Volume 1, No. 3, May 2000

People of the world entered a new millennium when deprivation, destitution and joblessness stalk the entire world. The plight of the vast majority of the world population is becoming more and more deplorable as the imperialist forces are continuing to shift the burden of their crisis onto the shoulders of the toiling masses world wide. People are becoming restive and they are expressing their resentment in various forms. More and more people throughout the world are coming to the streets to oppose imperialist plunder, subjugation and repression.

Amidst this precarious condition of the people the sycophants of the imperialist forces have been trying to placate the people depicting rosy pictures of the future. In their 1998 special issue, the editors of ‘Business Week’ wrote, "Revolutionary technology and rapid globalisation ... will send productivity soaring, allowing faster growth with low inflation and modest unemployment. This dynamic could last for decades, bringing unimagined prosperity world wide." This is nothing new. At the end of second world war the capitalist ideologues created so many illusions and myths about the imperialist system. But all those fairy tales about the prosperity of the imperialist system of post-World War II have ended in smoke. The stark reality has shattered those illusions. All measures adopted to iron out the crises of the capitalist system have backfired. The capitalist system in its imperialist stage has been passing through crises inexorably and this time it is an unprecedented one, since World War II. The depth of the current crisis can well be realised if one takes into account the scale of international indebtedness which is continuing to increase by 8-10 per cent per annum. World manufacturing capacity utilisation rates hover around 70-75 per cent. The real wage is declining. The most characteristic phenomenon is the immense growth of speculative capital. The average growth rate in G.D.P. after ’74 for the advanced capitalist countries came down to half, and this declined further in the ’80s. In the second half of the ’90s the G.D.P. growth rate in Europe has been below 3 per cent. Unemployment rates have been above 10 per cent since the ’80s. The world capitalist economy in the ’90s has been marked by poor rates of growth in output productivity, with average incomes and higher rates of unemployment. The vast majority of the people who are outside these core areas of the world economy have experienced more adverse economic conditions due to declining living standards, ever increasing social inequality and pauperization of large sections of the population. The above picture veritably proves the lie to the promises made by the bourgeois economists, particularly at the end of World War II. Keyenes was the most prominent and influential of them. During the thirties soaring unemployment, poverty and deprivation in the centres of world capitalism negated the promises of full employment equilibrium which was so long peddled by the apologists of imperialism. Keyenes admitted that capitalism is not a self-correcting system, assuring full utilisation of resources. He put his main efforts onto the question of the creation of purchasing power and pleaded for increased spending on investments, public works, defence, etc., in order to gear up the productive machine of capitalism. This was widely accepted and implemented. For the period from the beginning of the ’50s to the mid ’60s, the war-devastated economies of the imperialist countries improved. So it was believed that the capitalist system, regulated according to this prescription, could continue indefinitely without any major failure due to its internal contradictions. But from the last half of the ’60s the world capitalist system had to face crises repeatedly and this Keyenesian prescription failed to forestall the anarchy and crisis of the system. From the first half of the ’70s new measures were adopted. But instead of solving those problems the measures helped aggravate the situation, and even created some additional complexities.

Since World War II, which itself was a product of crisis, the imperialist economy had to overcome a number of recessions. Every one of those recessions was more severe and complex than the previous one. The recoveries which were achieved not only failed to resolve the growing structural problems like lower rates of productivity and ever-increasing rate of unemployment, but also generated new problems like the emergence of widely fluctuating exchange rates in place of fixed exchange rates in 1973, increase in credit and interest rate in the ’70s and the consequent debt crisis of the developing countries in 1982. The measures adopted to overcome the crisis further strengthened the tendency towards concentration and centralisation of capital. Thus emerged a few mega industrial service and financial TNCs. At present international finance is controlled from three dominant financial centres in London, New York and Tokyo by a few international financial moguls. The parasitic character of monopoly capitalism, that is, imperialism, is now very conspicuous. Even then, with great tenacity, the brazen-faced bourgeois ideologues are trying to befool the people describing the capitalist system as the only alternative before mankind. But history tells a different story. The world people have already come across a higher system, that is, the socialist system under the leadership of Communist parties led by Lenin, Stalin and Mao. People of Russia, China and other socialist countries in those days never faced any economic crisis which deprived them of their basic needs and fettered the development of productive forces. After the setback, these countries transformed into bureaucrat capitalist countries, became a part of the world imperialist system and got bogged down in deep crisis.

Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and it is not a trans-historical system. In this stage of capitalism the contradiction between the productive forces and the relation of production is getting more and more intensified. Production has become socialised, but the private property relations are unable to ensure full utilisation of this socialised production. Analysing the imperialist stage of capitalism, Lenin asserted "We have socialisation of production and not mere interlocking; that private economic and private property relations constitute a shell which no longer fits its contents, a shell which must inevitably decay if its removal is artificially delayed, a shell which may remain in a state of decay for a fairly long period (if at the worst, the cure of the opportunist abscess is protracted) but which will inevitably be removed." The contradiction between the increasing socialisation of production and private appropriation is getting more and more acute and the ever deepening crises are the reflections of this contradiction. Capitalist imperialism is moribund capitalism and it can not utilise the productive forces. So the working class, the most revolutionary factor of the productive forces, have long been fighting for new relations of production in a higher relation of production which can only be achieved by overthrowing imperialism. Thus with the advent of imperialism the era of transition from capitalism to socialism has begun. Since the beginning of the 20th century this struggle for a higher system has been continuing through various ups and downs, twists and turns indicating it is an era of proletarian revolution.

Imperialism means continuation of the colonial policies giving rise to various forms of state dependence, intensification of national oppression, ruthless exploitation, suppression and plunder and war (i.e., regional war, proxy war and world war) for the re-division of markets among the imperialist forces. So, countries fight for real independence; nations struggle for the right to self-determination; and people, led by proletariat, struggle for revolution. The history of the 20th century clearly indicate all this. It was the working class who played the most important role to fight back imperialism. In the early 20th century the workers in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Belgium and other countries launched strike movements to fight back the intensified oppression and exploitation of the imperialists. In the course of these struggles the revolutionary trend in the international working class movement got strengthened. At the beginning of the 20th century the inter-imperialist contradictions also became acute. All the imperialist forces were trying to capture new markets to further their exploitation. In 1914 the first World War began for the re-division of world markets. This imperialist war added still more distress to the workers and the people. The working class raised their voice against war and the criminal policies adopted by the bourgeois governments. In Russia the revolutionary movement of the working class was gaining strength rapidly under the leadership of the Bolshevik party. The Bolshevik party guided the working class, by following the revolutionary theory, strategy and tactics developed by Lenin for the new epoch and accomplished the Socialist Revolution. This ushered in a new era in the history of mankind. The establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat consolidated the revolutionary working class worldwide. Under the impact of this victorious socialist revolution in every capitalist country, the revolutionary movement developed. The Finnish workers established their power on 28 January 1918. In October 1918, a bourgeois-democratic revolution in Austria-Hungary led to the formation of several independent states. In November 1918, the bourgeois-democratic revolution began in Germany. In December 1918, the proletariat established their power in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The Hungarian Soviet Republic was formed on 21, March 1919. In April 1919, the Bavarian Soviet Republic was established and in July 1920, soviet power was formed in Poland. However, these revolutions were defeated as the subjective factor of the revolution was weak in most of those countries. The communist parties in those countries were just taking shape. The world imperialist forces took advantage and suppressed those revolutions ruthlessly. Inspite of these set-backs, the experience of these revolutions is helpful for the international revolutionary movement. Ever after World War I, the working class along with other toiling masses launched, one after another, massive movements displaying their militancy and determination in every capitalist country which compelled the governments to concede their demands, particularly that of the 8-hour working day. In this period not only the working class and other toiling masses of the capitalist countries, but also the anti-imperialist forces of the colonial world rose against imperialism and organised national liberation movements. After October 1917, national liberation movements/revolutions swept across nearly all countries in Asia and Africa.

Since the latter half of 1929, the capitalist economy again had to face a crisis. This time it lasted until the end of 1933. Even after that, there was no recovery. A period of stagnation prevailed. Then, once again a new economic crisis began in the second half of 1937. As a result, the contradiction between the imperialist countries became more acute and the people of the world had to experience World War II, which exposed once again the real character of the imperialist forces, along with the unprecedented fascist brutality. It was the working class parties, their international organisation, the third International, and overall, the Soveit Union that saved mankind from the fascist onslaught. The people of the USSR led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) fought heroic battles and sacrificed their lives to defeat the fascist forces. Throughout the world the Anti-fascist United Front was formed which organised and developed mighty anti-fascist and anti-imperialist movements world-wide. In China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) under the leadership of Mao developed revolutionary people’s war, established base areas, developed the Anti-fascist United Front and resisted Japanese aggression. The people of Korea, Malaya, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines also waged armed struggles against Japanese aggression and defeated the aggressor. During this period the communist parties and other democratic forces of the African and Asian countries concentrated their efforts to resist the fascist invaders, eliminate all types of colonial oppression and achieve national independence. At the end of World War II, the working class established their power in 13 states. Most important of these revolutions was the Chinese revolution which showed the correct path of protracted people’s war for the accomplishment of the New Democratic Revolution in semi-feudal, semi-colonial countries. The people of Vietnam created an example by defeating the most powerful imperialist state, the USA. The history of the ’50s and ’60s was the history of mighty anti-imperialist struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who fought against both the super powers, the USSR and the USA. During this time the CPSU degenerated and transformed into a social imperialist country. In the ’60s, these countries turned into storm centres of revolutionary movements and struggles.

Due to the degeneration of the CPC and the CPSU and the transformation of 13 socialist countries into capitalist countries there was a setback in the revolutionary working class movements and struggles. But overcoming that setback, the working class united with the toiling masses of the people to again assert themselves. In the second half of the ’90s there has been radical mass movements, explosions of popular militancy, mass strikes and student protests in France, rural insurgency in Mexico, the student uprising in Indonesia, mass protests in India and general strikes in South Korea, Columbia, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Moreover, under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party, the people of Peru, the Philippines, Turkey, Nepal and India are advancing following the path of protracted people’s war. All these clearly indicate that the situation world-wide is becoming more and more favourable for revolutionary struggles and revolutions.

This is the first May Day of this millennium when the working class world-wide, will observe the day remembering their tradition of heroic struggle against imperialist exploitation, repression and subjugation. The working class does resolve to abolish this imperialist system for the emancipation of mankind and for that purpose they will unite all the anti-imperialist forces.

<Top>