BUILD AND STRENGTHEN THE FORCES OF THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-IMPERIALIST

UNITED FRONT / By Jose Maria Sison /December 17, 2018

Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
December 18, 2018

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle presents hereunder its views on the background and
course of international situation from Nos. 1 to 8 and on the urgent necessity and process of developing
the international anti-imperialist united front in Nos. 9 and 10.

1. All proletarian revolutionaries and anti-imperialists must acknowledge that modern revisionism had
operated for decades since 1956 to undermine, evolve capitalism in stages and finally bring about the
total restoration of capitalism in countries already ruled by revisionist regimes in the Soviet Union,
China and Eastern Europe in the years of 1989 to 1991.

The full and blatant restoration of capitalism in former socialist countries resulted in the collapse of the
Soviet Union and US imperialism winning the Cold War and becoming the sole superpower. Capitalist
restoration, especially in China and Russia, has supported the US-instigated policies of neocolonialism
and neoliberalism at the expense of the peoples aspiring and fighting for national liberation, democracy
and socialism.

2. Overconfident as the sole superpower up to the first decade of the 21st century, the US engaged in
the financialization of its economy, further outsourced consumer manufacturing to China and combined
with it as main partner in the neoliberal economic offensive of imperialist globalization. However,
China’s economic rise resulted in undermining the US position as the No.1 economic power in the
world.

The US also engaged in wars of aggression with the use of high tech military weapons in Yugoslavia,
Middle East and Africa under the so-called neoconservative policy of slaughtering and maiming
millions of people and the destruction of the social infrastructure. The aggressive wars cost the US
more than USD six trillion without commensurate immediate returns, except the profitability of the
military industrial complex within the US economy. The cost came on top of the cost of global
deployment of US military bases and forces.

3. Consequently, the US has accelerated its strategic decline, which started with the problem of
stagflation and excessive military spending in the latter part of the 1970s. The US has reached the stage
when it can no longer impose its diktat on other imperialist powers as before the second decade of the
21st century. It is still one of the major powers in a multipolar world but it is declining and is
countervailed by the other imperialist powers.

The entry of China and Russia into the top circle of imperialist powers has intensified the
contradictions among the imperialist powers. This has become starkly obvious since the financial
meltdown of 2008 and the rapid resort to excessive public debt by the imperialist and nonimperialist
countries. US imperialism is now increasingly at odds with the combination and initiatives of China
and Russia. It is stepping up its pressures and sanctions on Russia and is using protectionism to take
back its economic and trade concessions to China.
4. The world capitalist system has been beset by recurrent and ever worsening economic and financial
crises. Since the financial meltdown of 2008, ignited by the US mortgage meltdown, the imperialist
powers (G-7, OECD and G-20) and the traditional multilateral agencies (IMF, World Bank and WTO)
have failed to solve the problems of global depression and economic stagnation. The political leaders,
magnates and experts of global capitalism are now worried to death by the global public debt bubble.

For some decades, China has taken the lead in economic growth and helped to buoy up the global
economy. It has taken initiatives like the BRICS, SCO, BRIC Development Bank, the BRICS and the
AIIB to challenge US hegemony. But the China economic rise has been assisted by US economic and
trade concessions (including technology transfer) and bloated by excessive public borrowing and
lending, including a big mountain of domestic bad debts.

5. Under its neoliberal economic policy, the bourgeoisie has given the proletariat a severe beating in the
class struggle in both imperialist countries and less developed countries. Wage levels, workers’ hard-
won rights and social benefits, and government social spending have been cut down in order to give
way to tax cuts for the bourgeoisie and provide them with increased opportunities for profit-taking and
capital accumulation.

The opportunities include investment and trade liberalization, privatization of state assets, deregulation
of social and environmental rules and the denationalization of the less developed economies. The result
is the unprecedented widening of economic and social inequality in the entire world. The richest one
percent of the world population own 50% of the wealth of the world, thus rendering the majority of the
people to wallow in poverty. The class exploitation and impoverishment of the working people
continue to accelerate.

6. US imperialism is continuously engaged in wars of aggression, which are becoming worse. The
danger of nuclear war persists as the US keeps on pressing hard against Russia on the latter’s borders
and on countries with which Russia has security alliance. Fascist movements are also emerging and
threatening to take over countries that have nuclear weapons. The threat of nuclear annihilation is
sharpened by the continuing wars of aggression and the rise of fascist movements.

US and other foreign monopoly corporations are engaged in the unbridled plunder of the natural
environment. The imperialist powers compete in grabbing and exploiting the natural resources of the
underdeveloped countries in order to make up for the falling rate of profit in the sale of their finished
products in their home markets. Manifestations of environmental catastrophe and global warming are
growing as a result of imperialist persistence in the use of fossil fuels, destruction of the forests and the
plunder of natural resources to the ruin of the environment.

7. The current crisis of the world capitalist system that harks back to the economic and financial cries
of 2008 has worsened, with the imperialist powers unable to solve the problems of overproduction,
stagnation and depression on a global scale. Their multilateral agencies admit that the global public
debt bubble is about to burst or has begun to burst and that they have run out of tools to deal with the
new and worse round of economic and financial crisis. The neoliberal kind of imperialist globalization
has become bankrupt, with its main instigator, US imperialism, turning protectionist and trying to take
its previous concessions to China and other countries.

While the monopoly bourgeoisie has accumulated gigantic assets in productive and finance capital, the
toiling masses of workers and peasants and the dwindling middle class in many countries suffer the
pain and misery of exploitation and oppression. Revolutionary parties and mass organizations are rising
up to wage resistance. At the same time, the imperialist powers and the reactionary classes are
launching ultra-reactionary and fascist movements of chauvinism and racism to distract and mislead the
masses.

8. The proletariat and peoples of the world are now in a period of transition to the global resurgence of
the anti-imperialist and democratic movements and the world proletarian socialist revolution. The
attempts of the imperialist powers and the monopoly bourgeoisie to preserve their system by state
fascism, wars and further exploitation will fan the flames of mass resistance.

Within the imperialist countries, the proletariat and the rest of the people clamor and rise up to fight for
democracy and socialism against monopoly capitalism and all reaction. In the less developed and
underdeveloped countries, the broad masses of the people are likewise rising up against imperialism
and reaction and for national and social liberation More peoples and nations will arise to wage armed
resistance in order to seize political power and to counter and take advantage of the imperialist crisis
and wars.

9. It is of urgent necessity for the proletariat and peoples of the world to form and develop
revolutionary parties, mass organizations, institutions and movements; and to form domestic alliances
against imperialism and all reaction. These anti-imperialist formations and movements must contribute
to building and strengthening the international anti-imperialist united front.

On a domestic and international scale, the anti-imperialist united front must develop stage by stage
formally and informally. It must be consultative and consensual in character and allow the allies to
exercise their own independence and initiative, in accordance with the circumstances and development
of the forces concerned. Alliances can be formed among the oppressed and exploited classes, social
strata and sectors of common interest.

10. There are now several international formations, which adhere to and seek to promote and
implement the policy of international anti-imperialist united front. They must hold consultative
meetings on an equal footing of partnership and solidarity; and arrive at agreements by consensus.

They can exchange their experiences and views on urgent issues and agree on practical cooperation and
coordinated actions. Their unity in policy and practice on a global scale would develop as a result of the
growth and advance of the anti-imperialist forces and the people in their respective home grounds and
global regions.

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle is ever ready to undertake its own initiatives as well as
cooperate with other formations in upholding, promoting and advancing the international anti-
imperialist united front on the basis of adequate mutual understanding of the international situation and
in arriving at agreements of cooperation and coordination through consultations and consensus. ###