class warrior #7 bricks around the neck of the proletariat

8/10/2019 Class Warrior #7 Bricks around the neck of the proletariat

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Class WarriorTheoretical Journal Of the Liaison Committee of Communists

Volume 1 Number 7 Fall 2014 Labor Donated $1.50

BRICS Around the Neck of the Proletariat

The Sixth BRICS Summitmeeting was held in Brazil in July. The occasion was one of wheeliand dealing between the two big BRICS bloc leaders and their Latin American supporters lookinto set up an alternative to the traditional U.S. dominance of the continent and an alternative to Uglobal nancial hegemony. The leaders also took time out to test the loyalty of U.S. allies in the Efacing U.S.-dictated sanctions on Russia that will cost the EU economies $billions. Putin used tFIFA World Cup to meet Merkel and discuss Ukraine. No doubt Russia is motivated to strengthits push into Latin America as a reprisal to the U.S. determination to push NATO right up against borders. Not content to put pressure on the U.S. bloc in Europe and Asia, Putins dealto write off moof Cubas debt and reopen a former Soviet spy base at Lourdes rubs the National Security Agen(NSAs) nose in its own business. The rise of BRICS is regarded by many on the left today as a dynamanti-imperialist bloc challenging U.S. imperialist hegemony. We challenge this view and show th

BRICS may be a rival bloc but is neither progressive nor anti-imperialist, because it is led by temerging imperialist powers, Russia and China. We argue that the mounting inter-imperialist rivalbetween the two blocs means we can only advance the world revolution by opposing and defeatinboth blocs.

The rise of BRICS is taking place in the context of the global crisis of capitalism. The post-Soviet, post capitalist-restorationChina, world of capitalism in decay is shaping up to look much like the world of a century ago, with inter-imperialist rivaleading inexorably to another imperialist war. The emerging imperialist powers of China and Russia are positioning themselas a bloc of BRICS against the traditional NATO bloc, with the United States as the dominant imperialist power since World WII.

As recent moves have shown, the declining United States is bent on maintaining this dominant position through preventBRICS re-division of the world or re-dividing it for their benet. The Pacic Pivotand the TPPAis directly aimed at Chin

growing power in the Pacic, as was the sabre-rattling against North Korea, which was not only targeting the remaining gains
http://brics6.itamaraty.gov.br/http://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-cuba/http://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-cuba/http://japanfocus.org/-Vince-Scappatura/4178?utm_source=September+8%2C+2014&utm_campaign=China%27s+Connectivity+Revolution&utm_medium=emailhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/tppa-nafta-from-hell_3.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/tppa-nafta-from-hell_3.htmlhttp://japanfocus.org/-Vince-Scappatura/4178?utm_source=September+8%2C+2014&utm_campaign=China%27s+Connectivity+Revolution&utm_medium=emailhttp://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-cuba/http://brics6.itamaraty.gov.br/


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e collectivized property of the deformed workers state(DWS),t also served as a warning to capitalist Chinathat they wouldll the shots in the region. Japan, an imperialist ally of thenited States, has provoked China over the Senkaku islands.

ow the China-led BRICS nations have formed the BRICSevelopment Bank as a counter to the Bretton Woods IMF/orld Bank. Although starting with a relatively meager $50llion fund, the goal is to reach a nancing capacity of $350llion in a few years and eventually rival the World Bank,

rticularly with extra capital funding from China and Russia.ecently BRICS representatives were courting Latin Americanuntries, a direct challenge to the United States. It is obviousat BRICS is wielding increasing inuence, but as what? IsRICS now beginning to pose a challenge to U.S. hegemonyan anti-imperialist bloc or a bloc led by emerging imperialistwers, Russia and China?

our Class Perspectives on BRICS

is useful to breakdown the different views of BRICS by theireological basis in one or other social class. Otherwise we havee spectacle of free-oating standpoints that reduce to national

ltures, national geography, blood, race or nation, or greataders ultimately, biology or genetics. The bourgeois classeology of sovereign individuals in the free market is the defaulteology of capitalism. This is the fetishised formthat unequaloduction relations take as equal exchange relations. Value,ther than representing the labour time of workers, becomes thelue of commodities as determined by the market. Individualsase to be workers, capitalists or landlords and becomevereign individuals as buyers and sellers of commodities ine market and citizens with equal political rights. Capitalism ise best of all possible worlds provided individual freedoms ine market and nation state are not limited by other individualsd states. Today, bourgeois ideology takes three main forms

neoliberal, liberal and radical.

A) Neoliberals

eoliberals are neither new nor liberal. They claim to be liberalthe sense of 18thCentury liberalism of free market capitalism.

owever, such liberalism (now neo-liberalism) never representede reality of capitalism. The arrival and survival of capitalismnce its beginning has required massive state intervention.oreover, since the late 19thcentury state intervention developedto its highest form as capitalism had to move from competitivepitalismtostate monopoly capitalism to deal with increasingly

equent and serious crises. (Lenin, Imperialism)

eoliberals are apologists for state monopoly capitalismstroying organised labour and buying votes in order tominate the free market. Neoliberalism was born out of thed of the post-war boom and onset of structural crisis in the early70s and announced its presence in the Chilean military coupth the overthrow of the populist president Salvador Allendemaintain U.S. domination of the economy. Neoliberals dontve any doubt that China, allied to Russia, leading the BRICSoc poses a threat to U.S. hegemony calling forth a New Coldar.Cynically the U.S. is presented as the bastion of the freearket, individual rights and democracy rather than the dominant

ate monopoly imperialist power. Its mission is to defend these

values against those who would destroy them with superstate monopoly power, e.g., Russia and China. For neoliberits as if the Soviets have come back from the dead and the cwar never ended. That is why they back date to 1949 the WhHouse policy of expanding NATO and rallying the Pacic allof RIMPAC to militarily box in Russia and China from makintransition from regional powers to global powers.

The Liberal critique of neoliberalism recognises the hypocrof the free market that was never free and always manipula

by power elites. Neoliberalism is dened as the specic perof U.S. global hegemony that arose in the last 40 years, ofreferred to as the Washington Consensus, under the leadersof the so-called neo-conservatives, i.e. the subset of neoliberwho try to disguise the realpolitik of monopoly of state powbehind traditional bourgeois cultural values of family, natand god. Liberals therefore share the neo-liberals assumptthat the problem is not the imperialist epoch of state monopcapitalism, but rather the monopoly of power held by the wroclass, the imperialist elite. Therefore the liberal trick is to replthe imperialist elite with the power of the people! Enter BRICS.

(B) Liberals

Against this ofcial neo-liberal-con view of the old (nrevived) cold war where confrontation and war are necessmeans to prop up U.S. state monopoly capitalism, the bourgeliberal ideologues see the rising economic power of BRICS acounter-balance to the Washington Consensus that can leadmultipolarity. There are some likeTom Engelhardt who discomultipolarity in the face of an overwhelming U.S. global powthat dominates geopolitics. Others like neo-Stalinist F WilliEngdahlsee multipolarity arising like a phoenix as Russia aChina challenge U.S. economic and nancial hegemony:

Taken as a totality, along with other measures by RussiasPutin to deepen political, economic and military ties withChina and the other nations of Eurasia, the latest energyagreements have the potential to transform the globageopolitical map, something Washingtons war faction wilnot greet willingly. The world, as Ive noted before, is inthe midst of one of a fundamental transformation, suchas occurs only every few centuries. An epoch is endingThe once-unchallenged global hegemony of the Atlanticalliance countries of the USA and EU is crumbling rapidly.

Todays liberals are more the descendants of Adam Smith ththe neoliberals because they agree that the equal exchangethe market has been distorted by the concentration of powin the hands of ruling elites. Smith believed that the marwas rationaland that competition and comparative advantawas sufcient to organise the economy and the wealth nations. Comparative Advantage was based on the exchangecommodities at their labour value. The hidden hand rewardeach person according to the amount of labour they cocommand in the market. Equal exchange would result unlnation states intervened to manipulate or monopolise the markWe can now see how liberals today see the distribution of powas determining the distribution of income and the need foliberal state to regulate power relations in the marketplace. T

is clear in the history of liberal reforms that attempt to balan
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the power of organised labour and capital.

Multipolarity is therefore the 21st century liberal roadback to the utopia of Adam Smith, where the rebalancingof excessive state power, allows the free market to becomethe guarantor of the commonwealth of citizens. The maintools of multipolarity focus on the destruction of monopolypower to control production, distribution and exchange ofvalue on the world market. For liberals who are xated onthe fetish of the market and the symbol of the market, money,

this means breaking the dominance of the U.S. juggernautover the international nance system the U.S. Dollar asthe global reserve currencyby setting up rivals to the WorldBank and IMF.

Pepe Escobar, at the Asia Times, writes:

Its been a long and winding road since Yekaterinburg in2009, at their rst summit, up to the BRICSs long-awaitedcounterpunch against the Bretton Woods consensus- the IMF and the World Bank - as well as the Japan-dominated (but largely responding to U.S. priorities) AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB). The BRICS Development

Bank - with an initial US$50 billion in capital - will be notonly BRICS-oriented, but invest in infrastructure projectsand sustainable development on a global scale. The modelis the Brazilian BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank ed.),which supports Brazilian companies investing across LatinAmerica. In a few years, it will reach a nancing capacityof up to $350 billion. With extra funding especially fromBeijing and Moscow, the new institution could leave theWorld Bank in the dust. Compare access to real capitalsavings to U.S. governments printed green paper with nocollateral.

And then theres the agreement establishing a $100 billion

pool of reserve currencies - the Contingent ReserveArrangement (CRA), described by Russian FinanceMinister Anton Siluanov as a kind of mini-IMF. Thatsa non-Washington consensus mechanism to counterpunchcapital ight. For the pool, China will contribute with $41billion, Brazil, India and Russia with $18 billion each,and South Africa with $5 billion. The development bankshould be headquartered in Shanghai - although Mumbaihas forcefully tried to make its case (for an Indian take onthe BRICS strategy, see here).

Way beyond economy and nance, this is essentially aboutgeopolitics - as in emerging powers offering an alternativeto the failed Washington consensus. Or, as consensusapologists say, the BRICS may be able to alleviatechallenges they face from the international nancialsystem. The strategy also happens to be one of the keynodes of the progressively solidied China-Russia alliancerecently featured via the gas deal of the century and atthe St. Petersburg economic forum.

Using such tools, multipolarity will result in a rebalancing of theshare of global power among the big powers, as a means of bothincreasing and redistributing economic wealth. But the utopia ofthe liberal bourgeoisie wont work unless the working class and

other oppressed people are won to it by reformist political parties

and trades unions. Thus the working masses must be convthat the BRICS bloc can reform global capitalism and rethe massive social inequalities by redistributing global wThis liberal perspective is the basis of Hardt and NegrisEmpublished in 2000 that promoted the liberal left utopia of a where imperialism was outmoded and the Empire was civilised by the multitude now led by the a new middleof immaterial workers. Empire was immediately confouby 9/11 and the onset of the war on terror and the ArgentU.S. imperialism re-asserted its hegemonic power in inva

and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the liberal utopirudely dashed by the rampant neo-cons. The rise of BRICSso-called emerging markets since 2000 however, has givliberal standpoint renewed hope in the form of multipolar

One of the ways that Russia and China are presentprogressive leaders of BRICS is the claim that they reprthe former or present forms of socialism that facilitattransition from capitalism to 21st century socialism. Wthey lack credibility as models of 21stcentury socialism fmasses, then at least they can be pushed in that direction bexample of the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples America) states, namely; Venezuela, Brazil and South Afric

all have popular front Governments with strong mass suThis is also the case in Cuba, which in our viewhas recapitalism under the inuence of China and has now bethe ideological cheer-leader linking BRICS to Bolivsocialism that is promoted by the World Social Forum (as embodying the phoenix that rises out of the ashes of thSoviet world. These popular front regimes are the modelsglobal popular front. Under the control of the governmentcorporate elites, BRICS continue business as usual exploitimassesandpolluting the planet. Yet masspressure from can force the BRICS to implement a popular socialist proThe strongest expression of this liberal populism was that Brics from Below conference held in South Africa durin

5thBRICS summit in 2013.

This theme was also taken up in the 6thSummit in BrasilFortaleza, notably by Russia with its emphasis on politicamilitary cooperation with Latin American countries, espeVenezuela and Cuba. Andrew Korybko writing in Russthe Latin American Leap to Multipolarityargues that Ruresurgence from collapsed Soviet state to Great Power means it is attempting to recover its old spheres of inuen

Latin America gures strongly in this recovery:

Russia has restored its Soviet-era global reach unVladimir Putin, extending its inuence all across world. Because it fulls the role of a strategic balancrelationships with Russia are now more prized than everthe world moves towards multipolarity. Certain contextbackgrounds make Latin America overly receptivemultipolarity and Russias grand foreign policy goals in tregard. Over the past decade, Moscow has spun a compweb of relationships to directly and indirectly extendinuence in the Caribbean and along both coasts of South American continent. This strategy is not withrisks, however, since all of Russias partners are vulnerato various U.S.-sponsored destabilizations. If manag

properly, however, Russias return to Latin America
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be a godsend for multipolarity, and it can even reverse thePentagons strategic initiative and for once place the U.S.on the defensive within its own natural sphere of interest...[a]round this time [around 2000], Russia was rising fromthe ashes of the Soviet collapse and nally returning to itsGreat Power status. It thus felt the need to expand its swayback into areas which it once held inuence, and this ofcourse included Latin America. Mutual visits, weaponsdeals, and energy contracts ourished between Russia andVenezuela since 2000, and both countries were already

deep strategic partners by the time of Putins 2010 tripto Caracas. Military cooperation in the naval and aerialelds solidied the relationship and showed both sidescommitment to one another. All of this inuenced and hasbeen in line with Russias 2013 Foreign Policy Concept,where the pursuit of multipolarity is taken as an assumedgranted (having rst been stated as an ofcial foreignpolicy goal in 2000) and increased interaction with LatinAmerica is emphasized.

uba and Venezuela are the bridgeheads for Russias return toatin America, just as they have been for China. The ALBA statesve established strategic relations with both major BRICS

wers. Bolivarian socialism or 21st

Century Socialism hasized on Russia and China as non-imperialist, if not socialist,wers that can rescue them from U.S. imperialist subjugationd bring about the self-determination of the underdevelopedd emerging nations globally. Win-Win deals will enablepartners in the BRICS to prosper together in harmony. Thus

e rise of the BRICS represents a re-balancing of the globaluation where U.S. imperialist hegemony is reigned in andwer is more evenly distributed among a number of greatwers.

ot surprisingly, the 20thcentury socialism of Lenin and Trotskyreplaced by the 21st century utopia of multipolarity as the

RICS reform global capitalism, which once rid of the aberrationnancial parasitism, realises a Smithian equilibrium of non-ploitative social relations among all nations. This liberal utopiatranslated via the labour bureaucracy in the unions and politicsopting a more left, even Marxist language. The debt toautsky, Menshevism and Stalinism is obvious in the potential

all these global powers to arrive at a policy of peacefulexistence. This marks the death of Lenins theory that in theoch of imperialism the major imperialist powers must ght forpremacy, or go into decline. Imperialism for Lenin might haveen the highest stage of capitalism, but that is now pass as it isacefully passing over into 21stcentury socialism.

, it is no irony that 21stcentury Bolivarian socialism replicatese patriotic fronts of 20thcentury Stalinism, which advocatedat the international working class form political alliances,popular fronts, with the democratic bourgeoisies against

scism. Only the language has changed. In the new millennium,ese popular fronts are between workers and the populistpitalist regimes posing as market socialist, striking an anti-

mperialist posture against the U.S. evil empire. The model foris is Latin America where national populismis an historicalsponse to the domination of the U.S. Empire and its directtervention in regime change from 1896 in Cuba to 2009 inlvador. Russias late return and Chinas recent arrival in Latin

merica are as the saviours of such populist regimes. China has

bankrolled Cubas restoration of capitalism while Russia nsteps in to forgive Cubas debts and boost its military defenHowever, as we have pointed out in Beware Falling BRICS, idea that all the BRICS partners, even when pushed from beloby unions, NGOs and populist movements, can share equitain a new multipolar world, is a bourgeois utopia. Russia aChina are emerging imperialist powers and their relations wthe other BRIC partners are far from equitable!

(C) Radical Left

The Radical Left rejects the liberal reformist view of peacecoexistence between great powersand the potential for capitalito be transformed into socialism withoutworkers revolutioThe issue then becomes how is the socialist revolution to be win the 21stcentury? The role of the Radical Left is to conviworkers that capitalist exploitation can be eliminated mobilising the working class behind the leadership of the pebourgeoisie to equalise exchange. Imperialism therefore is longer conceived as the ultimate stage of crisis ridden-capitaliwhere imperialist powers go to war to re-divide the world.Lenconcept of imperialism as anarchic state monopoly capiadopted by the Bolsheviks, must be replaced by the Menshe

view of imperialismas political policy of the ruling class tcan be replaced by a proletarian policy of socialist revolutionpeaceful coexistence between classes.So while the radical has to accept that Russia and China are emerging super powethey must argue that they cannot be new imperialist poweRather they are reduced to relatively minor powers subordinato the existing U.S.-led imperialist bloc and for that reason ha progressive, anti-imperialist character that can counter Uhegemony and bring peaceful coexistence between capitanations. We argue here that those who deny that Russia China are imperialist do so having decided in advance that tis not possible because the U.S. is hegemonic. All sorts of labare xed to these subordinate powers -sub-imperialist, regio

imperialist, capitalist semi-colony, or even Deformed WorkStates!

We will prove that these are the empiricist impressions of pebourgeois radicals. At the heart of their impressionism is thfetishised concept of nance capital. They break from Lenin wdened nance capital as the fusion between banking capital aproductive capital. Imperialism is the epoch of monopoly whbanks and large enterprises are jointly owned and collaborclosely to nance the accumulation process. When bank(money capital) is separated from productive capital becauof a crisis of overproduction, excess money capital outside circuit of production cannot create new value and money begto lose value.Speculating in existing values does not maintthe value of money since the claim of money on existing valeads to its devaluation until such time as it can be turned imoney capital productive of value.

That is why much of the U.S. banking capital and the Udollar in particular is increasingly ctitious capitalthat does represent real wealth. The U.S. massive national debt reects tits U.S. rising dollar wealth cannot be exchanged for declinU.S. owned production of value, and the debt is only sustainaby printing U.S. dollars. Instead of uncontrollable price inatthat would normally result, the U.S. dollar value is kept articia

high because it is in demand as the world currency that has
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be purchased to exchange for the value of commodities, inparticular oil. Therefore the argument that the U.S. is the worldhegemonic power because of its control of global nance capitaldoes not follow. On the contrary, the overproduction of capitaldue to the Tendency of the Rate of Prot to Fall, means that U.S.imperialism must undergo the huge destruction of its surpluscapital. The spark will be the bursting of the debt bubble andcollapse of the value of the U.S. dollar.

The hegemony of U.S. imperialism is therefore as fragile as

the agreement of U.S. rivals to pay for commodities in U.S.dollars! We will prove that petty bourgeois Marxists whofail to understand this reality overestimate the capacity of theU.S. to dominate its imperialist rivals nancially, and thusunderestimate the capacity of those rivals to accumulate theirown genuinely nance capital based on the fusion of bankingcapital and productive capital. And this is of course a fatalmistake when it comes to understanding the current rise ofRussia and China. The fact that Russia and China are over-accumulating capital and at the same time overproducingcapital as ctitious capital that will have to be destroyed, isconclusive evidence that they are not subordinated to U.S.nance capital, but have developed their own nance capital.

(1) Regional Imperialist (United Secretariat of the FourthInternational hereafter USec)

The regional imperialist view is held by the USec, the ofcialPabloite international that claims falsely to represent TrotskysFourth International, but ends up junking Lenin on imperialismand rehabilitating Kautskys ultra-imperialist position that theperiod we are living in is no longer one of inter-imperialist war!

Today, capitalism is a global intertwined and integratedsystem under U.S. hegemony in a way which it was not in1914. The two world wars of the 20th century were mainly

wars of inter-imperialist rivalry to gain or maintain controlof areas of the world. The outcome of these wars was theestablishment of the USA by far and away as the majorpower in the world, ruling the capitalist system through itsmassive economic and even greater military power, andthrough institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF andNATO. This global capitalist system has further expandedwith the restoration of capitalism in Russia and China, butthis does not mean that inter-imperialist rivalries and thethreat of regional wars are no longer on the agenda.

The form of U.S. hegemony in operation today means thatweaker states are allowed to pursue their own imperialistambitions and regional geo-strategic interests, includingthrough military interventions conditional on them at leastnot challenging the main thrust of U.S. interests; somethingwhich is delicate to achieve as the imperialist ambitions ofRussia and China have to a certain extent be at the expenseof U.S. imperialism. If they step out of line, they becomerogue states that have to be subdued militarily as in thecase of Iraq, or sanctions imposed such as for Iran and nowRussia. To maintain weaker states within the framework ofU.S. imperialism, the latter has to carry out a lot of sabre-rattling. This is a dangerous game, as any incident suchas the accidental downing of MH17 in Ukraine, or of the

Iran Air plane by the U.S. navy in 1988 killing 269 people,

can rapidly escalate into a full military confrontation, dynamics of which may no longer be in the hands of Uimperialism and its allies. But sabre-rattling should notconfused with a dynamic towards inter-imperialist war lthat leading to the two world wars. This is not the naturethe period today.

As long as Russia remains within its regional geo-stratesphere, Western imperialism (i.e. the USA and NATOnot greatly concerned by Russias annexation of Crim

The few sanctions against Russia announced are so symbolic mainly against individuals and there are ddivisions on extending them because of arms and gas deand because of the globalisation of the capitalist systeSanctions that hurt Russian capitalism also affect Westcapitalism.

Claiming Leninist orthodoxy, the USec says that RussiChina are unable to become more than regional powers anthey are tolerated by the U.S. unless they challenge U.S. ghegemony. The U.S. remains the global power dominatiimperialist rivals without the need for major war. This ithrow back to Kautskys ultra-imperialism, where the U.

impose its dominance across the globe with impunity. Whleft must oppose Russias regional imperialist designs suin Ukraine, there can be no war between the U.S. and Rbecause that would backre and damage U.S. imperialismmeans that the left is disoriented and disarmed when it farecognise the decline of the U.S. bloc and the rise of the RChina bloc which express their inter-imperialist rivalregional disputes and proxy wars. And where these proxyinevitably blow up into direct military confrontations bethe two blocs, the left is faced with the pressure to defenregional imperialist powers, Russia and China, against the hegemonic power, the U.S. The fallacies of this neo-Kautscan be shown simply by going back to Lenins own critiq

Kautsky:

...the best reply that one can make to the lifelabstractions of ultra-imperialism is to contrast thwith the concrete economic realities of the present-dworld economy...Compare this reality the vast diversof economic and political conditions, the extreme dispain the rate of development of the various countries, eand the violent struggles among the imperialist statewith Kautskys silly little fable about peaceful ultimperialism...an example of the division and the re-divisof the world...The question is: what means other than wcould there be under capitalism to overcome the disparbetween the development of the productive forces and accumulation of capital on the one side, and the divisof colonies and spheres of inuence for nance capitalthe other?

Below we will prove that this theory is all the more appltoday to explain the rise of Russia and China as new impepowers driven by the necessity to re-divide the world by mof war.
http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3529http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htmhttp://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3529


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) Sub-imperialist (Socialist Fight)

erry Downing in Socialist Fighthas a similar view to the USec.e attempts to establish a rmer Leninist theoretical explanationthe difference between the dominant U.S. imperialism and thee of Russia and China as rivals rather than regional geography.cialists should side with Russia and China against the U.S.t because they are mere regional or minor imperialisms, butcause they are not imperialist, i.e., sub-imperialist. Gerryowning is not the only one who adopts the concept of sub-

mperialism. It originated in Brazilto characterize that countrysle in the world. It means that such states are intermediarytween semi-colonies and imperialist nations. They fall shortimperialism on the grounds that while they collaboratethe imperialist super-exploitation of semi-colonies, they

main semi-colonies and are exploited by the U.S. dominatedternational nance capital. There is no suggestion that sub-

mperialist states can become imperialist.

owning uses the term to acknowledge Russia has imperialistaracteristics, but is prevented from developing into a full

mperialism by U.S. nancial hegemony. The barrier is notoductivity since the sub-imperialist corporations are

mpetitive with U.S. corporations, but political and military.owning claims the U.S. is in decline (he implies that this is acline of manufacturing competitiveness) and must increasinglyto war to stop Russia and China emerging as global rivals.

herefore the solution is for the international working class tofend Russia(and China) from U.S. warmongering and in theocess trigger the defeat of U.S. imperialism.

he false premise in this theory is the ability of U.S. nancepital to subordinate Russian and Chinese imperialism in theme way it does other sub-imperialist nations (e.g., Brazil,dia or South Africa) through control of global nance capital.owning points out, that nance capital is universal yet the

S. is able to impose its hegemony because it owns the biggestnks including the IMF and World Bank. So no matter howmpetitive Russian and Chinese corporations are in the globalarket, U.S.-owned banks always take the lions share of theper-prots extracted from the semi-colonial world. But toork, this must mean that the U.S. can monopolise nance capitald its accumulation in Russia or China. As we have shownsewhere, this is not the case. Joint ventures with U.S. (andU) capital in Russia and China allow value to be expropriated

the basis of low wages and low rents, but both Russia andhina accumulate a major part of the value produced. The U.S.ay have the biggest banks but these cannot monopolise theoduction of value in Russia or China, and hence cannot trapese countries in sub-imperialism.

his is the same trap that Sam Williamsfalls into when he reducesnance capital to money capital in search of surplus value. Thisthe decisive factor in determining if a country is imperialistnot. But nance capital is separated from industrial capital

r Williams, while for Marx and Lenin nance capital is thesion of bank and industrial capital. So for Williams nancepital makes a claim on surplus value; it does not have to bevested in the production of surplus value. By equating nancepital with money in banks, Williams reduces imperialism toig banks. We reject this non-Marxist method and follow

enins criteria of export of nance capital as measured

today by Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) direcinvested in producing surplus value. It means that Willialike Downing overestimates the power of U.S. banks to prevRussia and China from accumulating value. In fact, Williadraws the conclusion that both Russia and China are semcolonies of the U.S. (see below). However both Downing aWilliams over-estimate the capacity of the U.S. to accumulvalue, since the U.S. dollar cannot be a repository of value, athe vast bulk of its money capital value is ctitious capital. Ubanks are technically insolvent because without the Fed print

of U.S. dollars they would be bankrupt. This explains wfar from being hegemonic, U.S. imperialism is in decline amust go to war to plunder raw materials and labour powerthe sources of more value. Here they face the emergence notsub-imperialist powers, but of new rival imperialist powers taccumulate more real value than the U.S. and seek to replace U.S.-dominated banking system with a rival system.

To t their preconception that Russia and China cannot imperialist, petty bourgeois Marxists look for empirical facto validate their theory. Fictional pseudo-Marxist concepts lsub-imperialism and regional imperialism then reect fetishisationof the capacity of the U.S. economy to monopol

the production of value on the basis of ctitious value, and de-valuing of the production of real value by the Chinese aRussian economies.

Logically, this leads to a reformist program that is no differessentially than 21st century liberal multipolarity at fetishised level of exchange relations. The radical conceptsub-imperialism arises out of Underdevelopment Theoassociated with Baran and Sweezy, in which exploitatoccurs at the level of exchange leading to unequal exchangAs a result the international class struggle, specicallyBolivarian-type popular front with Russia and/or Chior BRICS from below, led by modern Mensheviks, c

create a BRICS Development Bank and other mechanis(e.g., a rival Society for Worldwide Interbank FinancTelecommunication SWIFT) to challenge U.S. doldomination of international nance capital over suimperialist states, bringing about an equalisation exchange, a redistribution of money as value, and a peaceglobal socialist utopia.

(3) Capitalist Semi-colony (International Leninist TrotskFraction - FLTI)

Carlos Munzer of the FLTI argues that Russia and China semi-colonies. This is because as former workers states whthey restored capitalism they were slotted back into the glocapitalist division-of-labour as semi-colonies super-exploiby imperialism, in particular U.S. imperialism. Munzemain argument against Russia and China as imperialist is timperialist partition of the globe was completed by WW1 atherefore the oppressed countries recognised by Lenin at ttime as colonies, semi-colonies or independent countries, conot make the transition to imperialism. Munzer explains the rof Russia and China as that of semi-colonies serving the intereof U.S. imperialism. He explains their rapid economic growand increased outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) as provision of cheap raw materials and cheap labour as inputs i

U.S. multi-nationals production in China. Therefore, Ch
http://socialistfight.com/2014/06/19/russia-and-china-are-not-imperialist-states-statement-by-the-liaison-committee-for-the-fourth-international-on-the-useunato-attack-on-the-ukraine/http://links.org.au/node/3265http://socialistfight.com/2014/06/19/russia-and-china-are-not-imperialist-states-statement-by-the-liaison-committee-for-the-fourth-international-on-the-useunato-attack-on-the-ukraine/http://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/is-russia-imperialist/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_A._Baranhttp://journal-neo.org/2014/10/10/russia-in-negotiation-with-china-for-alternative-swift-bank-system/http://journal-neo.org/2014/10/10/russia-in-negotiation-with-china-for-alternative-swift-bank-system/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_A._Baranhttp://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/is-russia-imperialist/http://socialistfight.com/2014/06/19/russia-and-china-are-not-imperialist-states-statement-by-the-liaison-committee-for-the-fourth-international-on-the-useunato-attack-on-the-ukraine/http://links.org.au/node/3265http://socialistfight.com/2014/06/19/russia-and-china-are-not-imperialist-states-statement-by-the-liaison-committee-for-the-fourth-international-on-the-useunato-attack-on-the-ukraine/


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CLASS WARRIOR F

cannot prot from its growth and accumulate capital in its ownright, as it has to pass the lions share of the surplus value on toU.S. imperialism.

As we have pointed out in a number of articleson this question,this is the other side of the coin of Pabloist empiricism.Empiricism ts the facts to preconceptions withoutinvestigating the essence of reality. Pablo was the main leader ofthe post WWII Fourth International, who argued that Stalinismwas a progressive force allied to democracy to smash fascism

and so would power on into the future dragging the workingclass along with it. That is, he tted the facts that Stalinism washistorically progressive into a preconceived Menshevik schemathat capitalism would peacefully evolve into socialism without aBolshevik revolution! The reverse side of this position is to stateones preconceptions as dogma and ignore all facts that dont tthe dogma. Thus Munzer ignores the need to explain the surfaceappearances of a superpower and takes the dogmatic positionthat, since Lenin excluded the rise of new imperialist powers,the economic expansion of Russia and China must be to serveexisting imperialism. Hence Munzer made a propaganda blocwith the JRCP (Japan Revolutionary Communist Party-Koroda)in Japan which recognises Russia and China as super-powers

while simultaneously rejecting Lenins theory of imperialism asno longer relevant!

All these radical left positions on Russia and China today seekto apply sundry revisions of Lenins theory of imperialism toprove their preconception that they are NOT imperialist powers.Williams is perhaps the most blatant revision of Lenins conceptof nance capital as the merger of banking and industrialcapital, to mean money in banks that has a claim on surplusvalue. This conates capital productive of surplus value directlyinvested to realise super-prots, as a response to the Tendencyof the Rate of the Prot to Fall (TRPF), with ctitious capitalspeculating in existing values, as a symptomof the TRPF, i.e. the

overproduction of money capital. As we have argued elsewhere,this fails to grasp the essentials of Lenins theory based on hisdialectic method. The Bolshevik Revolution broke the reality thatthe whole world was partitioned among imperialist powers. Theyspent the next 70 years invading or blockading Russia and Chinain the attempt to collapse the Soviet bloc but only succeededaround 1990. The assumption that history then jumped back to1917 and the imperialists simply squabbled over who would getthe spoils of the ex-soviet world cannot explain the reality thatRussia and China, unlike the other smaller members of the Sovietbloc Vietnam, Cuba etc., did not become mere semi-coloniesof one or another imperialism, but emerged as new imperialistpowers.

Thus both the empiricist and dogmatic deviations from Marx,Lenin and Trotskys dialectics fail to resolve the dilemma that theobvious appearance of new super-powers cannot be explainedby other than the rise of new imperialisms. The answer to thisdilemma is provided by revolutionary Marxists who understandand apply materialist dialectics to all questions.

(D) Revolutionary Marxist

For Marxists this dilemma can only be resolved by recognisingthe reality that emerging super powers must be imperialist.

Multipolarity therefore is no master plan for peaceful

coexistence but rather a Kautskyite-Stalinist-Menssmokescreen, thrown up to disguise the rapid escalatiinter-imperialist rivalry between two major imperialist bloAs we have argued, Lenins theory was based on matedialectics which can be developed to explain the rise of impeRussia and China out of the ashes of the former workers The partition of the world by the imperialist powers was bby the Bolshevik Revolution which began the process of foa Soviet bloc which was independent of imperialist dominand oppression. This national independence from imperi

(the overthrow of the national bourgeoisie and defeimperialist invasions) created the conditions for the developof the forces of production beyond that possible in a capsemi-colony.

If follows that we draw political conclusions from dialeTheory and practice are united in the class struggle in wMarxists participate. Unlike the neo-liberal ruling classpreach cold war between nations, and their liberal ideologuetake sides according to which nation is judged as oppresrogue or terrorist in its use of power against the people, radical left that subcontracts the defence of oppressed couto populist leaders, we take Lenins position and declare th

working class is the only revolutionary class and that ourenemy is the ruling class of our own country or the impepower(s) that oppress it. It is the rst duty of workers imperialist countries to defeat their oppressorsat home.

The Marxist view is that Russia and China are developiimperialist rivals to the U.S. led bloc of powers. Each aBRICS meeting hosted by one or other member, shows thbecoming a new power bloc seriously threatening the U.bloc. This is not just evident from the fact that both RussChina clearly display the features of imperialism, in partcrises of overproduction and export of capital, but that ththeir BRICS partners, Brazil, India and South Africa, they

strong partners in extending their inuence in Eurasia, MEast and North Africa (MENA), Asia, Africa and South AmIn our view only Russia and China are imperialist memof BRICS while the others are subordinated as semi-colThis is evident from their trade, production and nance dewe will show. The semi-colonial BRICS serve as dutiful in the expansion of the China-led imperialist bloc intorespective South Asian, Latin American and African spheinuence. Those who argue that all or some of the BRICeither regional- or sub-imperialist are empiricists basingarguments on criteria that owe nothing to Marxism. PBond, writing in Links, denes sub-imperialism as enaneo-liberal imperialism to further its policy of accumuby dispossession. This is a denition of imperialism level of exchange which means that all the BRICS act asimperialist cronies or agents of U.S. and EU imperialist poHowever, as we will prove, Russia and China extract impesuper prots from their BRICS semi-colonies in their ownand far from serving U.S. and EU imperialism, are the bathe emergence of the rival China/Russia spheres of inuen

What this dynamic reects is that the conditions that allRussia and China to escape semi-colonial subservience U.S. bloc of powers also enable them to follow the same croad of rising imperialisms competing with existing imperia

This means exporting capital to the semi-colonial world
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en as super-prots accrue, draining this world of surplus value,d setting limits on the semi-colonies capacity for their ownpital accumulation. So we can document in Eurasia, Africa and

atin America, Russia and China acting on the basis of the lawscapitalist accumulation. Russian and Chinese Foreign Direct

vestment (FDI) becomes the basis for vertical integration andonopoly control of production, distribution and exchange. Ase shall see, Russia and China are expanding their OFDI intoe semi-colonial BRICS (not all at the same rate) through loansexchange for oil, and mergers and acquisitions in mining,

riculture, construction and manufacturing, etc., all of which issigned to create a monopoly of production from raw materialsnished products shipped to market. The essence of this is

e rapidly rising share of surplus going to Russia and China,d the much smaller rise in the share going to India, Brazil anduth Africa.

able 1 below shows that from a weak start in 1995 whenpitalism was barely restored in Russia and China, all theRICS had modest levels of FDI. Since then both FDI andFDI has increased markedly. But we can see that the trajectorydifferent for Russia and China on the one hand and India,azil and South Africa on the other. First, the magnitude of both

DI and OFDI is much greater in the case of Russia and China.cond, while OFDI is 55% of FDI averaged over India, Brazild SA in 2013, for the same year, OFDI averages 80% of FDIr Russia and China. This is a snap shot of a dynamic processwever, and ows of OFDI exceeded ows of FDI in Russiater 2010 while China is expected to become a net exporterofDI in 2014. On the other hand we would expect the rise ofFDI in the semi-colonies to stagnate and even decline as thewnership of the Multi National Corporations that engage inport of capital succumbs to imperialist ownership and control.

hat the BRICS semi-colonial partners serve the interestsRussia and China is also evident from the fact that this is

cognised as such and is provoking a retaliatory response one part of the U.S. led bloc. It is this response that conrmsat BRICS is not merely an association of emerging markets,egional powers, or the rise of a multipolar system thatplaces the U.S. unipolarity. Rather, it is perceived by theS. as a rising imperialist bloc that has created a core sphereinuence as BRICS based on production, trade, nance andlitical agreements that can onlyored sphere of inuence as

RICS advance at the cost of U.S. decline. Currently while theo power blocs are facing each other in MENA, Africa and

atin America, it is in Eurasia where the stakes are highest. Heree can see the growing inter-imperialist rivalry escalating fromade wars to military confrontation and local wars, accompanied

by rising threats and nuclear sabre rattling.

What is missing on the revolutionary left is a coherent critiqof the role of BRICS as a new brand of social imperialifrom below promoted by the World Social Forum (WSand fusing the neo-Stalinist and fake Trotskyist left intnew batch of Mensheviks, diverting the workers intoglobal popular front and tying their hands in the face of tescalating economic, political and military wars between two imperialist blocs. In the absence of such a revolutiona

theory there is no program to unite the international workclass behind a revolutionary party and a revolutionacommunist international.

Maidan: The color revolution in Ukraine brought theags of the fascists to the fore

(1) EURASIA

The stakes are highest in Eurasia because here the heartlandsthe two power blocs confront each other directly from Europethe Pacic Ocean. The NATO powers confront Russia direc

over the Ukraine. The U.S. and its ally Japan confront Chinarectly over the territorial waters of the East and South Chseas. These hotspots are therefore the most convincing test of liberal multipolarity, radical regional / sub imperialism, aMarxist inter-imperialist rivalry theories. Already we see the leral and radical theories bankrupted by events. In the Ukraithe U.S. bloc is using NATO not to negotiate the containmof Russia to prove that its global hegemony remains intact, buimpose economic and military sanctions to weaken Russia achallenge its regional power in Eurasia.

The result is not a victory for the U.S. bloc, but the consolidatof the China/Russia bloc and the weakening of the links ty

the European powers to the U.S. bloc, as the two blocs exchanpolitical, economic and military threats.

This is evident as Russia looks to China in building trrelations and joint ventures to counter sanctions. Mnotable is the huge deal over gas. This deal ignores U.S., dollar showing thepetroyuanis on the way. A centurySilk Roadis being driven from China into Euroand by sea from China into the Middle East. In meetnancial sanctions we have seen how BRICS is attemptto set up a rival development bank to counter the WoBank and IMF. Russia and China are now respondto U.S.-driven nancial sanctions against Russia Table 1 Based on UNCTADWorld Investment Report - Country Fact Sheets

RICS FDI

Stock in$billions

OFDI

Stock in$billions

FDI

Stock in$billions

OFDI

Stock in$billions

FDI

Stock in$billions

OFDI

Stock in$billions

FDI ow

overOFDIow

1995 1995 2010 2010 2013 2013 2013

ussia 6 3 490 366 576 501 79/95

hina 101 18 588 317 957 614 124/101

ndia 6 0.5 206 97 227 120 28/2

razil 48 45 682 191 735 293 64/-4

Africa 15 23 180 83 140 96 8/6
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28f6b8d4-59cd-11e4-9787-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3H7i4UPzwhttp://www.businessinsider.com/afp-chinas-overseas-investment-soars-as-fdi-drops-again-2014-9?IR=Thttp://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2013/03/25/five-brics-nations-are-intricately-linked-through-commoditieshttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-21/petroyuan-cometh-china-docks-navy-destroyer-irans-strait-hormuz-porthttp://www.ecns.cn/2014/06-10/118279.shtmlhttp://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-new-silk-road-chinas-energy-strategy-in-the-greater-middle-easthttp://unctad.org/en/Pages/DIAE/World%20Investment%20Report/World_Investment_Report.aspxhttp://unctad.org/en/Pages/DIAE/World%20Investment%20Report/World_Investment_Report.aspxhttp://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-new-silk-road-chinas-energy-strategy-in-the-greater-middle-easthttp://www.ecns.cn/2014/06-10/118279.shtmlhttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-21/petroyuan-cometh-china-docks-navy-destroyer-irans-strait-hormuz-porthttp://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2013/03/25/five-brics-nations-are-intricately-linked-through-commoditieshttp://www.businessinsider.com/afp-chinas-overseas-investment-soars-as-fdi-drops-again-2014-9?IR=Thttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28f6b8d4-59cd-11e4-9787-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3H7i4UPzw


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10/1610


S., Japan and U.K. as the main imperialist investors in India.esident Xi Jinpings promise of a loan of $20bn during hiscent visit to India fell well short of Prime Minister Modispectations:

During his [election] campaign, Modi was wagering thatIndia would increase its economic might and strengthenits position in the world, and he was looking to economiccooperation with China as a way to achieve that goal.Modi gives China credit for its economic buildup, and

he is striving to transfer its experience to benet Indiasindustrial growth. He is primarily pinning his hopes onChinese direct investment, which in the last 14 years hasnot exceeded $400 million because of previous policyrestrictions.

ven Chinas recent emergence as an imperialist power, ande long-standing domination of India by U.K., Japan ande U.S., Chinas relationship is still mainly about exportingeap manufactures to India. Yet the trajectory of its dynamiclationship will probably follow the same pattern as Brazild South Africa where it has developed FDI from resourcetraction to include infrastructure and/or setting up branch

ctories producing home appliances, autos, etc. Bi-laterallations between India and Russiapoint in the same directionth deals in the areas of defence, space and nuclear energy.

Free Kurds do not recognise borders

) MENA

he Middle East is once again proven to be an ongoingsite ofter-imperialist rivalry via proxy wars. No sooner had Israelsest bombardment of Gaza ended in a fragile ceasere, than theIS began its campaign in Iraq and Syria. The rise of ISIS chal-nged the pact between the two rival blocs. The relative stale-ate between the imperialist powers in Iraq and Syria as part ofe containment of the Arab Revolution broke down again asbama launched another war in these countries. Everywhere wen see the evidence of the latent rivalry between the rising blocainst the declining bloc. The Arab Revolution had not beenntained by the NATO powers and by Israel without the rise ofamic militancy lling the vacuum left by the relative weak-ss of the secular left. To counter this threat, the U.S. has cho-n to compromise with the BRICS (Russia, China and their cli-t Iran and possibly Egypt) so long as this does not threaten itswer base in MENA. The U.S. initially looked to Iran, backedChina and Russia to re-stabilise Iraq. However, after its col-

boration in replacing Maliki with another Shia head of govern-

ment, the U.S. and Iran have not reached agreementon the ters participation in the coalition against IS. Thus the riinterests of the two blocs are revealed by the direct return of U.S. to military intervention in MENA.

Obamas new turn to war on the Islamic State (formerly ISis being sold as a continuation of the war on terror but its rtarget is to contain China and the BRICS inuence in MENUnder the pretext of a war on IS terror, the U.S. keeps a militpresence in MENA to counter Chinas growing inuenceon

Arab states. The war against IS will be a long war and inevitalead to the partition of Iraq into (1) an Islamic State toleraby Assad, Russia and Turkeyas a barrier to the Arab and Ksocial revolutions; (2) a Kurdish state in Iraq backed by the Uagainst the Kurd social revolution; and (3) a Shia state in south backed by Iran and China, each staking out rival oil claimBut none of these militarised states will in the long run be ato suppress the masses by invoking sectarian or religious terr

Syria and Libya will also be drawn into the war on the IslamState creating rival national bourgeois factions backed by China and U.S. blocs against the masses and radical Islam. NAintervention in Libya was unpopular in Africa and MENA, w

China and South Africa backing Gadaf. Yet neither side wable to disarm the rebels and the re-opening of civil war wsee both blocs try to control the outcome with BRICS backthe armed rebels against the NATO backed regime. If revolutionary international forces do not intervene to support Arab revolution, the rival blocs will continue to ght proxy wto defend their interests at the expense of the Arab Revoluti

Syria today also reects a stalemate where the BRICS powRussia backs Assad while the U.S. and its Saudi and Gulf allback their factions in the opposition. Turkey is balanced betwthe two blocs since its main concern is to stop the Kurdish socrevolution in Rojava from destabilising the Turkish state.

far neither side is able to win but given the failure of the worevolutionary left to decisively intervene on the side of revolutionary masses, a prolonged stalemate is likely.

While there is no clear outcome yet in MENA, it is obvious tthe U.S. and China led blocs are staking out their oil holdinnot as partners but as rivals. However MENA is repartitionthis is clearly not a process in which Russia and China mere regional powers, nor are they engaged in a negotiated balancing of U.S. unipolarity as multipolarity. Imperialiis a zero-sum game. While the power blocs may cooperatesuppress the masses, in the end it is the masses that will pay their crises and wars unless an independent workers movemthrows out both imperialism and their mercenary regimes.

Communist Workers Group

Mid-August, 2014 Conjuntural Theses on the Class Strug

From Palestine to Ferguson

http://cwgusa.wordpress.com/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/india-china-trade-deals-xi-delhihttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/india-china-trade-deals-xi-delhihttp://in.rbth.com/articles/2010/08/10/trade_investment_cooperation_russia_india_04592.htmlhttp://cwgusa.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/u-s-imperialists-out-of-iraq-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-for-workers-struggle-to-defeat-imperialism-in-the-near-east/http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2014/4133egypt_new_course.htmlhttp://rt.com/usa/187916-iran-ayatollah-isis-coalition.http://www.ecns.cn/business/2014/06-06/117663.shtmlhttp://roarmag.org/2014/07/rojava-autonomy-syrian-kurds/http://roarmag.org/2014/07/rojava-autonomy-syrian-kurds/http://roarmag.org/2014/07/rojava-autonomy-syrian-kurds/http://cwgusa.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/mid-august-2014-conjunctural-thesis-on-the-class-struggle-from-palestine-to-ferguson/http://cwgusa.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/mid-august-2014-conjunctural-thesis-on-the-class-struggle-from-palestine-to-ferguson/http://cwgusa.wordpress.com/http://cwgusa.wordpress.com/http://cwgusa.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/mid-august-2014-conjunctural-thesis-on-the-class-struggle-from-palestine-to-ferguson/http://roarmag.org/2014/07/rojava-autonomy-syrian-kurds/http://roarmag.org/2014/07/rojava-autonomy-syrian-kurds/http://roarmag.org/2014/07/rojava-autonomy-syrian-kurds/http://www.ecns.cn/business/2014/06-06/117663.shtmlhttp://rt.com/usa/187916-iran-ayatollah-isis-coalition.http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2014/4133egypt_new_course.htmlhttp://cwgusa.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/u-s-imperialists-out-of-iraq-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-for-workers-struggle-to-defeat-imperialism-in-the-near-east/http://in.rbth.com/articles/2010/08/10/trade_investment_cooperation_russia_india_04592.htmlhttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/india-china-trade-deals-xi-delhihttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/18/india-china-trade-deals-xi-delhi


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CLASS WARRIOR F

South Sudans President Salva Kir welcomed by President Hu Jintao

(3) Africa

Nick Turse claims that Washingtons Pivot to Africa nowinvolves Africom in 49 of 54 countries. Its objective is tocheckmate Chinas reach into Africa. If we want a test case thatproves the point that Russia and China are neither sub-imperialistnor regional imperialisms we only need to look at the war

in South Sudan. Here, there is a brutal proxy war that provesbeyond doubt that the U.S. and China are deadly rivals in thewar for oil. Nick Turse writes that South Sudan is second onlyto Liberia as a state that the U.S. has propped up in the hope ofcreating a democratic bridgehead in Africa. But after pumpingmany billions of dollars to break the South away from the North,the experiment has failed. It is China that has stolen the marchand controls most of the oil and is bankrolling the new regime.The war that is now raging is a proxy war between the regimearmed by China and a rebel army backed by Uganda and the U.S.

China presents itself in Africa as an equal partner indevelopment, making win-windeals which creates double-

happiness. Against this propaganda, Howard French, in hisrecent book Chinas Second Continent, recounts one of manycases in which Chinese investment in Africa exploits Africanlabour and natural resources. The Chambishi Copper Mine inZambia reveals a record of labour abuse and violence againstprotesting workers. It is obvious that Chinese rms will try to paystarvation wages ($100 a month versus a $700 subsistence costof living) and impose unsafe working conditions, when it can getaway with it. After a decade of super-exploitation at Chambishiunder a succession of pro-China regimes a change of governmentin 2011 almost overnight forced a wage increase of 85%. DeputyMinister of Labour in the new Michael Sata government, a formermining workers union President interviewed by French statedthat in Zambia, China treats workers unfairly, was corruptingpolitics, and was not developing Zambia to share in the wealthof its natural resources.

But it is South Africa (SA) that proves beyond doubt howBRICS serves Russian and Chinese imperialism in Africa. SA isthe BRICS member that is the intermediary between Russia andChina and the whole African continent. The African NationalCongress (ANC) dominated by the South African CommunistParty (SACP) leadership takes a similar line to the Bolivarianleft in Latin America. The movement to counterpose a BRICSfrom Below to the business interests of the BRICS corporations

has its origins at the 2013 BRICS meeting in SA. The ANC

has a strategic relationshipwith China and Russia to deAfrica as the socialist alternative to U.S. and EU imperiIn particular it has opened the door to China to use SAlaunching pad to produce and assemble Chinese made for the African market. The BRICS meeting in SA incluproposal for a new Development Bank, symbolicbecauseand funded by equal shares. But in reality China alreadinvestments in Africa via the China Export-Import bank ware bigger than the World Bank. And bilateral nance fotrade deals, and other loans are targeted at specic develop

projects. BRICS has been attacked as a back door for Ruand Chinese colonial exploitationof Africa, and as haviregard for climate change. Bondcalls this co-dependenEco-Financial imperialism. If we want an especially example of eco-nancial imperialism, ChinasbankrolliMugabes regime in Zimbabweto plunder its rich mineradiamonds destroys the livelihoods of indigenous miners anwaste to the environment.

If we need convincing proof of Lenins charge that imperialist rivalry must lead to war:

...the best reply that one can make to the lifeless abstracti

of ultra-imperialism is to contrast them with the concreconomic realities of the present-day world economy(Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism)

Clearly, in opposition to Lenin, the ANC Stalinist vieAfrican development in which the African states share in win deals with Chinese and Russian investment, is a pofront with imperialism no less than its long-term relatiowith British and U.S. imperialism. And as the rival scramble to plunder Africa to extract super-prots and matheir capital accumulation, this rivalry is already leading toproxy wars. The military build up of AFRICOM means thU.S. recognises that China and Russia are not sub-imper

nor regional imperialist powers but deadly rivals. Thothe left who hold the BRICS to be a progressive alternatimperialism are the enemy of the proletariat and poor peas

(4) Latin America

The BRICS as alternative to imperialism propaganda isadvanced in Latin America for the reasons outlined aBrazil as the only Latin American BRICS partner plays role. Some of the Brazilian Trotskyist left regards Brazil aimperialist. However, it is clear to U.S. that this is not the

Ana Garcias Building BRICS from below provides evi
http://truth-out.org/news/item/25305-is-the-conflict-in-south-sudan-the-opening-salvo-in-the-battle-for-a-continenthttp://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/china-africa-cooperation-win-w-2014924202811161705.htmlhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/beware-falling-brics-south-africa-and.htmlhttp://www.brics5.co.za/http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/editorials/2013/03/27/editorial-brics-bank-will-be-symbolichttp://www.chinaafricaproject.com/?utm_source=ChinaFile+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4107219c8e-Weekly_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc6c65f0c6-4107219c8e-336149401&ct=t%28Weekly_Email%29http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-BRICS-Remix-Climate-Damage-and-Corporate-Collusion-20140830-0003.htmlhttp://links.org.au/node/3979http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-02/meanwhile-china-quietly-takes-over-zimbabwehttp://www.chinafile.com/library/china-africa-project/mugabe-critic-zimbabwes-old-friend-china-bleeding-it-dry?utm_source=ChinaFile+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4107219c8e-Weekly_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc6c65f0c6-4107219c8e-336149401&ct=t%28Weekly_Emhttp://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1018.phphttp://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1018.phphttp://www.chinafile.com/library/china-africa-project/mugabe-critic-zimbabwes-old-friend-china-bleeding-it-dry?utm_source=ChinaFile+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4107219c8e-Weekly_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc6c65f0c6-4107219c8e-336149401&ct=t%28Weekly_Emhttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-02/meanwhile-china-quietly-takes-over-zimbabwehttp://links.org.au/node/3979http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-BRICS-Remix-Climate-Damage-and-Corporate-Collusion-20140830-0003.htmlhttp://www.chinaafricaproject.com/?utm_source=ChinaFile+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4107219c8e-Weekly_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc6c65f0c6-4107219c8e-336149401&ct=t%28Weekly_Email%29http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/editorials/2013/03/27/editorial-brics-bank-will-be-symbolichttp://www.brics5.co.za/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/beware-falling-brics-south-africa-and.htmlhttp://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/china-africa-cooperation-win-w-2014924202811161705.htmlhttp://truth-out.org/news/item/25305-is-the-conflict-in-south-sudan-the-opening-salvo-in-the-battle-for-a-continent


12/1612


the concrete economic realities proving that Brazil is a semi-lony in the global popular front with Russia and China, doingrporate doing deals, and its unions and NGOs are attemptingnegotiate terms on labours share, sustainability, climate

ange, etc. Garcia lists all the organisations which participateom below in this popular front in Brazil. On the far left ofis popular front, ostensibly revolutionary organisations suchColetivo Leninadvocate a vote for the PT popular front with

e BRICS against the right-wing threat of a coup. So it is inatin America that the Trotskyist left is most strongly hooked on

e illusion that China and Russiaare anti-imperialist partnersdevelopment as the alternative to Yankee Imperialism! Heree will follow Lenins lead again and put the ultra-imperialiststractions to the test of reality of concrete economic realities.

e have written at length elsewhere on how Cubahas joinedenezuela as semi-colonies of China. We now have to adde role of Russia in Cuba. Here we want to concentrate onrgentina and Peru as special cases where Russia and Chinae making inroads, sometimes using Brazil as semi-colonialtermediary, in expanding their sphere of interest. In doing soe are critiquing particularly the FLTI and the COR in Argentinad the NRCI in Peru. The BRICS invited Argentina to the 6th

mmitas a prospective member. Here is Pepe Escobars takeArgentina:

This Russia-China commercial/diplomatic offensive tsthe concerted push towards a multipolar world - side by sidewith political/economic South American leaders. Argentinais a sterling example. While Buenos Aires, already mired inrecession, ghts American vulture funds - the epitome ofnancial speculation - in New York courthouses, Putin andXi come offering investment in everything from railwaysto the energy industry.

cobar is here claiming that Argentina is a t case to join

e BRICS multipolar world to escape from the predatory,cavenging U.S. imperialism. Will Chinabail outa bankruptrgentina? Is the currency swapbetween Argentina and Chinart of the BRICs policy of de-dollarization? Can the Westep Putins handsoff Argentinas oil or the nuclearindustry?ill Argentinajoin the BRICSand participate in the multipolaropia? This is the hopeful view shared by the Bolivarian left forhich Russia and China are anti-imperialist if not socialistwers that can be pushed to the left (BRICS from Below) toare in a win-win economic and social development in Latinmerica.

more cynical Trotskyist left such as the FLTI and COR rejectsis benign view and damn the BRICs as the agents of hegemonicS. nance capital. Our differences with the FLTI are wellown in our literature, and we have summarised them above,we will not repeat them. Here, we will take up the position of

e COR on the BRICS and subject it so Lenins dialectics. Fore COR of Argentina:

The 6th BRICS summit held in Brazil is the intent of thesemi-capitalist Emerging and Bonapartism Chinese andRussian restorationists to show decadent capitalism still hasa future under the alleged new opportunity for growth thata multipolar world would give. This reactionary ction

resonates with all bourgeois and petty bourgeois charlatans

not only in the periphery, but also in the nancial centersof New York, London, Frankfurt and Paris. This is notsurprising to anyone, as this motley grouping of emergingcapitalisms called BRICS was an invention of thenancial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, seeking toprovide a solution for speculative capital after the crisis o2000-2001.

For the COR the BRICS are semi-colonies and Russia and Chare restoring capitalism as Bonapartist states oppressed by

U.S. and EU. This is a conspiracy of Wall Street to downlothe crisis onto the BRICS and fool the masses into believing tthis is an anti-imperialist alternative to U.S. imperialism. Tputs the COR into the same dogmatic ultraleft camp as the FLin denying that Russia and China form a new imperialist bwhich includes the BRICS, with increasing inuence in LaAmerica. The dogmatic rejection of reality depicting BRIas U.S. agents is the reverse side of the opportunist BRIfrom Below coin. It is a weak explanation for the increasdirect involvement of Russia and China, which like in EurasMENA, and Africa, is obviously antagonistic to U.S. imperiainterests. The dogmatic position is therefore unable to counthe opportunism of the Bolivarian left popular front with BRIC

Both disarm the masses in the face of the development of intimperialist rivalry between the two blocs.

The NRCI is a recent split from the FLTI based in Peru. As farwe know, the NRCI shares the FLTI view of Russia and Chinaindependent capitalist states subordinated to hegemonic Uimperialism. Yet Peru of all Latin American nations has besubjected to direct Chinese investment in mining that has facmilitant mass resistance for more than 10 years. Lets check these concrete economic realities.

Bolivarian opportunists like Morales claim that Chinese invement in Latin America is somehow more progressive th

U.S. investment. This would mean extracting lowerprots ththe U.S., and certainly not super-prots from mining. The dmatists also argue that China has to extract lowersuper-proas a proxy of U.S. imperialism; not because it is progressivor anti-imperialist but because it is subsidising the raw marial and labour costs of U.S.-owned corporations, such as Approducing electronics in China. We argue elsewherethat therno evidence that China subsidises the inputs of foreign investin China. To be able to do that and accumulate capital at the rit is doing, it would have to gain access to very cheap labour araw materials to extract huge super prots so as to be ableshare part of its surplus value with U.S. imperialism.

What we nd in Peru however, is that when the historical anomlies are accounted for, Chinese and non-Chinese mining corpotions operate in much the same way. The rst Chinese minequired in Latin America in 1992, Shougang Hierro Peru, has ayear old legacy of labour problems due to its failure to modeize. This mine operates with outdated machinery and has a toulabour regime to extract super-prots by intensive exploitatiYet allowing for its outdated machinery, when Shougang HiePeru is compared with a more modern U.S. metals mine datfrom 1997, Doe Run Peru, the rate of exploitation, labour aenvironmental conditions are not signicantly different. Thian important nding and it is conrmed by the comparison

more recent Chinese FDI in mining in Peru with non-Chin
http://coletivolenin.blogspot.com.br/2014/10/votar-em-dilma-para-derrotar-aecio.htmlhttp://c/Users/dave/AppData/Local/Temp/article%20http:/orientalreview.org/2014/08/23/russia-and-the-latin-american-leap-to-multipolarity/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/cuba-sold-out.htmlhttp://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-cuba/http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/argentina-once-more-on-the-map-invited-by-brics/http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/argentina-once-more-on-the-map-invited-by-brics/http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/argentina-once-more-on-the-map-invited-by-brics/http://truth-out.org/news/item/25808-colonization-by-bankruptcy-the-high-stakes-chess-match-for-argentinahttp://blogs.wsj.com/frontiers/2014/07/18/argentina-china-deals-reflect-asian-countrys-growing-influence/http://c/Users/dave/AppData/Local/Temp/%3f%20%20http:/www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-07/de-dollarization-continues-china-argentina-agree-currency-swap-will-trade-yuanhttp://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foreignpolicy.com%2Farticles%2F2014%2F07%2F25%2Fkeeping_putins_hands_off_argentinas_oil&ei=Iaw8VNrmF8_t8gW4j4CADg&usg=AFQjCNELHHndXO_RfafQkLYhttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/world/americas/putin-and-argentine-leader-agree-on-nuclear-power-project.html?_r=0http://c/Users/dave/AppData/Local/Temp/Argentina%20to%20step%20into%20trade%20war%20between%20US%20and%20Russia%20http:/www.blackseagrain.net/novosti/south-america-steps-in-to-meet-russian-needshttp://www.cor-digital.org/el%20impreso.htmlhttp://nrci.org/blog/2014/08/06/los-trabajadores-de-peru-deben-responder-al-llamado-de-sus-hermanos-de-ucrania/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2009/12/flti-minority-report-on-current-world_25.htmlhttp://bit.ly/1pGx49hhttp://bit.ly/1pGx49hhttp://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2009/12/flti-minority-report-on-current-world_25.htmlhttp://nrci.org/blog/2014/08/06/los-trabajadores-de-peru-deben-responder-al-llamado-de-sus-hermanos-de-ucrania/http://www.cor-digital.org/el%20impreso.htmlhttp://c/Users/dave/AppData/Local/Temp/Argentina%20to%20step%20into%20trade%20war%20between%20US%20and%20Russia%20http:/www.blackseagrain.net/novosti/south-america-steps-in-to-meet-russian-needshttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/world/americas/putin-and-argentine-leader-agree-on-nuclear-power-project.html?_r=0http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foreignpolicy.com%2Farticles%2F2014%2F07%2F25%2Fkeeping_putins_hands_off_argentinas_oil&ei=Iaw8VNrmF8_t8gW4j4CADg&usg=AFQjCNELHHndXO_RfafQkLYhttp://c/Users/dave/AppData/Local/Temp/%3f%20%20http:/www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-07/de-dollarization-continues-china-argentina-agree-currency-swap-will-trade-yuanhttp://blogs.wsj.com/frontiers/2014/07/18/argentina-china-deals-reflect-asian-countrys-growing-influence/http://truth-out.org/news/item/25808-colonization-by-bankruptcy-the-high-stakes-chess-match-for-argentinahttp://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/argentina-once-more-on-the-map-invited-by-brics/http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/argentina-once-more-on-the-map-invited-by-brics/http://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-cuba/http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/cuba-sold-out.htmlhttp://c/Users/dave/AppData/Local/Temp/article%20http:/orientalreview.org/2014/08/23/russia-and-the-latin-american-leap-to-multipolarity/http://coletivolenin.blogspot.com.br/2014/10/votar-em-dilma-para-derrotar-aecio.html


13/1613

CLASS WARRIOR F

FDI.1 Using Irwin and Gallaghers data, we argue that morerecent Chinese mining investment, as with U.S. and other mines,follows a similar pattern.

While all take advantage of the relatively lax enforcement oflabour and environmental regulations to drive down wages byemploying contract labour, there is no rm evidence to show thatChina behaves any differently than non-Chinese investment inmining in Peru. There is a clear trend from intensive labour ex-ploitation at Shougang Hierro Peru, dating from 1992 (at which

point China was restoring capitalism), towards rising labour pro-ductivity in more modern, efcient mines that are operated inmuch the same way as non-Chinese mines. Therefore China isno more or less exploitative than its FDI rivals when cost of rawmaterials, level of technology and labour and environmental reg-ulation are taken into account. The opportunist belief that Chinais a progressive non-imperialist alternative to U.S. and otherimperialist powers in mining in Peru is false. Equally false is thedogma that China acts as the agent of U.S.imperialism (FLTIand NRCI) or Wall Street (COR Argentina).

The liberal and radical ideology of BRICS as a multipolargrouping of emerging markets or sub-imperialists that are a

global counter-force to U.S. hegemony has no basis in the truthin the mines in Peru. We would say that this must also be thecase from Cuba to Patagonia. The workers of Latin America andevery continent where BRICS operates are no less exploited bythe rise of Russia and China as emerging imperialist powers thanthey are by U.S., EU and Japanese imperialist powers.2

Conclusion

There is nothing progressive or anti-imperialist aboutBRICS. BRICS are not all the same. They are not all emergingmarkets, not developing countries, not sub-imperialistnations subservient to U.S. and EU imperialism. Such false

impressionistic conceptions allow their bourgeoisies tomasquerade as the multipolar alternative to U.S. imperialism,capable of redistributing global wealth. And on this basis thelabour bureaucracy, reformists and centrists, present popularfront governments as anti-imperialist and progressive. Thatis why Evo Morales can claim that the recent electoral victory ofthe MAS popular frontparty was a victory for anti-imperialism.This is just another instance of states that subscribe to theBolivarian, Castroist, ANC and World Social Forum globalpopular front with China and Russia. But BRICS are not equal,and we have shown that they cannot make win-win deals. Evenif the bourgeoisies of South Africa, Brazil and India get a shareof the super-prots, it is the workers and poor peasants that willlose both their livelihoods and their lives.

This is because the BRICS are all capitalist countries subject tothe laws of motion of capitalism in its imperialist epoch. Thismeans that they are either semi-colonies of existing imperialisms,or become semi-colonies of new imperialisms. The new BRICSDevelopment Bank is no better than the World Bank or the IMF.It is nance capital concentrated in the two imperialist powersthat enters into the circuit of production to produce super protsin the semi-colonial world including India, South Africa andBrazil as well as any prospective members such as Argentinaand Egypt. It thus competes with nance capital of the U.S. bloc

to plunder the worlds resources to the point of climate chaos and

human extinction.

We have explained why Russia and China have emergnew imperialist powers. They escaped semi-colonial opprwhen their national revolutions expropriated the capitalist classes. Such independence could only be sustained by isofrom global capitalism which enabled these states to ethe fate of semi-colonies. Capitalist restoration allowed states to jump straight into highly centralised state moncapitalism and emerge as new imperialist powers. Those B

which never expropriated their national bourgeoisies couand cannot escape the trap of semi-colonialism within Bitself. Their membership of BRICS cannot protect themthe laws of motion of the imperialist epoch. BRICS is govby these laws as much as the semi-colonies of U.S. animperialism. That is why SA, Brazil and India (and prospmembers of BRICS) look to Russia and China to rescuefrom U.S. hegemony. They think that Russia and Chinasucceeded in breaking these laws, in part attributing it tohistory as Deformed Workers States but also to their capacout-produce the declining U.S. bloc.

But there is no escaping the laws of motion of capitalism

imperialist epoch. Capitalism can only survive by increasirate of exploitation of workers and peasants. And in the of imperialism, capitalist crisis drives the imperialist powsend their workers to war to re-partition the world and grabis left of nature to destroy. For humanity and nature to suthe working class as the only revolutionary class must overits ruling class. This is as true of Russia and China as of thand EU imperialist powers. BRICS cannot rise from sovietto put an end to capitalism, only the revolutionary proletarby the revolutionary Marxist party and program can maksocialist revolution.

REFERENCES

Building a BRICS wall http://rt.com/op-edge/172624-brics-putin

spring/

http://www.eurasiareview.com/01082014-emperors-rag

chaos-envelop-world-oped/?utm_source=feedburner&

medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FV

%28Eurasia+Review%29

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/mar/28

countries-infrastructure-spending-development-bank

Nick Turse http://truth-out.org/news/item/25305-is-the-con

south-sudan-the-opening-salvo-in-the-battle-for-a-continent

http://orientalreview.org/2014/08/23/russia-and-the-latin-amer

leap-to-multipolarity/

FI http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3529

Putin in Cuba http://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-c

Walden Bello http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-brics-challeng

the-global-status-quo/

Patrick Bond http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-B

Remix-Climate-Damage-and-Corporate-Collusion-20140830-

html

Patrick Bond Brics Anti-imperialist or Sub-imperialist? http:/

org.au/node/3265
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2009/12/flti-minority-report-on-current-world_25.htmlhttp://telesurtv.net/english/news/Morales-This-Is-a-Victory-of-the-Anti-Imperialis

class warrior #7 bricks around the neck of the proletariat

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