And yes, in the current period, all the imperialists are essentially united under American leadership against the remaining "rogue states" and those who seek to establish "rogue states".
However, this statement from the above quote..."During the latter part of the 20th century, war and the threat of war were driven by the struggle of imperialism against the socialist camp and the national liberation movements — the Cold War"....is somewhat a mischaracterization stemming from the WWP's persistent refusal to recognize that, for the most of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was not a socialist country, but a mighty imperialist power in its own right. The Cold War had a number of periods:
In the first period, which lasted roughly one decade (1945-55ish), the Soviet Union was still a socialist country and at the head of the socialist and anti-imperialist camp. For most of this period, tensions between the U.S. and the USSR were especially high and even spilled over into actual combat with each other in the Korean War. Tensions gradually cooled from 1951 on, as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin started considering the Korean War a stalemate and spent the next couple years negotiated a cease-fire. Then, after Stalin died and the Korean War ended in 1953, new Soviet leadership emerged at the top that was qualitatively more amenable to re-establishing diplomatic ties with the imperialists.
The second period began in 1956, when a new Soviet leader by the name of Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a "criminal" and jettisoned the previous view that an atomic/nuclear showdown between the socialist and capitalist camps was ultimately inevitable due to the belligerence of the latter, embracing instead a theory and policy of permanent "peaceful co-existence" with the imperialists. To rationalize this collaborative, anti-antagonistic policy, Khrushchev also put forward the theory of the "peaceful transition" into socialism, i.e. of the possibility of proletarian revolution without warfare. This policy shift on the USSR's part yielded a major split in the global anti-U.S. camp, led generally by socialist China. The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong's leadership argued that the Soviet leadership was now pointing that country away from the objective of world revolution and in the direction of rapprochement with the imperialists and that the accomplishment of said feat would be impossible unless they abandoned socialism. The abandonment of socialism, they contended, would be a precondition for diplomatic rapprochement with the imperialists under U.S. leadership. Thus, it was argued, Khrushchev was a revisionist: someone who, while claiming to be a Marxist and perhaps even believing themself one, takes up politics that are fundamentally irreconcilable with Marxism. In 1963, Khrushchev did indeed reorganize the Soviet economy along profit lines, thus effectively restoring capitalism under a system of broad state ownership. But try as he did, Khrushchev was never able to establish a close diplomatic relationship with the U.S., and the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev saw an opening through which to make imperialist inroads of the country's own against U.S. imperialism in the Vietnam War and other national liberation struggles. Thus began the third period of the Cold War in the mid-1960s.
Under Brezhnev's leadership, the USSR undertook an aggressive foreign policy, literally taking a large number of semi-colonies and conquering those states under its influence that sought to challenge that influence. Meanwhile, from the start of the second period, China had been seeking to establish its leadership of the Cold War against the imperialist camp led by the United States, recognizing that the Soviet Union wasn't seriously looking to finish the world proletarian revolution. China's Cultural Revolution period (1966-69) marked the height of this effort. But the Chinese Maoists had not initially fully recognized the distinction between the compromising yet still ultimately socialist state of affairs on the USSR's part during the second period of the Cold War and that of the country's aggressive, social-imperialist policies that began in earnest in this new, third period of the Cold War. By the time of the Cultural Revolution, there had been some recognition that the Soviet Union was now basically capitalist, but no clear-cut recognition as yet that it was actually a highly aggressive imperialist power. That recognition came in 1968 and '69, when the USSR invaded and subjugated Czechoslovakia and repeatedly attacked China. It also came out in 1969 that the Soviet Union had developed more extensive plans for a nuclear confrontation with China than it had for one with the United States. Now it was clear: the imperialist camp now definitely included the Soviet Union, and as an aggressive superpower in its own right. From that point on, China wrongly took up an opportunistic policy of establishing a united front with the USA against Soviet social-imperialism. The latter was of much closer proximity to China and thus was viewed as the more imminent danger...to China. Had they thought more about what the greater danger to the world overall was, they might have acted differently and in a more principled way. Anyhow, America happily obliged, thus, over the course of the 1970s and early '80s, wiping out the socialist camp (which, during this period, consisted of China, Albania, North Vietnam, and Democratic Kampuchea) indirectly by bringing the leader of the remaining socialist camp, China, on a certain level, into its camp. By 1986, there were no remaining socialist states on Earth and the U.S. had clearly regained the upper hand in the Cold War against its bourgeois rival, the USSR. Now began the fourth and final period of the Cold War: the capitulation of the Soviet Union to the United States.
So I just wanted to clarify that there were these complex twists and turns to the Cold War. China's rapprochement with the United States in the 1970s and '80s was likely the single most determining factor in the outcome. In that move, one-fourth of humanity lost the socialist system and went back to capitalism, in league with the world's top-dog oppressor: it's main purveyor of violence and exploitation. So I would tend to argue that the Cold War, as an anti-imperialist low-level war, was basically lost in 1971, when the decision was made by the Chinese government to meet with U.S. president Nixon and to oust the opponents of that meet from the People's Liberation Army, and thus from essential control of the state. We are only just now recovering ideologically from that disaster. With the (real) socialist camp out of the way, America found beating out its only significant imperialist rival, the Soviet Union, comparatively easy. As I think you might be able to see by now, my take on the nature of the Cold War differs quite a lot from the WWP's pro-Soviet account. My take is considerably more complex. But on the ultimate outcome of the Cold War, the defeat of the socialist camp generally (IMO completely) and the establishment of America as the sole remaining superpower, we agree.
Although yesterday I indicated general agreement with the Workers' World article with the exception of the portion under the heading "Working class enters anti-war movement", my position on one other part should be clarified as well:
During the first half of the 20th century, imperialist war was driven by inter-imperialist rivalry and struggles over which country would be able to loot the colonial peoples. During the latter part of the 20th century, war and the threat of war were driven by the struggle of imperialism against the socialist camp and the national liberation movements — the Cold War.
Now the permanent tendency of imperialism toward war and militarism is driven by the drive for reconquest of the territories lost in that period.
This part of the article is obviously key, as it addresses the historical record of the imperialist era of capitalism in very broad strokes. As indicated yesterday, I largely agree with the above quote, but my take on some aspects of the historical record might merit some clarification.
Following their correct summation of the period up through World War 2, Workers' World proceeds to lay out two distinctive periods that corresponded to actual U.S. government policies respectively called the Plan for the American Century (1947-1997) and the Plan for the New American Century (1997-present), which literally laid out/lay out (as applicable) strategies for world conquest. In the first of these post-WW2 periods, the U.S. won the basic victory, establishing itself as the sole surviving superpower. The second, current period is characterized by a drive to consolidate that victory by eliminating the phenomenon of "rogue states". All of this is correct. And yes, in the current period, all the imperialists are essentially united under American leadership against the remaining "rogue states" and those who seek to establish "rogue states".
However, this statement from the above quote..."During the latter part of the 20th century, war and the threat of war were driven by the struggle of imperialism against the socialist camp and the national liberation movements — the Cold War"....is somewhat a mischaracterization stemming from the WWP's persistent refusal to recognize that, for the most of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was not a socialist country, but a mighty imperialist power in its own right. The Cold War had a number of periods:
In the first period, which lasted roughly one decade (1945-55ish), the Soviet Union was still a socialist country and at the head of the socialist and anti-imperialist camp. For most of this period, tensions between the U.S. and the USSR were especially high and even spilled over into actual combat with each other in the Korean War. Tensions gradually cooled from 1951 on, as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin started considering the Korean War a stalemate and spent the next couple years negotiated a cease-fire. Then, after Stalin died and the Korean War ended in 1953, new Soviet leadership emerged at the top that was qualitatively more amenable to re-establishing diplomatic ties with the imperialists.
The second period began in 1956, when a new Soviet leader by the name of Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a "criminal" and jettisoned the previous view that an atomic/nuclear showdown between the socialist and capitalist camps was ultimately inevitable due to the belligerence of the latter, embracing instead a theory and policy of permanent "peaceful co-existence" with the imperialists. To rationalize this collaborative, anti-antagonistic policy, Khrushchev also put forward the theory of the "peaceful transition" into socialism, i.e. of the possibility of proletarian revolution without warfare. This policy shift on the USSR's part yielded a major split in the global anti-U.S. camp, led generally by socialist China. The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong's leadership argued that the Soviet leadership was now pointing that country away from the objective of world revolution and in the direction of rapprochement with the imperialists and that the accomplishment of said feat would be impossible unless they abandoned socialism. The abandonment of socialism, they contended, would be a precondition for diplomatic rapprochement with the imperialists under U.S. leadership. Thus, it was argued, Khrushchev was a revisionist: someone who, while claiming to be a Marxist and perhaps even believing themself one, takes up politics that are fundamentally irreconcilable with Marxism. In 1963, Khrushchev did indeed reorganize the Soviet economy along profit lines, thus effectively restoring capitalism under a system of broad state ownership. But try as he did, Khrushchev was never able to establish a close diplomatic relationship with the U.S., and the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev saw an opening through which to make imperialist inroads of the country's own against U.S. imperialism in the Vietnam War and other national liberation struggles. Thus began the third period of the Cold War in the mid-1960s.
Under Brezhnev's leadership, the USSR undertook an aggressive foreign policy, literally taking a large number of semi-colonies and conquering those states under its influence that sought to challenge that influence. Meanwhile, from the start of the second period, China had been seeking to establish its leadership of the Cold War against the imperialist camp led by the United States, recognizing that the Soviet Union wasn't seriously looking to finish the world proletarian revolution. China's Cultural Revolution period (1966-69) marked the height of this effort. But the Chinese Maoists had not initially fully recognized the distinction between the compromising yet still ultimately socialist state of affairs on the USSR's part during the second period of the Cold War and that of the country's aggressive, social-imperialist policies that began in earnest in this new, third period of the Cold War. By the time of the Cultural Revolution, there had been some recognition that the Soviet Union was now basically capitalist, but no clear-cut recognition as yet that it was actually a highly aggressive imperialist power. That recognition came in 1968 and '69, when the USSR invaded and subjugated Czechoslovakia and repeatedly attacked China. It also came out in 1969 that the Soviet Union had developed more extensive plans for a nuclear confrontation with China than it had for one with the United States. Now it was clear: the imperialist camp now definitely included the Soviet Union, and as an aggressive superpower in its own right. From that point on, China wrongly took up an opportunistic policy of establishing a united front with the USA against Soviet social-imperialism. The latter was of much closer proximity to China and thus was viewed as the more imminent danger...to China. Had they thought more about what the greater danger to the world overall was, they might have acted differently and in a more principled way. Anyhow, America happily obliged, thus, over the course of the 1970s and early '80s, wiping out the socialist camp (which, during this period, consisted of China, Albania, North Vietnam, and Democratic Kampuchea) indirectly by bringing the leader of the remaining socialist camp, China, on a certain level, into its camp. By 1986, there were no remaining socialist states on Earth and the U.S. had clearly regained the upper hand in the Cold War against its bourgeois rival, the USSR. Now began the fourth and final period of the Cold War: the capitulation of the Soviet Union to the United States.
So I just wanted to clarify that there were these complex twists and turns to the Cold War. China's rapprochement with the United States in the 1970s and '80s was likely the single most determining factor in the outcome. In that move, one-fourth of humanity lost the socialist system and went back to capitalism, in league with the world's top-dog oppressor: it's main purveyor of violence and exploitation. So I would tend to argue that the Cold War, as an anti-imperialist low-level war, was basically lost in 1971, when the decision was made by the Chinese government to meet with U.S. president Nixon and to oust the opponents of that meet from the People's Liberation Army, and thus from essential control of the state. We are only just now recovering ideologically from that disaster. With the (real) socialist camp out of the way, America found beating out its only significant imperialist rival, the Soviet Union, comparatively easy. As I think you might be able to see by now, my take on the nature of the Cold War differs quite a lot from the WWP's pro-Soviet account. My take is considerably more complex. But on the ultimate outcome of the Cold War, the defeat of the socialist camp generally (IMO completely) and the establishment of America as the sole remaining superpower, we agree.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Libya's "Civil" War in Perspective
I cannot resist re-posting a Workers' World article I recently ran across on the subject of Libya that really helps put things in perspective by focusing on the bigger picture within which this U.S.-led bombing and now apparently rebel-backing campaign is taking place. It's well worth reading. The reader may, however, disregard the final section under the heading "Working class enters anti-war movement" because it is nothing but a pack of First Worldist lies.
(Source: http://www.workers.org/2011/world/imperialist_reconquest_0331/)
See what I mean?
Well anyhow, let's briefly look at the the final section I advised the reader to disregard, such as to examine its basic flaws. The author rambles on about how the reconquest of Libya hurts Americans economically by way of tax drainage and "loss of vital social services". (Even Workers' World does not dare claim that there will be a substantial loss of American life.) Yes, I once believed the myth that imperialist war really hurts First world "workers" as well. It is forwarded by seemingly every revisionist organization in America. The purpose is to blur class distinctions between the general populations of the exploiter countries (like the United States) on the one hand and those of the exploited countries (like Libya) on the other and make the case that there is some sort of common interest between the exploited and oppressed on the one hand and their exploiters and oppressors on the other. What I have come to more thoroughly realize in recent months, however, is that this argument quite literally abolishes the labor aristocracy component of the law of uneven development. It separates imperialist conquest in the reader's mind from the logical consequences for Americans. Imperialist conquests occur for a reason. Everyone on the so-called radical left in America recognizes that the interests of the likes of the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and Canada in Libya have everything to do with increasing the profit margins of their respective oil giants. What they generally neglect to analyze, however, is how this increase in profit margins is realized on the domestic scene. It is realized through the suppression of price rises, and thus through increased consumption. Increased supply of oil lowers, or at least suppresses, the price thereof for its recipients in the First World.
When in the 1970s OPEC imposed an embargo on the sale of oil to countries supporting Israel (like the United States), oil prices soared in the First World as supplies diminished and, in some places, actually ran out. People had less money to spare as a result. Less money for governments to take in as tax revenue with which to fund lavish social services. There was general economic strain. Once supplication was resumed and oil production increased in the exporting countries, things stabilized again and the First World breathed a sigh of relief. This demonstrates how the theft of oil from the Third World is a key factor in Americans being able to drive around in their own private cars, for instance. It is just one small example of what I mean by how the First World populations benefit from the exploitation of the Third World. Imperialism is the method by which the loyalties of the First World population to the capitalist system are bought; the method by which relative social peace is achieved in the imperialist countries.
I believe this picture should adequately do the math for the reader.
Just wanted to clarify that point. And no, the Workers' World Party has by no means been consistently opposed to the imperialist campaign against Libya by the way. They have continually extended support to the various peace offerings...or, in other words, terms of partial surrender...that have been proposed for the government of Libya. Make no mistake: you cannot honestly claim to oppose this U.S.-led campaign of reconquest if you support the American/Western stooge regime in Benghazi that fully supports it and literally depends on it. (They depend on support from foreigners because they cannot find adequate support for their rebellion at home; because they are unpopular.) And you cannot honestly claim to oppose this imperialist reconquest of Libya if you refuse to support the actually existing resistance to it. Supporting the broad united front against imperialism in this context means advocating the complete defeat of the reactionary stooge regime in Benghazi and opposing acquiescence to any surrender terms, either complete or partial, on the part of the legitimate government of Libya: that of Muammar Gaddafi, who has recently claimed that he will no longer allow Western investment in Libya as a result of this direct attack on his country's sovereignty. The battle lines in Libya are clearly drawn. No one should still be under illusions about the desirability of the reactionary, pro-imperialist Libyan rebellion or about the desirability of peace with that clearly pro-imperialist side. As authentic communists, it is our duty to unequivocally support complete victory for the Libyan people and nothing less, not the policies of the U.S.-dominated UN or the comprador alliances around the world that support Western business interests, like the Arab League and the African Union.
And yes, complete victory for the Libyan people is possible, contrary to the claims of Workers' World, which measures military possibilities one-sidedly in terms of tanks and planes, not in terms of people power, of the spiritual atom bomb which the masses possess. The people of China historically rose up against and defeated a far "militarily superior" enemy in their popular war that established a socialist state. They did so by relying on the spirit of the people; on their hatred for being oppressed. Such is the key to victory here as well. However, this spirit can only be fully and consistently unleashed and directed along a socialist and communist path if it gains communist, that is Maoist-Third Worldist, leadership.
Libya and the era of imperialist reconquest
Published Mar 24, 2011 10:05 PMHowever the rebellion in Libya began, it was both inevitable and entirely predictable that it would quickly become an opening for imperialist intervention and counterrevolution in the oil-rich North African country.
The fact that the “rebellion” received sympathetic, screaming headlines, ferociously hostile to the government of Moammar Gadhafi from the very beginning, should have been sufficient to put the entire anti-imperialist movement on guard. The boiler-plate propaganda about “massacres,” without the slightest evidence, was repeated as if it were the gospel truth. That should have been further evidence of the plans for “great power” intervention (“great” in their oppression, as Vladimir Lenin pointed out long ago).
The condemnations were particularly hypocritical coming from the mouths of the same imperialist powers that have been massacring oppressed people on every continent since the dawn of colonialism — from the slave trade in Africa to the cruelty of conquistadors in South America, the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the U.S., the colonization of India, up to the present-day campaigns against the Palestinians in Gaza, Predator drone massacres of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to say nothing of the wholesale destruction of Iraqi society and the attendant mass killing of civilians.
There have been numerous rebellions and many documented massacres of unarmed civilians in recent months that have not spurred military action by the imperialist powers. Is it even conceivable that Washington would lobby or arm-twist the Arab League to provide a figleaf for U.S. intervention in support of protesters in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Jordan? No, because these have been genuine rebellions against autocratic regimes backed by the White House and the Pentagon.
There have been no campaigns to get U.N. Security Council resolutions authorizing military action in any of these countries. No aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, missile ships, AWACS planes, spy satellites, etc., moved into position to support these genuine popular uprisings against moth-eaten reactionary monarchies that guard the interests of the U.S. and Western oil companies, as well as the strategic position of the Pentagon in the Persian Gulf region.
Bush, Obama & ‘regime change’
The fact is that the Obama administration, the British and the French have de facto put Libya on the “axis of evil” list started by George W. Bush in his infamous 2002 State of the Union speech, where he singled out Iraq, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as targets for “regime change.” That is what “Gadhafi must go” means.
What these three countries have in common is that they all threw imperialism out of their countries during the rise of the socialist camp and the national liberation movements after World War II. They were part of a global movement that fought to establish economic and political independence from transnational banks, corporations and the Pentagon.
Libya falls directly into that category, having overthrown puppet King Idris and ousted imperialism in 1969 under the leadership of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. The Libyan revolution, like the revolutions in Iraq in 1958 and Iran in 1979, also nationalized Western-owned oil companies and shut down imperialist military bases. The fact that Gadhafi shifted toward the West later, opening up to oil companies and imposing International Monetary Fund-dictated austerity programs, is not enough to satisfy the voracious appetite of the corporations for profit. They want to take the whole country — lock, stock and barrel.
Libya & the era of reconquest
The invasion of Libya is part of a long-term trend on the part of the imperialist countries that began with the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe from 1989 to 1991. That trend is to reconquer territories and riches lost during the 20th-century rise of the socialist camp and the national liberation movements.
That is what the intervention in Libya is about. That is what the two wars in Iraq were about. And that is what the permanent threats to Iran and North Korea are about, not to mention the permanent blockade of Cuba, the military encirclement of China and the attempt to destroy the government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
In other words, the right to national sovereignty, self-determination and self-defense of formerly oppressed countries is obsolete, according to the doctrine of the New World Order.
The mad adventure in Libya, led by Washington and supported by Britain and France, shows once again that war and militarism are an integral feature of imperialism and of the monopoly-capitalist system upon which it rests.
During the first half of the 20th century, imperialist war was driven by inter-imperialist rivalry and struggles over which country would be able to loot the colonial peoples. During the latter part of the 20th century, war and the threat of war were driven by the struggle of imperialism against the socialist camp and the national liberation movements — the Cold War.
Now the permanent tendency of imperialism toward war and militarism is driven by the drive for reconquest of the territories lost in that period.
Imperialism & permanent war
U.S. imperialism now has two wars and a major post-war occupation going on simultaneously — in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. It has made northeastern Pakistan a free-fire zone for predator drones. Since the collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe in 1989-1991, it has launched five wars of conquest — in Iraq twice, in Yugoslavia in 1999. in Afghanistan in 2001, and now in Libya.
It has threatened two other wars — one against Iran and the other against People’s Korea. U.S. troops have been at war continuously for the last decade.
Washington has five aircraft carriers, each accompanied by a flotilla of 10 destroyers, frigates and other warships in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea surrounding Libya. The French and the Italian imperialists each have a carrier in the area as well.
The entire imperialist world, with a combined gross domestic product of more than $20 trillion, a combined population of close to a billion people, and a combined military machine worth at least $2 trillion is bearing down on Libya — an underdeveloped, formerly colonized country of 6 million people with an economy of some $40 billion that is without the capability to defend itself militarily against the juggernaut facing it.
The French and the British capitalist governments were clamoring for a no-fly zone as a pretext for intervention and to guard their oil interests. But it was not until Washington got behind the effort, forcing the Arab League and the U.N. Security Council to go along and moving its military flotilla and air force into position, that the attack could begin.
Working class enters anti-war movement
These wars have cost trillions of dollars. They are eroding the economic foundation of U.S. capitalist society and imposing a huge cost upon the workers, the poor and the oppressed who pay for the wars, both with their tax money and with the loss of vital social services.
This plunge into a new war comes in the midst of a profound economic crisis, a jobless recovery, growing mass unemployment and a budding rebellion of the working class, which has shown itself in the Wisconsin struggle against union busting and austerity budgets.
On March 19 a mass anti-war march took place in Madison, Wis., that was attended by thousands of unionists and their supporters in a joint effort with the anti-war movement. This is a step forward in the U.S. in the direction of giving the anti-war movement a working-class character.
As the wars multiply and the attacks on the workers grow more severe, a genuine working-class rebellion against imperialist war will come onto the agenda. The working class is the only class that can put an end to imperialist war.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
(Source: http://www.workers.org/2011/world/imperialist_reconquest_0331/)
See what I mean?
Well anyhow, let's briefly look at the the final section I advised the reader to disregard, such as to examine its basic flaws. The author rambles on about how the reconquest of Libya hurts Americans economically by way of tax drainage and "loss of vital social services". (Even Workers' World does not dare claim that there will be a substantial loss of American life.) Yes, I once believed the myth that imperialist war really hurts First world "workers" as well. It is forwarded by seemingly every revisionist organization in America. The purpose is to blur class distinctions between the general populations of the exploiter countries (like the United States) on the one hand and those of the exploited countries (like Libya) on the other and make the case that there is some sort of common interest between the exploited and oppressed on the one hand and their exploiters and oppressors on the other. What I have come to more thoroughly realize in recent months, however, is that this argument quite literally abolishes the labor aristocracy component of the law of uneven development. It separates imperialist conquest in the reader's mind from the logical consequences for Americans. Imperialist conquests occur for a reason. Everyone on the so-called radical left in America recognizes that the interests of the likes of the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and Canada in Libya have everything to do with increasing the profit margins of their respective oil giants. What they generally neglect to analyze, however, is how this increase in profit margins is realized on the domestic scene. It is realized through the suppression of price rises, and thus through increased consumption. Increased supply of oil lowers, or at least suppresses, the price thereof for its recipients in the First World.
When in the 1970s OPEC imposed an embargo on the sale of oil to countries supporting Israel (like the United States), oil prices soared in the First World as supplies diminished and, in some places, actually ran out. People had less money to spare as a result. Less money for governments to take in as tax revenue with which to fund lavish social services. There was general economic strain. Once supplication was resumed and oil production increased in the exporting countries, things stabilized again and the First World breathed a sigh of relief. This demonstrates how the theft of oil from the Third World is a key factor in Americans being able to drive around in their own private cars, for instance. It is just one small example of what I mean by how the First World populations benefit from the exploitation of the Third World. Imperialism is the method by which the loyalties of the First World population to the capitalist system are bought; the method by which relative social peace is achieved in the imperialist countries.
I believe this picture should adequately do the math for the reader.
Just wanted to clarify that point. And no, the Workers' World Party has by no means been consistently opposed to the imperialist campaign against Libya by the way. They have continually extended support to the various peace offerings...or, in other words, terms of partial surrender...that have been proposed for the government of Libya. Make no mistake: you cannot honestly claim to oppose this U.S.-led campaign of reconquest if you support the American/Western stooge regime in Benghazi that fully supports it and literally depends on it. (They depend on support from foreigners because they cannot find adequate support for their rebellion at home; because they are unpopular.) And you cannot honestly claim to oppose this imperialist reconquest of Libya if you refuse to support the actually existing resistance to it. Supporting the broad united front against imperialism in this context means advocating the complete defeat of the reactionary stooge regime in Benghazi and opposing acquiescence to any surrender terms, either complete or partial, on the part of the legitimate government of Libya: that of Muammar Gaddafi, who has recently claimed that he will no longer allow Western investment in Libya as a result of this direct attack on his country's sovereignty. The battle lines in Libya are clearly drawn. No one should still be under illusions about the desirability of the reactionary, pro-imperialist Libyan rebellion or about the desirability of peace with that clearly pro-imperialist side. As authentic communists, it is our duty to unequivocally support complete victory for the Libyan people and nothing less, not the policies of the U.S.-dominated UN or the comprador alliances around the world that support Western business interests, like the Arab League and the African Union.
And yes, complete victory for the Libyan people is possible, contrary to the claims of Workers' World, which measures military possibilities one-sidedly in terms of tanks and planes, not in terms of people power, of the spiritual atom bomb which the masses possess. The people of China historically rose up against and defeated a far "militarily superior" enemy in their popular war that established a socialist state. They did so by relying on the spirit of the people; on their hatred for being oppressed. Such is the key to victory here as well. However, this spirit can only be fully and consistently unleashed and directed along a socialist and communist path if it gains communist, that is Maoist-Third Worldist, leadership.
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