When a nation loses its markets, no matter how capitalistic or highly industrialized it is or how much goods it can produce, when it loses those markets, its in trouble. And this is one of the basic factors behind America’s problems. She is losing her world markets. Its not just automation that’s putting her out, giving her a headache. She has no markets. There was a time when the whole world was her market. But today she’s hated. Not only is she losing her markets because she’s hated, but the European nations are industrialized – they can produce goods cheaper than she and undersells her. And the nations of Asia and Africa would rather buy their manufactured or finished products from other than America. So it is not so much that automation is causing unemployment – which affects the Negro first and foremost because he’s the last hired and the first to be fired. But it is the fact that America has run out of markets. And it is impossible for her to find new markets anywhere, unless there’s some customers on the moon or on some other planet. AND AS LONG AS THIS SITUATION EXISTS, AMERICA’S ECONOMY IS GOING TO CONTINUE TO GO DOWN, HER DOLLAR WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE ITS VALUE AND WHEN HER DOLLAR LOSES ITS VALUE SHE’S LOST ALL HER FRIENDS. BECAUSE THE ONLY FRIENDS SHE HAS ARE THOSE WHOM SHE HAS BOUGHT. – Malcolm X
These are days of tremendous change in the world. Not only have ever increasing masses come forward in the struggle against oppression and exploitation, but revolution is becoming the general demand of the peoples. The oppressed masses in Asia, Africa and Latin America, even those in Europe and America who are suffering from war, starvation, political and spiritual oppression, a soaring cost of living and mass unemployment, are struggling hard against their oppressors, and their struggle is blazing up and rising to its highest level-to revolution. There is not a single imperialist country in the world today which has not. been shaken by the power and fury of the oppressed. Despite the desperate efforts of the world imperialists, headed by the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union, to find a “peaceful” way out of their crisis, the outstanding feature of the situation in the world today is not “peace” but chaos! The world is in chaos!
This chaos is nothing but the general crisis of imperialism – the death spasms of a system gone mad! What is the nature of this imperialist monster which stalks the earth seeking to devour the peoples and nations of the world? The present epoch of capitalism is imperialism. Imperialism is the rule of the giant monopolies, the so-called ”multi-national corporations”. The small enterprises of yesterday have become the gigantic monopolies of today – branches of industry grew and merged with the banks and trust companies and have carved out a world-wide empire of oppression and super-exploitation. The aim of this world-wide plunder and super-exploitation is new sources of raw materials and markets, cheap labor and super profits. The process of colonialist and imperialist expansion is a history of aggression, plunder, massacre and enslavement. It has brought nothing but suffering and death to the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the entire world while it has filled the stomachs and pockets of a handful of criminals and murderers who called themselves “civilized”. While falling all over themselves to see who can gobble up the most nations and peoples, these imperialists occasionally have a falling out between themselves. Like a bunch of wolves, they fight to see who can become the ’leader of the pack’. Wars, and new plans for wars, by individual imperialist states against the oppressed peoples and nations of the world cannot prevent them from preparations for wars against each other – for a new division of the spoils. Each wants what the others have. This is the principal reason behind World Wars I and II where untold millions suffered and died. To the victor goes the role of an executioner of workers and oppressed peoples!
Imperialism is parasitic capitalism. “Show me a capitalist and I’ll show you a blood-sucker.” As a rule, imperialist exploitation acts in hindering the development of the countries and peoples which it exploits by stealing their natural resources and productive capacity, and above all by exhausting, driving into the ground, and murdering the peoples of these countries.
When they do help the “development” of these countries in some round-about way, this development is directed on such terms as it corresponds to the interests and preservation of its own power and influence in these countries, like U.S. and Soviet “Aid” programs. The robbery and plunder of the whole world, especially the “Third World” produces huge super-profits for the imperialists, and one of the reasons for this is the workers and peasants of the oppressed nations are paid much less for the same work as their class brothers in Detroit, London and Paris. With these huge super-profits (which also are extracted from ’Third World’ peoples inside the U.S.) these armed robbers bribe and corrupt the upper sections of the working class and petty bourgeoisie, especially the trade union bureaucracy. This group tries to rally the working class as a whole to support of the imperialist politics of their masters and are rewarded on “election day” for “labor’s support” to the imperialists.
Imperialism also means bad news for the masses of working people inside imperialist countries. As financial crises grow and as world markets contract, class antagonisms between capital and labor ”at home” begin to sharpen. Workers are worked to death by the so-called “rationalization”, of the capitalist to beat the workers down. At the same time, as production and capital exports abroad increases, less and less people are needed to work. This creates tremendous mass unemployment, driving many into misery (welfare) and despair while driving down the wages of all workers. A general and absolute impoverishment, that is, a lowering of the standard of living of the working class takes place as wages are cut and kept to the lowest minimum possible while prices and profits shoot upward, breaking new records daily. As the crises deepen, and class contradictions sharpen, the revolutionary struggle of the working class and oppressed masses within the imperialist countries themselves intensifies. Imperialism becomes encircled from without and destroyed from within.
The liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America have created a fire-ring of revolution for imperialism, the flames of which will certainly burn this evil system to the ground. And it must be burned down because imperialism and reaction will never step down from the stage of history on its own account. Though revolution has indeed become the main trend in the world today, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social imperialism resort to every possible means to hold back the historic tide of revolution:
U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism have gradually replaced the old colonialism and become the main pillars of modern colonialism and the biggest neo-colonialist of the present era. They an suppressing and undermining the national-liberation movement everywhere and carrying out expansion in Asia, Africa and Latin America and other parts of the globe in a vain attempt to establish a new colonial system to enslave the world’s peoples. Thus, the national-liberation movement faces the arduous task of opposing the U.S.S.R. and the U.S., the two overlords, and it cannot win complete victory without opposing the neocolonialism of these two superpowers. [Peking Review]
In some respects, Soviet social-imperialism (socialism in words, imperialist in deeds) is even more dangerous than the old-line, decaying U.S. imperialism. In order to deceive “its own” working class as well as the oppressed peoples of the world, and to hide it cooperation and collusion with U.S. imperialism, in the most shameful and repulsive manner, it invades the sovereignty of other nations under the guise of the “safeguarding of the socialist camp”, and “limited sovereignty” for other “socialist” countries. It disguises the real content of its imperialist aims by putting the words “Marxist-Leninist” and “socialist” in front of everything that it does. Wherever the righteous indignation of the oppressed masses rises up and strikes a blow at imperialism (as in Chile), Soviet social-imperialism, not withstanding its phrase-mongering, in practice always stands on the side of imperialism and reaction. But the mask is being torn from their faces, and like their friend and rival U.S. imperialism, social-imperialism is also heading for its doom as more and more African, Asian and Latin American people and nations have come to see that their “Aid” is nothing but bait to trap and control them.
The U.S. imperialists, got out of their depression of the 1930’s by emerging as the top dog of the world imperialists at the end of W.W.II when it stepped into the shoes of German, Japanese and Italian fascism. As a result of the war, the U.S. secured for itself vast new markets in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. But in the early 1950’s after its defeat in the Korean War, the U.S. started to go downhill. Trying desperately to turn back the wheel of history and prevent another depression, the racist rulers of the U.S. stepped up their plunder and exploitation of the world’s masses, especially those of Asia, Africa and Latin America. To protect their vast empire of spoils, the U.S. imperialists built up a vast military machine spread out in 250 “sovereign” nations and composed of over 3,000 military bases. Nevertheless, it got bogged-down and defeated in Indochina which earned it nothing but universal condemnation and hatred by the progressive forces in the world. In trying to extinguish the fire of world revolution, U.S. imperialism picked up a potato too hot to handle; it only tightened the noose around its own neck. Once a “great world power” U.S. imperialism has become a helpless cripple, barely holding on to what its got. It is only a matter of time before it passes into the museum of’ modern history.
The general crisis of imperialism is more and more bearing down on the workers and oppressed peoples inside the U.S. Literally millions of oppressed and exploited people here are faced with the dim prospects of no where to work, no where to live, and nothing to eat. Unemployment, “relief and “Welfare” is being drastically cut and in some places abolished altogether. Wages are reduced every day as prices skyrocket. Millions are thrown out of work while those who remain on the inhuman speed-up. The few people left on the farms are being driven into the overcrowded, rat-infested cities with little or no prospects for finding work.
The oppressed Black, Puerto-Rican, Chicano, Asian, and Indian peoples feel the full bullwhip of oppression on their backs. Increasingly driven into unemployment and welfare, they are also the last hired, first fired when they work. When they get tired of being forced to live in the garbage cans they call ghettos, and rebel, the entire state apparatus of violence – courts, police, prisons, military, FBI and CIA – goes to work to make sure the lid stays on. Working class women and housewives are forced into industry and the workplace under the worst conditions possible with the lowest wages in order to keep their families alive. Engaging in hard manual and mental labor, they are paid less than men for the same work, at the same time they are expected to do housework and care for children. Millions of youth are thrown into the streets as the school system crumbles from abandonment by the bourgeoisie, and are faced with the sorry future of a life of crime, or draft into the military. Students are being “de-enrolled” from the universities and colleges with little or no prospects of even entering the workforce. This especially affects Black and Latin students who are literally being driven from the campuses by “cutbacks” in the tuition “aid” programs. And this is not all: The working class is in a rest less mood!
An ever increasing number of strikes, work stoppages, wildcats, and direct confrontations with management and the state are taking place. The Chrysler and Caterpillar strikes, the shutdown of T.W.A. flights, the violence inside the UAW, the paper strikes in Canada and the rash of strikes in the hospital, newspaper, and civil service industries, are just a few examples. The total number of strikes in the first nine months of 1973 was 4,200! Clearly the dam is beginning to break.
The U.S. imperialists have been desperately trying to make up for their world-wide losses by throwing the burdens of their crises on the backs of the American people, especially the oppressed and working class peoples. Because Black people and the oppressed minorities (Puerto-Ricans, Asians), feel the effects of the crises in a double way – as members of an oppressed race and national group, and as members of the U.S. working class. As a result, their struggles against this double repression has spearheaded the revolutionary movement in the U.S. including the working class struggles. On the other hand, there is a distinctive “new feature” to the struggle of the working class – it is becoming more massive and militant in character with growing numbers of workers taking part in spontaneous “wildcat” strikes and mass political struggles. More and more the struggles of the working class, the only class which has nothing to lose from the revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism, is merging with the struggle for self-determination of black people, and equal rights for oppressed nationalities and groups, both of which will converge into a sweeping revolutionary high tide and will bury once and for all the evil system of imperialism.
The Liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America for freedom, independence and revolution has mortally wounded the imperialist system. It has deepened the general crisis of capitalism and has shaken the system to its foundations. Moreover, the growth of the revolutionary workers movement in the ”advanced” capitalist countries has greatly extended the possibilities for a world-wide united front against imperialism and social imperialism led by the People’s Republic of China and Albania who are staunch and reliable allies for the national liberation movement and the revolutionary movement of the world proletariat.
For the oppressed peoples and workers of the world the future is bright, though the road to victory is long and still involves many sacrifices. For the next 50 to 100 years, the world will be shaken by changes unprecedented in human history. The world’s revolutionary people will meet with still more difficulties and setbacks for the very reason the struggle is so hard and long. But it is through these difficulties and setbacks that we will raise our consciousness, courage and strength, accumulate’ the necessary revolutionary experience, build revolutionary organizations develop, grow and defeat our enemies. No Power On Earth Can Stop This Process! CAST AWAY ILLUSIONS, PREPARE FOR STRUGGLE! THE FIRES OF REVOLUTION ARE BURNING, FAN THE FLAMES! COUNTRIES WANT INDEPENDENCE, NATIONS WANT LIBERATION, AND PEOPLE WANT REVOLUTION!