The Limits of Third Worldism: A Leninist Critique of False Anti-Imperialism

By Nikos Mottas 

In conditions of intensified imperialist competition—characterized by wars, realignments, and shifts in the global balance of power—the need for theoretical clarity becomes more decisive than ever. 

However, it is precisely under such conditions that ideological confusion often appears in the form of radicalism. One of the most characteristic expressions of this confusion today is what is commonly referred to as “Third Worldism”, a current that claims to defend anti-imperialism while deviating from the fundamental principles of Marxism–Leninism.

Bogus Anti-imperialism and the Fight for Peace

By Greg Godels 

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.”

Greenland: A "Northern Front" of Inter-Imperialist Rivalry

By Nikos Mottas 

The developments surrounding Greenland should not be treated as a diplomatic anomaly or as the product of individual political choices. 

They are a concentrated expression of the contemporary phase of imperialism, in which the sharpening competition among capitalist powers drags strategic regions and smaller peoples into conflicts not of their own making. 

Imperialism, Multipolarity and Palestine

By Greg Godels

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.

KKE: Using the “multi-polar world” to whitewash capitalism

Comment by the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE 

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.

Multipolarity and BRICS, once more...

By Greg Godels

The 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.”