Communist Platform – for the Communist Party of the Proletariat of Italy
The process of extending the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) with the admission of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, established at the 15th summit in Johannesburg, has given new breath to the trumpets of proponents of a “multipolar world.”
Multipolarism is a fundamental concept of bourgeois geopolitics that contrasts with the concept of unipolarism, the latter much popularized at the turn of the 1990s by apologists for the “age-old” hegemony of U.S. imperialism, such as Charles Krauthammer and Francis Fukuyama.
The concept of unipolarism came into crisis following the loss of positions of the imperialist superpower U.S. and the rise of imperialist China, which changed the global balance of power.
Thus, multipolarism is a concept that reflects the structural decline of U.S. power and the process of economic/financial advance of China and other imperialist and capitalist countries in the international arena.
The basic features of the multipolar model are:
1. Plurality of imperialist centres of power: several international powers possessing political, economic or military influence on a global scale.
2. Balance of power: based on the idea of a system in which multiple powers exercise balanced influence, avoiding the dominance of a single global power.
3. Struggle for hegemony on the cultural and political fronts: each power pole has its own cultural, political and economic identity that influences global dynamics.
4. Interdependence among the centres: these actors interact with each other in various areas, such as trade, security and diplomacy, creating complex relationships and interconnections.
5. Management of international relations: the presence of multiple power centres makes the management of international relations more complex and requires more multifaceted and balanced diplomacy, along with polycentric world governance.
Among the leading theorists of multipolarism are Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer and Robert Kagan.
Some of the academicians who have developed the theory of multipolarism are Australian sinologist, Wang Gungwu, the Chinese chauvinist Yan Xuetong and the “soft power” theorist Zheng Bijian.
In Russia, super-reactionary Aleksandr Dugin advocates the system of multipolarism as an alternative to U.S. dominance.
Other bourgeois theorists in India, Brazil and some European Union countries also support a multipolar world order to ensure a more equitable distribution of global power.
In Italy, Lucio Caracciolo (editor of the geopolitical magazine Limes) is an advocate of multipolarism and the balance between rival imperialist powers.
The ideological roots of multipolarism
Multipolarism, that is, the aspiration for a model of international relations in which conflicts between capitalist and imperialist states and blocs coexist and are peacefully resolved, is an ideological weapon and political theory aimed at concealing the contradictions of the imperialist-capitalist system and opposing the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and peoples.
Kautsky’s theories of international relations and imperialism influenced some concepts of multipolarism.
Kautsky denied that imperialism was the highest and final stage of development of capitalism, whose essence on the economic level is monopoly capitalism, arguing instead that it is a preferred policy of finance capital.
This definition served Kautsky to show that the imperialists can carry out another policy, a non-imperialist policy, not one of conquest or robbery.
Kautsky therefore theorized that capitalism could evolve to a stage where imperialist nations would unite in a system of common domination rather than competing with each other. This concept of “ultra-imperialism” implies a kind of cooperation among the ruling powers for the common exploitation of the world.
Like Kautsky, the multipolarists separate economics from politics. Their theses serve to show that the imperialists can achieve a policy of peace and progress.
Clearly, behind the theses propagated by the multipolarists are the interests of imperialist and capitalist states, particularly China and Russia, which through these positions seek to strengthen themselves and open economic, political and diplomatic spaces for themselves.
Multipolarism embellishes imperialism and hides its deep contradictions; it seeks to reconcile the proletariat with the bourgeoisie and its state apparatuses and collaborators. This political theory undermines the struggle against imperialism and proletarian internationalism, makes the proletariat passive and diverts it from the revolutionary struggle for socialism, retards the consciousness of the masses and the ability of the working-class struggle to determine the course of history.
Particularly in the Russian and Chinese style of multipolarism, both the “Khrushchevite peaceful coexistence” and the “theory of the three worlds” are renewed, behind which the fundamental contradictions of our epoch are denied.
To imagine a multipolar world based on balance, détente and “perpetual peace” among the great powers is not only a false hope, it is a complete repudiation of Leninism and the historical function of the proletariat.
Those who advocate these positions do not and cannot have any revolutionary and class perspective, they have nothing to do with proletarian internationalism but express unity with the imperialists, particularly those on the rise, the coexistence between the exploited and the exploiters, between the oppressed and the oppressors, the abandonment of revolutionary struggle.
Multipolarism is not even anti-neoliberal, as it merely replaces “liberal globalization” with Western characteristics with “liberal globalization” with multipolar (especially Chinese) characteristics.
In our view, the concept of a “multipolar world” itself is not derived from a scientific approach; it is alien and opposed to the Leninist conception of imperialism. This concept conceals the deep contradictions that exist by focusing on a superficial view of the current situation. It lends itself to an illusory model of international relations, based on an “alternative” architecture to that of today. But what is the reality?
Today there is a world dominated by imperialism, characterized by the hegemony of the imperialist superpower U.S., which seeks to prevent the rise of other imperialist powers, especially China.
We are seeing the gradual erosion of the supremacy of US imperialism, which is in historic decline, while the law of uneven development is showing a change in the balance of power in favour of the emerging imperialist powers that are challenging US hegemony.
Multipolarism is the ideological and political expression of the strategic interests of these powers which demand a position within the capitalist-imperialist system, corresponding to their growing economic, political and military strength.
The real contradiction, then, is not between “unipolarism and multipolarism”, but between rival imperialist powers and monopolies. The so-called “multipolar world with zero-sum hegemony” is a deception that serves to keep the class nature of the imperialist system hidden and to spread deadly illusions about the expediency of “progressive cooperation” and “management of contrasts” in a world that is convulsed and divided, dominated by imperialist powers fighting among themselves for a new redivision of the world.
Marxism-Leninism and multipolarism
While Marxism-Leninism advocates the struggle for a world revolution and the overthrow of capitalism to build socialism, multipolarism focuses on the coexistence and balance between different imperialist and capitalist powers without addressing the economic roots of the capitalist mode of production and the economic and social inequalities it produces, the exploitation of the workers and the plundering of the peoples’ resources.
The Marxist-Leninist conception of social differentiation rests on the theory of classes and class struggle, up to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The rhetoric of multipolarism, on the other hand, is based on the relationship between states, apparatuses of oppression of the ruling classes, behind which the class struggle of the exploited and oppressed is completely concealed.
For multipolarists, the class struggle is not the motive force of history, progress is not the result of the struggle of the working class and peoples, of their combative action, which is completely hidden and denied. In multipolarism, global relations are shaped by bourgeois class dynamics and economic and military relations of power between bourgeois states that act to settle their conflicts in the interests “of all”.
Underlying multipolarism is class conciliation, the attempt to mitigate the class struggle, to deceive the working class and oppressed peoples with catchy formulas.
Behind the demagogy about “finding suitable solutions” at a time of international change, multipolarism preaches cooperation and social peace between the exploited and exploiting classes, between oppressed and oppressor countries, between oppressed and oppressor nations.
Modern revisionists, particularly the Chinese revisionists, by advocating multilateralism disavow the objective character of the existence of class contradictions and endorse the idea that imperialism and capitalism are, on the whole, once certain “disfunctions” are corrected, factors for progress and world peace.
For modern revisionists –who for decades have replaced the essence of revolutionary class theory and class struggle with bourgeois concepts and practices – it is not the working class and popular masses that are the driving force behind the historical process and action.
The advocates of multipolarism, not believing in and having no faith in the revolutionary potential of the proletariat and the peoples, seeing no possibility and necessity of the revolutionary break with the capitalist-imperialist system and the building of scientific socialism, merely promote and support the action of the bourgeois states that aspire to new balances of power on the international stage.
Multipolarism is not directed against the imperialist system, but against a specific imperialist country, the US. Its purpose is not the destruction of the imperialist system, but its preservation, not the suppression of the exploitation of human beings by human beings, not the end of the oppression of peoples, not socialism, but only the reduction of the power of the currently hegemonic imperialist power, a change in the balance of power among imperialist brigands, preserving the imperialist-capitalist system intact.
Unlike the Khrushchevite theses of “peaceful coexistence” and the Maoist “theory of three worlds,” multipolarism is not presented as a doctrine in the purported interest of the proletariat and peoples, not as an opportunist version of the proletariat’s class struggle. It is a theory devised by bourgeois intellectuals aimed at developing a system of unprincipled alliances with imperialists and reactionaries, under the leadership of the ruling classes of states attempting to free themselves from US hegemony.
Under the banners of “fair and orderly global multipolarity” and “inclusive economic globalization,” the Chinese imperialists, Russian chauvinists and all kind of revisionists seek to unite, for their own interests, the revolutionaries with the counterrevolutionaries, the anti-imperialists with the pro-imperialists, the anti-fascists with the fascists, the peace-lovers with the warmongers.
Their aim is to decapitate and decompose the revolutionary movement of the working class, to transform the class struggle of the proletariat into class collaboration with its exploiters, to ensure the survival of the moribund capitalist system.
Therefore, they must try to convince the proletariat and the peoples that class contradictions and those between imperialist and capitalist powers are compatible within the framework of the bourgeois system, that the solution to the existing dramatic problems is to be found in greater mutual understanding and better cooperation with the ruling classes, in coalition with the imperialist bourgeoisie.
Multipolarism does not challenge capitalist social relations of production, but defends them to the end. It therefore reflects the interests of the exploiting classes, which are inevitably at odds with the demands of social progress. It is a liberal-type methodology that has the obvious purpose of convincing the proletariat to resign itself to its condition as an oppressed class, to become a docile instrument of bourgeois politics.
At the same time, multipolarism is the most flagrant denial of the principle and practice of proletarian internationalism, which is replaced with bourgeoisie nationalism (Chinese, Russian, etc.). In this way, solidarity among the peoples is replaced with support for the oppressors of the peoples.
From the ideological aspect, as well as from the practical aspect, multipolarism is antagonistically contradictory to the interests of the proletariat and the principles of scientific socialism, which express the objective tendencies of historical evolution.
Mystifications and realities
Proponents of multipolarism propagate different arguments to convince the working class and peoples of the correctness of their proposals and policies. They use sophistry and mystifications to induce the workers and peoples to accept their theses, claiming that with multipolarism, that is, siding with Chinese and Russian imperialism to scale back the international power of the U.S., the workers and peoples would have something to gain.
Among the arguments that are used by the revisionists and opportunists in favour of multipolarism we frequently find the following: “there would be a more peaceful, stable and prosperous world”, poverty and inequality would be “reduced”, the survival of humanity and the planet would be “ensured”.
In many western countries, including Italy, some of the anti-“imperialist” (anti-US) organizations take a position of support for Russia and China. At first, it seems that this is somewhat different from World War I, where the opportunists supported their own imperialist power. However, although this is clearly a political difference, ideologically in both cases (now and in WWI) this opportunist tendency works to forget the class struggle and to unite the labouring masses with the bourgeoisie.
According to this point of view, to move toward a “better world” one would have to do nothing more than to support the “weaker” brigand or the “less dangerous” one in the conflicts between imperialists for the partition of the world.
This way of seeing things, as mystifying as it is illusory, has nothing socialist or revolutionary about it.
Because of the law of unequal development, in the imperialist system there will always be a stronger brigand and a weaker one, one on the rise and the other on the decline, etc. If the proletariat were to act by conforming to the method of helping the weaker one, of siding with the “less dangerous” against the stronger and more dangerous one, it would always find itself trapped in wars, would be permanently cannon fodder in the conflict to decide which imperialist state and which monopoly groups should dominate the world.
In reality, contrary to the poisonous propaganda of multipolarism, peace and détente are not advancing, but rivalry and conflict among imperialist powers are being exacerbated.
The “multipolar world” is what first and foremost China and Russia seek to create for their imperialist ambitions by using the lie that it will be more peaceful, without hostility between imperialist and capitalist countries, without aggression against peoples, etc.; that there will be “peaceful coexistence”. But their ambitions under the imperialist-capitalist system will only be able to assert themselves through military force.
The epoch of imperialism (from the beginning of the 20th century to the present) has been characterized by the struggle between the major imperialist powers against each other, resulting in wars to decide which imperialist power would become hegemonic, at the head of its allies.
Today, along with the decline of U.S. imperialism, we are witnessing the rise of China, which wants to overtake the United States and become the new hegemonic power by the middle of this century. So, the so-called “multipolar world” is once again a world of imperialist powers colliding with each other.
The transition to “multipolarism” is not peaceful. The enlarged BRICS does not form a bloc or an organization that has an anti-imperialist function, as it is an association that includes imperialist powers and more or less advanced capitalist countries, some of them “countries on the threshold” to becoming imperialist. The advance of these countries on the world stage, their attempt to break the currently existing imperialist order and set themselves on the path of independent development, will inevitably produce new conflicts and wars.
Although at the moment the BRICS are on the rise, internal tensions among these countries, characterized by deep differences and different political systems, cannot be ruled out either. Especially among the strongest states or among those interested in the same markets and spheres of influence, conflicts may arise, just as class contradictions sharpen within them.
The so-called multipolar world is a mystification and an illusion about a world that is actually characterized by imperialist and capitalist states and monopolies fighting each other and by bitter class and national liberation struggles. The purpose of the politics of multipolarity is to disorient the labour movement and unite it with opportunism and social chauvinism, both nationally and internationally.
How to take advantage of the contradictions between brigands?
The advocates of multipolarism, under the pretext that contradictions should be exploited, preach union with the currently weaker imperialisms to oppose the stronger one.
In the struggle between bandits who aspire to plunder, oppress and exploit the workers and peoples, there is nothing to choose. “One is worse than the other,” they are all our enemies, and the aim of communists is to take advantage of their contradictions, not in order to take the side of one or the other, but to bring them down.
Taking advantage of the contradictions in the ranks of the enemies must lead to the growth and strengthening of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and peoples, their revolutionary and independent organizations, not to their weakening and erosion, not to passivity as the multipolarists would like. This must lead to an increasingly active mobilization of the revolutionary forces in the struggle against imperialism, without allowing any kind of illusion to arise among the proletariat and the peoples.
Considering the contradictions between imperialist powers as the only ones and denying the contradiction between revolution and counterrevolution, placing at the centre of one’s strategy the taking advantage of contradictions in the imperialist camp, denying what is essential – the growth of the consciousness, organization and revolutionary spirit, the ability of the masses to struggle, the development of the revolutionary movement of workers and peoples – is to give up the preparation for revolution: all this is in complete contrast to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism.
By trying to pass off China and Russia as allies of the proletarians and peoples in the alleged struggle against U.S. and Western imperialism, multipolarism clearly shows its pseudo-anti-imperialist (actually anti-US) character.
It is a counter-revolutionary theory and policy because it preaches to the proletariat the strategic alliance with the monopoly bourgeoisie and the rising imperialist powers, and consequently the renunciation of revolution.
It is also a pro-imperialist theory because it justifies and supports the neo-colonialist and exploitative policy imperialist powers that are rivals of the U.S. and calls on the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe not to oppose this policy under the pretext of creating a “more breathable atmosphere.”
U.S. imperialism is a fierce, aggressive, warmongering imperialism that relies on the strength of the dollar and weapons to maintain its hegemonic position and sink its claws into all regions and continents.
This does not at all mean that the other enemies of the working class and peoples of the world, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, German, etc., imperialism, are peace-loving and anti-militarist, as the proponents of multipolarism claim. Such theses are very dangerous for the fate of the revolution; they create blinders about the non-aggressive, non-hegemonic and non-expansionist nature of the other imperialist powers.
The strategic task of the proletariat and the proletarian revolution is to overthrow and bring down imperialism, not just one imperialist country.
For the proletariat and for every communist who has fully assimilated Leninism, the mortal enemy, on the strategic level, is world imperialism.
Practice has shown that all imperialist powers are the enemies of the revolution and of socialism, of the freedom and independence of the peoples and nations, that they are the major force in defence of exploitative systems, the real threat aiming to drag humanity into a third world war.
Ignoring this truth, underestimating the danger posed by one or the other power and, what is even worse, appealing to join one superpower against the other, relying on one imperialism to fight another, has disastrous consequences and poses a great danger to the future of the proletarian revolution and the freedom of peoples.
The struggle that the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations are waging against war is not separate from the class struggle to overthrow the system that inevitably creates it, with the objective of building the general front of the revolutionary movement of all countries against the global front of imperialism.
Consequently, the motto “the enemies of my enemies are my friends” cannot apply regarding the imperialist and capitalist powers that use all means to sabotage and drown in blood the revolution and socialism, to assure the survival of the current barbaric system.
China, Russia and other imperialist powers are not fighting for the freedom of the peoples and the workers, but to extend their domination and exploitation over the oppressed proletariat, peoples and nations. When they fight against the US brigand, eroding its outlet markets, weakening its positions and spheres of influence, and strengthening their own, they do so to extend their claws over the peoples. And as soon as the people of one country come to shake off the yoke of one superpower, the other comes immediately to replace it. Africa and the Middle East are clear evidence of this.
So, it is not a question of being “neutral” or “equidistant”, but of being consistently anti-imperialist and acting as communists in full independence from the bourgeoisie.
To conclude
The current anti-Leninist theories of multipolarism and multilateralism are aimed at undermining the revolution, extinguishing the struggle against imperialism, dividing the Marxist-Leninist movement, and fighting the parties that remain loyal to Marxism-Leninism and the cause of socialist revolution.
Attempts to analyse situations in a “new” way, different from Lenin’s and Stalin’s, to change the revolutionary strategy to which the communist movement has always adhered, lead down a false, anti-Marxist road, to the abandonment of the struggle against imperialism and revisionism.
The only path that leads to victory passes through loyalty to Marxism-Leninism, the struggle against all revisionist deviations and opportunism, the revolutionary mobilization of the working class and peoples against the bourgeoisie and imperialism.
As communists (Marxist-Leninists) we must openly fight multipolarism and all bourgeois and revisionist ideological mystifications that hide or misrepresent today’s reality, that embellish imperialism and its barbarism, leaving no room for them.
Today’s capitalist-imperialist world is objectively increasingly fragmented, divided and conflicted. The fact that some countries are emerging and others declining, given the inequality of economic and political development, does not mean that the world is safer.
The inequality of development among capitalist and imperialist countries leads to accentuating the imbalances within the current system. There are countries that seek to change the situation and redistribute markets, sources of raw materials, transport routes, “spheres of influence” to their advantage. To do so they must necessarily use armed force, though today the main use of force still comes from the US, trying to hold on to what it has. As a result, hostile camps are created and wars break out for a new division of the world.
Talks about multipolarism are just a screen behind which the great powers hide preparations for new wars, deceiving the peoples.
In the metropolises of capitalism, the process of world proletarian revolution is embodied today in the resumption of the class struggle of the proletariat and other strata of exploited workers against capitalist exploitation and oppression, against the attempts of the bourgeoisie to place the burden of the general crisis of the world capitalist system on the shoulders of the workers, against the consequences of imperialist wars, against the advance of reaction and fascism in this or that form.
Thanks to communist propaganda, the popular masses, with the proletariat at their head, are becoming more and more aware that breaking with the capitalist-imperialist system is the only revolutionary way out to escape the crises and other scourges of capitalism, bourgeois exploitation, fascist violence and imperialist wars.
Objective conditions are increasingly favourable for revolution in the developed imperialist and capitalist countries; here proletarian revolution is posed as a problem that must be solved.
The Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations, which raise the banner of the revolution that has been betrayed and abandoned by the revisionists, have set themselves the task of preparing the proletariat and its allies for future struggles for the overthrow of the bourgeois order; they are working to realize it.
Modern revisionists, proponents of multipolarism and other bourgeois and reformist theories, seek to sabotage the revolution and its preparation, to maintain the status quo of the capitalist-imperialist order.
The political and ideological struggle against the proponents of multipolarism and multilateralism is therefore an important aspect of the struggle against imperialism, revisionism, opportunism and reaction, to push the working class and peoples to oppose the policy of war and denounce the military blocs (NATO, EU, Shanghai Pact, AUKUS, etc.), building anti-imperialist fronts, for the affirmation of the historical necessity of socialist revolution and proletarian internationalism.
It is necessary to fight strenuously to prevent the workers’ and communist movement from taking sides under the banners of this or that imperialist power, becoming dependent on it and subservient to its strategic interests.
Today as yesterday, one cannot fight imperialism, one cannot build the revolutionary unity of the communist and workers’ movement, one cannot be an internationalist without fighting the revisionist and opportunist theses, without breaking openly and sharply with these currents and their organizations. Such necessary separation, fostered by the sharpening of the major contradictions of our epoch, is historically inevitable and necessary to develop the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.
The defence and development of Marxism-Leninism, the unmasking and unrelenting struggle against all forms of revisionism and opportunism within the workers’ and communist movement, the revival of the living practice of proletarian internationalism, are essential aspects of the struggle to advance the cooperation and integration of the revolutionary parties of the proletariat in the perspective of a new Communist International.
February 2024