Bogus Anti-imperialism and the Fight for Peace

Where VI 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.” 

Lenin believed that competition between great powers will inevitably result in war; Kautsky believed that competition between great powers will inevitably bring a settled peace.

Similarly, today’s advocates of multipolarity argue that the only obstacle to the world imagined by Kautsky is the United States. As the former Cold War leader of the capitalist order, the US is now the meddler, war monger, aggressor, and imperialist standing in the way of a multipolar world that will establish a more tolerant, cooperative, and peaceful world. 

Advocates see the agency for this Kautskyian utopia in the BRICS coalition, established formally in 2009, subsequently adding new members and partners along the way. Its supporters remind us that BRICS+ commands a greater share of global GDP than does the G7 nations or the EU. The original BRICS economies grew by a stunning 356.27% between 1990 and 2019. 

Despite these impressive economic numbers, BRICS’s most zealous proponents posture the alliance as representative of the peripheral “Global South” --as the arm of the ‘have-nots’-- in the struggle against the ‘haves’ of the core-- the US and its Eurasian allies.

While this may make a soothing story, a popular source of hope for peace and social justice, it completely fails the test presented by the realities of this moment. Measured by any rigorous standards of inquiry, multipolarity is a fraud.

On its face, the idea that an alleged powerhouse economic bloc is the advocate, the savior for the poorest, most disadvantaged countries is surely paradoxical. No one would take a similar claim seriously if it came from the mouths of foreign ministers of the G7 or the EU.

But the failure of the BRICS fantasy is best shown by examining BRICS and its member states' response to recent monumental world events.  

On the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israeli forces: BRICS and its member states voiced some stern objections, but took no substantial measures to stop it or to punish Israel. In fact, they continued their substantial economic relations with the rogue state, failed to defy the Israeli blockade, and offered no material aid to the Palestinians.

On the aggression against Venezuelan sovereignty: BRICS and some of its member states raised objections, but took no concrete action; some benefitted from the US action, some were set back by it. Security agents from material-poor Cuba heroically gave their lives resisting the invasion.

On the attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran (a BRICS member state) by the US and Israel: BRICS and its member states again voiced objections, but offered little or no material support. As The Wall Street Journal noted “Iran has sought for years to build closer military ties with China and Russia, but its powerful friends are proving reluctant to step forward as the regime faces the most acute U.S. threat to its survival in decades.” 

On the escalating aggression against Cuba, suffering acute energy crises under the intensified US blockade: old beneficiaries of Cuban internationalist sacrifices-- including BRICS members and partners-- are offering marginal support for socialist Cuba as it faces possibly its worst existential crisis. 

If BRICS is the guarantor of the interests of the so-called Global South against US and Israeli aggression, if this is the counterforce to imperialism that US and European leftists imagine, then much of the world needs new, more militant friends. The facts contradict the false theory of multipolarity and its embodiment in the BRICS alliance. Rather than exhibiting a new spirit of cooperation, mutual interest, internationalism, and solidarity, the BRICS members seem bent on basing foreign policy on narrow self-interest.

Critics are, however, stepping forward, some with doubts, some with sharp and incisive rebukes of the multipolarity dogma and the BRICS myth. 

Many doubters were repelled by the recent UN Security Council vote crafted by the US and condemning Iran’s retaliation against US allies on the Arabian Peninsula, without calling out the war’s initiators, the US and Israel.

Betwa Sharma, writing in Consortium News, protests that “both Moscow and Beijing abandoned Tehran by abstaining on a March 11 U.N. Security Council resolution that falsely portrayed Iran as the aggressor. China and Russia’s own interests took precedence over a BRICS partner under attack.”

She concludes: 

The war on Iran has exposed the fragility of BRICS as a rising alternative to the U.S.-led global order.

U.S. economic pressure and geopolitical shocks, especially the attack on Iran, have revealed BRICS less as a unified bloc with a common strategic goal, than a collection of countries with overlapping interests that diverge sharply under pressure.

Focusing mainly on Gaza, Patrick Bond recently wrote a detailed, scathing exposé of BRICS hypocrisy.

Bond acknowledges that BRIC member, South Africa, provided 15% of Israel’s coal needs as of 2025. As for another BRICS founding member, “...in addition to wheat and metals, Russia sells coal and – in just the two years since the genocide began in 2023 – made 105 oil transfers comprising 30% of Israel’s total crude and 45% of refined petroleum imported, via Novorossiysk (originating from BRICS-partner Kazakhstan.”

Bond reports on another founding member: "Chinese drones (tens of thousands by now) made by DJI and Autel buzz Gaza and the West Bank, and are used to drop grenades on civilians… and moreover, a Chinese parastatal owns the new Haifa Bayport while another built the ‘union-busting’ Ashdod harbour, which together have facilitated a 5% annual increase in bilateral trade since 2021, confirming Netanyahu’s 2017 term for the two economies, namely, a 'marriage made in heaven.'"

Further: “New Delhi assures a strengthened Israeli-Indian military alliance, the September 2025 Bilateral Investment Treaty, and Modi’s ‘Special Strategic Partnership’ solidaristic visit to the Knesset featuring ‘immense progress’ in ‘defence, security, and more.’”

Bond reveals similar embarrassing economic ties between other BRICS members and Israel, including with Brazil, UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. He concludes by asserting that, in fact, the “BRICS Promote Global-Corporate Power Under the Cover of Multipolarism.” 

Facts, facts, facts… they often make for stubborn, unfriendly encounters with cherished theories and opinions. At least some of our friends on the left are paying attention.

In a moving “j’accuse”, Josué Veloz Serrade writes in his article translated and posted on Black Agenda Report of “un multilaterismo hipócrita”-- a hypocritical multilateralism toward Cuba.

Veloz Serrade casts scorn on all of the nations that could respond to Cuba’s abandonment before an existential threat from the US Empire, especially those who preach multipolarity and hail BRICS as the anti-Empire:

In their rhetoric, Russia and China demand an end to unipolarity, the construction of a multipolar world, respect for international law, and, in particular, for the sovereignty of each country. But their real desire, revealed by their actions rather than their words, is the gradual integration into the rules of the very system they claim to contest…

As bitter as it may be to hear, by abandoning Cuba, they are not simply being pragmatic; they are admitting that their real goal is not the transformation of the world order, but the negotiation of a more comfortable place within it…

…they have incorporated the logic of the imperial playing field—its institutions, its markets, its values, its rules, its default ideology—to such an extent that they have become incapable of imagining political action that breaks with that field, even though they proclaim it necessary in their rhetoric…

The Empire supports its allies to the very end because it understands that loyalty to its own is a condition of its own power. But Cuba’s allies do the opposite: they abandon it when the political cost of supporting Cuba outweighs the benefit of not doing so…

Those who today are abandoning Cuba are not only calculating their own narrow interests; they are also, in a way, renouncing their own desire for transformation. The abandonment of Cuba is the renunciation of the possibility of another world… 

Progressive Latin American governments, the BRICS, American and Western European left-wing parties, solidarity organizations that today look the other way: all have found, in one way or another, their niche within the order. They have obtained their share of recognition, their space for comfortable dissent, their permitted or simply tolerated gestures. And in that process, they have ceased to see Cuba as a mirror of what they could be, instead viewing it as an uncomfortable reminder of what they have ceased to be, but above all of what they never were…

Those who today betray Cuba are betraying themselves. Not in a metaphorical sense, but in a strategic one. A world order that claims to be multipolar but fails to protect the most vulnerable when the Master tightens the screws is not an alternative order; it is a decentralized extension of unipolarity, a system in which the ritual invocation of multipolarity is a rhetorical exercise in futility… 

Veloz Serrade’s bitter eloquence speaks not only to the fraud of multipolarity and the hypocrisy of BRICS, but to the possible loss of the last outpost of authentic solidarity, internationalism, and anti-imperialism. The hope of a just world may well be extinguished for millions who saw Cuba as a beacon.

Multipolarity is neither anti-imperialist nor a substitute for fighting the imperialist system. Those who are invested in multipolarity and the ‘promise’ of BRICS do grave disservice to the fight for global justice and for peace. The shame of BRICS failure to resist brazen, death-dealing aggression against weaker parties will fall on them as well.

There can be no effective anti-war movement in this time without clarity on the imperialist system. Peace is only attainable if we understand and resist the causes of war, while not deferring or relying on a group of countries committed to protecting or improving their place in that system. 

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com

The Decline of Trumpism and the Crisis of Capitalism

The chaotic Trump reign over US politics is showing critical signs of weakening on many fronts: Trumponomics is failing: Trumpian immigration policy has stirred a powerful backlash; Teflon Trump has been tarnished by his clumsy, slippery handling of the Epstein scandal; his foreign-policy contradictions and outrages have confused both international friends and foes alike; and his violation of his “end to endless wars” campaign has caused a break with some of his most ardent supporters.

It is easy to forget that this Trump regime has been in power for only a little more than a year, while enjoying a majority in both the House and the Senate, as well as a favorable majority in the Supreme Court. In such a short time, he and his cohorts have managed to do extraordinary damage.

Unlike in his first term, where Trump included some of the Republican Party old guard, the new administration was outfitted with hard-core MAGA-- a cabal that proved to be craven sycophants, unhinged racists and nationalists, and intellectual reactionaries.

Whatever traction Trump may have gotten with those angry with two-party betrayal, his already shattered promises are reflected in his falling poll numbers. With the mid-term elections coming, significant numbers within his coalition are questioning his policies or distancing themselves from his positions despite his brazen threats to destroy them politically for their heresy.

It would be more than misleading to credit the decline of Trumpism to the resistance, the Democrats, or the broad left. For sure, there have been remarkable centers of mass struggle against Trump’s policies, most notably, the impressive Minneapolis resistance to ICE that successfully organized tens of thousands into a powerful force driving the Trump forces into an embarrassing retreat. Those hoping to reverse the Trump onslaught would do well to study the Minnesota phenomenon rather than deferring to Democratic Party leadership.

The labor unions-- potentially a formidable adversary to Trumpism-- are paralyzed by a leadership afraid to defy their members who might support Trump. They are willing to close their eyes to MAGA’s clearly anti-union program in order to maintain the internal tranquility of business unionism. As support for Trumpism declines with working people, careerist union leaders remain on the sidelines. When union organizers and leaders have stood up in the past, they have made the difference between surrendering to reaction or defending the interests of working people. The left-led CIO unions of the thirties were the bulwarks of the resistance to the far-right “answers” to the Great Depression.

Similarly, the Democratic Party has demonstrated both its inability and unwillingness to defeat the Trump steamroller. Trump’s reelection itself proves that the Democratic Party has failed to create a program that will deliver voters from the fears and anxieties that animate Trump support. Tolerating-- if not welcoming-- the admission of billionaires, war mongers, spies, hucksters, and careerists into their inner circle, Democratic Party leaders are counting on Republican failure and Epstein-sleaze to propel them back to power, instead of developing a popular agenda. 

Recent local and by-elections have shown a hunger among Democratic Party voters for progressive, populist candidates of the Sanders/Mamdani ilk, but party functionaries have sought to cultivate ex-military, CIA, FBI hawks with corporate-friendly agendas to fill their electoral slates. The Democratic Party has evolved into a massive fund-raising machine more than willing to wait its turn in the two-party back-and-forth. Candidates of substance have no place in the strategic vision of their bankrupt leaders.

The Democratic Party response to the ongoing war against Iran (and the recent invasion of Venezuela) evidences its cynical, corrupted posture. Sensing a vulnerability with Trump’s naked aggression, they attack the Republicans-- not on moral or humanitarian grounds-- but on procedure! The slaughter of the innocent victims of Israeli and US bombs is passed on uncritically, but the failure to consult Congress counts as a grievous sin!

This is a party that long left its New Deal image in the rear-view mirror.

But because of the deeply entrenched two-party system, expressions of popular struggle, of resistance, of progressive change too often feel it necessary to tether to a corrupted Democratic Party.

Especially after the shock and awe of massive deindustrialization and a devastating economic crisis, many mistakenly envisioned Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party as a possible break from the indifference of the elites leading both parties. Trump presented himself as such, trading on desperate hope and the desire for change, just as his Democratic Party predecessor stirred a wave of optimism based on vague promises. With economic inequality-- the benchmark for all kinds of inequality-- relentlessly advancing, Trump’s empty promise of restoring manufacturing jobs nonetheless resonated with the disenchanted.

He promoted the idea that a heavy dose of sanctions, tariffs, and other forms of arm-twisting would secure for the citizens a bounty of wealth that had been cheated from them, stolen from them, or given away by the treacherous Democrats. This let’s-make-a-deal economic policy was the basis for the delusion that billions of lost wealth would be recovered for the public good. 

Couple these fantasies with a regressive tax policy to appease the hard-headed corporate bosses, and you have the essence of Trump’s economic plan.

Meanwhile, the serious problems of stagnation and inflation carried over from the Biden administration remain unattended.

Like the Democrats, Trump had no immigration policy that balanced guaranteeing labor-market stability with humanitarian concerns. Instead, he chose to not only expel all undocumented immigrants, but to also whip up hysterical waves of xenophobia, much of it rabidly racist. Unleashing a Gestapo-like ICE on communities and cities played poorly in even the corporate media, costing him dearly in support.

The Epstein scandal-- unlike other exposures of ruling-class libertinism and debauchery-- will not go away because both the Democrats and Republicans will not let it go away. Both parties are thoroughly devoted to throwing slime on their opponents, since both parties own prominent friends of Epstein. However, the Epstein affair has done serious and costly damage to Trump because he already exhibits extraordinary vulgarity, he has clumsily mishandled suspicions of his involvement, and his attorney general has botched the investigation. 

Despite running on a nationalist platform disclaiming foreign entanglements, Trump has been baited by the neo-conservative, Marco Rubio wing of MAGA to embrace regime change. After the Venezuela invasion, the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro Moros and Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, and the government’s subsequent capitulation, Trump grew “dizzy” with his perceived success. The Wall Street Journal has dubbed his novel regime-change strategy as “decapitate and delegate.” Now Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has wooed Trump into applying the strategy to Iran, launching a joint war that threatens to escalate into a regional war with profound implications for the global economy.

Trumpism’s decline comes at a time of the deepening crisis of capitalism. Since the devastating economic crash of 2007-2009, the world economy has failed to recover fully from financial stress, stagnation, and inflation. 

Under the management of political and central bank leaders, rapidly rising inequality, deteriorating standards of living, social stress, and widely expressed dissatisfaction afflict all the advanced capitalist countries. The most dramatic mass expression of this rising discontent is the growing rejection of centrist political parties—parties that have shared rule in most countries for many generations of voters. Trumpism and other, European and Asian, right-wing populist parties and movements reflect this bitter discontent with conventional governance.

Some of the so-called lower-middle or higher-middle-income capitalist or capitalist-accommodating countries have high growth rates that-- in spite of great inequality-- have generated growing middle strata and relative political stability. Insofar as they enjoy high growth from the migration of capital and industrial production to their economies, they also sustain high rates of labor exploitation along with modestly rising living standards. Their ruling classes have traded extreme labor exploitation for a competitive advantage against the advanced capitalist countries. 

Of course, the poorest countries remain tragically stunted from the legacy of European colonialism, denied any but the grimmest future in the capitalist economy.  

Competition between the advanced capitalist countries, rivalry with the emerging economies, and the desperate conflict between the have-nots for a place in the imperialist system constitute a global tinder box. 

Headlines understandably report US-Israeli aggression in the Middle East (now engaging nearly all of the countries in the region) or US brazen meddling in the Americas. 

Less acknowledged are the wars, conflicts, and civil wars stoked and conducted in nearly every region: Russia-Ukraine, Pakistan-Afghanistan, China-India, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Rwanda-DRCongo, Sudan, Thailand-Cambodia, Sahel, Myanmar, China-Taiwan, China-Japan, China-Philippines, Haiti, Colombia, are part of a list that grows almost weekly. Millions of lives have been affected by, even sacrificed to national ambitions to acquire markets, to attain resources, or to secure advantage over others directly or indirectly.

While the US remains the biggest capitalist bully in the imperialist system, it is simplistic and misleading to assume that its action is the only global expression of capital’s ruination upon the world’s people. Nor should it be forgotten that capital oppresses and immiserates the people of the US as well. It is an entire system in dysfunction.

As more and more people recognize that the current system and its managers are failing us, they will necessarily look for a more radical alternative. It should be apparent that recycling the same leaders, the same ideas, the same parties will simply not do. 

Yet there are those who insist that bringing down Trump or his global counterparts is enough. They see Trumpism and right-wing populism as a plague that visits the world periodically and must be collectively turned back to restore some kind of normalcy. They conjure an idyllic past that Trump and his ilk disturbed. This is the fantasy of privileged elites who have not felt the sting of inequality, insecurity, and misery persistently and increasingly inflicted by capital on many millions and for many generations.

To escape the trap of nostalgia for a decadent past and to avoid the return of right-wing snake charmers, socialism must be pressed on the people’s agenda. Socialism must not be pushed down the road as an ideal, as a far-off destination. The fact that polls show a popular acceptance of socialism, even a preference-- especially with the young-- for socialism, should demand its serious advocacy. 

The future can be brighter.

Greg Godels

zzsblogml@gmail.com