Dimitrios Patelis | Revolutionary Unification (Greece)
The World Anti-imperialist Platform (WAP) was born out of the historical necessity, of the practical, theoretical and organisational needs of the global communist and anti-imperialist movement.
The conscious realisation of the movement’s urgent objectives in the conditions of World War III (WWIII) is impossible without the creative use and the dialectical development of the revolutionary theory and methodology of Marxism.
According to Marxist science, the law-governed character of history is characterised by the irreversible direction of the development of society, by a dialectical relationship between continuity and discontinuity, by the unrepeatable flow of history through stages that differ in their quality, substance and contradictory nature, in the correlation between their objective and subjective conditions.
It is precisely for this reason that it is impossible to develop a correct strategy and tactics on the basis of eclectic judgments (aphorisms) and arbitrary historical analogies, e.g. by broadly equating the conditions of the current WWIII with those of WWI or WWII. It is no coincidence that every major military conflict of the imperialist stage has led to splits and turmoil in the labour, communist and more broad progressive movement. It is solely through these events that the only truly revolutionary theoretical and practical tendency emerges, the only one capable of leading the coming victorious revolutions.
Throughout its existence and development, the WAP has promoted a collective effort to scientifically substantiate its objectives, its practical and organisational composition and development, based on the study and determination of the character of the era and the situation, the contradictions, the competing interests of the forces involved in the war, the forces of progress and regression on a global scale.
In the WAP we therefore consider that this war, on the side of the axis of aggression led by the USA, is unmistakably imperialist, neo-colonialist, predatory, counter-revolutionary and blatantly unjust. The revival, instrumentalisation, sanctification and strengthening of nazism/fascism (in Ukraine and elsewhere) by this axis by any means and in any way to achieve its murderous and destructive objectives also shows the abominable character of this war.
In fact, the opposite is true of the other side, the pole that consists of the countries that are forced to unite in order to defend themselves and fight back against the US-NATO-EU axis, the forces of anti-imperialism and socialism: it is a war of resistance, an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist and a clearly just war. For this reason, even the bourgeoisie of some capitalist countries that are part of this camp are forced to produce increasingly more radical, emancipatory, anti-imperialist statements about equity and justice in international relations, values, ‘multipolarity’, etc. (see The Three Component Parts and Three driving forces of the global revolutionary movement. D. Patelis, Platform №6, Nov. 2023, pp. 5-12 and ‘Multipolarity’ or internationalist anti-imperialism? D. Patelis. Platform’, №4, September 2023, pp 43-55).
This war is being fought on several levels: economic, ideological, political, diplomatic and military. At the military level, there are already some active fronts (Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and the Middle East in general, Africa, the Red Sea, the Caucasus) and several others that could erupt (the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, the Balkans, the Indo-Pacific, Latin America, etc.).
For the first time in the history of capitalism, the economic parasitic mechanism of the financial oligarchy of imperialism is being undermined on such a scale. This system of surplus value extraction on a regional and global scale works by siphoning off monopoly super-profits from all other peoples, i.e. by imposing of a peculiar ‘tribute’ on them.
The US dollar as well as other currencies of powerful imperialist centres (the EUR, the GBP, Japanese yen, etc.) are being ousted from their functions as global and reserve currencies. This undermines the mechanisms of parasitism and super-exploitation through this sphere of global relations of production and the dominance of the financial oligarchy of imperialism in the global economic system. This is also evident by the formal decision of the Saudi leadership not to renew their agreement with the USA for the exclusive use of the dollar for oil sales (The US-Saudi Arabia petrodollar deal, signed on 8 June, 1974), following similar decisions for transactions in other national currencies by many countries, promoted and implemented to an increasing extent in recent years by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the Russian Federation (RF), the BRICS, etc.
These changes brought about by the escalation of the war are also linked to rapid political and diplomatic shifts. With the decisive contribution of, for example, the PRC and Russia, peace treaties are being reached between countries with long-standing conflicts. These conflicts have been orchestrated by colonialism and imperialism using the principle of ‘divide and rule’, through violent incitement to ethnic, racial, religious and cultural hatred. This can be seen in the peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran (and therefore also Yemen), in the recognition of the legitimate government of Syria and its reintegration into the Arab and Islamic community, in the rapprochement between Iraq and Iran, but also between India, Pakistan and China, and so on.
These developments foresee the rapid expulsion of the USA from the region and the reduction and elimination of the position and role of the racist terrorist state of Israel. Such developments are also heralded by the new wave of decolonisation that is escalating in Africa, with the expulsion of the imperialist colonialist occupation armies and monopoly corporations (France, USA, etc.) and the development of alternative forms and types of inter-state economic, political, etc. relations based on equity and mutual benefit.
The recent strategically significant strengthening of the RF’s relations with the PRC, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. at all levels (including mutual military assistance with the DPRK in the event of an attack), illustrates fundamental changes in the global balance of power, which the US-led imperialist pole has failed to prevent through blackmail and violent interventions (see e.g. their insistence on extending NATO action in the Indo-Pacific, AUKUS, attempts to control Argentina and other Latin American countries, etc.). The involvement of the RF (by no means unrelated to the legacies of the October Revolution, the USSR and its internationalist relations) and other capitalist countries in such commitments, combined with the strength of the growing global movement of revolutionary anti-imperialist and socialist/communist forces, can reduce the room for wavering and opportunistic back-pedaling and bargaining that the Russian ruling class has been evidently prone to, forcing them into more consistent positions.
In the wake of these changes, tensions are also rising sharply, especially on the Korean and Taiwan fronts. These two fronts are organically linked to each other and to that of Eastern Europe, not only geographically but also historically. It is worth pointing out that the tectonic shifts of power mentioned above reveal disputes stemming from the outcome of WWII, the ‘Cold War’ and the processes of counterrevolution and disintegration of the USSR and the camp of early socialism in Europe.
The conflict in Ukraine marks the end of the growing subjugation and further fragmentation of the post-Soviet space by imperialism, with the RF as the main target, i.e. the only entity that can play the role of reunification and reintegration in this space.
The conflict on the Korean peninsula, the hot phase of which is being reignited with particular intensity due to the strategic alliance between the DPRK, the PRC and the RF, will be a war of popular and national liberation, a war of reunification of the heroic Korean nation, a war of liberation of the Korean people from the invading imperialist occupation of the USA which has replaced the brutal imperialist occupation of the imperialist Japanese militarist monarchy. There, the national liberation stage, which will also include the anti-fascist duties of the democratisation of society and the restructuring of the economy under the conditions of popular sovereignty, will be rather short, organically linked to the socialist stage as part of a single revolutionary process.
The conflict on the Taiwanese front also shares great revolutionary potential and similar characteristics – adjusted for scale – (national liberation, national reunification, anti-imperialism, etc.).
The struggle against the imperialist zionist occupation and genocide against the heroic people of Palestine, the people of Lebanon, Syria and the people of Yemen, the unparalleled struggle of which is becoming more and more strategic in the context of WWIII, must be fully supported.
The mass movement in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people is very encouraging, a movement that has spread to many universities and has rallied the youth.
However, especially in North America and in the developed imperialist countries of Europe, there is a tendency to deal with the Palestinian problem in a non-dialectical and unscientific fragmentary way, as if it were detached from the global confrontation with the US-NATO-EU axis, based on an abstract humanitarian solidarity. Thus, there are young people of a progressive disposition who may be pro-Palestine in the conflict with the zionist regime of Israel, but who also support the Ukrainian regime ‘against the invasion of the RF’, who are against the PRC, the DPRK, etc. This confusion is aggravated by the propaganda of the enemy.
Therefore, it is an imperative duty of the WAP to, scientifically and ideologically explain that there is A SINGLE WAR, WITH DIFFERENT FRONTS: Ukraine, Palestine, the Indo-Pacific, Africa, Latin America, etc., in which there is only one enemy: the imperialist axis with the USA at its head and its instruments spread as tentacles over the planet.
Especially in the USA and in the other imperialist countries, it is necessary to convince the youth that a people whose ruling class oppresses, exploits and exterminates other peoples by means of super-exploitation, wars and genocide, cannot be free.
International anti-imperialist support, internationalist solidarity by all means and ways and at all levels will be of utmost importance for the victorious outcome of every new front of national liberation struggle and socialist revolution on the planet. The anti-imperialist forces should be alert in order to anticipate and recognise the ‘weak link’ that will be connected to the new fronts of the war, to contribute to the weakening and prevention of every invasion, intervention, regime change operation, every criminal counter-revolutionary project of imperialism and to the greatest possible strengthening of the popular, anti-imperialist, liberation and revolutionary struggles everywhere.
In this context, the objectives of the WAP gain strategic importance for the revolutionary movement of our time. Today, it is more necessary than ever to create, develop, coordinate and organise the global anti-imperialist forces in a victorious frontal struggle at all levels, in all countries, on all continents. Especially where the heart of the revolutionary movement beats the strongest. The defeat of the US axis of aggression is a condition for the survival of humanity and therefore for the upcoming victories of the revolutionary movement.
As we have shown (On the relationship between imperialism and fascism during WWIII. D. Patelis. Platform №9ο, Febr. 2024, pp 36-43), war and fascism reproduce each other in a distinct way in different times and circumstances. A necessary condition for the rise of the working people is the smashing of both fascism and the imperialism that spawns and instrumentalises it when needed. Imperialism is the matrix that breeds and reproduces fascism at every historical stage and era.
A duty of strategic importance during WWII was the formation of an anti-fascist front on a national and global level to smash the fascist, anti-communist, anti-Comintern axis. It was on this duty that the USSR, the Third International and the world communist movement rightly concentrated their efforts. Soviet foreign policy and diplomacy exploited the inter-imperialist contradictions with great skill in order to divide the imperialist sphere of the time, to inactivate a significant part of the then imperialist powers (Great Britain, USA, France, etc.) and finally to integrate them into the anti-fascist alliance against the Axis.
Thus, during WWII, the anti-imperialist and socialist objectives of the communists could be pursued and promoted only through anti-fascism/anti-nazism, as dictated by the strategically invaluable frontal policy, the victorious policy of alliances.
The character of the present WWIII shares some similarities, but it is qualitatively and essentially different from the two previous ones because of the time, the context and the character of the forces that are de facto involved in it. Therefore, the attitude of the progressive, anti-imperialist and communist forces cannot be determined mechanistically, through metaphysical proportional analogies, as if nothing has changed since 1914 or 1940…
Due to the tectonic rearrangements in the global capitalist system and in the balance of economic, political and military forces, inter-imperialist antitheses cannot play an important role in WWIII. The continuation of the parasitic imperialist function of the Euro-Atlantic axis, any prolongation of its declining existence, requires the unification of all former colonialist and currently neo-colonialist imperialist powers into a single, coherent axis of aggression led by the USA.
This is evident in the imposition of ultimatums, the undermining of the EU and Germany, with new forms of cannibalism, economic and military strangulation and coercion by US imperialism:
• destruction of underwater pipelines carrying cheap Russian gas, forcing the purchase of compressed gas from the USA at more than twice the price,
• de-industrialisation/transfer of productive processes from European monopoly groups to the USA,
• subordination of the military-industrial complex to US objectives,
• increasing direct involvement and transfer of the costs of supporting the nazi regime in Ukraine to the EU and NATO countries,
• forcing the armament of Ukraine with European fighter jets, missiles and bases in Europe in order to quickly regain air superiority (announcement of the delivery of 60 fighter jets and preparation of infrastructure for at least 600!)
• operational readiness of large numbers of personnel and infrastructure for the immediate deployment of all European NATO forces (including ground forces) in the event of the collapse of the armed forces of the Kiev regime,
• transfer and operational activation of tactical nuclear warheads and more, aimed at the RF, etc.
These conditions also radically change the character of today’s fascism/nazism, transforming it into an instrument of war, intervention and coups d’état, into an ‘exportable’ model of transnational monopoly imposition of puppet states, outposts, battering rams and strike forces of the unified US-NATO-EU deadly axis of aggression against the pole of the forces of anti-imperialism and socialism.
Hence, in contrast to WWII, today, during WWIII, the strategically important frontal policy, the victorious policy of alliances, must prioritise the consistent and militant anti-imperialism, the prioritisation of the unified US-NATO-EU axis of aggression as the number one enemy of humanity, the instrument of which is the current forms of fascism. Therefore, it is only through the consistent frontal anti-imperialist struggle that anti-fascism/anti-nazism today gains meaning and is organically linked to the socialist objectives of the communists. Those who do not put forward a consistent anti-imperialist position in today’s struggle and appeal to the pre-eminence of an abstract ‘anti-fascism’ (as if nothing had changed since the inter-war period of the 20th century) are objectively acting in a disorientating and undermining way.
However, the objectives of the WAP and the movement, which are derived from the scientific research of the time, the conjuncture and the character of WWIII, are not understood to the same extent and level by the parties, organisations and components of the movement today. The theoretical inability to diagnose the current era, the conjuncture and the de facto bipolar character of the war does not allow some forces to prioritise the objectives of the movement in a rational and effective way, making their – most likely pure – anti-fascist intentions rather unproductive. Behind this weakness lie versions of modern opportunism and the ensuing revisionism that equate the monopoly stage of capitalism with the status of the imperialist state.
The most consistent version of this deception is linked to the irrational metaphysical dogma of the ‘imperialist pyramid’, which the current leadership of the KKE brazenly promotes. According to this anti-Marxist/anti-Leninist self-delusion, all the contemporary states of the planet are portrayed as fully ‘imperialist’ and/or ‘in the process of becoming imperialist’. Therefore, according to similar dogmas, instead of a single WWIII with many battlefields on the planet, today we have a multitude of conflicts of undefined character, ‘bourgeois clashes between imperialists/thieves’, so that both anti-fascism and anti-imperialism are irrelevant and meaningless…
As we have shown (10 commandments of the most volatile opportunism and revisionism. Patelis D. Platform № 2, July 2023, pp 44-50), this ideology constitutes a ‘coherent’ scheme of deception and manipulation that provides an extremely valuable service to the imperialist Euro-Atlantic axis of aggression.
The revolutionary movement of our time is called to face the challenges of WWIII in which the main enemy of the movement is the US-led imperialist axis. In order for the revolutionary anti-imperialist movement to be victorious in this life-and-death confrontation with a still powerful enemy, it must achieve the formation of a united and effective front at the national and international levels.
This is unattainable as long as the most dangerous opportunist-revisionist dipole in history continues to subvert and divide the movement, as long as it sows division and defeatism, as long as it distracts and diverts forces away from a consistent position. It is unattainable as long as it contributes actively and from within to the manipulative work of the mechanisms of the superstructure of the bourgeois deep state, in de facto (conscious and/or unconscious) synergy with the tentacles of the deep state and transnational instruments of imperialism. It is unattainable as long as it contributes destructively to the undermining and cancelling of the constitution of the revolutionary subject of the era, through takeovers, deception, vilification of militants and parties/organisations, splits (with the principle of ‘divide and rule’), with machiavellian machinations and their deadly consequences for the movement.
A relentless struggle is therefore necessary for the unmasking of its true role, for the theoretical, ideological, moral/political and organisational dismantling of this toxic and divisive apostasy.
The united global communist movement, theoretically, practically and organisationally reconstituted, must play a catalytic role in this struggle.
There is an urgent need for a great front in which the unity of the people, the youth and the working class against imperialism is forged, for the defeat of NATO and the unpopular/anti-working class policies of the governments that are the instruments of imperialism. For the defeat of fascism, state, deep state and transnational terrorism, with the prospect of socialist revolution and the unification of humanity, of communism (see also Anti-imperialism, and the transition from early to late socialist revolutions. D. Patelis. Platform № 5, Oct. 2023, pp. 53-67).
A theoretical, ideological and practical struggle against the forces of opportunism and revisionism is also necessary, as they sow confusion and discord, as they deny the necessity of a frontal anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle, as they separate fascism from imperialism.
This struggle becomes more urgent the more imperialism intensifies the war and raises the possibility of a generalised conflagration with the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
In this context, the early warning radar stations at Armavir and Orsk regions (long-range phased array radars capable of detecting up to 500 targets at a distance of up to 6,000 km at very high altitudes beyond the Earth’s atmosphere), targets of high strategic importance to the RF and its allies, were targeted by Ukrainian drones. These radars are a key component of the second-strike capability of the ‘strategic triad’ (airborne, land-based fixed and mobile, naval and submarine ICBM platforms) in the event of a nuclear attack. This system, a legacy of the USSR, is the technological basis for guaranteed mutually assured total destruction of the attacker and the defender, the existence of which acts as a tangible deterrent. Even its partial deactivation creates very tempting comparative advantage for the political leadership of the imperialist axis to exploit, in order to launch a sudden asymmetric first strike.
The escalation of the conflict in WWIII cannot be a linear quantitative process in the sense of an expansion and prolongation of a ‘proxy war’ or of limited ‘special military operations’ involving state, inter-state and mercenary private military units fully controlled by the political leaders. At a certain point, the dynamics of the armed conflict subordinate any further escalation to the logic of total war, reducing or even eliminating the range of political choices and manoeuvres available to the political leaderships. In this case, inertial escalation is completely subordinated to the operational military and technological conditions of the confrontation within the balance of power. Precisely then, given the available means, logic itself as a rational conscious human capacity can be completely set aside…
This irreversible turning point seems to be rapidly and inexorably approaching.
During WWII, despite the existence of huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, their large-scale use was prevented. US imperialism is the only world power to have used the atomic bomb, having dropped two of them against Japanese civilians (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) at a time when the war was practically over and the Soviet army, together with the People’s Armies of China and Korea, was crushing the remnants of Japanese militarism. Imperialism committed this crime against humanity in order to intimidate the USSR and the global progressive movement by demonstrating its monopoly on the possession of the then new atomic weapon.
There is no guarantee that the powers of the imperialist axis of aggression, with their evidently socially irresponsible, uneducated, ruthless and short-sighted political personnel, will not, in their paranoia, try to use the infinitely more destructive weapons of mass destruction available today, capable of wiping out all life on our planet.
Only a powerful global frontal movement of all anti-imperialist and socialist forces can act as a deterrent!
The embodiment of this law-governed necessity is the World Anti-Imperialist Platform, whose actions and impact are constantly being developed.
They organise ‘summits’ to promote their predatory and destructive agenda of the imperialist axis of aggression; we place the highest priority on the struggle of the peoples against imperialism, for the salvation of humanity, the victorious struggle for its revolutionary unification, for socialism and communism.
THERE IS ONLY ONE ENEMY: IMPERIALISM!
DEATH TO FASCISM AND IMPERIALISM!
DEFEAT TO THE IMPERIALIST AXIS OF USA-NATO-EU!
VICTORY TO THE FORCES OF ANTI-IMPERIALISM AND SOCIALISM!