We include in this booklet three articles downloaded from the Internet. The first two are taken from the People’s March website the last from that of Mumbai Resistance-2004. Through this booklet the authors have sought to analyse the origins and the evolution of the World Social Forum; the forces behind it; and the role that it plays in the anti-imperialist struggle.

To understand the WSF is essential for any serious activist of the anti-imperialist/anti-globalisation movement. In any battle one has to know one’s friends and enemies in order to be successful. Not only that, we must know who are our potential friends and potential enemies; as this will determine what attitude to take towards them today. The only purpose of such analysis is to determine with whom to unite, whom to expose, and whom to fight against.

The arena of the battle is the anti-imperialist camp. Thorough-going anti-imperialists are only the communists who seek to destroy this system by armed force to establish a New Democratic and socialist society. On the other extreme one gets the imperialists (and their agents within the movement) and the apologists of imperialism who seek to somehow sustain the existing system of exploitation and use various forums as “safety valves” in order to allow peoples’ anger to get diffused. In between these two extremes lie various shades of anti-imperialists, who oppose various aspects of imperialism or seek to reform it. It is this vast section of democrats and liberals that is the bone of contention between the imperialists (and their apologists) on the one hand, and the communist revolutionaries on the other. If the former win-out the movement will be diffused (or diverted); if the latter win-out the movement will gain steam.

The authors of these articles have proved without the shadow of doubt that the main sponsors of the WSF are apologists of imperialism who seek to institutionalise the vast movement thrown up in the world against imperialist globalisation and war. The horrors of the last ten years of globalisation, particularly in the backward countries of the world, and recent wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and against the Palestinian people, have shocked millions of people around the globe into active protest. The oppressed themselves are rising in revolt. And as the economic crisis deepens conditions only continue to deteriorate and the war clouds thicken. In such a scenario it is essential that the imperialists try and diffuse the dissent and the potential to revolt. For such purpose the most effective tool are the imperialist sponsored NGOs and the social democrats and reformists. Both of such elements are conspicuous in the leadership of the WSF.

Any form of legitimacy thereby awarded to the WSF is detrimental to the anti-imperialist movement as it weakens the alliance of the democrats with the revolutionary forces. South Asia is witness to rising revolutionary movements facing inhuman repression. So, the ruling classes, the imperialists and their local lackeys, have an urgent need to kill this movement — for this the twin sword of brutal repression and social reform are simultaneously used.

The task therefore of the communist revolutionaries is to primarily wean away the genuine elements who attend the WSF from the sponsors of it, and create a solid anti-imperialist alliance of all democratic and progressive forces against imperialism in general, and US imperialism in particular. We hope that this short booklet will help in this task.

December 10, 2003