– N. Ribar –
“To endure the global struggle between the superpowers is bad. To live under total hegemonic domination by one of them is worse.”
Fidel Castro, September 2, 1998, Speech at a Summit Meeting of the Non-Aligned Nations Movement in Durdan, South Africa.
The question of multipolarity is one of the most pressing for oppressed peoples worldwide in opening the path to the progress of society, for the movements of social and national liberation. Will this path provide salvation? Will it finally free the neo-colonial countries? Will it end the grip of capital and its insatiable drive for markets and spheres of influence? The question has even been raised as to whether or not this will end the imperialist system itself by ending the hegemony of the U.S. The answer to these questions is, quite presumably, no. But this does not mean it should not be examined closely and seriously, it does not mean it should be discounted. Indeed, it represents an objective trend of our time, a time in which more and more countries are coming out in open opposition to the policies of U.S. imperialism. It cannot be otherwise. Russia’s actions since their so-called “special military operation” one year ago prove that they are, in fact, capable of functioning without the U.S. and its international financial institutions. For the first time since 1989-91, a power has proven that it does not need to rely on American imperialism. But whether the U.S. is capable of functioning without Russia is a question that remains to be answered. First, however, a brief history must be given up to the present.
The world of neoliberal globalization, properly referred to as an anti-social offensive, came into being as a result of two main processes: 1. the end of Keynesian economics with its crisis in the oil industry and the end of the gold backing of the dollar previously agreed upon at Bretton Woods, 2. the fall of the Soviet Union and that bloc which constituted the second half of the two superpowers that strove for the domination of the world.
1984-85 was the turning point — after the crisis of Keynesianism, the U.S. was well on its way to weaponizing its “Washington Consensus” (the agreement on all international financial policy between the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and U.S. Treasury) and veto powers in the IMF and WB, the former always chaired by a European and the latter always chaired by an American, to destabilize countries which had taken out loans from international institutions. It did so through structural adjustment programs, or SAPs, which tied loans together with a policy of mass privatization of state-owned industry. In the Soviet Union during the same period, Gorbachov came forward as General Secretary of the CPSU and began to usher in his famous liberalizing reforms, glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). This, of course, was only possible due to the massive degeneration that had occurred since the death of Stalin in 1953 and especially after Khrushchov’s 20th Congress of the CPSU — instead of rapid economic progress, they had stagnation; instead of democratic centralism, they had bureaucratic centralism; instead of the economic law of balanced development, they had a reinstituted anarchy of production. These were the conditions which prepared the spawn of Gorbachov to overthrow the whole facade.
The Soviet world was on its way to the fantastic collapse which the American bourgeoisie had been dreaming of since the day the Soviet Army held their flag of victory above the Reichstag in Berlin — to strangle that opposing bloc when it was socialist especially but also when it was revisionist. In 1989-91, one by one the Eastern European countries fell to movements of the people who were hoodwinked and co-opted by U.S. imperialism and its agents. Yugoslavia descended into civil war and nationalist chauvinism for its 23 million people. Albania’s working people elected the Party of Labour of Albania to continue the socialist system and then had that system anti-democratically couped from above. And as its final act, the Soviet Union itself was dissolved by Yeltsin and the leaders of the other republics into the independent countries that still stand today.
The results were perhaps the most disastrous that any ruling system has ever imposed on the people. Capitalism and its “shock therapy” programs which were said to bring prosperity to the Eastern Bloc failed on a grand scale. They only ended up bringing poverty, misery and ruin to the hundreds of millions of working people effected. I have already mentioned Yugoslavia in this regard. Almost overnight, despite the protest of millions, their country and the livelihood they had built vanished. Eventually, NATO would even go as far as bombing Serbia and Kosovo, a tragic event which has caused irreversible damage to Serbians, Montenegrins and Albanians through the use of depleted uranium. It is prudent, in light of today’s events concerning Russia, to take an even closer examination of the results of the anti-social offensive in that country. Indeed, it contains the kernel of Russia’s opposition to the U.S. to this very day.
Despite anything one might say about the policies of the Russian Federation, one thing is for certain — Russians are very justified in looking upon the sole superpower of the day with contempt. The ruble was devalued multiple times, leaving the people’s savings and future decimated. The life expectancy declined by about 10 years by the end of the 1990s, with a dystopian total of 58 years for males. Many women and girls, as young as 13 years of age, were forced into prostitution. Thousands of banks were set up by U.S.-backed oligarchs which subsequently declared bankruptcy and defrauded millions of their bank deposits. Russia’s national debt skyrocketed into the hundreds of billions of dollars with no feasible route to repayment. Suicide rates increased drastically with immense economic hardship. NATO pushed up to the borders of Russia in the Baltic countries and was already pursuing the integration of Ukraine. This list of facts Russians know all too well can go on and on and on. But the point is clear — Russians do remember that time period and who imposed those conditions on them by force. From it sprung the seeds of “de-globalization.”
But the thirdworldization of Eastern Europe does not mean globalization itself is an unnatural phenomenon that the U.S. imposed defying reality. On the contrary. The internationalization of the division of labour is an objective law in the further centralization of capital that has been necessitated by this specific historical mode of production. Globalization and the neo-liberal anti-social offensive came about primarily, as noted, by the objective crisis of Keynesianism. It was not an act of an evil gang usurping the power of the previously gracious IMF and WB and imposing restructuring on the world — it was inevitable. We communists do not deny that present-day economics were objective reflections of the sole road to prosperity for the bourgeois class. We rather reject the whole ensemble of relations which have become moribund, the mass poverty and the excesses caused by this further and further centralization of capital into the dictate of one country and its imperialist monopoly capitalists. Unfortunately, this attack for decades meant the concentration of all the weapons of the bourgeoisie, subordinated to one dictate, against the people and first of all the working class.
In the same way as the rotting Soviet revisionist system became unable to maintain its pseudo-socialist facade, globalization has today become the reflection of decaying capitalist relations. Today multipolarity, which some might refer to as “de-globalization,” is what is new and growing within the capitalist system. To understand this it takes going back to Marx and Lenin, those great scientists of society who discovered the fundamental laws of bourgeois relations.
Marx discovered the specific law of motion of capitalist society, the law of surplus value, commonly referred to as profit. This is not the place to go into detail on this theory. But it should, at the minimum, be mentioned that the monopolies of today have but one motive — maximum profit. They have only this incentive and no others. Capital, only in order to maintain itself, needs a vast accumulation of profits to reinvest in the instruments of production, new technology, increases in productivity, etc. These capital investments become so large and on so great a scale that small- and medium-sized businesses simply do not have the capital to catch up with the newest innovations to lower their expenses. Thus, in the rule of monopolies, they lose out in competition. Therefore, in the competition between enterprises, allowing one enterprise to have a certain control of the market here and there, while others may have some elsewhere, is antithetical to the nature of maximum profit — daily and hourly even the monopolies are merged, consolidated into ever fewer hands until you have single monopolies that control everything. In this way, the middle strata, the petty-bourgeoisie, is decimated just as Marx predicted and the polarization of wealth between rich and poor becomes so stark it cannot be ignored. This is the goal of the “business,” led by oligarchs who we refer to as “entrepreneurs” — the drive for surplus value, maximum profit at the expense of all else, even to the detriment of humanity and the environment.
Lenin’s discovery in his tremendous book on imperialism revealed new key processes which Marx could not have discovered owing to the historical time period of the latter’s work. Lenin worked and led the Bolsheviks to revolution in the epoch of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. These conditions were clear to all alive during the period of the First World War — all the spheres of the earth had been divided between various imperialist powers. Thus all of the profits of the emerging monopolies of various countries had stagnated owing to a lack of capturing new markets. The specific law of motion of capitalist society, discovered by Marx, was now hindered by the vast expansion of capitalist exploitation, now universally on every land and every shore (this is not to say that some countries were not living in pre-capitalism, but rather that capitalist imperialism had control of markets everywhere, including those backwards countries). So what were the monopolies that controlled the nation-state to do? Simply, it was to go to war for the re-division of spheres of influence and markets. And such a re-division was carried out in what was then known as the “Great War,” World War One. Though a “cold” war, the same was done with the collapse of the Soviet camp in 1989-91. Monopolies became the nation, they fought each other for the re-division of spheres of influence and markets, subjugating the rest.
Although I used the First World War and the Cold War as particular examples, it is of note that today we are living under a different particularity. Lenin also discovered that the emergence of multiple powers in capitalist imperialism is inevitable — as long as there is a bourgeoisie, no matter how small, in one country they are positioned systematically to assert themselves as the nation through the aforementioned profit-seeking and then go on to assert themselves on the world of scale. The events in 1989-91 created a particular situation not known before, where U.S. imperialism became the sole superpower with domination over all international financial institutions that governed the world economy. Thus its particularity has fostered their attempts to prevent the emergence of new powers. And due to this struggle of the new emergent powers, they do not at present require the destruction of the U.S. like the end of the bi-polar division of the world did of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc — the U.S. may very well continue along in its current form as new camps emerge, and as long as its bourgeoisie rules and imperializes others, this is certain to be the case.
Let us take Russia today as an example: after the ruinous U.S.-imposed policies of the 1990s, there has been a relative rebound in the productive forces of that country, in resource extraction, industry, science and technology, etc. Many of those categories in which Russia was devastated have recovered to Soviet levels and many even higher. No longer do the vast majority have to endure starvation. It has had now a period of multiple decades of focussing on internal capital accumulation, and it is precisely that in which U.S. imperialism has viewed as a great danger to their world domination. And not only Russia but other countries such as China are proceeding on such a road that an enormous propaganda campaign is being whipped up already to demonize them. To a lesser extent, some of the BRICS countries and their allies have also begun on this road of internal capital accumulation.
What do the BRICS advocates for a multipolar order claim it to be anyway? Well, it depends certainly on who you would ask, but all would agree to the basic idea that the present unipolar order is unjust and power in the UN and other international institutions needs to be redistributed not according to the dictate of one country, of its so-called rules-based international order that everyone else has to follow and they don’t, but according to the interests of each region. Many say it would bring equality and a true right to sovereignty to many of the countries plundered by U.S. imperialism. This is the aspiration of a group of capitalists that at present have very little control outside of their own countries.
In this vein, the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) has taken up the tasks of co-ordinating economic activity between Eurasian countries with these aspirations. Last September in Vladivostok the Eastern Economic Forum was held with the goal of asserting that no longer will Eurasia serve as a stepping stone or a tool for imperialism, as well as creating a dialogue between Eurasian countries to actively reduce their dependence on the U.S. and its institutions. While the old anti-social order still holds, we see the new multipolar already coming into being.
One major difference between these forms and the forms of the United States is that the latter is actively subjugating Europe through the NATO pact. As is known, it was founded to subjugate Western Europe, i.e. prevent communists from coming to power and retain U.S. spheres of influence, since expanding to all of Europe. The obviousness in this game of stick and carrot has been almost deafening over the past year. Prior to Russia’s involvement in the war in Ukraine, Germany was defying U.S. policy demonizing Russia by relying on it for much of its oil and gas. Even after February 2022, Germany, while condemning Russia’s actions, did not immediately cut off all oil and gas, showing a hesitancy to stand behind the U.S. policy of refusing to negotiate for a settlement to the conflict. What happened? We can most certainly tell that, like magic, after the Nordstream-2 pipeline was blown up (likely by the U.S. and NATO) Germany has changed its tune, now lining up just like the other NATO countries. “Coincidentally,” they are now dependent on the U.S. for the same resources it once received from Russia. This domination is what represents NATO, this is what it was created for. This is how it acts in general even with non-member states. The emergent powers have no such organization, even the SCO has no mechanism for subjugating its member states and its rhetoric is not inflammatory in the slightest, as opposed to the constant war provocations by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Of course, these are objectively capitalist countries, but that is not to say as some do that we must join in the imperialist chorus of shouting that they are evil for exploiting their workers and so on. On the contrary, people and entities are known to create conditions for the progress of society in spite of themselves. Capitalist society itself, by building up its productive forces to a social division of labour and holding back the development of matching social relations, leads the road to the leap towards new relations. This is what is known in dialectics as the evolutionary leap. This cannot be stressed enough — capitalist society itself generates the conditions for social revolution.
So the cat is out of the bag with Russia and the imperialist forces are panicking. As we have discovered, Russia’s economy is now tremendously stable even after being hit with some of the most severe sanctions ever placed on a country. While in the U.S. and Western countries, the cost of living has skyrocketed to a point where inflation on food alone is putting people into destitution and destroying any chance at retirement or a life’s savings. Europe in particular has been devastated — with the lessening of importing Russian oil and gas, they have found affordable substitutions hard to come by. Pipelines to Russia are blown to smithereens and Europe has become dependent on American LNG which is extraordinarily expensive to ship across the Atlantic Ocean. One thing is clear to the whole world through all of this — this present is not sustainable. We are living in a massive crisis which capitalism and only capitalism has brought upon the world. Marx’s specific law of motion of capitalism stipulates that capitalist society proceeds by way of crises where social productive forces conflict with the private appropriation of surplus value on the old capitalist relations. In such strenuous times, where the bourgeoisie always must worry about its fate, new solutions are put forward as the task of the day.
Cannot it then be the case that certain capitalist forces, exacerbating the contradictions and crises of capitalism by expressing its future multipolar order, the objective law of the emergence of multiple powers as Lenin discovered, are in spite of themselves asserting the right of the new social order to be? This is not yet the new social order but it facilitates the conditions for its emergence. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated at the same Eastern Economic Forum event that multipolarity is an inevitability, an objective process whether or not the arrogant imperialists put their rubber stamp on it. This, of course, contains in it the kernel of truth, even if it is seen through the Russian bourgeoisie’s narrow lens.
We now see clearly the objective forces put into motion by the emerging multipolar order that is beneficial for the proletariat and peoples worldwide in their struggle for emancipation. But we are not lifeless subjects, our subjective forces must be put into motion to realize our destiny, our historical role provided by the objective conditions. When the anti-social offensive came into being, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) launched its Historic Initiative to transform itself into a mass communist party. Then Comrade Hardial Bains said the objective conditions would not transform themselves in our favour, that only the struggle of the proletariat and oppressed peoples in organizing themselves subjectively can do that. This statement is still true. We should have no illusion — the Canadian bourgeoisie will not be traversing this path of multipolarity, it will simply be a fellow-traveller of the U.S. in exporting vast natural resources to them and many of the anti-social policies will remain in place. Indeed, we know this is true, for the world can never go back to Keynesianism. That era is dead. So the subjective factor, the enlightenment and organization of the working people, is today just as important as the objective factor.
But what can we do? One of the main things that can be done is the exploitation of contradictions. Some believed that the end of the Soviet Union would be beneficial for the “left” in Western countries because finally we could focus on our own problems and not demonize some foreign country. This proved to be faulty logic, as enemies were still found whether Milošević, Saddam Hussein or, today, Putin. On the contrary, the stronger the “official enemy,” the more paths open to power and the flow of revolution. Opposing the war preparations against said “official enemy” becomes a key component for arousing the people, and it does so very successfully. More and more, our “own” bourgeoisie cannot singularly target the peoples; it also has to worry about some other power. And if, or when, our countries decide to collectively attack Russia and China, this would bring up even broader avenues for change. Our economies took a large hit with the loss of the Russian trading partner, imagine losing the impending largest economy in the world. They would simply crumble under the pressure of the greatest crisis known to these lands. This is not to cheer on such a dreadful humanitarian situation, only to state what is true in objective processes.
Another process as a result of multipolarity emerging in the light for the first time is de-dollarization, something which will have a tremendous impact on the world. The U.S. control of currency was used to coerce many countries into following its dictate. Most famously, Albania, which had barter traded with various countries of West and East Europe as well as the rest of the world for decades, was told in an instant that it needed U.S. dollars to trade with anyone in 1990. They had little choice but to open up the country to foreign capital, as they eventually did, but this crushed the economy and no doubt was a factor in capitalist restoration. For us, today, de-dollarization will also allow many countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, capitalist or socialist, to pursue independent paths by utilizing various currencies, the yuan, ruble and others as they need. The prominence of the U.S. dollar as a method of subjugation of smaller nations, through the predatory IMF and WB, which gives loans and “aid” in the dollar, would be finished.
And because we are internationalists, we cannot forget about those countries where the working class has firmly established and is consolidating its power. Imagine the outstanding impacts of multipolarity on Cuba and the DPRK, among others! The blockade of Cuba, whereby any enterprise that does business with the U.S. is banned from dealing in Cuba, would be finished as a result of new economies independent of U.S. imperialism’s grasp. Even though the blockade would still be in place with all its genocidal intentions of starvation contrary to the Geneva Conventions, its impacts would be greatly lessened. New relationships would be able to be pursued with many different countries, specifically in economics, which were previously impossible due to imperialist blackmail. For example, most certainly they would be able to gain access to more medicines, of which the U.S. imperialists criminally deprive them in one of their many crimes against humanity. The DPRK, which has been placed under savage sanctions almost universally for exercising its right to self-defence and sovereignty through pursuing nuclear weapons, will also finally be able to develop its connections with other countries freely. China and Russia, emboldened by a newly found independence, have already vetoed more sanctions on the small country existing amidst a sea of other countries which do not want it to exist. It will finally be able to operate in a situation where it won’t feel constant pressure. Such changes would actually create the conditions for greater discussions on non-proliferation treaties and other reductions in armaments. Of note in this regard is the fact that the U.S. criminally and baselessly has Cuba and the DPRK on the list of states sponsoring terrorism. This, too, would lose any sort of legitimacy. These are only some of the great benefits the ripening objective situation will bring to these two countries.
One can definitively say that the conditions for opening the path to the progress of society will ripen with the emerging system of multipolarity. No matter how much the U.S. imperialists and their lapdogs want to hold it back, it is happening outside of and in spite of their will. That is why they have raised the rabid clamour about Russia today. Because the Russia of today will be the China of tomorrow, and so on for many countries of the world. Not in the sense of declaring wars, but rather in their basic economic independence. This will most certainly ripen the conditions for revolution.
However, in the final sense, everything depends on the proletariat and the oppressed peoples, their unity, organizing themselves under a broad front and into their Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. Multipolarity will not be a saviour, not in any fashion. It can and must be used as a tool for furthering our progress and turning ebb into flow. These problems cannot be resolved by themselves, but only consciously, only with steel-like determination and a sense that bourgeois society as a system is in decay. While one form may seem more youthful than another, this is only temporary, for everything is temporary and relative, meaning contingent on social conditions. And those social conditions reveal what has been relevant for a very long period of time — only the resolution of the contradiction between the social productive forces and private ownership of the means of production can push us beyond the block in human development we all face today. Of the evolutionary leap, we have the evolution, the slowly rising quantitative conditions, but now we need the leap, the great transformation in quality — as Marx described in his Capital what will occur and has occurred in many places: “Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.”