Practice is the criterion of truth, and today, in the international context, this truth is revealed in all its vigor.
It is necessary to debate whether the different analyses that are made today on the international situation, from the point of view of the Communist Movement, are coherent or not. There are apparently theoretical points of view that proclaim the supposed abolition of the struggle for national liberation.
Let us see what the reality is today: In Africa, in accordance with their social and national reality, the peoples are expressing themselves with determination for sovereignty, self-determination and in favor of the expulsion of the colonial powers of Western Europe, those powers linked to the plunderers, exploiters and oppressors of U.S. imperialism. In this sense, the anti-colonial and national liberation uprisings underway in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and carried out by several other peoples in Africa, join other long-standing experiences such as in Algeria, but with their own characteristics corresponding to the present time. Are these not national liberation struggles?
In Asia, the DPRK is in an almost direct confrontation with U.S. imperialism and its lackeys. It should also be remembered that imperialist aggression against socialist Korea is multifaceted and encompasses various vital aspects including military threats, economic sanctions and all kinds of trade bans. Also, in line with the aspirations of all the Korean people, the DPRK are working for the reunification of their homeland on the basis of a sovereign and independent policy, which necessarily requires the withdrawal of tens of thousands of imperialist occupation and domination troops along with the removal of the U.S. nuclear bombs from the southern part of Korea, with which the DPRK is constantly threatened. The battle of the Korean people in the south against their occupiers also has a clear component of national liberation struggle.
The People’s Republic of China is distinguished by its outstanding role in the abolition of “unilateralism”, in the confrontation with the hegemony of the U.S. and its partners in Western Europe and Japan, in the definitive positioning of multilateralism in international politics, in the consolidation of world peace and the self-determination of the peoples. All this is based on the vigorous economic and political development of socialism in accordance with Chinese reality and demands. Added to all this is the pressing demand of the People’s Republic of China to bring Taiwan back under its state administration. All this puts China in the crosshairs of the U.S., which carries out aggressions and interventions against it. China is one of the main enemies of U.S. imperialism and its lackeys, if not the main one. Does not this conflict between U.S. imperialism and the People’s Republic of China open a space for the struggle for national liberation in the world and ultimately the struggle for socialism?
The character of the heroic and multifaceted struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation as a struggle for national liberation is undeniable and is a slap in the face to those who have tried to deny it, to those who have wanted to dismiss it by decree as non-existent or have wanted to consider it a thing of the past. It is in our understanding a political and moral obligation of the communists in all parts of the world that this struggle be supported with enormous force and decision.
The struggle of the Saharawi people in the Saharawi Republic against the occupation of a large part of their territory by the Kingdom of Morocco, which dominates and exploits them with the support and collaboration of companies from Western Europe, the United States and Israel, is another example of the struggle for contemporary national liberation.
Communists must pay attention to and correctly assess the role of states like Iran in evaluating the international anti-imperialist struggle. Iran has not only openly expressed its opposition to U.S. imperialism, NATO and Israel, but has also taken concrete actions and measures in support and solidarity with national liberation struggles not only in West Asia and/or the Middle East, but also with various countries around the world struggling for their sovereignty. We have seen this very well in Latin America, with Iran’s support for Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Iran’s confrontation with U.S. imperialism and its lackeys and its overt support for national liberation struggles around the world is a further reaffirmation of the validity of those struggles.
In Latin America, the anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and national liberation struggle is the order of the day due to the enormous interference of U.S. imperialism and its junior partners, the NATO countries and Israel, in all aspects of the political, economic, military and even cultural affairs of the countries of our region. Together with the countries that have taken great steps in the consolidation of their sovereignty and in the construction of socialism, such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, there exists in our region a strong movement for the overcoming of imperialist domination and oppression, for national industrialization, for the end of the plundering of natural resources, the super-exploitation of the workers and the blatant interference in the national armed forces and police. Added to this are the popular uprisings of the broad masses of workers and peoples for immediate economic and political demands. Although these movements have not achieved the seizure of political power, they have been able to consolidate governments that responded to these demands. Despite these achievements, it should be noted that these governments always, or almost always, betrayed the demands of the people and prostrated themselves to the national exploiters and U.S. imperialism in particular.
All these events, with their successes and failures, demonstrate once again that the struggle for national liberation is in full force.
In Latin America (as in the rest of the world), it is essential to develop authentic class-conscious and revolutionary organizations that seek the consolidation of socialism on a national and international scale, that is to say, COMMUNIST organizations. But this pending and indispensable task does not deny the validity of a program of the workers and peoples of Latin America (and the world) that includes the struggle for national liberation, the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle, but on the contrary affirms it. The class struggle is not in contradiction with the struggle for national liberation, as some self-proclaimed communist organizations claim.
The struggle of the Donbass republics and the Russian special military operation are another example of the struggle for national liberation. The Donbass republics established a determined struggle against the U.S. fascist puppet regime installed in Ukraine after the 2014 coup d’état. Russia’s special military operation aims to defend these republics and Russia itself, and to prevent Ukraine from becoming a new NATO and U.S. military base from which it (NATO) could have immediately unleashed a new world war against the Russian Federation, but also against the People’s Republic of China, against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, against all independent and sovereign countries and those countries with a socialist perspective.
Here we see how the struggle for national liberation is united with the struggle for socialism. Russia’s struggle against Nazi fascism, NATO and U.S. imperialism arouses sympathy among the members of the International Communist Movement and, at the same time, supports its strengthening and its capacity for mobilization. It cannot be otherwise, since the Russian struggle is at the forefront of the struggles for national liberation, anti-imperialism and anti-fascism and, therefore, is on the right side of history.
We believe that the aggression against the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and also against the Islamic Republic of Iran is aimed at destroying the hope of the peoples for national sovereignty and independence and leaving them without a foothold and at the absolute mercy of imperialist oppression and domination. Therefore, these countries must repel such imperialist aggressions.
Not all organizations claiming to be communist agree with this position. For some time now, some organizations, for different reasons or interests, some because of ideological and political misunderstandings, others, what never fails, because of the surveillance and interference of the intelligence services of U.S. imperialism and NATO, just when the urgency and the need to develop a broad anti-fascist and anti-imperialist world front, to alert the broad masses of the people about the growing danger of a world war, just when it has become urgent to organize and mobilize exactly these masses and the peoples of the world against the imperialist war, against U.S. imperialism and NATO, have revived old and failed opportunist and rightist theses, disguised as left theses in the style of Trotsky and Kautsky with their speculations on the “permanent revolution” or “ultra-imperialism”. The Trotskyists and Kautskyists of today speak of the “imperialist pyramid” with very little originality.
But practice is the criterion of truth, not inventions presented as theoretical elaborations. The creations of these new Trotskyites and Kautskyites, like those of their opportunist predecessors, will be impotent attempts to hold back the peoples in the face of the world tide of imperialist war.
It seems to us that one of the main tasks, together with the solid and indispensable theoretical argumentation emanating today from the forums and publications of the World Anti-imperialist Platform, is to bring to the masses the just and correct communist position and mobilize them against imperialism and global war. Here, in the masses, the harmful and counterrevolutionary speculations will be destroyed, which only aim to distract, confuse and demobilize the peoples and the workers and thus favor imperialism. On the front of the working masses and peoples, “pyramidal” opportunism will be dissolved and buried.
In short, in the struggle for national liberation, in the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle, we recognize the class struggle waged on the international scene. And we believe that these struggles carry the germ of socialism. With the overthrow of imperialism, embodied in the U.S. and NATO, a new horizon opens up for humanity and socialism.
