Imperialism and Socialism

[Conghaileach]

Imperialism and socialism:
The Twentieth Century points the Way to Victory in the Twenty-first
Century

Theses on Globalisation
Adopted by the Seventh Congress of the Workers' Party of Belgium
March 2002

1. What is called globalisation today is a new phase in the general
crisis of the world imperialist system. It is in fact the onslaught
launched by imperialism after the counter-revolution, aimed at the two
major movements that marked the twentieth century: the struggle for the
liberation of labour and the struggle for national liberation. These
two movements found their unity and strength in the establishment of
socialism.

2. It is impossible to define the tasks of struggle against imperialism
in the twenty-first century correctly without assimilating the
essential features of its birth, general crisis and defeats during the
past century.

3. The history of the twentieth century confirms the Leninist theses on
imperialism, described as the ultimate phase of capitalism and prelude
to the socialist revolution.

4. Having reached the imperialist stage, capitalism finally has no
other alternative than war to solve the crises related to its mode of
production. The twentieth century twice proved that only revolution
could prevent war and that war engendered revolution and accelerated
the gestation of the objective and subjective conditions for the
victory of socialism.

5. The twentieth century was the dress rehearsal for the victory of
socialism against imperialism. As long as communists remained true to
the principles of Marxism-Leninism, they won strategic victories
against imperialism. When opportunism and revisionism took over in the
communist movement, imperialist victories became possible.

6. Armed with this experience, the international working class and the
peoples of the world will make the twenty-first century the century of
the definitive victory of socialism and of national liberation against
imperialism.

7.In the twenty-first century, the conditions for carrying out the
historical task of ending imperialism through revolution will be
present more than ever.

8. By adopting a unified viewpoint on how we judge the twentieth
century and how we analyse the revolutionary possibilities of the
twenty-first century, the international communist movement can catch up
on lost time and resolutely take the lead in the struggles of the
working class and the peoples of the world.

I. The Historical Period of Capitalism

9. Imperialism is the product of the fundamental laws of capitalism; it
is the highest stage of capitalism as it appeared at the beginning of
the twentieth century.

10. Marx demonstrated scientifically that capitalism was a system of
exploitation founded on the production of surplus-value, produced by
workers and appropriated by capitalists. The fundamental law of this
system is the production of surplus-value for the accumulation of
capital. This is why the tendencies towards globalisation,
concentration and the ever-faster development of productive forces are
inherent characteristics of capitalism.

11. During the first centuries of its development, capitalism was a
progressive element of human history, gradually and very violently
imposed all over the world. In 1853, Marx summed up the essential
characteristics of this progress with remarkable perspicacity:
"Centralization of capital is essential to its existence. The
destructive effects of this centralization on the world markets reveal,
on a gigantic scale, the law inherent to capitalist economy. The
bourgeois period of history has the mission of creating the material
foundation of the new world: on one hand, universal intercommunication
founded on the mutual dependence of humanity and the means allowing the
realization of this intercommunication; on the other hand, the
development of mankind productive forces and the transformation of
material production into the scientific mastery of the elements; when
revolution will have mastered these realizations of the bourgeois era,
the world market and the modern productive forces, and will have
submitted them to the mutual control of the most advanced people, then,
and then only, will human progress cease to resemble that the hideous
pagan idol that accepted drinking nectar only in the skulls of the
victims."1

12. During this whole period, capitalism developed according to the
laws of free competition. The European powers of the day were able to
conquer successive regions of the world systematically and share the
colonies according to the economic and political forces they
respectively represented.

[Conghaileach]

II. The Historical Period of Imperialism

13. This period of free competition between capitalists and capitalist
powers gave way to imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth
century with the emergence of monopolies. The beginning of imperialism
marked the final end of the historically progressive bourgeois era.

14. The centralisation of capital anticipated by Marx was fully
accomplished at the end of the nineteenth century and led to the
creation of industrial and banking monopolies, which fused to become
financial monopolies. The gigantic accumulation of capital that allowed
the creation of monopolies was founded on the unlimited exploitation of
the working class in the capitalist countries and the plundering of the
colonies. This accumulation of capital and its concentration in the
hands of an ever-decreasing number of monopolies radically transformed
the free functioning of capitalist competition and ended the
progressive role it had played in history.

15. From then on, competition existed basically at monopoly level. The
race to control new technologies, indispensable because of the struggle
for economic domination, constantly increased the organic composition
of capital. The lowering of the profit rate that this entails is
forever speeding up the race for superprofits in the countries
dominated by monopolies. At the same time, the excess of capital
demands new, still more profitable investments. The concentration of
capital then becomes the indispensable characteristic of capitalist
economy.

16. The capitalist states, created to arm the bourgeoisie in its
struggle against the workers, change into imperialist states. They are
also in charge of guaranteeing monopoly domination over all the peoples
of the world. By bringing competition to its highest level and
extending it throughout the world, monopolies also exacerbate the
repressive and military character of the imperialist states.

17. The existence of monopolies, or multinationals as we say today,
best expresses the fundamental contradiction of the capitalist mode of
production: on one hand, the social character of production goes on
developing and extending over the whole planet; on the other, the
private character of its ownership reduces those who benefit from the
wealth produced to an ever more restricted number. Monopoly brings the
basic contradiction of capitalist production to its highest, most
explosive form, and poses it on a world scale.

[Conghaileach]

III. Imperialism makes Socialism necessary

18. Mankind can no longer progress without resolving this fundamental
contradiction. That is why imperialism is capitalism on its last legs,
the last stage of capitalist evolution. Lenin said that imperialism was
the prelude to world socialist revolution.

19. Imperialism not only pushes this contradiction to its utmost
limits, making it impossible to resolve other than through socialist
revolution, it also brings the law of unequal development of capitalism
to its most murderous extremes. This law makes stable and durable
agreements between monopolistic blocs, and between imperialist states
impossible. That is why imperialism cannot continue to exist without
wars on a worldwide level. These wars express the general character of
the capitalist crisis. The inevitable rivalries between imperialist
blocs prevent all planification, division of labour or equitable
sharing of wealth on a world level. This makes the establishment of
socialism throughout the world all the more essential.

20. The emergence of imperialism has fixed two major tasks for mankind:
the liberation of labour through socialist revolution and the
liberation of oppressed countries through national and democratic
revolution, understood as the preparatory phase of socialist
revolution. Imperialism has also made these two tasks inseparable, by
giving the working class the mission of leading their fulfilment all
over the world, so as to open the way progressively for mankind to move
towards socialism, the preparatory stage of communism.


21. The major proof that imperialism makes socialist revolution
necessary and possible was given by the victory during the First World
War of the Bolshevik revolution, which gave birth to the first
socialist state. The dictatorship of the proletariat, indispensable for
crushing monopoly dictatorship and putting an end to imperialist war,
took form as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

22. The establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the
Soviet Union and the beginning of socialist edification in that country
definitively marked the start of the general and lasting crisis of
imperialism. The general crisis of capitalism was scientifically
analysed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1954, which
formulated its essence with rigourous revolutionary precision.3


23. "The general crisis of capitalism besets the entire world
capitalist system and is characterized by wars and revolutions, by the
struggle between agonizing capitalism and ascending socialism. It
embraces all aspects of capitalism, as well economical as political.
Its basis is, on one hand, the always more advanced decay of the world
capitalist system, from which new countries regularly detach
themselves, and on the other hand the ascending economic power of the
countries that have done away with capitalism."

24. "The principal aspects of the general crisis of capitalism are the
division of the world between capitalism and socialist systems, the
crisis of the imperialist colonial system, the worsening of the market
problems and, and, consequently, the constant under-production of the
factories and large redundancy in the capitalist countries."

25. "The unequal development of the capitalist countries during the
imperialist era leads to disparity between the current sharing of
outlets, spheres of influence, colonies and the modified balance of
power between the main capitalist States. It is on this basis that an
overt breach of balance occurs in the world capitalist system, which
entails the forming of hostile groups of capitalist States, and wars
between these groups. World wars diminish the forces of imperialism
facilitating the smashing of the imperialist front and the breaking
away of countries, one after the other, from the capitalist system."

26. "The general crisis of capitalism covers the whole historic period,
and is an integral part of imperialism. The law of the uneven economic
and political development of capitalist countries during the era of
imperialism determines different moments of maturity for the socialist
revolution in different countries. Lenin said that the general crisis
of capitalism was not a unique feature but consisted of a long period
of political and economic upheavals, of the deepened class struggle, a
period of the extended bankruptcy of capitalism and birth of the
socialist society. This determines the historic necessity of prolonged
coexistence of the two, capitalist and socialist, systems."

27. "The general crisis of capitalism, initiated during the First World
War, took on momentum specially after the Soviet Union had detached
itself from the capitalist system. During the Second World War, a
second phase of the general crisis of capitalism begun, which notably
developed after the countries of popular democracy in Europe and Asia
had detached themselves from the capitalist system."

28. Following the orientation mapped out by Lenin, Stalin guided
socialist edification from 1923 on. He transformed the Bolshevik Party
into a mass party which accomplished four miracles: socialist
industrialisation, the collectivisation and modernisation of
agriculture, the cultural revolution that transformed a backward
country into a country of intellectuals and cultivated workers, the
organization of a mighty Red Army, equipped with the most modern arms.

29. The whole history of the twentieth century is that of the struggle
between imperialism and socialism. The assessment of this struggle can
and must be summed up as follows: in the first part of the twentieth
century, fidelity to the principles of Marxism-Leninism brought
victories to revolutionary forces everywhere; in the second half, their
progressive liquidation by revisionism provoked major defeats all over
the world.

[Conghaileach]

IV. The Upward Movement of World Revolution

30. After the First World War, the revolutionary example of the
Communist (Bolshevik) Party of the Soviet Union and the October
proletarian revolution and the marked weakening of imperialism as a
consequence the First World War gave birth to revolutionary movements,
both in Europe and the colonies. >From Germany to China, from Italy to
Japan, Morocco and India. the working class and the oppressed nations
struggled for the liberation of labour and oppressed peoples.

31. Social-democracy, which had, almost in its entirety, gone over to
imperialism in 1914, pursued its role of protector of imperialism,
going as far as collaborating in the crushing of uprisings and
revolutions. German social-democracy made a bloodbath of the German
revolution of 1919-1919.

32. Notwithstanding the complete betrayal of the Social-Democrat Second
International, which also took part in the onslaught against the Soviet
Union, the young Socialist state, under the leadership of Lenin and
Stalin, set itself the task of building socialism in the first worker
state in the world.

33. Right after the First World War, communists, united in the Third
International, clearly denounced the preparations of the leading
powers, both old (Germany, England, France, Japan) and new (the United
States), in view of a Second World war. They also denounced the
inevitable tendency of imperialism towards fascistization and fascism
as one of the means imperialism used to prepare the masses for war.

34. The Second World War was also set off by the necessity of a new
sharing of the world among imperialist powers. German imperialism,
which had lost all its colonies in 1918, and Japanese imperialism were
demanding that the world be redivided to take account of their economic
and military power. The United States intervened in the conflict only
to ensure its world hegemony and prevent a victory of the Red Army over
the whole of Europe.

35. The victory of the Soviet Union over fascism, which ended the
Second Word War, and the decisive role played by the working class and
communist parties all over the world in the struggle against German and
Japanese fascism, again set off a prodigious upsurge of popular
struggle, and more specifically of national liberation struggles. The
Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established all over the country in
1945; the Malaysian People's Union against Japan established its
control over all of Malaysia in 1945; the Indonesian people got rid of
the Dutch in 1948 and created a republic. Similar movements emerged in
many other countries. The imperialist powers, both victors and
vanquished, were obliged in many instances to unite, in order to
bloodily defeat popular uprisings.

36. In China, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and
Mao Zedong, the people won victory over Japanese imperialism in 1945,
after eighteen years of revolutionary war and resistance. They
continued the revolutionary war against the reactionary forces of the
Kuomingtang, upheld by the Americans, a struggle which led to the
founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. With the victory of
socialism in China, imperialism suffered its second strategic defeat of
the twentieth century.

37. After 35 years of struggle against Japanese colonialism, Korea,
with the help of the Soviet army, freed itself in 1945 and created the
Peopl's Republic of Korea. Notwithstanding the landing of American
troops in the South, followed by the war of aggression carried out by
the United States between 1950 and 1953, the People's Republic of
Korea, with the internationalist help of the socialist bloc, especially
China, inflicted its first strategic defeat on American imperialism, in
1953. The construction of socialism continued in the north of the
country.

38. The people of East Europe, in the aftermath of the antifascist war
and sustained by the Soviet Union, created people's democracies.

39. The revolutionary movement's strength, sustained by the existence
of the socialist bloc, made possible the overthrow of the Cuban
dictator Batista, a puppet of the United States, in 1959, and the
creation of a popular regime that in its turn initiated socialist
edification.

40. The last strategic victory of the twentieth century was inflicted
by the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. After getting rid of
Japanese and French occupation, the people of Indochina, under the
leadership of their Communist parties, pursued the revolutionary
orientation of protracted people's war against American imperialism
and, with the help of the socialist countries, inflicted on US
imperialism its severest defeat in 1975.

41. American imperialism took advantage of the struggle its allies and
its enemies of the Second World War were waging against revolutionary
struggles and against communists to gain footholds all over the world.

42. Consequently, by the end of the Second World War, the United States
had become the only imperialist super-power, the only power that
emerged richer and stronger after the war. All its competitors, allies
or enemies, emerged weakened. American industry attained a
technological superiority that was used to submerge the world market.
The export of American capital, principally towards the imperialist
countries themselves, took on new dimensions.

43. After the Second World War, one third of mankind was on the path to
socialism. All over the world, the struggle between socialism and
imperialism had become more acute and the socialist bloc had emerged
strongly reinforced. The working class movement in the imperialist
countries and the oppressed nations could count on the solid and loyal
support of the socialist camp to pursue their struggle for the
liberation of labour and the oppressed nations.

[Conghaileach]

V. The Downward Path of Revolution to the Counter-Revolution of 1989.


44. The upward movement of world revolution, socialist revolution and
anti-imperialist, national and democratic revolution, was disrupted at
the end of the fifties when opportunist tendencies took over in the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

45. After the death of Stalin in 1953, Khrushchev developed a
steadfastly revisionist line by systematically undermining all the
revolutionary assets of the Soviet experience under Lenin and Stalin.

46. Khrushchev used worldwide changes in the balance of power in favour
of revolution, which were a reality, to systematically disarm the
working class and the people of the Soviet Union, the imperialist
countries and the oppressed nations in their fight against imperialism.
Khrushchev used the very real strength and prestige of the socialist
bloc to dismantle one after another the principles of Marxism-Leninism
that were the foundation of this strength and prestige.

47. He declared that communism was established in the Soviet Union and
that all danger of capitalist restoration had disappeared. By doing
this, he disarmed the Bolshevik party and encouraged the development of
bureaucracy and corruption in the party and society. He declared that
the working class and working people of the imperialist countries could
achieve socialism in their country by winning a majority in parliament,
because of the influence of the socialist bloc and the weakness of the
traditional right wing. By doing this, he disarmed the communist
parties in their struggle against capitalism, bourgeois democracy and
social-democracy. He asserted that colonialism had practically
disappeared from the surface of the globe thus disarming the national
liberation struggle against neo-colonialism, the new form of
imperialism. Finally, he went as far as suggesting that the creating of
friendly links between the two largest world super-powers, the United
States and the Soviet Union, would guarantee peace for mankind.

48. After fighting socialism in the USSR in the name of the defeatist
theory that socialist victory in a single country was impossible,
Trotskyism adopted a left-wing phraseology on the impossibility of
degeneration and return to capitalism in the USSR. After camouflaging
the preparations for restoration and disarming revolutionaries,
Trotskyism acclaimed the capitalist restoration of 1989, rechristened
"victory over bureaucracy".

49. Though it took thirty-five years after Khrushchev took power for
the final counter-revolution to dismantle the Soviet Union in 1989,
revisionism dealt terrible blows to the struggle against imperialism.
American imperialism and the CIA took full advantage of the disarming
of the communist Party, the working class and the popular masses to
organize many coups d'état, aggressions, and assassinations. The most
obvious examples are the massacre of a million communists and
nationalists in Indonesia in 1965 and the assassination of Allende, the
president of Chili, and thousands of Chileans, eight years later.

50. American imperialism took advantage of the respite offered by
revisionism to strengthen its world hegemony. At the same time, all the
elements of a new phase of the general crisis of imperialism were in
gestation, culminating in the long-term crisis that started in the
middle of the seventies.

51. At the end of the war, American imperialism, even though
economically, financially and militarily superior, was confronted with
the strength of the socialist bloc and national liberation movements
and was thus obliged to help rebuild stable imperialist blocs.

52. Historically, German fascism had had the project of uniting all of
Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, under German domination. It was
the heroic struggle of the people of the Soviet Union under the
leadership of Stalin and the resistance in Europe under the leadership
of the communists that smashed this plan. The Soviet Union emerged
victorious from the most terrible war ever known in history. The
prestige of socialism was at its peak.

53. The United States thought up the rebirth and the unification of
Europe as a rampart against communism, under American control. Former
Nazis were retrained as specialists of the antibolshevik struggle, the
Marshall Plan helped the European bourgeoisies to re-establish their
dictatorship over the people of Western Europe. The concept of a
unified Europe was an essential element in the policy of world conquest
by the United States. In 1949, the Nato Pact sealed this alliance under
American control.

54. Under the banner of the "Non Communist Left", the United States
rebuilt and financed European Social-Democracy, totally discredited by
its attitude during the war. All state social concessions were drawn up
in the United States, to undermine the prestige of communists and the
USSR in Europe.

55. In Asia, after imposing a Constitution on Japan to end Japanese
militarism, the United States, faced with the victory of the Chinese
Revolution and the Korean war, built up Japan as a barrier against the
Asian Communist movement and imposed the Japanese-American Security
Treaty in 1951.

56. In other words, the strength of the socialist bloc and the national
liberation struggles after the Second World War forced American
imperialism to nurture the two large rival imperialist blocs, Japan and
Europe, economically, financially and militarily. This is yet another
proof of the strategic weakness of imperialism.

57. Conceived and developed as a rampart against communism and as a
market for American multinationals and capital, the European Union
progressively evolved into a weapon in the hands of the leading
European monopolies to contest American hegemony.

58. From 1970 to 1980, the European and Japanese economies practically
caught up with the United States. From 1980 to 1990, Japan even became
the largest exporter of capital.

59. At the end of the eighties, the strategic alliance under American
domination that had been created against communism after the Second
World War, was more and more turning into a competition among the three
major imperialist blocs: the United States, the European Union under
German leadership and Japan.

[Conghaileach]

VI. 1989: Imperialism on the Offensive

60. The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and the other
countries of East Europe has simultaneously reinforced the aggressivity
of imperialism towards socialism, national liberation movements and the
international working class. It has sharpened inter-imperialist
rivalries. The restoration of capitalism has destroyed the world
socialist market and put the other socialist countries in extremely
difficult conditions of survival. It has deprived national liberation
movements of a support base. It has weakened the struggle of the world
proletariat against capitalist exploitation.

61. The counter-revolution in 1989 modified the balance of power in the
world fundamentally. It was a major political event that has obliged
all forces in presence, reactionary as well as revolutionary, to revise
their strategies. Minimising or underestimatiing this change inevitably
leads Communists to adopt a passive or follow-my-leader attitude
towards imperialism.

62. The destruction of what remained of socialism in the Soviet Union
initiated worldwide reaction. Having achieved the destruction of its
hereditary enemy, socialism, imperialism feels it can crush all thought
of independence in peoples and countries it subued in the colonial era,
without provoking any reaction.

63. American imperialism is the only superpower with a geopolitical and
military strategy for imposing its hegemony on a worldwide scale.

64.This strategy, as redefined in 1989, follows five main lines:

a.. firmly to subdue the countries of East Europe and the independent
republics of the former Soviet Union to American control by submitting
them to police and military surveillance by Nato;
b.. to prevent the re-establishment of the Soviet Union or a close
union between Russia and certain ex-Soviet republics;
c.. to prevent the European Union, under German impulse, from
becoming a superpower that could rival the United States and so also to
prevent the emergence of an exclusively European security system that
would destabilise Nato;
d.. to prevent the emergence, in Asia, of regional powers that could
enter into competition with the United States, especially Japan;
e.. to prevent the emergence of political and economic powers
following an independent political line in the Third World.
65. The implementation of this policy has been characterised by the de
facto liquidation of international law, formalised in the United
Nation's Charter adopted after the victory in the anti-fascist war, and
by the starting of a series of large-scale wars.

66. The last aspect of this strategy was put into practice in the 1991
war against Irak. The Gulf War was the first to be made possible by the
counter-revolution in the Soviet Union.

67. The Gulf War inaugurated the new strategy of imperialism in the new
balance of power in the world. The exceptional violence of this war,
the conditions of surrender imposed on the Iraqi State and the embargo
that ensued, marked the will of all the imperialist blocs to take
mankind back to the colonial era, to the balance of power that existed
before the October Revolution. More than forty countries took part in
this war under the leadership of the United States.

68. As in every important turning point in history, imperialism was
able to count on the total support of social-democracy, including its
ecological component. This most recent variant of social-democracy
lined up with imperialist positions during the counter-revolution of
1989.

69. In the collective involvement of imperialism against Arab
nationalism, rivalry between imperialist blocs is not lacking. The Gulf
War under American leadership was not only a war against the Third
World. It was also a crusade by the United States against its
competitors, Germany and the European Union for Europe, Japan for Asia,
with the aim of controlling the immense resources and markets of the
Middle East. Conversely, for the European Union and Japan, taking part
in the Gulf war was an opportunity of asserting themselves as future
political, military and financial superpowers.

70. The first and the third aspects of this new strategy of American
imperialism became reality immediately after the Gulf War in the war
that dismembered Yugoslavia and put the Balkans under Nato control.

71. The dismembering of Yugoslavia was planned by Germany, which
considered the unity of Yugoslavia as the main obstacle in the path of
its multinationals on their way towards the East and the war in
Yugoslavia as the first opportunity since the Nazi defeat to lead the
European Union in military aggression against an independent country.
More than twenty countries took part in the military occupation of
Yugoslavia, under German and American leadership.

72. By intervening in this European war, the United States attained
their aim of controlling German expansionism and crushing the
resistance of an independent East European nation. Politically and
physically, the United States asserted its presence as the leading
power in the Balkans, on Russia's threshold.

73. After the Gulf War, the war in Yugoslavia revealed for the second
time both the coalition of imperialism against independent countries
and the rivalry between blocs for the control of strategic regions.

74. To implement the second aspect of its strategy and keep Russia from
becoming an independent power, the United States instigated several
wars in the ex-Soviet Union: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tadjikistan
and specially Chechenia; these wars have already caused several
hundreds of thousands of victims.

75. Interimperialist contradictions in Africa, mainly between France
and the United States, made the genocide in Rwanda possible. Fearing
the emergence of an independent and powerful Congo in the centre of
Africa, American imperialism, with the help of the Rwandese and Ugandan
armies, launched an aggression against the Congo that has already
caused the death of more than three million people.

76. In 2001, the coup d'Etat instigated in the United States, with the
help of hundreds of millions of dollars, frauds and other
irregularities, by the most reactionary fractions of the leading
American monopolies, in particular those linked with the war industry,
imposed a government of Republican militarists. To survive the ever-
worsening crisis, the multinationals called for a fundamental change of
orientation towards military production.

77. American imperialism made its orientation towards war more explicit
in President Bush's speech of January 21, 2002. First, the United
States will itself eliminate those so-called terrorist groups not
eliminated by the governments concerned, as demanded by the US. Second,
and above all, it will attack the states it accuses of supporting
terrorism and threatening the US. Among which the first mentioned are
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, followed by Iraq and Iran.

78. American imperialism redefined its world hegemonic strategy in 2001
along the following lines.

a.. If the USSR and Eastern Europe were for a long time at the centre
of American military strategy, this strategy would now be directed
towards Asia. The main region to be targeted extends from Eastern Asia
(the bay of Bengal) to North-East Asia (the sea of Japan). All the
socialist countries of Asia are situated in this zone. American
imperialism considers China to be its greatest challenge to domination
over Asia and the world for the fifteen years to come. American
imperialism will greatly increase its bases in this region.
b.. The Middle East, rich in energy resources indispensable to
American imperialism and its allies and more precisely the states
backed by a genuine military capacity to defend their national
independence (Iran, Irak) will remain the second challenge.
c.. In the third place, American imperialism will continue its
strategy of incorporation of the Balkans into its "Western security
system". It sees the possibility of co-operation with Russia in certain
areas but worries about the fact that Russia pursues certain political
aims contrary to American interests. The United States is also worried
about the permanent instability that characterises the former socialist
countries.
d.. Finally, the fourth challenge is situated in South America, and,
more precisely, in the region of the Andes, where revolutionary
movements and tendencies towards independence also threaten American
interests.
79. European imperialism carries out a strategy of more limited
domination. The European Union is no less imperialist but does not
have, for the moment, the political and military power necessary to
fulfil broader ambitions with regard to the United States. European
imperialism even though present all over the world through its
monopolies pursues a strategy of imperialist domination mainly directed
towards East Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.

80. The enormous military and industrial power of Japan makes this
country a powerful competitor for the United States. Japan disposes of
the second largest military budget in the world and of a large, well-
equipped army and is developing economic exchanges with the countries
of Asia. Nevertheless, Japan does not have, for the time being, the
possibility of challenging the world hegemony of the United States, on
which it still depends in the defence field and which remains its main
economic partner. Japan is still relatively isolated in Asia. Its
Constitution prevents it from possessing offensive weapons and sending
troops abroad

81. It is essentially through the struggle for strategic zones
pertaining to the priorities not only of American, but also of European
and Japanese imperialism that the elements that could in time lead to
imperialist war are accumulating.

[Conghaileach]

VII. An Attack sparked off by the Imperialist Economic Crisis

82. Although the counter-revolution of 1989 allowed the rapid
intensification of imperialist aggressiveness and interimperialist
rivalries; this offensive has its objective basis in the economic
crisis that has beset the whole of the imperialist system since the mid
seventies.

83. In 1971, the accumulated American trade deficit forced Nixon to
detach the dollar from the gold standard. In 1973, the dollar suffered
its first devaluation since the end of the Second World War. Since
then, the American economy has been living above its means.

84. The economic policy of deregulation, privatisation, the destruction
of social benefits and the intensification of labour productivity,
initiated by Reagan and continued by successive American
administrations, did not solve the American economic crisis and further
deepened domestic class contradictions. The income of the poorest 40%
has been constantly decreasing since 1977. The scramble for economic
hegemony in a world crumbling beneath the weight of debt implies the
accumulation of capital and thus the intensification of the
exploitation of workers in imperialist countries. Inevitably, the
domestic social basis of American imperialism can only become narrower.

85. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the American economy is
living on a time bomb. Its financial markets are over-valued. The
United States is practically bankrupt. Households, businesses and the
State together have an accumulated debt of 18.000 billion dollars. The
American debt approaches 190% of the gross domestic product. Its
current balance of payments is in the red. Each year, the American
economy depends on foreign capital for 445 billion dollars. Its
economic hegemony depends on the international value of the dollar. The
United States' dependency on abroad is constantly growing.

86. This is a potential source of tremendous crisis. The United States
can allow this situation to continue as long as its world hegemony is
not fundamentally challenged. Anti-imperialist and/or inter-imperialist
struggles can set off this time bomb.

87. To compete with the United States, the European Union and Japan
have adopted similar social and economic policies, which produce the
same results. Labour productivity has grown considerably in these
countries, the lowering of wages is an objective fact and the number of
families crossing the threshold of poverty is continually on the rise.

88. The general offensive by monopolies and their imperialist
governments has been adopted and imposed without limits by institutions
such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the
International Monetary Fund. These institutions force open borders for
goods and capital from the multinationals. They are the tools of the
re-colonization of theThird World.

89. All the East European countries have experienced negative growth
since 1990. In 1997, the production of the ex-USSR was 57% of its level
of 1990. Mass redundancy appeared in East Europe and social security
has been drastically reduced.

90. For the masses of the Third World the situation is disastrous. In
the most backward countries of the Third World, per capita income has
fallen since 1970. In the countries where the exportation of capital
has allowed a certain degree of economic development, the crisis has
revealed the extreme dependence of these countries on imperialism. The
capital invested has been used to privatise, absorb and concentrate
national industries massively and have made these economies totally
dependent. In East Asia, considered to be the most dynamic economy, the
crisis of 1997 plunged a large part of the masses into poverty. Several
countries of South America are practically bankrupt. The Third World
debt has reached such proportions that the strategy of indebtment of
imperialism and its international institutions has reached its limits.
The crisis and the uprisings in Argentina are a foretaste of situations
that will be experienced by several Third World countries in the years
to come.

91. The enormous improvement of productivity, due to the
intensification of labour and prodigious technological development,
enters into radical collision with the generalised impoverishment of
the workers.and the peoples of the world. The improvements in
productive capacities greatly surpass the consumption possibilities of
the masses and states.

92. Monopolies and their governments have pushed the exploitation of
workers to an extreme. The possibilities for even more intensive
exploitation are on the decrease. Over-capacity in practically all the
important sectors of production are is increasingly in contradiction
with the widespread reduction of the purchasing power of the masses.
This situation cannot go on very long.

93. The economic strategy of imperialism was able to develop at an
unprecedented rhythm because of very rapid technological progress,
especially in the areas of data processing and communication. Due to
these technologies also, capital can travel at the speed of light,
seeking maximum profits, swelling the volume of stock exchange
transactions to the utmost. They also make the decentralization of
production on a world scale possible. This has led to an unprecedented
interdependence of the world's economies.

94. The economies of the large imperialist centres- of the United
States even more than those of Europe or Japan - depend more than ever
on the Third World, not only for their raw materials but also for a
large range of manufactured goods. Delocalization towards these
countries with a view to boosting profits has made imperialism very
vulnerable, strengthening the necessity for imperialism to reinforce
its control over these regions.

95. Because of the strong interdependence of the world's economies,
crisis in one region of the planet can have consequences in all the
other regions. So far, the time lag between regional crises has kept
the whole world from falling into deep, simultaneous depression. The
interdependence of economies also increases the probability of a
simultaneous and sudden crisis that would suck in the world system. The
United States is heading towards a crisis that will tear the world
economy apart with even more violence than in 1929.

96. The interdependence of the whole world economy, which has reached
an unprecedented level because of the lightning development of
technologies and productive forces, deepens the contradiction between
the increasingly social character of production and the private
character of appropriation, more and more limited to a handful of
monopolies. This interdependence pleads in favour of the socialisation
of property on a world scale and, at the same time, creates the
objective and subjective conditions that will make it possible.

[Conghaileach]

VIII. Imperialism is heading straight for War as a Solution to the
Crisis

98. The economic laws of monopoly capitalism are implacable. If the
system crumbles beneath the weight of overproduction and crisis, the
profit logic pushes the leading monopolies towards war, the ultimate
way to get production going again in the capitalist economy and to
produce substantial profits through the war sacrifices imposed on
workers.

99. Under monopoly capitalism and imperialism, the general tendency is
towards the restriction of democratic rights for the people and their
increasing exclusion from solutions to basic political and economic
problems. The deepening of the crisis and the trend of imperialism
towards war accentuate this policy.

100. Monopoly capitalism imposes its dictatorship and its warlike
tendencies both through the methods of fascism and fascistisation and
by the method of demagogy and manipulation of the masses. The different
bourgeois parties use these two methods simultaneously, with varying
intensity.

101. Although fascist and right-wing parties privilege fascistisation
they also make use of social demagogy. Although reformist and social-
democratic parties impose the policies of big business through social
demagogy, they also play a major role in the fascistisation of the
bourgeois regime.

102. The common tendency of all imperialist blocs towards war,
militarism and fascism implies having recourse to all possible sources
of division among workers and peoples and encouraging all kinds of
reactionary trends: ethnicism, racism, religious or lay fundamentalism
or other forms of irrationalism, etc. All these reactionary trends have
the same fbasic function: to turn workers and peoples away from the
struggle against imperialism.

103. To conclude, since 1989, imperialism has resolutely turned towards
war as an essential strategic solution to the crisis. That is the main
characteristic of the new situation.

104. The United States remains the dominant hegemonic power. At the
same time, in order to carry out its wars, American imperialism has had
to rely on other imperialist blocs, the European Union and Japan.

105. The fact that it was necessary for the imperialist blocs to unite
under American leadership in order to beat Irak, to break up Yugoslavia
and crush Afghanistan, three small nations, only goes to prove the
fundamental weakness of imperialism when confronted with oppressed
peoples and nations.

106. At the same time, this unity fuels the rivalry between the
imperialist powers; under the American umbrella, the European Union and
Japan are entitled to carry out aggression abroad, training, preparing
and reinforcing their troops and armament.

107. The wars of the last ten years have given clear indications of the
ultimate aims of imperialism: behind Yugoslavia, Russia is being aimed
at; behind Irak and the war against the Palestinian people, there is
the Middle East and the Arab world; behind Afghanistan, there is China;
behind the aggression in the Congo, there is the rivalry between
American and European imperialism for the control of the gigantic
resources of the Congolese soil and those of Africa; behind the
blockade against Cuba, the American invasion of Panama and the dirty
war in Columbia, there is all of South America.

108. The wars of the last ten years show that imperialism pursues
different aims with each war: the control and/or the conquest of
natural resources, the control and/or the conquest of markets, the
occupation of strategic positions to set up military bases for future
interventions, the weakening of rival imperialists, the political and
ideological aims of struggle against socialism and national liberation
movements.

109. Since the counter-revolution of 1989, the danger of war inherent
to imperialism has turned into real wars of aggression against the
Third World and the nations that want to remain independent.

110. The imperialist blocs take advantage of each conflictto try and
ensnare the masses in the logic of war, to push through increased
military budgets, to train troops, set up bases, etc. Each new war,
with its share of militarisation and fascistisation, in fact heightens
the danger of world war.

[Conghaileach]

IX. The Tasks of Communists in the Twenty-First Century

111. The twenty-first century wass brought in in a situation
characterized by unceasing upheavals that profoundly perturb the world
imperialist system. Nevertheless: "The victory of the revolution never
occurs spontaneously. It has to be prepared and conquered. And it can
be prepared and conquered only by a strong proletarian party. There are
moments when the situation is revolutionary, where the power of the
bourgeoisie is shaken down to its foundations, but, nevertheless, the
victory of the revolution does not occur, because there is no
revolutionary party of the proletariat, a party with enough strength
and authority to mobilize the masses and take power."3 (Stalin)

112. The Workers' Party of Belgium originated with the workers' and
students' protest movement in Europe at the end of the sixties. The
revolutionary wing of this movement sought its inspiration in the two
essential constituant parts of the twentieth century communist
movement. On one hand, this movement benefited from the prestige of
world communism, produced by the upward movement of socialist
revolution and national liberation struggle initiated by the October
1917 revolution and the communist parties of the Third International.
On the other hand, it benefited from the debate carried on in a
consistent way, by the Chinese Communist party among others, against
Khrushchevian revisionism. On the domestic scene, social struggles for
wage demands and better working conditions, democratic struggles for
equal rights, anti-imperialist struggles of solidarity with national
liberation movements, developed in a context of imperialist economic
growth. Naturally, the conditions in which our party came into
existence marked our political and ideological guidelines for many
years.

113. In last five years, the Workers' Party of Belgium has carried out
a rectification process to adapt its work to new realities. The
political ground for this rectification was outlined by the VIth
Congress of the Party in the following terms: "The permanent
transformation of their world outlook allows the cadres of the
Communist Party to be able to assume their tasks for each new
historical period. Since 1945, Belgium has gone through a period in
which bourgeois democracy has been relatively stable. There is a risk
that the ideas and attitudes of the cadres are marked by this period.
But the destruction of what remained of socialism in the USSR has
initiated a period of reaction all over the world, wars of aggression
and inter-imperialist wars are on the agenda, fascistisation is the
general tendency of today's imperialist world."4

114. For the Party to be able to assume its responsibilities fully for
the years to come, it must be united from top to bottom, all
generations and sectors together, on a common definition of its
political, ideological and organisational tasks.

115. The first task is to assimilate the global assessment of communism
in the twentieth century in depth and to propagate it widely and
resolutely. Our fundamental thesis is that only socialism can save
mankind and ensure social justice, democracy, national liberation and
peace.

116. All the ideologists of the bourgeoisie, bourgeois and petty
bourgeois, in power or infiltrated in mass movements, violently oppose
that notion. Every time we take part in mass struggles we must develop
awareness of the necessity of destroying imperialism down to its
foundations and establishing socialism, and effectively steer the
people in that direction.

117. This task goes along with the extremely urgent one of
international solidarity, that of ensuring the defence of the socialist
countries by all means and developing with them a broad movement of
solidarity: the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of Laos
and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

118. The simple peaceful existence of countries that remain true to
their socialist guidelines in spite of very difficult conditions is
incompatible with the new world order defined by imperialism.
Imperialism has not forsaken its strategic aim of destroying the
socialist regimes.

119. This strategy first aims at isolating socialism through different
kinds of embargoes, undermining socialism from the inside, upholding
all forms of counter-revolution, both within society and in the party.
Our duty is to support the efforts of the countries and parties opposed
to this strategy by all means at our disposal.

120. At the same time, we must prepare the masses to be ready for
imperialist aggression, intervention and even war against socialist
countries, in order to come to their defence at any moment.

121. The second task consists of developing a global strategy of
struggle against imperialist wars and the preparation by imperialism of
a third World War. In view of the extremely rapid changes in the world
situation and their complexity, communists must drastically upgrade
their study capacity and make better use of the collective capacity of
the international communist movement. It is urgent to furnish both a
broader theoretical basis to activism and a more serious Marxist basis
to our study.

122. We must study more seriously the strategies of the different
imperialist centres, the United States, Europe and Japan, in order to
anticipate better the targets of imperialist wars as well as what is at
stake in interimperialist rivalries.

123. It will be very important to know who the potential allies in the
struggle against imperialism are. We must study the evolution of large
countries like Russia and India, which belong to zones that are
strategic for the conquest of the world, in order to determine the role
they will play in the fight against imperialism. For the same reason,
we must study the development of the independent nations of the Third
World.

124. We must study the experience of communists and revolutionaries all
over the world, so as to develop our ideological, practical, tactical
and organizational capacities fully.

125. The struggle against war entails immediate practical tasks. We
must educate the masses and mobilise broad fronts against
militarisation and fascism, generalised in all imperialist countries in
the wake of US imperialism. We must give specific importance to the
working class, so that it may exercise its leadership over these
fronts, and to other working people, in the framework of trade-union
activities, and we must centre on youth in all strata of the population
to make them the spearheads of the struggle against war and for
socialism.

126. We must continue our tasks of solidarity with the peoples who,
during the last ten years, have withstood and still withstand
imperialist aggression. Their suffering must be transformed into
experience for all peoples and into education aiming at heightening the
vigilance of the people with regard to the danger of war as well as
their capacity to develop solidarity with peoples who have been
aggressed.

127. We must carry out campaigns for the dissolution of NATO, the main
instrument of American imperialism and its European allies, and defend
the pre- counter-revolution gains of international law.

128. As a party active in Europe, our duty is to oppose the
reinforcement of European imperialism and to struggle for its
destruction and replacement by a federation of European Socialist
Republics. For this reason, we must lead the struggle of the masses
against the anti-social policies of the European Union, educating them
and leading them in a broad movement against the militarisation and
fascistisation of the European Union.

129. The work of communists among the masses in the imperialist
countries of Europe, and more specifically in the present European
Union, must always go against chauvinist and nationalist traditions
that are the legacy of a weighty colonial past. The struggle against
anti-social policies, against militarisation and the danger of war must
always be closely linked with the support given to the national
liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World.

130. The decisive instrument of revolution is the communist party. The
decisive instrument of world revolution is the international communist
movement. The tasks of the construction of the Workers' Party of
Belgium are subordinated to those of reinforcing the international
communist movement.

131. The international situation makes it necessary for communists all
over the world to strengthen their links, to exchange their analyses
and their points of view and to develop common action. The Workers'
Party of Belgium contributes to this process since 1992 by organising
after May Day an annual International Communist, in which nearly 150
parties and organisations from Asia, Africa, South America, North
America, Europe and the former socialist countries of East Europe have
taken part.

132. In accordance with the traditions of the Communist International,
among our tasks of helping the international communist movement we give
priority to communists in the former colony and exclusive preserve of
Belgium, the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is impossible to develop
a communist consciousness and to educate the working class in a
revolutionary spirit without completely eradicating the colonial and
chauvinist prejudices of the former imperialist country concerning 'its
own' colony. Awareness that its living standards are largely due to the
colonial and neo-colonial looting of the people and the resources of
the Congo must be inculcated to the proletariat of the former ruling
country, as an inherent part of its class-consciousness.

133. In accordance with our geographical situation we give priority to
the tasks of reinforcing the international communist movement in the
European Union and the countries of the former Soviet bloc.

134. We must be ready to satisfy all requests for help by communists,
wherever they may be, who are struggling for the reconstruction of the
international Communist movement.

135. The Workers' Party of Belgium is animated by an indestructible
optimism, founded on the strong conviction that the international
communist movement will be able, in the course of the century now
starting, to lead the struggle of the oppressed peoples and nations for
the destruction of imperialism and the establishment of socialism all
over the world.

Notes
a.. Karl Marx in Marx-Engels, Textes sur le colonialisme, (Karl Marx,
1853), Moskou, p. 98-99.
b.. Manuel d'économie politique, Academy of Science of the Soviet
Union, French Edition, 1955, Norman Béthune, Paris 1969, Chapter XXI,
p. 291-292.
3.. Stalin, "Report presented to the XVIIth Congress on the
activities of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Boshevik)
of the Soviet Union", 26 January 1934, in Les questions du léninisme,
Peking, 1977, p. 699.
4.. Ludo Martens and Nadine Rosa-Rosso, The party of the revolution,
published by the Workers' Party of Belgium, Brussels, 1996, p. 16.