"We should get our comrades to understand that the twofold basic task of the leading bodies of the Communist Party is to know conditions and to master policy; the former means knowing the world and the latter changing the world." -Mao Zedong, 1941, Reform our Study
John Bellamy Foster – The Crisis of Capital: Economy, Ecology and Empire from pdxjustice Media Productions on Vimeo. Continue reading John Bellamy Foster: The crisis of capital: economy, ecology and empire
The principle of endless accumulation that defines capitalism is synonymous with exponential growth, and the latter, like cancer, leads to death. John Stuart Mill, who recognized this, imagined that a “stationary state of affairs” would put an end to this irrational process. John Maynard Keynes shared this optimism of Reason. But neither was equipped to understand how the necessary overcoming of capitalism could prevail. By contrast, Marx, by giving proper importance to the emerging class struggle, could imagine the reversal of power of the capitalist class, concentrated today in the hands of the ruling oligarchy.
Accumulation, which is synonymous with pauperization, provides the objective framework of the struggles against capitalism. But accumulation expresses itself globally mainly by the growing contrast between the affluence of the societies in the center of the world system that benefit from imperialist “rent,” and the misery of the societies in the dominated peripheries. This center-periphery conflict becomes, therefore, the central axis of the alternative between socialism and barbarism.
Historically, “really existing” capitalism is associated with successive forms of accumulation by dispossession, not only at the beginning (primitive accumulation), but also at each stage of the unfolding of the capitalist system. Since the seventeenth century, Atlantic capitalism has sought to conquer the world, which it has remade on the basis of permanent dispossession of the conquered regions, transforming them into the dominated peripheries of the system. Continue reading “Monthly Review: Seize the Crisis! by Samir Amin”
… (A) Marxism stripped of its revolutionary essence is a contradiction in terms with no reason for being and no … Continue reading Monthly Review: What is Maoism? by Bernard D’Mello
A World to Win News Service. Following are excerpts from a July leaflet by the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan.
Dear people of our country!
As you know the second round of the puppet regime’s presidential election and local council elections will be held in late August. The reactionary-imperialist show has already started. We call on all of you: Do not take part in the puppet regime’s presidential and the local council’s elections!
We issue this call because:
First of all: Many people believe that participation in this election will be even less than last time, and that only a very small minority of the population will vote. Our people have the right to react to the upcoming elections with indifference. They experienced the results of previous elections: more murdering bombardments, the deepening and spreading of the regime’s corruption, homelessness, unemployment, poverty and hunger among the toilers… Continue reading “Afghan Maoists: “Do not take part in the puppet regime’s presidential and local council elections!””
Communist Organization of Greece, Statement Nr 7/2009 (24/2/2009)
After the revolt of December in Greece, a big debate develops within the Greek Left concerning the attitude of the communists in front of the bourgeois governments. This heated discussion is part of a greater debate about the tasks, the strategy and the tactics of the left and communist forces in Greece.
The polemical character of the debate is owed to the fact that, during December 2008, the split within the Greek Left became more wide: One part (KOE, the Radical Left Coalition/SYRIZA and the extra-parliamentarian left groups) supported the Revolt. Another part (mostly the Communist Party of Greece/KKE, as well as the right-wingers of the former “euro-communist” current) condemned the movement and labeled it as “violent acts of masked rioters of suspicious origin and of reactionary character”. Thus, indirectly but objectively, aligned themselves with the bourgeois-governmental block of “law and order”. Since January 2009 the debate became very acute, as the KKE leadership attacked repeatedly KOE and SYRIZA with statements and publications in its Press, slandering us as “supporters of the social-democratic PASOK” because of our slogan “Down with this government of murderers!”.
A World to Win News Service .
The occupiers of Afghanistan, led by the U.S., have announced that they will present their new strategy soon. While they may not reveal all the elements of their strategy, some aspects are apparent in what they are already doing.
For some time now the U.S. has exerted increasing pressure to compel its allies to send more troops, especially into the war zones. This pressure as well as the failure of the U.S. and Nato forces to gain the control of the country gave rise to opposition to the previous American strategy from European countries and in particular the British, who warned that simply increasing the number of invaders on the ground cannot stop the situation from deteriorating. The alternative they presented involves negotiating with the Taleban and other Islamic opposition forces, and strengthening the puppet government and its army. Making use of tribal leaders and their militias has been another important element of discussion among the occupiers for a long time.
Continue reading “Afghanistan: The occupiers’ new strategy – intensify the occupation”
A World to Win News Service.
The debate over the need for a new strategy in Afghanistan has reached a fever pitch among imperialist circles. There is rarely a news item about that country that does not at least state the need for a new approach. The occupiers’ think tanks and Afghanistan experts are busy discussing and debating the necessary elements. Barack Obama’s inauguration as U.S. president may provide the occasion for the rollout of a new plan, or at least steps touted as such.
It is now very widely recognized that the approach the U.S. has been using so far has failed. While the U.S., which is leading the imperialists occupying Afghanistan, finds it difficult to openly admit this failure, that judgement is implicit in American officials’ demands that other Nato countries match the U.S. in greatly increasing the number of foreign troops. (See AWTWNS, 2 November 2008)
The U.S., Canada, the British and other imperialists fighting in the war zones tried hard for a long time to pressure other Nato countries to fight alongside them. There has been an alarmist tone to reports from imperialist circles, including military and parliamentary spokespeople and certain humanitarian agencies, highlighting the deteriorating situation, the resurgence of the Taleban and the real possibility that, as they like to put it, "Afghanistan could become a failed state." Most of their reports recommend that other Nato countries take part in the fighting and that they all send more troops, warning that otherwise the result could be complete failure.
Continue reading “Afghanistan and the occupiers’ dilemma: more troops or a different approach?”
A World to Win News Service.
Following are edited excerpts from issue no. 19 (July 2008) of Shola Jawid, organ of the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan. The explanations in parentheses are by AWTWNS.
The Taleban made little use of guerrilla methods in their war against the "Islamic Interim State of Afghanistan" headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmed Shah Massood (the warlord regime that came to power after the fall of the pro-Soviet regime in 1992 and eventually fell to the Taleban in 1996). For the most part their offensives took the form of conventional warfare.
In their initial confrontation with the U.S. and UK (after the October 2001 invasion), they used the same methods and suffered heavy losses. After two months of putting up more resistance than the invaders expected, they quickly retreated from the regions under their control. At that time they were unable to reorganise their forces to fight guerrilla warfare and continue fighting in the villages or mountains. In addition to these organisational and military questions, other major factors behind their inability to sustain the fighting were the lack of mass support and low morale in their own ranks due to the general assumption that it was impossible to resist the superior military forces led by the U.S. This defeat caused a relatively large section of the Taleban forces to defect and join the puppet regime.
Made during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Breaking With Old Ideas (1975) concerns the struggle to democratize the school system … Continue reading Breaking With Old Ideas
