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Where V.I. Lenin in 1916 wove together a theory of imperialism that placed capitalist exploitation and accumulation at its core, explaining competition between greater and lesser powers and their coalitions and alliances as leading to war, a prominent Marxist, Karl Kautsky, asserted that war or the threat of war would persuade states to coexist, to put aside rivalries and create– in Kautsky’s words– “…a federation of the strongest, who renounce their arms race.”
It is a continuing source of frustration that an important segment of the left holds the view that weakening the United States’ long-established grip on the top rungs of the hierarchical system of imperialism is– in itself– an attack on imperialism.
Many of our friends, including those who claim to aim at a socialist future, mistakenly see an erosion in the US position as the imperialist system’s hegemon as necessarily a step guaranteeing a just future, lasting peace, or a step towards socialism.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit meeting was used to foster new illusions among the peoples. Certain forces see imperialism merely as the “empire” of the USA and on this basis they salute the promotion of new emerging capitalist powers in global affairs, such as the emergence of new inter-state unions (BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Collective Security Treaty Organization, ALBA etc.), which are formed by capitalist states, with an economic–political and military content.
By Greg GodelsThe debates over “multipolarity” and the significance of an allegedly multipolar BRICS grouping continue. In an opinion piece in People’s Voice (Canada) (“Multipolarity, BRICS+ and the struggle for peace, cooperation, and socialism today”, June 16-30, 2024) writer Garrett Halas mounts an earnest defense of multipolarity and the BRICS+ “as a positive step towards socialism.”
Aleksander Dugin, a propagandist for Putin’s great-Russian imperialism, has had to maneuver through one of the contradictions within the BRICS association – the unity and contention between China and Russia.
Supposedly a historian and philosopher, Dugin spews reactionary filth going back to feudal times.
