We thank the group promoting the World Anti-Imperialist Platform for organizing this new international meeting and for having organized it right in Washington, the center of the US industrial-military-financial complex and the enforcer of the imperialist order. This center oppresses the people of much of the world and is the primary promoter of the Third World War. They must face not only the opposition that grows in many countries but also the rebellion of the popular masses and the rebirth of the communist movement developing in the USA. The overthrow of US imperialism is a task of the international communist movement, but the decisive role belongs to the popular masses, the working class, and communists in the USA. We therefore wish the conference good work and a fruitful debate, which will be conducive to the revival of the communist movement throughout the world, starting from the USA and other imperialist countries.
General Crisis of Capitalism and Third World War
The war spreading throughout the world was not born from bad will, madness, or miscalculations of some members of the international community of US, Zionist, and European imperialist groups, and the criminals who are in charge of their governments. War is the ultimate solution to which the imperialist bourgeoisie resorts in order to deal with the general crisis of capitalism, a crisis that stems from the absolute overproduction of capital. On a global level and considering all productive sectors, the accumulated capital is so vast that if capitalists used all of it in their companies to produce commodities (goods and services), they would extract a smaller mass of surplus value (therefore of profit) than what they do extract using only a part of it. Marx (Capital, Book III, Section 3, Chapter 15) had foreseen this phenomenon to a certain extent, since in his time it had not yet occurred empirically, being characteristic of the imperialist era. Today, in imperialist countries, only a small part of the total capital is still use to produce and circulate goods (in 2013, according to BIS,
IMF, and WB estimates, it amounted to 7% of the entire world capital: $75 trillion out of $1,070 trillion), the rest is used in the form of financial or speculative capital. This situation generates crises that, despite originating from the economy, become general, affecting every area of associated life (politics, morality, culture, environment).
External War and Internal War
In this context, every capitalist tries to valorize at all costs (i.e. tries to increase) the part of the total capital that he owns or controls also making use, as much as he can, of State competition. Hence the war:
– External war, the ongoing Third World War, with Zionist genocide in Palestine, the US-NATO hybrid war against the Russian Federation through the pro-Nazi regime in Kiev, the Aspides operation in the Red Sea, maneuvers in the Pacific against the People’s Republic of China (PRC), military missions in Africa and Asia, and the dirty war against countries such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and those states (Iran, Syria, etc.) that do not open their borders to the raids, trafficking, and affairs of imperialist groups;
– Internal war (undeclared war of extermination against the popular masses), which causes hundreds of deaths every year even in the wealthier countries, thousands of deaths at work, due to medical malpractice, treatable diseases, victims of the environmental crisis and pollution, victims of drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, and the spreading material and moral degradation.
War is a necessary part of the general crisis of capitalism, and it is not possible to definitively put an end to it without overthrowing the capitalist system at least in some of the major imperialist countries.
The Characteristics of the Third World War
The Third World War, like the other two world wars that preceded it, is the result of the general crisis of the capitalist system; however, it differs from them in five aspects:
1. In the world, no country plays a role similar to that of the USSR, but the PRC plays an important progressive international role.
2. The revival of the communist movement is a task that communists in imperialist countries still have to accomplish for the main part, but in these countries, the resistance of the popular masses is spreading and creating favorable ground.
3. US, Zionist, and European imperialist groups are not capable of halting the decline of the world hegemony of US imperialist groups in the political, economic, commercial, monetary, and financial fields.
4. Operations of financial and speculative capital are far more predominant over production of commodities (goods and services).
5. The type of weapons that imperialist groups employ (hybrid warfare): collapsing governments, subversion, intoxicating hearts and minds with lies through regime media and other digital tools, upheaval of economic systems, paralysis of financial systems, with dozens of local wars in which the imperialist powers have a significant impact (proxy wars). The current war reflects, even in its forms, the social character that economic activity has now in all countries thanks to the development of capitalism (basally there are no longer countries where families live on what they extracts from the natural environment they live in) and the role that the popular masses have consequently assumed in the political sphere.
The First World War began as a clash between imperialist powers, which the bourgeoisie suddenly closed after the victory of the October Revolution and the risk of contagion of the “Soviet system” in the rest of Europe: however, it was unable to “strangle the Bolshevik baby in its crib,” that is, to prevent the start of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union and the resulting upheaval of the colonial system.
The Second World War began as a war of imperialist groups and States against the USSR. But the communist movement, through the USSR’s diplomatic action (the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939) and the Communist International (promoting the anti-fascist mobilization, the struggle for socialism in imperialist countries, and the anti-colonial struggle of the oppressed peoples), made it become a war of the Reich & Co. against France and England, and then England and the USA allied with the USSR against the Reich (in 1945, the Reich tried to resume the imperialist front against the USSR, but without success). As a result, at the end of the Second World War the socialist camp included a third of humanity.
The Third World War is therefore taking place in a context in which, for more than a hundred years, two paths are colliding: one is the development of the proletarian revolution (socialist and new democracy) promoted by groups, organizations, and exponents of the conscious and organized communist movement; the other is the decadence of bourgeois society.
On the eve of the First World War, Lenin predicted that either the socialist revolution would prevent the war, or the communists would transform the war into revolution. So it was. However, despite having always managed to transform the war into a general advancement on a global scale, the communist movement did not succeed, neither after the First nor after the Second World War, in establishing socialism in any imperialist country. This was the main limitation of the action of the
communists during the first global wave of the world proletarian revolution (1917-1976): this is the limit that we have to overcome today.
The Task of the Italian Communists
The task of the Italian communists is first of all to mobilize every sector of the population to end our country’s participation in the US-NATO war against the Russian Federation, the Zionist genocide in Palestine, and maneuvers in the Pacific. This can be achieved by leveraging the fact that Italy’s participation in the war is against the immediate interests of the great majority of the Italian popular masses and that ending it means freeing our country from the US protectorate established in 1948 (the most evident manifestation of the fact that we are a protectorate are the 116 US and NATO bases and agencies existing in Italy).
The bourgeoisie needs to promote war, but the great achievements in civilization and welfare extorted by the popular masses when the communist movement was strong are now to some extent sedimented in their common sense. They are hard to give up and the consequences of the war economy are felt. To prevent this resistance of the popular masses from consciously transforming into a struggle for socialism, the ruling class in our country resorts to militarization of society (starting from schools), war propaganda, and large-scale repression. However, the more the ruling class continues these measures of “internal war,” the more it shows its true nature and contributes to liberating the masses from the illusions and “democratic” prejudices that the ruling class propagated and imposed. The more it proceeds with war and the war economy, the more the political regime in our country will be upset and subverted, and two real alternatives will become increasingly concrete:
1. A qualitative leap in the reactionary mobilization of the masses (attempts to introduce compulsory military service, legal ban on political organizations, suspension of elections and other constitutional guarantees, organization and activities of the fascist squad, etc.);
2. A political rupture operated by grassroots movements, a front composed of a vast network of popular organizations, scattered throughout the country, which supports the formation of a sovereign and popular government (as in Italy happened to a certain extent with the governments of the National Liberation Committee from 1943 to 1947). This to break with the submission of our country to NATO and the EU, take emergency measures on the organization of work, production, and circulation of essential goods (starting from safeguarding the productive apparatus and monetary sovereignty), and establish relationships of solidarity, collaboration or exchange with any other country willing to reciprocate. This is the shortest and least painful route for the popular masses of our country to advance towards socialism. This is also the highest contribution that we Italian communists can give to the cause of proletarian internationalism.
The world revolution can only be a combination of proletarian revolutions in single countries. The first imperialist country to break the chains of the International Community of US, Zionist, and European imperialist groups will show the way and lead the popular masses of other countries and will have their help. Italy can be this country: it depends on us communists whether it will be! By winning the internal war, we will also stop the external war. The establishment of socialism in an imperialist country like Italy, even just a decisive leap in the level of the socialist revolution like the formation of an popular emergency government, would break the destructive spiral in which the domination of the imperialist bourgeoisie is dragging the popular masses of the entire world. Similarly, the Russian communists, with the revolution that culminated in the insurrection of October 1917, broke the course of events that had brought the large global imperialist groups to clash for world domination and began the first wave of the world proletarian revolution.
