Mass group incidents on the increase in China

The growth of capitalism in China (or “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” as Hu Jintao described it 52 times in his report to the 17^th CPC party congress) has been accompanied by growing social unrest, what is officially described as “mass group incidents” (ie riots). Frequently, these are responses to specific social problems, for instance land dispossession suffered by peasants, changes in business licensing regulations, perceived miscarriages of justice, or fraudulent advertising claims, unpaid wages or environmental issues, sparking off spontaneous outbursts of anger and violence.

An article in the London Review of Books, says that “the condition of China – its rapidly growing inequality, and the gap between the ukase-issuing centre and the decentralised, gangster-ridden periphery – is starting to look the way it did before the Communists came to power” provoking “under-reported mini-rebellions in which pissed-off villagers turn on the Party-approved local thugs who are running rackets and appropriations”.

But there is also a growing number of what are officially described as "clashes without direct conflict of interests”, in which the rioters are mostly unconnected with the incident which has provoked social unrest.

According to Baixing Magazine, “The numerous participants in these conflicts have no direct connection to the incidents themselves. They are there because of a public sentiment that is ready to challenge and doubt all existing policies.” This, says the magazine, demonstrates “a scepticism of everything”, proving that “the government has lost the support of public opinion”.

“Many of the persons who participate in these mass incidents do not have any direct demands of their own. They had been treated unjustly and unfairly in the past and therefore accumulated a lot of discontent.”

Such incidents have taken place in Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and other developed areas. “For example, in Jintan city (Jiangsu province), there was a clash as a result of a dispute over financial investments. According to the investigation afterwards, 80 per cent of the participants in the mass incident had no financial stake in the affair. Most of them were just using the incident as a pretext . Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere. For example, in Chongqing and Anhui, minor street disputes triggered large-scale disturbances, and the participating masses had no direct demands.”

Participation in these events is not limited to those at the bottom of the social scale. Participants include enterprise owners, cadres at the divisional and departmental levels, company engineers, school principals, and so on. “As a result of being treated unfairly and unjustly and accumulating feelings of discontent over the long term, these people feel that they are open or hidden victims and they are releasing their emotions.”

In parallel with open street conflict, civil court cases are increasing in number, while fewer and fewer are being settled out of court. “The settlement rate for labour disputes is extremely low, as both sides are often intransigent. This means that tolerance in interpersonal relationships between labour and capital” [sic!] “is decreasing and the principals are more emotionally opposed to each other. In certain places, there are nationally prominent issues such as land acquisition, relocation and privatisation of state enterprises . . .

“The emergence of a large number of ‘clashes without direct conflict of interests’ is a warning signal. To a certain degree, it shows the likelihood that the government-citizen relationship has gone from mere quantities to a qualitative stage – the relationship between them is no longer the ‘fish in the water’ that we can only see in the ‘classical Red’ movies and books. In order to reverse this trend,” concludes the magazine, “the most important thing is to adjust the current distribution of interests while advocating anti-corruption, clean government and transparency of information.”

The rape of Yang Daili

A typical example of a “mass group incident” occurred in Zhuyang town, Dazhu county, Sichuan province on the afternoon of January 17, 2007, in response to the mysterious death of Yang Daili, a 16-year-old female student who was working in the Slow Rock Bar at the four-star Nest Business Hotel during her vacation. Two other girls and a security guard had died previously at the hotel, which was built as a joint venture by a local police chief and other local government officials with several tens of millions in investment.

It was said that the girl had been drugged and gang-raped by three officials of the local coal mine. The dead girl’s father, Yang Wanguo, said she had decided to leave the hotel as soon as she received her month’s wages, because “there were too many abnormal things going on in that hotel, including a lot of drug abuse”.

The hotel negotiated with the girl’s family and offered 500,000 RMB (UK£32,513 or US$ 67,306) to settle the matter, but this was refused. County party secretary Wang Wei addressed a meeting of more than 100 county officials and said that the death of Yang Daili was “no more important than a fart”.

Thousands (estimates vary between two and twenty thousand) gathered outside the hotel and it was set alight. People came from 35 kilometres away to join the crowds. Five thousand police were called out to control the incident.

After the people had calmed down, the Dazhou city party committee announced it had decided to suspend Dazhu county public security director Lai Jingsong for lack of effort and inappropriate handling and also Dazhu county party secretary Wang Wei for lack of effort and inadequate performance as local leader.

A barman at the hotel was arrested as a suspect in the crime and the chief of police was suspended pending investigations of his financial involvement in the hotel.

The promised compensation has not been paid to her family.

Perspectives of Respect

It is symptomatic of the malaise afflicting the British left that at the very time global capitalism is staggering through the sub-prime mortgage crisis, with USA in hock to China, when the dialectic of getting the poor to finance its depredations is working itself out, and the ruling class through its New Labour puppets is attacking centuries-old civil liberties to give it the powers necessary to deal with the civil unrest inevitable in the coming crisis, so-called left groupings are engaged in savaging themselves to death.

Following on from the decimation of the Scottish left as a result of divisions within the Scottish Socialist Party, and the earlier eclipse of the Socialist Labour party, the dissension within Respect, between the highly disciplined neo-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and followers of the brilliant but erratic leftist demagogue, George Galloway, demonstrates both the weaknesses and strengths of the left in Britain.

At such a time one would expect some sort of analysis from the country's only quasi-"Marxist" organisation, the Communist Party of Britain, inheritors of the opportunist legacy of the Communist Party of Great Britain. All we have seen to date has been a couple of gloating articles in the Morning Star (headlined "The death of Respect" and "Final Nail in the Coffin") plus a commentary by a Green Party spokesperson.

Presumably no one from CPB was available for comment, preoccupied as they are with the doomed project to "reclaim the Labour Party", as if Labourism hasn't always been a Fifth Column within the labour movement. The much-lamented Clause 4, for instance, was originally inserted by the Fabians into Labour's constitution in an attempt to divert the working class away from its natural allegiance to the Communist Party. Hence the divisive "hand OR brain" formulation, when "hand AND brain" would have been more socially correct.

If the CPB and its TUC friends had been more astute, when Blair put reform of Clause 4 on to the agenda, they could have welcomed the opportunity to give the clause some class-conscious teeth, rather than fighting to preserve its flawed purism.

Despite the manifest weaknesses of the Respect project, the demise of any of the left forces is to be regretted at the time when the British ruling class, via its political New Labour surrogates, is removing all the rights and liberties that have been won over preceding centuries.

Of course, it could be argued that the survival of this or that grouping within the bourgeois parliamentary system has little bearing on the struggle to overthrow that system and replace it by a popular dictatorship, and that, indeed, such groupings only serve to confuse the working class and hold back their revolutionary class consciousness. But since such confusion is endemic, not only in the population at large but also within all the various Communist and Trotskyist organisations, in the absence of an organisation dedicated to revolutionary change ,the possible demise of Respect as a political force must be seen as a serious setback for the nascent forces of resistance to the New Labour project.

(For the benefit of readers outside UK, it should be explained that Respect was formed by the rebel Scottish Labour MP George Galloway, who successfully trounced the Blairite sitting MP in Bermondsey, Oona King. A number of Respect candidates in the local elections secured seats on the local council. Four of these have resigned the Respect whip. Respect has been in many ways a front for the Socialist Workers Party, which despite its obeisance to the writings of Trotsky and excoriation of all things "Stalinist", is not affiliated to the Fourth International. The SWP also plays a powerful role in the Stop the War Coalition, though the StW chair is Andrew Murray of the Communist Party of Britain.)

What are the issues that need to be addressed in analysis of this situation?

The creation of groupings around this or that charismatic leader (Scargill in the SLP, Sheridan in the SSP, Galloway in Respect) are doomed to failure. Such attempts are minor local manifestations of the hagiography of the left in the years since 1917. Obviously, as Plekhanov pointed out, historical individuals do play a part. But if Stalin had not triumphed over Trotsky in the inner-party struggle, the latter's role would no doubt be assessed today in similar terms to Stalin's. It was Trotsky, after all, who directed the attack upon the Kronstadt sailors.

Despite calls in the Morning Star for the re-establishment of Trotsky in the socialist pantheon, the rehabilitation of this or that historical individual is less important than a reassessment of their ideas. Whether the ex-Menshevik Trotsky was in fact the chief architect of Red October (as even Stalin himself once famously testified), it is uncontrovertably true that Trotskyism has played a divisively negative role in struggle throughout the world.

Therefore, while the need for analysis of the manner of Trotsky's expulsion from the CPSU and the USSR and his subsequent murder, by the KGB acting in collusion with the FBI, is not the most urgent item on our agenda, given that the SWP plays such a significant role in the British anti-war movement requires that, alongside the necessity of preserving the unity of the broad forces in the Stop the War Coalition, the negative impact of the SWP cannot be ignored.

Today, for instance, the failure of StW to mobilise mass direct action against the continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is reminiscent of the way the SWP-led mass protests against the Poll Tax were not translated into the removal of the Thatcherite Tories from office. There also needs to be acknowledgement of the complicity of the CPB in the obsessive legalism of StW strategy.

It is significant that, when the year-long mass blockade of the Faslane nuclear base in Scotland was firing the imagination of new recruits to struggle (and particularly among the youth) neither the CPB nor the SWP made involvement in this non-violent direct action matters of party discipline. This is hardly surprising. The CPB has abandoned the very concept of party discipline and while the SWP is good at quasi-revolutionary rhetoric, it appears suspicious of involvement in any broad movement that it cannot guarantee to control.

Lenin's analysis of the need for revolutionaries ALSO (but never ONLY) to involve themselves in bourgeois parliamentary politics needs to be reassessed in the light of the concrete contemporary situation.

Clearly, as Lenin pointed out to Gallagher, it would be quixotic of revolutionaries to walk away from the potential of political rights for which so many of our class have fought and died throughout the struggles of the past.

Later, and more controversially, Dimitrov urged those in the fascist countries where workers' organisations were no longer legal, to enter the fascist mass organisations since these were the only available medium through which work could be done legally.

But this did not remove the necessity for illegal work. On the contrary, legal entryism and illegal underground activity were two sides of the same struggle.

Of course, though New Labour is playing its classic role of acting as a stalking horse for the most reactionary elements in the ruling class, Britain is not yet a fascist state, though there are alarming parallels that should not be ignored.

Not least of these is the fact that following the stock market crash of 1929, the ruling class in Italy and Germany resorted to institutional terrorism to solve the economic contradictions of the day. Then, however, fascism was not the only possible outcome; in the New Deal, elements of the US ruling class were able to channel some of their riches into social projects to divert the masses from the attractions of revolution.

Today, it is the increasing instability of the global capitalist system following the anti-Soviet counter revolution (for the Soviet and socialist economies had acted as a stabilising factor in the world economy) which means that Roosevelt-style concessions to working class needs are no longer possible. The oppressors may seem to have observed the disastrous outcome (to them) of naked inner-state terrorism, which resulted, almost inevitably, in the raising of the red flag from Berlin to Beijing.

But, externally, state-sponsored terrorism in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that the capitalist leopard has not really changed its spots.

Internally, for the moment at least, the grinning fatuity of a Blair or Bush may seem to be more effective than the histrionic ranting of a Hitler, that Storm Troopers and concentration camps may not be the best way of staving off the coming crisis, to the indigenous victims of imperialist aggression this distinction may seem more apparent than real.

The thousands of Palestinians who have vanished into Israeli jails without being brought to trial, the victims of Abu Ghraib torture, the hundreds imprisoned illegally in Guantanamo, the nameless many who have kidnapped under the "extraordinary rendition" policy and taken to be tortured to unknown destinations (sometimes to formerly socialist countries like Poland or Khazakhstan), the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have died since Bush made his "mission accomplished" boast – all these examples, and more, are evidences of weakness, not strength. They demonstrate the growing desperation of the ruling class as the necessary end of its hegemony draws ever closer.

But though that end may indeed be NECESSARY, as compared with the only alternative, the extinction of the human race, it is by no means INEVITABLE. History is littered with the remains of once great civilisations, which have declined into moribundity when they failed to advance to the next required stage in their development. But the US imperialist project is the first such that carries within it not merely its own gravediggers but the gravediggers of us all. The fate of the entire planet hangs in the balance.

In the face of such a stark choice, the incestuous wranglings within the only possible alternative movement seems not merely ridiculous, but positively criminal. We may have not yet reached a situation where legal opposition to the gadarene rush to destruction is no longer possible. But we have to acknowledge that all such legalisms have so far ended in failure.

Detailed analysis of the reasons for this or that failure, from the SWP's failure to move the anti-Poll Tax movement on to obtain governmental change to the fact that New Labour was able to ignore two million marching (legally) in opposition to war, produces one irresistable conclusion, that the common factor throughout has been the lack of a truly revolutionary party.

Such a party would, of course, utilise all legal opportunities to oppose the stampede into destruction, outside parliament as well as within it. Never for a moment being in any misapprehension about the possibilities of, and limitations upon, such legal opposition, it would nevertheless exploit each and every contradiction within the ruling class and its parliamentary representatives. Where the strength of mass protest made it possible, as was undoubtedly the case on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, it would not shy away from the possibilities of direct action to change government policy.

The state would no doubt respond to such actions with a violence proportionate to how threatened it felt itself to be, but a revolutionary party would see such a response as confirmation of the correctness of the oppositional strategy, a working out of the beginnings of the revolutionary dialectic. As the state escalates the violence of its oppression, its innately violent nature becomes increasingly obvious to all but the most blinkered.

Of course, as is already being demonstrated by the draconian limitations upon freedoms of assembly and expression already on the parliamentary agenda, the leaders of opposition must expect the full force of oppression to fall upon them, individually and collectively.

Were the legal apparatus of the revolutionary mass movement to be beheaded, by imprisonment or worse, then it could only to continue to develop if there were already a parallel leadership (or leaderships) ready to take their places, being in fact a semi-legal (or potentially illegal) apparatus, drawing on the experience off anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese underground forces throughout Europe and Asia in World War II.

If informed by a revolutionary perspective, the limitations of legal struggle are not reasons for abandoning it in favour of some conspiratorial alternative. The revolutionary dialectic requires both legal and illegal methods of work to be developed, in parallel and in dynamic relation with each other. This will become more self-evident if legal opposition becomes so effective that it is made ILLEGAL. A movement that only uses legal methods will become disarmed if the ruling class changes the rules of engagement. But a movement that depends only on illegal methodology condemns itself to isolation, which is exactly what the ruling class requires.

How does the implosion of Respect impact on the imperatives of this situation?

Clearly there is as yet no leftist grouping or party linking revolutionary of theory and praxis as the situation demands. Nor may we, at this concrete stage in British history (the future may produce a different perspective), urge people to vote for or against ALL candidates of any of the bourgeois political parties. In many constituencies, where New Labour, Tory or LibDem candidates are equally unacceptable, it may be necessary to urge voters to spoil their ballots, writing in "none of the above" or suchlike slogans. But this should not be an individual decisions; in such constituencies a "spoiler" campaign will be required, to ensure mass support for such action.

But while elections provide the basis for making clear to the electorate that the only way to change anything is by changing the system, we should be aware that this is no mere propaganda. It is actually true.

Whether New Labour or the re-invented Old Tories win, the rich will continue to get richer and the poor more oppressed. It is even likely that if the victors are New Labour, then they will bring in worse oppression than the Tories would ever dare to attempt. If we have urged the population to give blanket support to New Labour, we should not be surprised if the people turn away from us in disgust.

Where can they turn to? To Respect, or any such ad hoc grouping, reactive rather than proactive in the situation of worsening state oppression? Recent examples do not hold out much that could transpire positively from such allegiances, though they might offer potential in the short term.

The SWP might be the most likely organisation to benefit from such disaffection with the established bourgeois parties. But it needs to be recognised that, despite its Trotskyist rhetoric, the SWP is itself part of the bourgeois political system.

The same is true of the CPB, whose role has become increasingly reformist since Andrew Murray led in his Straight Left faction (whose effective complicity in the destruction of the CPGB tells us everything we need to know about them) to take over positions in the leadership of the party.

As at present constituted, the CPB is at best an irrelevance in present circumstances, in most cases a positive hindrance to the development of struggle, as the role of Murray within the Stop the War coalition has demonstrated.

But that could change. When Fidel led the uprising in Cuba, the Cuban Communist Party (which was legal under Batista) denounced him as a petit-bourgeois adventurist. Today, the Cuban Communist Party is the ruling party and Castro its beloved leader.

We live in volatile times. There is no "one size fits all" solution to our present political ills. But it is still true, as it has always been, that without a revolutionary party there cannot be a revolution. Whether any grouping on the left has sufficient maturity ever to be able to assume such a role remains to be seen.

But, as they are constituted at present, there does not appear to be any chance of their doing so.

11/11/07

From the New York Times

- QUOTATION OF THE DAY -

"They're tracking where your mouse is on the page, what you put in your shopping cart, what you don't buy."
- JEFF CHESTER, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, on information collected when people use the Internet.

The Stock Market simply illustrated

Is there a lesson here?
From faltuonly@yahoo.com
Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs10. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at Rs10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at Rs20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to Rs25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for Rs50." The villagers squeezed up with all their savings to buy the monkeys. Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!! !! -

Welcome to the Market!!!!!

World Balance of Forces - Historical Developments

Copied from Marxism-Thaxis Digest, Vol 48, Issue 18
From: "Charles Brown" charlesb@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
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The Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Mongolia collapsed at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s.
This resulted from a complex combination of internal and external factors. The world communist movement and the Communist Party USA are still studying and discussing the relative importance of the various causes of the demise of the socialist states in order to best learn for the future.

Previously, when the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, and the working class and peace movements in the developed capitalist countries were united, they could significantly impact the outcome of most international struggles and win victories in many cases.
The Soviet Union especially acted to prevent world nuclear war, maintained peaceful coexistence and competition between the capitalist and socialist countries, and played decisive roles in the defeat of fascism and in support of national liberation movements. The socialist countries helped make possible the victory of national independence in many countries and the emergence of the non-capitalist path of development in some developing countries. In the socialist countries, living conditions more or less steadily improved from the end of World War II. The social benefits provided in the Soviet Union were one factor in strengthening the fight of workers in developed capitalist countries for increased benefits and pressuring capitalists to consider making concessions to workers. Imperialism has been unable to end the path to socialism in countries that had socialist revolutions and are now in various stages of development: China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba.

During the period of struggle for peaceful coexistence between U.S. and world imperialism on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and other socialist countries on the other, our Party and the worldwide communist movement concluded that the balance of forces had reached the point where world war and smaller scale wars were not inevitable, but could be prevented by mass struggle. At the same time, it is evident that imperialism still gives rise to destructive and dangerous wars; and we have as yet been unable to prevent all wars.

Among the results of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries returning to capitalism were major setbacks for the progressive forces on a world scale and a shift in favor of imperialism headed by the U.S.
With the demise of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, Cuba, China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Laos face severe new problems. A number of former colonial countries that had chosen non-capitalist paths of development were forced back toward capitalist development.

Wars of liberation became stalemated militarily due to U.S.
intervention, in some cases even prior to the Soviet Union returning to capitalism. National liberation movements had to give up much of the gains they had won, facing powerful imperialist-supported forces. The ability of new countries to choose socialist development became much more limited. The communist parties and the movement toward socialism in the developed capitalist countries suffered substantial losses. The transnationals gained the possibility of direct expansion and control within the former socialist countries, whose peoples suffer drastic decreases in their standards of living. The mass immiseration of people in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries and the gangster capitalism there are new proof that capitalism doesnt work for the vast majority, but only enriches a handful.

With their new economic and political dominance over most of the world, a sharpening of competition developed among the few hundred gigantic transnationals for control of the new areas and to redivide economic control worldwide. The transnationals have become increasingly intertwined with the governments of the leading imperialist powers and multi-state institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and others, while coming to politically and economically dominate or divide up influence in many developing countries and in countries with a middle level of development.

The International Front for Peace and Progress The socialist countries once formed the core of the world anti-imperialist front. With the demise of the Soviet Union, there is no longer a consistent international alliance of the forces for peace and progress against the forces for war and reaction regarding international and social issues. With each major international issue of struggle comes a new balance of forces. But there is an immense and growing front of world public opinion and of states against U.S. hegemonic power. There is growing worldwide resistance to U.S. military action, to military action by the other imperialist powers, and to solving international problems by military means. On some issues, only a handful of client states side with the U.S., because there is growing recognition that U.S. policies threaten not only world peace but increasingly threaten the very existence of humanity. The most egregious examples are the U.S.
imperialist invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The peace front consists of overwhelming world public opinion in all countries against war and for peaceful solutions, along with organized peace and social movements working directly to accomplish these aims. It also consists of the existing socialist countries, and developing countries that maintain some degree of independent policies. Even most other developed imperialist powers often recognize that military options result in highly dangerous consequences and seldom are useful or lasting means even for their imperialist aims. The peace front is increasingly reflected in the United Nations. The U.S. ultra-right ignores the existing world balance of forces for peace at the expense of weakening its general international influence.

There is also a growing resistance to U.S. international economic actions in international, bilateral, and multilateral relations, and a strengthening alliance of developing countries which resist the worst aspects of economic imperialism. Often it is the U.S. and the other big capitalist powers against the socialist countries and most of the developing world in economic relations. With nearly all of the socialist and developing countries now members of the WTO, IMF, and other international trade alliances, struggle also takes place within these organizations. Increasingly, the developing countries have challenged the trade alliances aim to regulate international economic relations in the interests of the transnationals and their home countries, particularly the U.S., resulting in set-backs to schemes, such as the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas).

There is a growing recognition that the internationalization of economic and social life means that social problems anywhere in the world impact all countries, including the richest ones. Mass poverty and hunger; several billion people living on less than $2 a day; extremes of wealth and poverty between classes and nations; international debt; lack of education; absence of health care in the face of pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; and the severe and growing threats to the worlds environment are international problems facing all of humanity and requiring international solutions.

Some sectors of transnational capital recognize to some degree that there are problems that threaten the existence of humanity as well as their ability to maximize profits. This is also true of some imperialist powers. However, so far they have provided only limited funds for such problems as AIDS and such agreements as the Kyoto Protocol. When they do agree to take some positive action, it is usually to benefit their own bottom lines.

Other crises are virtually ignored by the major capitalist powers, such as the special plight of sub-Saharan Africa, which is suffering famine, drought, health epidemics, and malnutrition. Since there is no money to be made, it is left to private and world charities whose resources are far too limited to seriously address the problems.

The socialist countries, the developing countries, and the working class and social movements of the developed capitalist countries continue to press for real and extensive action. Gradually these forces are becoming more united and determined about the need to confront international problems. On all these issues, the U.S. ultra-right opposes any meaningful action and tries to slow and divide the pressure for real measures. There is, however, the slow growth of a common world front of states and social forces for progress.

Part of this recent positive change in the world balance of forces is the resurgence of a leftward movement in several parts of the world.
This trend is most notable in much of Latin America, with the election of Left and Left-Center governments, the rejection of imperialist free trade schemes, the expansion of social benefits, political rejection of U.S. domination, and some countries moving in a socialist direction. In a number of the developed capitalist countries, the labor movement has become a more militant force in both economic and political arenas.
There is some renewed strengthening of socialist and other Left forces-including the communist movement-associated with the international and regional progressive social and economic forums in recent years. The movement leftward is not a simple direct movement toward socialism, Marxism, and the communist parties. It is rather multi-faceted and eclectic. These are not uniform processes and there are countries where the ultra-right has gained ground, or where the ultra-right continues its political dominance, as in the U.S.

On the world scale, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa are developing as major economic and political players, mostly in a positive direction, providing some counter-balance to U.S. imperialism. Chinas economic growth provides an alternative to trade with imperialist countries for developing and socialist countries, including Cuba and other progressive Latin American countries.

In Europe, there is a sharpening of inter-imperialist conflicts with the U.S. and among the European powers. There is a growing opposition by much of the labor movement and Left of further European integration at the expense of working people.

Among the countries of Asia, China, India, and Vietnam all have rapidly growing economies, and provide some moderating balance to U.S.
imperialism in their region.

In the Middle East, there is a growth of resistance to U.S. attempts to dominate military, political, and economic life, through its own direct intervention and invasion and through support for the Israeli occupation and military control of the territory that must belong to the Palestinian Arab people under the necessary two-state solution.

U.S. imperialism is the leader of world imperialism and home to the bulk of the dominant transnationals. It seeks control over the entire world, including its fellow imperialist powers. Under ultra-right political leadership, U.S. imperialism has immense instruments for winning its aims-ranging from its military preponderance to its various means of economic domination and political pressure, from bribery to ideological weapons. But even with all of these instruments, U.S.
domination is slowly weakening.

The need for international working-class unity is more important than ever. U.S. imperialism, particularly under ultra-right dominance, is increasingly warlike and belligerent. There are similar trends in some competing imperialist powers. In their attempts to spread economic, political, and military control across the globe-in short, to spread their empires-some capitalist nations do not hesitate to declare war on weaker nations. We cannot rule out the danger of war between imperialist powers in the future, though the destructive effects of modern weaponry, the overwhelming military superiority of the U.S., and the certainty of internal political opposition all serve to discourage ambitions for direct military imperialist conflict. Working people are the victims on both sides of all imperialist wars and military adventures.

Like other forms of unity, international unity must be built on respect, trust, and joint action on issues of common interest.
International working-class solidarity and unity is not built in the abstract but in specific struggles, in reality.

The politics of the Communist Party are rooted in proletarian internationalism-we recognize that the working classes of the whole world have common interests in their mutual understanding, liberation, peace, and development. We share a common enemy: world imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, its most reactionary transnationals, and the governments they dominate. We support the broadest possible unity of the international working class. We also support international solidarity with other forces, peoples, and movements struggling for liberation worldwide.

Since the 1970s, changes in science, technology, and transportation have reinforced the dominance of transnational corporations within capitalism. The ever-more-rapid capitalist globalization of the world is an increasing threat to working people around the world. Giant transnational corporations and the governments that back them are racing to expand their markets and access to resources. They are destroying national sovereignty, workers rights and environmental protections in order to increase their profits. Only much greater unity and solidarity by the labor and peoples movements internationally can counter the ravages of capitalist globalization.

A new level of international unity and struggle emerged from the protests of the November 1999 meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington. Environmental groups, student organizations, womens groups, and others came together with the labor movement and allies from around the world to say NO! to capitalist globalization.
There exists today a much higher level of international consciousness among working people and a much greater level of functional international unity than in recent memory, united in stating, A Better World is Possible.

Present Features of Capitalism back to top A correct and thorough understanding of capitalism, of its essential features and durable conditions, and of the political balance of forces are key to guiding class and democratic struggles for progress.

The absolute and relative exploitation of the working class is at an unprecedented level and continues to grow rapidly. Each transnational corporation now exploits not only its own employed workers in many countries and the entire working class of its home country, but the entire working class of the world. At the same time, the working class is growing worldwide.

The movement of capital around the world in search of maximum profit is ever faster, whether in terms of the location of production, the supply of raw materials and other resources, research and development, mass distribution, currency, or price manipulation and speculation.

Disproportions in the worlds highly interdependent economy spread and are harder to control because of the transnationals dominance.
Regulation by any single country has less effect. International trade agreements in some cases even overrule national sovereignty in favor of the transnationals. Economies are therefore more vulnerable to supply and currency manipulations. Relative overproduction-while millions starve-and gross trade and currency imbalances are among the chronic disproportions in the world capitalist economy. The result is greater instability and volatility, more severe boom-and-bust cycles, and prolonged stagnation. Therefore, the contradiction between the increasingly international social character of production and distribution on the one hand and the concentration of capital among fewer and fewer on the other hand sharpens economic and social problems and contradictions.

It also sharpens the class struggle. The advance of the means of production connected with the globalization of economic and social life under domination of the transnational monopolies requires higher levels of environmental protection, education, health care, culture, housing, and family care to produce the quantity and quality of labor now needed.
This is in contradiction to the greater quantities of capitalist profit needed to sustain the growth of the giant transnationals, which only comes from higher rates of exploitation of existing workers and from the exploitation of growing numbers of workers worldwide. Intensification of the class struggle and sharper attacks on the living conditions of the working class are inherent in the dominance of the transnationals. The increasing merger of the transnationals with the state in the main imperialist countries means that capitalist globalization is both an economic and a political process.

The development of modern capitalism requires the strengthening of the economic and political organizations of the working class and all working people both within our country and internationally.

The peoples of the world need a new economic order, one which helps countries to develop at the expense of imperialism and the transnationals. This will require replacement of the current capitalist international economic institutions with ones led by anti-imperialist countries.

In developing strategy and tactics for each stage of struggle, the main objective conditions must be considered. These objective conditions include the major features of todays capitalist economy. They also include the world and domestic balance of forces. These balances, reflecting the outcome of struggles of the contending class and social forces and states, place limits on what can be achieved until the balance undergoes a qualitative shift as a result of the accumulation of quantitative changes. In that sense, the overall qualities of the current stage of struggle are also an objective limitation determining what strategy and tactics can accomplish until a new political environment replaces that overall balance.