On June 8, Madrid, Spain, hosted the first day of a colloquium on “The situation of World War 3 and the anti-imperialist and antifascist struggle”. 

Session 3 took place from 12:15pm to 5:30pm.

Session 3 took place from 12:15 pm to 5:30 pm. 

Adrián Rojas from Iniciativa Comunista, Miguel Ángel from Unión Proletaria, Eduardo from the Communist Party of the People’s of Spain (PCPE) were presenters, and Joti Brar, vice-chair of the CPGB-ML, and Eduardo Artés, first secretary of the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action), were the panelists.

Adrián Rojas pointed out that “the ‘theory of the imperialist pyramid’ of the Communist Party of Greece, is born of a biased reading of Lenin’s work,” adding that “The first consists in analyzing imperialism as a simple stage of development of world capitalism, ignoring the particularities of its internal structure; the second consists, on the other hand, in analyzing imperialism as a simple stage of the internal development of each capitalist country, ignoring its essentially international nature.

“The theoretical limitations of this position are evident. Some adopt the first point of view, according to which imperialism constitutes only a stage of development of world capitalism, to conclude that all countries participating in the world market are imperialist. This reasoning is not only as absurd as affirming that, since the working class participates in the process of capitalist accumulation, the working class is capitalist, but it also splits, as Kautsky already did, the economic content and the political form of imperialism,” he said. 

“If all -or practically all- the countries of the world are imperialist, then none is imperialist,” he continued, “More generally, I would dare to say that many communists, in the face of the retreat of the revolutionary movement during the last decades, have preferred to take refuge in formulas and prejudices rather than continue to apply the fundamental tool of our doctrine.”

Miguel Angel emphasized, “Imperialism can only be completely eradicated through the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat to destroy the capitalist relations of production and build socialism.”

He then asked, “How can we bring the workers closer to the anti-imperialist movement?”. “Firstly, by revealing the exploitation and oppression of the workers and dependent peoples by the imperialists. Secondly, by refuting the slander suffered by the forces opposed to imperialism, especially when it comes from supposed supporters of the working class, revolution and socialism: whether they are social democrats, trotskyists, adherents of the theory of the ‘imperialist pyramid’ and other opportunists, revisionists and sectarians. Thirdly, by avoiding total and blind followerism towards the bourgeois forces fighting the imperialists today”, he said.

He continued, “As soon as possible, we must bring the communist organisations together to draw up and implement jointly an action plan centred on the all-out fight against imperialism. And you must rely on the best international initiative: the World Anti-Imperialist Platform,” he said.