Booker Ngesa Omole | Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK)

The Contours of the Current Conjuncture

We live in a time when the imperialist drumbeat has changed. The rhythm of crisis, war, and collapse is no longer distant thunder. It is upon us. It is here. And it calls for new steps, for militant strategy, and for clarity forged in the crucible of revolutionary theory.

Comrades, World War III is no longer a hypothetical question. It is no longer a debate of the future. It is a present reality lived global process of attritional warfare, economic siege, psychological manipulation, and open military aggression. The Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK) affirms, in line with the World Anti-Imperialist Platform (WAP), that this is not merely the return of Cold War tensions; it is the unfolding of a new imperialist world war, one that spans Ukraine, Palestine, the Sahel, Taiwan, and beyond.

But let us be clear: this is not a war between rival imperialist camps, as in the first and second world wars. This is a war of imperialist aggression; a war waged by NATO, the US, and their junior partners; against the growing forces of anti-imperialist resistance, national liberation, and socialist assertion. It is a war aimed at strangling multipolarity, reversing national sovereignty, and preserving the decaying hegemony of US monopoly capital.

The CPMK upholds the Leninist principle that imperialism is the highest and final stage of capitalism; a stage marked by monopolies, finance capital, and militarism. In our age, that militarism has globalised itself through NATO, AFRICOM, and proxy wars waged by the imperialist core. These wars, while diverse in their local manifestations, are united by a common logic: preserve the empire, punish defiance, and pillage the periphery.

And yet, imperialism digs its own grave. For every theatre of war, it opens, it invites resistance. For every base it builds, a new people’s front emerges. This is the dialectic of history. This is the moment of reckoning.

World War III Is Here―A Global Anti-Imperialist War in Multiple Theatres

The World Anti-Imperialist Platform was the first organised global formation to declare; without hesitation or euphemism; that World War III has already begun. Not as one single explosion, but as a protracted war of position across geopolitical, economic, and ideological fronts. Its character is hybrid, but its content is classical: the clash between declining imperialist hegemony and rising anti-imperialist, socialist, and multipolar resistance.

From the NATO-engineered war in Ukraine, to the genocidal Zionist assault on Gaza; from the encirclement of China in the Pacific to the constant imperialist provocations in the Korean Peninsula, the pattern is clear. Imperialism is fighting on all fronts; not for peace, not for security, but for the preservation of dollar hegemony, military supremacy, and ideological domination.

Kenya, too, is not on the sidelines of this war. The US maintains three military bases within our national borders. AFRICOM advisors sit in our intelligence and military command centres. We have become, like many African nations, a rear base for US imperial strategy in East Africa and the Indian Ocean. As I stated at the Dakar Colloquium in 2023:

“These bases are not just symbols of military presence; they represent a direct violation of our independence and dignity. They subjugate our military and intelligence agencies to the whims of US imperialism.”

In this sense, Africa is already a battlefield in World War III. Not only in the Sahel, where French and US forces retreat in disgrace, nor only in Sudan and the DRC, where proxy conflicts rage. The battlefield is also ideological; where our sovereignty is traded by comprador regimes, our youth are recruited into imperialist doctrine, and our economies are tied to the diktats of the IMF, World Bank, and the dollar system.

But unlike the first and second world wars, which pitted imperialists against one another for the redivision of colonies and resources, this war is a just war for national liberation and popular sovereignty. It is anti-imperialist and, in many regions, socialist in content. In Palestine, we see not merely a national struggle but a trench of global anti-fascism. In Donbass, we witness the resistance to NATO’s expansion. In Yemen, we see popular will opposing Gulf-backed US interests.

And crucially, comrades, this war is winnable. Because its enemies are no longer ideologically coherent, nor economically stable, nor militarily invincible. The contradictions of imperialism have matured. The general crisis of capitalism has intensified. The ruling classes of the Global North fight among themselves, as seen in the intra-imperialist contradictions between NATO powers, the US debt crisis, and the panic over de-dollarisation.

In short, imperialism has entered its funeral phase, and World War III is its final convulsion.

Africa and NATO―AFRICOM, Militarisation, and the Neo-Cold State

Comrades, while the imperialists wage war abroad, they also prepare the battlefield at home; within our territories, inside our barracks, across our airstrips, and through the doctrine of neo-colonialism. In the African theatre of World War III, the principal enemy is not only external imperialism, but also internal comprador regimes that serve it.

We must speak clearly: AFRICOM is the military spearhead of US imperialism in Africa. Disguised as a force for “security cooperation,” AFRICOM operates across 53 of the 54 African states. It sustained over 29 known military facilities and forward operating sites from Djibouti to Ghana, from Manda Bay in Kenya to Agadez in Niger. Kenya, shamefully, remains one of its most entrenched hosts. In Niger, the people have expelled the invader. The revolutionary military leadership has shut down the imperialist base at Agadez, defied the Pentagon, and torn up the unequal military pacts. This is no ordinary event; it is a signal. It announces that a new Africa is being born through rupture, through resistance, through armed defiance. AFRICOM has suffered a historic blow. And Kenya, too, must listen to that call; the call to kick out the boots of Empire!

AFRICOM is not an African command. It is a colonial command. Its mission is not peacekeeping. Its mission is resource extraction, regime destabilisations, and regional counter-revolution. AFRICOM does not train our soldiers to defend the people; it trains them to defend private property, imperial shipping lanes, and the fragile puppets in power.

In Kenya, the United States has extended its command over: Manda Bay Naval Base, used in Somalia operations; Isiolo and Laikipia Airbases, under “shared jurisdiction” for drone deployment; And deep intelligence cooperation that renders our National Intelligence Service (NIS) subordinate to US cyber and signals command.

These are not defensive arrangements. They are occupational structures. They ensure Kenya’s forced alignment in US strategy against China in the Indian Ocean, against progressive states in East Africa, and in the imperialist scramble over Red Sea security. Our police persons are sent to Haiti and Somalia not for Pan-African solidarity, but as imperialist proxies. As the CPMK has declared repeatedly, our security forces have been conscripted into imperialist war plans without the consent of the people.

And behind this militarisation stands the Kenyan comprador state, whose function is to manage the affairs of the neocolony on behalf of its foreign masters. The comprador bourgeoisie; in State House, Treasury, and the military command; are not nationalists. They are contract managers of foreign capital. They sign Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) with the U.S. They privatise our ports to UAE monarchies. They auction our sovereignty to NATO-backed interests, all in the name of “development” and “security cooperation.”

We ask: where is the Pan-African military doctrine? Where is the united defence of Africa’s sovereignty from neocolonial aggression? Nowhere. Because the AU’s security architecture is hostage to imperial aid, just as its diplomacy is hostage to EU funding and US lobbying.

In the context of World War III, we must therefore raise a clear revolutionary demand: Dismantle AFRICOM. Shut down all US and NATO military bases on African soil. Break all Status of Forces Agreements. Expel all foreign military personnel. Nationalise our military-industrial infrastructure. And re-orient our defence forces towards the protection of people, not profit.

The militarisation of Africa is not a coincidence. It is the necessary accompaniment to imperialist economic crisis. As dollar hegemony declines and trade routes shift, Africa becomes a logistical and strategic prize. The Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Guinea, the Sahel; all are being turned into frontlines in a resource war of planetary proportions.

But history teaches us: every imperialist expansion produces its own negation. In the Sahel, anti-French military ruptures. In Sudan, contradictions within imperial-backed military factions. In Ethiopia, fierce resistance to foreign intervention. These are not yet revolutions. But they are early tremors in the collapse of imperial military order in Africa.

Let us be prepared, ideologically and organisationally, to turn these tremors into upheaval.

On the Ideological Nature of the War―Imperialism, Fascism, and Zionism

To understand the war we are in, comrades, we must strip it of euphemism and expose its ideological content. This war; World War III; is not only about oil, pipelines, trade corridors, or currency zones. It is, in its deepest essence, a clash between the declining world order of imperialist domination and the rising order of national liberation, socialism, and multipolar sovereignty. It is a global battle between fascist imperialism and the people’s democratic resistance.

This is why, in every theatre of World War III, we see the rise of fascism as the ideological glue of late-stage imperialism. Fascism is not simply an ultra-right-wing movement; it is, as Dimitrov defined it, “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, and imperialist elements of finance capital.” It arises when imperialism can no longer rule in the old way, when its democratic illusions collapse under the weight of crisis.

In the United States, this fascist tendency is seen in the bipartisan support for genocide in Gaza, the militarisation of its police, and the open criminalisation of anti-imperialist speech. In Europe, it takes the form of anti-immigrant hysteria, the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, and the criminalisation of Communist parties. In Zionist Israel, it reveals itself in pure genocidal form; the deliberate extermination of Palestinians, backed by US weapons and European silence.

Zionism today is not simply a settler-colonial project; it is a military-fascist garrison for imperialism in West Asia. Its logic is not peace, but permanent war. Its purpose is not sovereignty, but imperialist hegemony over the region; against Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and the Palestinian people. This is why we affirm, without apology, that the resistance of the Palestinian people is a frontline of anti-imperialist and anti-fascist war.

Indeed, the NATO-Zionist alliance has become one of the clearest expressions of the fusion between imperialist militarism and fascist ideology. The bombing of hospitals in Gaza, the starvation of civilians in Rafah, the use of white phosphorus; these are not isolated war crimes. They are symptoms of an imperialism in decay, that can only sustain itself through annihilation.

In Africa, fascism appears not through swastikas but through structural violence: evictions of slum dwellers to make way for Special Economic Zones, police massacres of youth in poor neighbourhoods, and the rise of authoritarian surveillance regimes funded by US, Israeli, and Chinese capital alike. The neoliberal state has become a corporate-police complex, where finance capital and paramilitary repression walk hand-in-hand.

We must also confront a danger within our own ranks: the ideological disarmament of some on the left, who fail to recognise the fascist character of our epoch. These revisionists reject armed struggle, demonise national resistance movements, or parrot imperialist propaganda in the name of “democratic peace.” They hide behind slogans of pacifism while enabling the fascist war machine. The Communist Party Marxist Kenya rejects this capitulation. As we declared at the Dakar Colloquium:

“In West Asia, the struggle against Zionist aggression is an anti-imperialist, antifascist war. In Eastern Europe, we witness the brutal realities of NATO-backed conflict in Ukraine. And in East Asia, tensions simmer around Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula, echoing the same imperialist ambitions.”

Let us then raise the revolutionary banner high: That anti-Zionism is anti-fascism; That support for armed resistance is not terrorism, but internationalist duty; That the enemy is not simply capitalism, but its fascist incarnation at the highest stage of imperial decay. We are not neutral in this war. We are partisan. We stand with the resistance; armed and unarmed, legal and underground, Communist and national-democratic; against every axis of fascist imperialism.

Victory Is Possible-The Just War and the Collapse of Unipolarity

Comrades, if we affirm that World War III is real; if we accept that imperialism is its author, and that anti-imperialism is its antidote; then we must also declare this with unwavering clarity: victory is possible. Not abstract victory. Not moral victory. But concrete, material, revolutionary victory over imperialism, over fascism, over neocolonialism.

Our optimism is not utopian. It is rooted in dialectical and historical materialism. Lenin taught us that imperialism is not a sign of capitalist strength, but of its terminal disease. Today, this disease has metastasized into global crisis. The contradictions of the system are no longer hidden; they are bursting through the seams of every continent: The US national debt exceeds $34 trillion, making future imperial war operations financially unsustainable.

The Triffin dilemma, which warned of the instability of using a national currency (the dollar) as a global reserve, is now materialising through de-dollarisation. Nations from China to Kenya are bypassing the dollar in bilateral trade. The so-called “decoupling” from China and “de-risking” of global value chains reveal the strategic fragmentation of global capitalism.

BRICS+ has expanded to include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE, threatening the monopoly of Western multilateral institutions and signalling a new multipolar configuration.

Each of these phenomena is a tombstone over the grave of US unipolar hegemony. But this collapse, comrades, is not spontaneous liberation. It is not the fall of Rome into peace. It is a battlefield of class forces; and if we do not prepare, reaction will attempt to shape the new world in its image.

That is why anti-imperialist war is just, and in many theatres, it is necessary and inevitable. The resistance of the Palestinian people is not merely symbolic. It is a school of revolutionary practice. The trench warfare in Donbass, the defiance of the Houthis in the Red Sea, the political-military deterrence of the DPRK; these are not regional skirmishes. They are the frontlines of a global war, one that weakens imperialism and inspires the oppressed.

As Mao Zedong said, “A just cause enjoys abundant support, an unjust cause finds little support.”  It is not only socialist and progressive states that are rising. Even non-aligned bourgeois states; like South Africa; are beginning to challenge Zionism, criticise NATO, and seek alternative development paths. These shifts are contradictory, yes, but they indicate the crumbling legitimacy of the imperialist order.

In Africa, even military ruptures once loyal to France or the US such as in Niger, Mali, or Burkina Faso; are now declaring anti-imperialist intent and seeking strategic autonomy. Their stance does not merely echo Bandung; Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger; have declared not neutrality, but defiance. They have taken sides; the side of their people, the side of sovereignty, the side of anti-imperialism. They have expelled French troops, shut down colonial media outlets, and raised the banner of Pan-African dignity. They are not fence-sitters on the global stage; they are fire-starters. They are demolishing neocolonialism, not managing it. Let us learn from them; not with romanticism, but with revolutionary attention!

Our duty as Communists is to not let these ruptures be swallowed by bourgeois nationalism or right-wing populism. We must insert a clear class line. We must ensure that the end of imperialism becomes the beginning of socialism. The question, then, is not whether victory is possible. The question is: Are we prepared to lead it?

Victory will require: A revolutionary Party in every country, not tied to elections but rooted in the working masses; A disciplined ideological offensive to expose the lies of imperialism, Zionism, and comprador propaganda; The strengthening of alliances between national liberation movements and socialist states; A people’s war mentality: flexible tactics, enduring spirit, mass mobilisation, and internationalist coordination.

This is the moment. Imperialism has no future. We have a world to win.

Revolutionary Optimism in the Era of Total Crises

Comrades, we are not in an ordinary moment. We are in the terminal phase of the imperialist epoch, the stage Marx and Engels foresaw, Lenin dissected, Mao confronted, and Fanon warned us never to face unprepared. The imperialist beast is wounded, but not yet dead. And wounded beasts are most dangerous.

We face a total crisis; a crisis of legitimacy, economy, ecology, and war. The old world is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. But the new world will not emerge by accident. It must be consciously built, organised, fought for, and defended by revolutionary forces.

The Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK) holds this truth to be self-evident: there will be no peace, no independence, and no socialism until imperialism is destroyed. This is not rhetoric. It is reality. And it places enormous responsibility on every revolutionary organisation, every militant worker, every anti-imperialist student, every resistance fighter, and every Party committed to the long war for liberation.

As we said in Dakar:

“The spectre of World War III is already haunting us. Yet, amidst this chaos, the anti-imperialist camp is rising… Comrades in Russia, China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, and various resistance movements across the Global South are not seeking war; they are prepared for a just struggle against imperialist aggression.”

We, too, must prepare. Not just ideologically, but organizationally. Not just for analysis, but for action. Not just in our countries, but as one global trench of resistance under the banner of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform.

We propose the following immediate tasks for WAP and its revolutionary affiliates:

Deepen ideological training on World War III, anti-fascism, and the collapse of unipolarity;

Strengthen mass mobilisation capacity, linking workers, peasants, students, and the urban poor into unified revolutionary blocs; Expand operational linkages across continents: information, solidarity campaigns, and coordinated political action; Reject all illusions in reformism, peaceful transition, or bourgeois democracy under imperial domination; And finally, prepare for prolonged confrontation, not as fatalism, but as the necessary road to true people’s power.

We declare:

Victory will not come tomorrow unless we organize today.

Imperialism will not fall on its own; it must be brought down.

Socialism will not be gifted; it must be seized.

Let us, in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, raise high the red flag. Let us march together, not only to commemorate past struggles, but to organize the decisive battles of our generation.

Let us transform World War III; from a war imposed on us; into a war we win.

Socialism is the future! Let’s build it today!