Volume 5, No. 1, January 2004

When all-round crises starts engulfing the whole of society a vast range of forces come to play a revolutionary role in transforming the existing social order of things when they find the situation pitted against their interests and very existence. Such times are beginning to take shape. What we are witnessing is that an unprecedently vast number of people around the world with various social and class backgrounds, and having different kinds of outlooks, are coming on to the streets to protest against not only their deteriorating conditions of life for which they think their rulers are responsible, but also in solidarity with the oppressed people of the backward countries. The powerful anti-globalisation movement and anti-war movement that has gripped the world now is an unexpected development for the imperialist rulers who had dreamt of an easy walkover of the nations and countries, after the collapse of the rival block headed by the Soviet Social imperialists.

The imperialists as a whole had tried to hammer the point into the heads of the people that the dream of changing the world for a better future had died with the demise of the Soviet Union and China, and that from now on the world will remain as it is, that is capitalist. That capitalism has triumphed in the final battle with communism and that the development of human history has come to an end. They trumpeted that no other system could replace the capitalist/imperialist system that the world is living in, and that any ideology calling for the change of the system had become redundant and obsolete. They argued that all ideologies have died and from now on only the market forces would determine the course of events on a world scale and within countries. In this new mantra the countries would only behave as governing areas for the expansion and operation of capital through the market and the concept of sovereignty and freedom would become a thing of the past. Hence, the old concepts of nationalism, patriotism, national liberation etc. have lost their meaning, like socialism and communism, in the new world order of things. They call on the people to bury their dreams for a better world once and for all. In a word, they declared that the people should stop looking for ways to change the world.

But the great thing that has happened in the post collapse (of the Soviet Union) period is the rise of multitudes of masses against imperialist globalisation and war sooner than expected. The people have learnt from the actual conditions of their life that the new world promised to them after 1991 was nothing but an unbridled attack on their livelihoods, wholesale cuts on public welfare schemes and pensions, enmass closures of industries in the name of restructuring of economies, etc. For them the new world order has brought, above all, a continuous state of war telling them that as long as imperialism exists there can be no end to the horrors of war. And the people rose up in all lands saying no to war, and no to globalisation.

The first Great upsurge of people in the 1990s against imperialist Globalisation was the peasant rebellion of the Chiapas in Mexico in January 1995. This indicated that the masses around the world, hard hit by the forces of the market, would have to revolt against the system that has unleashed ruination amongst them. It was Seattle, 1999, which told the world that not only the people of the oppressed countries but also in the citadels of the imperialist world would have to come on to the streets to oppose the onslaught of their own imperialist rulers on their lives and others of the backward countries. It told the world that a shift is taking place in the mood of the people in the imperialist countries too. Militancy would no longer be a phenomenon associated with the people of the east. Increasing numbers of people in the advanced capitalist countries would also have to ponder over the violence unleashed directly over them by their rulers. That bullets and bombs are not only reserved for the ‘uncivilized’ black and couloured peoples of the third world. The death of Guiliani in Genoa, Italy, at the hands of the Italian police was not the only causality. They had experienced police batons, rubber bullets, gas, torture, jails and detention without trial in Seattle, Davos, Calgary, Prague, Gothenburg and many other cities of the "civilized" white world by the same gun wielding armed forces that unleash death and destruction in other parts of the world. Their demonstration concentrations were declared war zones indicating that the authorities would treat the opposition crowds of the people no less than enemy forces if it comes to a point of confrontation or to militancy on the part of the demonstrating people.

And, of course, there were all kinds of forms of protests from peaceful sit-ins to storming of the police barricades, window smashing, brick throwing, mass blockade of roads leading to the summits of the G-8, World Bank, IMF, FTAA, WTO, and World Economic Forum conferences. The question of how to oppose globalisation , i.e., whether it be reformed for the benefit of the people, or do away with it altogether, had varied answers. Attitudes of different forces were determined by their ideas about the imperialist system and what could replace it.

Seattle witnessed peaceful massive protests as well as violence. Most of the people wanted globalisation not to disturb the way they had been living. Some thought that it could have a human face. This was the position of most of the NGOs and a large range of liberal democrats. They just wanted reforms within the imperialist system by putting pressure on the rulers to modify this or that set of policies, say, for women, environment, exploitation of natural resources, local participation in the running of the state structure and development projects. Many had voiced in the Seattle demonstration that they were for Globalisation With a Human Face.

Some others took it as an all-out onslaught of imperialist capital but were unwilling to entertain the idea that this imperialist system can be replaced with the socialist system. They were carried away by the imperialist propaganda about the so-called "horrors of communism" and were too scared to revert to a Soviet type state. They were unable to grasp the truth that what had collapsed in 1991 was not communism but another brand of capitalism—state capitalism. Or were genuinely scared of some wrongs committed during the dictatorship of the proletariat time when Stalin was at the helm. They had the image of Stalin’s times as was painted by the enemies of the working class i.e., imperialists, without grasping the truth that a world historic attempt to transform the thousands years old unjust and inhuman society was bound to encounter problems and troubles and many of the wrongs were historically inevitable and could not have been avoided at all in the very first effort. That was a gigantic effort to free the world from oppression, injustice and exploitation of man-by-man forever. Human history had never taken up such a task before at any point of time. That was the struggle to realize the golden dream of humanity. This dream is still there and shall remain until the human society arrives at such a stage.

Still others had just written off socialism from their agenda. These were the forces of social democracy, especially the followers of the parties, which had allied with the Soviet Social imperialists. They had abandoned the program of revolution and had gone over to the side of capitalism a long time back. They were unwilling and unable to assert that only socialism and a global communist system can be the only alternative to the present world imperialist system. Their premise was: ‘no alternative is possible’.

And of course, there were a wide variety of anti-capitalist petty-bourgeois forces having their ideological roots in anarchism. They carried the message that this imperialist system needed to be smashed. But, for the alternative social system they had no specific ideas except the one that there would be no state even in the immediate future after the imperialist system is smashed. No doubt, they wanted to destroy the state and form population groups at the grass roots level to run the affairs of the community everywhere without forming a state. These people carried out militant actions.

These attitudes and approaches were reflected on a great scale.

In all of the anti-globalisation and anti-war demonstrations the people adopted a variety of tactics. Different types of forces occupied different zones to practice their own form of struggle. The peaceful sections mostly belonged to the traditional and massive trade unions that had abandoned the program of educating their followers for a struggle for a change of the capitalist system. NGO-type social and civil society groups also took the same position. The militant youth who did not see any future in the massive onslaught of the globalisation policies opted for militant forms of struggle. They justified such an arrangement on the ground that the united front of varied forces must be maintained at all costs and one type of group should not intervene in another’s domain. But when a large number of people assembled at Seattle—and after that it happened everywhere across all cities in Europe, America, Asia and Africa—the crowds started intermingling and those who professed non-violence entered into violence for self-defense, as the police and paramilitary forces did not spare any one from their brutal attacks.

Confronting imperialism is not just a matter of demonstrating loosely, a carnival. The people are face-to-face with a power that does not stop at anything and commits the most dastardly crimes against people and nations, including the use of atomic bombs. And it will stop at nothing. The biggest power on earth, which is out to maintain its number one position as international gangster, is also the main author of globalisation. It is out on a war juggernaut against nations and peoples in the name of combating terrorism. It refuses to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. It cannot be advised, reformed, or made to listen to. They only understand the language the Vietnamese spoke to the Americans or the way the Algerians answered the French imperialists. The massive peace movement of the eighties did not stop the deployment of nuclear arms in Europe, nor could the US and British imperialists be persuaded to not to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, despite active opposition of millions of people around the world. Today it is the resistance forces of these two countries that are battering the US, and it is primarily this that will force them to leave — not the peaceful opposition.

Further, to stop them from sending mercenaries to occupy other countries would require defeating them on their home turf. That is, in the final analysis, imperialism and imperialist armies would have to be smashed and liquidated in their own countries of origin. The anti-war and anti-globalisation movement cannot set for itself a lower target than this. This system that brings war, misery, starvation and death to millions around the world has to be smashed and a new world needs to be built upon its ashes where imperialism would be no more than trash in the dustbin of history. The people of the world have to advance human history to get rid of the monster of imperialism. It is not the end of history as Fukuyama says, rather it is on the threshold of a golden era in human history, which the humanity has never seen before.

No doubt, the people are confronted with the questions of how to defeat imperialism and what to replace it with. Till now only Marxism has the ability and will to provide an answer. No other ideology has been able to put forward an alternative, as all other alternatives end up accepting imperialism/capitalism as the final solution, which in is itself the source for the problems. The end of exploitation of man by man lays the basis for the construction of a new society. This needs a gigantic organized effort to confront and replace the present inhuman system with communism, which can be achieved through democratic and socialist revolutions on a country-to-country basis, where nation states and national boundaries would act as the arena of operation on all the continents. The nation states exist contrary to the misleading imperialist propaganda about globalisation saying that the world has become a "global village". This ‘village’ is full of disparities, diversities, injustice and exploitation and oppression by a handful of countries, of the vast majority of poor and underdeveloped nations usually referred to as the third world countries. No doubt the set-back to socialism in Russia and China has created widespread cynicism for communism; but, any new system will have its teething problems, and it is by a continuous process of learning from ones experiences that a better socialist system can come into being.

And as for the anarchist position, that no organized movement is necessary for the overthrow of the present system; the highly organized imperialist and reactionary states in all the countries provide them with the answer. It can neither be an extravaganza like the WSF nor uncoordinated sporadic actions of a few militants, that can destroy the system. And as for the system which will replace the present one, if that too is not highly organized, basing on the consciousness of the people, the whole effort will soon be lost, as the bourgeoisie will not turn human after it is overthrown and will spare no effort to regain its lost status (as it did in Russia and China).

The people active in the anti-globalisation movement are in fact confronted with the sophisticated armed power of capital, which today controls the whole of the world through its deadly armed forces, a highly organized state structure, jails, and above all, by controlling the minds of the people through its ideological barrage and propaganda machinery. These minds have to break free of all bourgeois influences if the enemy is to be thoroughly smashed. They claim to be ideology-free, but theirs is a subtle ideology, which puts self before social concern. It is a definite ideology of the rulers that tries to hammer in the people’s minds that ideologies have died away. The revolutionary ideology of the working class, Marxism, has to be asserted and propagated if the capitalist enemies are to be defeated. One has to reject post-modernist ideas of the bourgeoisie, which negates the laws that govern society.

The people in their vast numbers have been pushed to intervene, and they are questioning many things. This must lead to a situation where people get the right answers about who their enemies are and how they can get rid of them. The minds that have been indoctrinated for decades by reactionary propaganda and a bourgeois way of thinking have to be cleansed in the thick of struggles on a regular basis. Only this can lead to a victorious end. Liberal bourgeois ideas of peace, peaceful struggles, and all those that hinder a correct understanding of the system, has to be struggled against and defeated. These views may come in the form of ‘civil society’, social activism, or in numerous different hues, and take the form of a WSF, in order to blunt the edge of the people’s struggles and prevent them from taking on the enemy in an organised way.

<Top>