Imperialist Wars and the Marxist Attitude

In the new millennium we entered, September 11 was a new page not only in calendars, but also in the course of the class struggle. The greatest power of the world capitalism, at its own home, witnessed the razing of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, which are shown as the symbols of capitalist glory. Thousands of people, most of whom were workers, died. Although the bourgeoisie and its spokesmen, at first, had described the event as a terrorist act, they immediately found out that portraying this event as a proclamation of war against themselves was more suitable for their benefits. Then they announced that they would start an “enduring” war against an “unknown” enemy, revealing their eagerness to accept this invitation to war.

That the American bourgeoisie called this operation “enduring freedom” is really significant. The most rabid terrorist of the world, USA, was thus demanding freedom for his worldwide economical, political and especially for military operations and was arrogantly declaring that whoever is not with her in this venture will be counted as an enemy. Declaring its unconditional support to USA, Britain, again, has hastily tail ended it in a way that proves her consistency in following the same line since the World War II. All the other great world powers –EU, Russia, China and Japan– also have found it more suitable to accept, for the time being, a silent role in response to this wild Anglo-American challenge. However, history provides us numerous examples showing that this silence will be broken, dissenting voices will rise and these voices will increasingly materialize in new polarizations as the events unfold. This holy alliance, allegedly declared against terrorism, will be broken and face changes and then the imperialist poles will become apparent.

We are entering a new period which will in no way whatsoever be peaceful. Actually, the present war of the USA in Afghanistan seems like an exercise of new imperialist wars that will be provoked in the near future by the imperialist powers because of their struggle for hegemony. They try to redistribute the spheres of influence. The working class is, once again, facing a very serious test. In order to pass this test successfully, it is necessary to be clear on the nature of the imperialist wars and the class attitude that must be assumed against such wars.

Stated succinctly, war is the continuation of politics by other means, i.e. by weapons. In every period in the history of class societies, ruling classes have been the initiator of numerous wars in order to protect and develop their interests. And in all occasions, without exception, they hid the real reasons of these wars from the people who had been driven to the front. Humanity has witnessed and taken part in hundreds of wars that have sometimes been presented as a “holy jihad that would impose the words of God to the infidels”, and sometimes as a “humane attempt that would civilize the barbaric nations”, and sometimes as “saving fatherland from the enemy”. But in all cases, the war has been a violent means used in order to achieve certain ends that are not known by the people who had been driven to the front. From this point of view, to understand the wars and to take a correct class position against them, we must not look the means in itself but the objects of it. In other words, the point that must be looked at by the working class is the political, economical, military and strategic objects and goals for which the war is being waged, i.e. that which policy it directly flows and is the continuation of.

So then, which policy is followed before the war in capitalist society? The truth cannot be laid bare in a class society unless the question of “which policy” is taken together with the question of “which class”. Because the society, especially the capitalist society, cannot be reduced to a simple mathematical equation exposing all the truth clearly. The ruling class consciously distorts reality. For this reason, it is not easy, in many cases, to distinguish immediate economical interests that can cause armed conflicts. But in a class society, both in peacetime and in wartime, behind all conflicts lies class interests.

As the ruling class in capitalist society is the bourgeoisie, the policy that is followed both in peacetime and wartime serves the interests of the bourgeoisie. Lenin, one of the rare workers’ leaders, who was able to take a correct position against the World War I, replied a pacifist who said “war is terrible” as follows: “yes, it means terrible profits”. The bourgeoisie who is trying to squeeze maximum possible profit out of the working class in peacetime and whose entire domestic policy is determined according to this “holy” aim, resorts to war for the same “holy” aims too. Furthermore just like Lenin’s derisive characterization, war is alone a huge source of profit. The oil and arms monopolies and various capitalist enterprises that take part in the interlinked segments of production make huge profits out of war and its indirect consequences.

According to those who approach war in a petty-bourgeois mentality, especially the social democrats, war expenditures are not but great extravagances, and if there was no war, then neither humans would suffer such a poverty nor there would be economical crisis. For example, during the war against Kurdish people by Turkish Republic, we heard such empty words from social democrats and from petty-bourgeois intellectuals. This moralist approach, in effect, is not but an attempt to cover up capitalist exploitation. In modern epoch war is a huge consumption. But consumption means production. For capitalists, every bullet shot, every cannon fired, every missile launched, every armored vehicle destroyed, every building demolished is not but a commodity which needs to be replaced by a new one. They are produced for consumption. So, from a capitalistic view, war expenditure has no difference from any other investment expenditure spent in a profitable area. War means just a well-off source of profit for bourgeoisie and especially for victorious bourgeoisie, while it means destruction, death and increased misery for the working class. The working class is compelled not only to face death at fronts but also to make sacrifices for the victory of his own capitalists: wages decrease, work-day increases, working tempo rises, social rights are cut, the trade-unions, if not still closed, are paralyzed completely, strikes are banned … profits increase.

Just as the war is the continuation of politics by other means, similarly foreign policy is the continuation of domestic policy. Domestic policy of bourgeoisie is based on squeezing maximum possible surplus value out of working class. Therefore the basis of its foreign policy is also getting a bigger share out of the same exploitation of surplus value on a worldwide scale. At normal times the merciless competition between giant capitalist monopolies is settled down peacefully, i.e. through economical means, political maneuvers and diplomacy carried out behind the closed doors. However at a certain moment things come to a nodal point. The military, politic and, most importantly, economical balances of power between various capitalist monopolies and of nation-states which represent them change, and now the new situation becomes incompatible with the given old balances of power. International political status prevailing the world begins to crack; balance is replaced with imbalance, the peaceful ways leave their places to wars. For capitalists, war is a decisive challenge which determines who will be the victorious of this competition and who will dominate in the new world order, of course until the time when the next nodal point will be reached. Consequently, imperialist wars are for getting hold of economical resources, raw materials and of markets, for forming new spheres of influence and for strengthening the existing ones. This is the policy that bourgeoisie follows and must follow as long as capitalism exists.

The 20th century witnessed two big world wars exactly on this basis. Actually, the World War I was in essence flowed from the conflict between British imperialism which was, although weakened, still continuing his world hegemony and Germany which carried out a big step forward but was still deprived of colonies and of the privilege of having a colonial empire. In the preceding period (the last quarter of 19th century), the world had been already partitioned territorially. Desiring for himself a decisive place in this world Germany had to push back the British imperialism in order to continue its growth. Otherwise Germany would have faced a danger of being dragged into a colossal economical crisis. At a time when all the bourgeois ideologists, journalists and politicians were pumping the illusion of enduring peace, the World War I broke out. More than ten million people died in death fields. Europe faced a complete vanishing of civilization. Germany was defeated and was kept under a heavy economical and military pressure. In the world of 1920’s, this meant that the questions that had led to war remained unsolved. Hence a new world war was inevitable. A great crisis broken out at the end of 1920’s in Germany and at 1929 in USA spread all over Europe and in a short period of time became a world crisis. For capitalists there was only one way out from the crisis, and it was nothing but a new war. And in this way capitalism and its inevitable crisis once again dragged humanity into a new big imperialist war. The World War II constituted a new balance of power and furthermore was the main lever of overcoming the economical crisis of 1930’s, of course at the cost of 50 million deaths.

In 20th century, besides these two big world wars, humanity witnessed many regional imperialist wars that have been directly headed by the big imperialist states and in which small states were made war each other for the interests of the big imperialist powers. But these wars led not only to the greatest sufferings to toiling masses, but also brought certain inevitable economical, political and social changes.

Describing imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism Lenin was pointing out that by the imperialist stage humanity was entering into the epoch of wars and revolutions. Two big world wars once again underlined that wars are the womb of the revolutions. The World War I had transformed revolutionary sentiments into a storm in all European countries. This storm was so strong that none of the bourgeois regimes could avoid from its effect entirely. That war led to the overthrowing of the monarchies like the dynasties of Hohenzollern, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman. The Russian revolution broke out in February 1917 and with the victory of proletariat in October 1917 reached to the climax. In this case the things that had changed was not solely the political regime; the working class and his poor allies began to expropriate the expropriators in Russia as a first spark of abolishing all propertied classes from the scene. It is possible to see the similar phenomena after the World War II. The defeated Japan Empire, with the support of the USA, was able to survive but still it was left no choice but introduce bourgeois democracy. A revolution broke out in China which has the most people in the world, and the Chinese people were liberated from the position of being a semi-colony of imperialism. And India was at the last moment diverted from a revolutionary road by the “rational” policy of Britain, but still gained its independence. There were great revolutionary upsurges throughout Europe, but this time it was Stalinism that prevent the revolutionary road. If there were no such betrayal of Stalinist bureaucracy, today it is obvious that we would struggle in a much more different world and for much more different aims. But it must not be forgotten that every defeated revolutionary upsurge leaves its place not to the restoration of the former situation but to a colossal counter offense of bourgeoisie, to a counter-revolution. After the first world war, the failure of German and Italian proletariat to conquest the power led to fascist dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini as a reaction to former revolutionary upsurges and consequently made the second world war unavoidable.

In 20th century, humanity, undoubtedly, has not see only the imperialist wars. In addition, national liberation wars of many nations that were colonies or semi-colonies of big imperialist states were also been witnessed. These wars waged by the oppressed nations deprived of their political independence are of course in a completely different category. In such wars, let alone oppose them, the world proletariat has the duty of supporting oppressed nations in their revolutionary struggles. The difference between the Marxists and the pacifists appears at this point. Pacifists oppose every kind of war. However, Marxists regard wars from a class perspective and distinguish the just and unjust wars from each other.

The pacifists forget that we are living in a class society. This society contains in its heart deep class divisions. In such a society, a struggle between different classes, which have different and opposite interests, is unavoidable. This struggle itself is an outright war, a class war. Although the petty-bourgeois reformists and pacifists attempt to conceal this fact, in reality the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat and of course the bourgeoisie are well aware that this is a war. For this reason, opposing every kind of war means also opposing to the right of proletariat to wage a war against this capitalist system. And thus the pacifists, by offering no way out for the proletariat other than accepting the conditions imposed by capitalism, reveal that they are the representatives of the interests of bourgeoisie. From the smallest to the largest, every action collectively carried out by the proletariat in order to defend its general interests is a part of this class war. Thus, there is a permanent struggle everyday here and there, i.e. a cold “civil war”, between the proletariat and bourgeoisie being the two main classes of capitalist society.

That the merciless competition between different bourgeois sections ends up in hot conflicts, i.e. in imperialist wars, is unavoidable as long as the capitalism exists. In other words, just like the deep economical crises are rooted in the inherent mechanism of capitalism and that it is impossible to avoid from the crises of capitalism, the imperialist wars also flow directly out of economical crises and the fight for a repartitioning. Therefore a capitalism without wars is unthinkable just as a capitalism without crises. Therefore if the working class does not want to be the victim of imperialist wars, it must put an end not only to bourgeois governments that initiate, encourage, support and manage imperialist wars, but also to capitalist system as a whole. Thus the only possible way of averting imperialist wars is a proletarian revolution that will put an end to the rule of the bourgeoisie. For this reason, in connection with an imperialist war, the slogan of “peace” without a perspective of overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie cannot be the slogan of the working class. Marxists do not offer the working class to disarm itself and to fly peace doves, but, on the contrary, tell them to turn the guns to their real enemy and say this: reject to slaughter your class brother, the real enemy is at home, it is your own bourgeoisie!

Unless the working class overthrows the imperialist bourgeoisie with this perspective, there will be no real defeat for the imperialist big powers. Even if one of the parties in an imperialist war is defeated, this does not mean that they cease to be a ruling class and an imperialist power. If that had been the case, then the defeated states of the World War I would not have showed themselves off on the stage of the World War II as the principal actors, and also the principal actors of these two big imperialist wars and of numerous small and regional wars and conflicts of the last century would not have taken part at the present bloody orgy. The real defeat of bourgeoisie can only be a class defeat in its own land, not a military defeat in a war. To make this defeat a permanent one for the bourgeoisie, to overthrow its class rule as the only way to prevent it from attempting new massacres, and to replace its class rule with the rule of the proletariat: That is the historical mission of the proletariat.

When the perspective of overthrowing the bourgeois rule by means of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war was put forward by Lenin at the beginning of the World War I, all the so-called friends of the working class labeled his position as utopian. According to these reformists and social-chauvinists, this perspective of Lenin was a revolutionary phraseology put forward in order to escape from the struggle for peace. However, Lenin and the Bolsheviks under his leadership proved that they were in no way whatsoever phraseologist or utopians. Russian people succeeded in getting peace neither with liberals nor with social democrats. It was the October revolution by which the political reign of bourgeoisie was overthrown, and which brought the peace to Russia.

But we, the Marxists, know that, and the history mercilessly showed that, the conquest of power by the proletariat in one country is not sufficient. The precondition to achieve a real and a permanent peace is to put an end to class war all over the world. But the class war cannot be stopped by a reconciliation between the antagonistic classes as the reformists dreamed, but only by the abolition of the classes once for all. They cannot be abolished in one country. We are not the dreamers who dream of an isolated  heaven in the middle of the world while it is in a hell of war. The only obstacle that stands before abolishing the classes and all kinds of discriminations and of privileges with it, is the bourgeoisie who is the only one that benefits from this world. Since the power of bourgeoisie comes from the private property of the means of production, it is necessary to smash this obstacle in order to progress towards a real and permanent peace, equality and a progress of humankind free of obstacles. It is necessary to expropriate the expropriators! Imperialist wars show as clearly as possible that capitalism kills. So only thing that must be done is to kill capitalism!

Afghan “War”

Present Afghan war is neither a war against terrorism, nor a war of Christian world against Islam. It is neither a conflict of cultures nor a war of freedom and democracy. All of these are colossal lies concealing the fact that this is an imperialist war on the part of USA. To understand the real reasons of this war and the direction it will evolve we must first understand the real situation of the world before the September 11.

The first years of 21st century are reminiscent of the years just before the World War I and II both in the sense of the presence of a world economic crisis, and, in connection with it, of the presence of a burning necessity of repartitioning the spheres of influence. And what are the basic moments of this process that have made imperialism come to such a point in which repartitioning is and will be carried out by means of wars?

First of all we have to make it clear that, in 20th century the development of imperialist capitalism deviated in a certain sense from its own way by the direct and indirect consequences of the October revolution. For this reason, the fall of USSR in 1991 have meant the beginning of a really new period in the world history. The fall of USSR and of the Eastern Bloc countries has meant that new markets were opening before the world capitalism. For imperialists, the necessity of repartitioning the world market on the basis of spheres of influence was becoming a more urgent and more burning one.

Fall of USSR meant the end of the bipolar cold war system and hence of the Pax-Americana that was established after the Second World War. But history did not immediately substitute a new order in place of the old one. From the beginning of 1990s onward, what the world bourgeoisie has meant with the term “new world order” is in effect the inevitability of a new arrangement, i.e. a new repartitioning. The cover over the imperialist competition and contradictions which were suppressed and covered under the US umbrella during the cold war years has disappeared along with the disappearance of one pole. However, despite the 10 years passed, a new world order could not be established. Present war seems like a preparation for new imperialist wars in which the imperialist powers will appear on the scene one by one in order to establish such an order. The principal actor is obviously the USA. Because she is the power whose hegemony is shaken and whose throne is coveted. Beside her stands Britain which is her arrogant lackey and has gradually become a “suburb” of Europe after the World War II. At the opposite side, there are many candidates who are coveting the title of the USA. At one side stands Japan, at other side waits EU who is in effect the most effective candidate, and, of course, Russia who recovered itself and following the others from behind but cannot be neglected in any way, and lastly, the rising China.

This competition between these poles is gradually assuming a harsh character and is putting especially today an increasing war threat into the agenda. But the reason that lies behind this is the fact that world capitalism now faces a simultaneous crisis just as in 1930s. During 1990s, while recession was ruining all imperialist powers, Japan the most, the savior of world capitalism was the exceptional boom in the US economy. Although bourgeois economists preach that capitalism is now free of crises thanks to “New Economic Paradigm”, Marxists have explained time and again that this boom will soon or later come to an end. And from the last year on, with the entrance of US economy first into a recession and then into a slump, the crisis starts to knock at the doors. Globalization reminded that the crisis is also global, whatever the bourgeois ideologues attributed to the term. Almost the only subject dwelled on was the crisis in economy papers and magazines last year. Even the headlines are significant: “dismisses start in US”, “world economy in 2001 is dark”, “recession in US frightens”, “unemployment in US is at record level”, “growth is hopeless in Germany”, “Bush: economic depression looms”, “shrink in Japan economy”, “synchronous recession frightens”, “IMF: recession will last two years”, “number of homeless in US increases” …

Today, for the first time since 1930s the entire world is simultaneously rolling into a period of crisis. What fears the big imperialist powers about this crisis is that capitalism faces a social revolution. Bourgeoisie, of course, did not forget how 1930s led to huge social turmoil in Europe and US. Now the struggle to maintain and increase the lot in a shrinking world economy seems to have left the peaceful means behind.

US imperialism has a lot to lose under such circumstances. Who plays big, loses big. The principal reason of showing its might in various parts of the world since the fall of USSR is to keep up his prestige and hegemony it had had in the cold war period, and to daunt other imperialist powers, anti-American bourgeois regimes and the whole working class of the world in this new period. USA has increasingly inclined to act independently from his cold war allies in the three wars of the last decade –1990-91 Gulf War, 1999 Yugoslavia and current Afghan War. While in the Gulf War it acted in the name of NATO, in Yugoslavia NATO was only a disguise. And today, in its haste to prove his position as being the hegemonic power, USA considers it as a burden to base its imperialist aggression on the approval of international bourgeois institutions. On the other hand, Germany and France (leading members of the EU) and some other members of NATO try to gain time with abstract support messages on the one hand and strive to curb USA without a frontal stand against it and more importantly try to form an European army against NATO (main axis of which is the USA) on the other hand.

September 11 attacks have perfectly supplied US with the freedom it desired. Now, under the excuse of “self defense”, it does not need to take into consideration the other imperialist power as much as before. Yesterday’s allies do not have to be permanent. US Minister of Defense states that the war will last long and at every stage of this war the definition of ally will change accordingly. It means that the allies of yesterday will become enemies tomorrow. Present war of US has also a character of a realistic maneuver in which it prepares its public opinion and military forces to the future wars if the other imperialist powers are not cowered in fear and retreated. Especially to win over the US public opinion to militarism is of decisive importance for US administration. This has several dimensions. At first, to attain its strategic-military aims it must now overcome the Vietnam syndrome that is widespread in the US public opinion. Secondly, in an atmosphere of recession heading towards a crisis, it is a necessity for them to crush the anti-globalization movement and the working class movement which is reviving not only in the USA but also in all advanced capitalist countries in recent years. Thirdly, by using the attacks of September 11 as an excuse, all democratic rights have to be restricted. After the September 11 attacks, the powers vested in President Bush by the decisions of Congress have already surpassed even the powers of Roosevelt during the World War II. Liberal newspapers of USA are beginning to express even the necessity of considering torture as a legitimate interrogation method for the suspects. All these are the steps of the US administration to fortify its home for the impending wars.

But it cannot be said that Afghan war is nothing but a preparation. Besides the political, militaristic and strategic reasons we mentioned above, the region alone on which present war continues reveals the immediate economical interests lying behind this war. A stupid guy who has been ridiculed by the US media and has become a subject of anecdote with his gaffes in his one-year-old fresh presidency period until the attacks of September 11 and who owes even his presidency to the decisions of courts, somehow, has been suddenly presented by the same media as a leader of nation, an undefeatable commander-in-chief. President Bush who is known by everyone as the man of the arms and oil monopolies in the US has been oriented to follow a policy that exasperates the conflicts and the tensions in the world politics. Put aside in Clinton’s period as an unnecessary project, the Star Wars Project again has been revived; also it has been unilaterally declared that the restrictions of the anti-ballistic missiles agreement will not be respected; they returned from the threshold of a armed conflict with China; in environmental questions they frontally opposed to EU’s pressures and trampled Kyoto conference; with their further backing Israel on a militaristic base, Palestine question has been once again inflamed; military attacks on Iraq has been increased etc.

This aggressiveness in new US policy is of course first of all an expression of US oil and war monopolies. But this aggressiveness does not flow solely from the fact that Republicans replaced the Democrats. On the contrary, the Republicans came to power just because of the recession in which US economy entered necessitate a more rightist, more aggressive and more reactionary team. On July 24 of this year Lyndon H. LaRouche who was a presidential pre-candidate in Democrat Party described thr objective situation with remarkable words: “We are now in the depths of a systematic crisis, that, if war does not break out between now and the end of year, or if there are not assassinations of key figures from among leaders during this period, by the end of year, purely and simply, the present financial system will have collapsed. And the present monetary system as well. It cannot be stopped. We’re at the end of the system.” At the end of his speech, he states: “August is now approaching. For various reasons, August is a good month to start a war, in Eurasia. And we’re on the edge of a war. … Brzezinski has said, the only way to prevent China, Russia, India and so forth, from cooperating in Eurasian economic cooperation, is to do what? Is to start a war between Islam, and the West. And how do you trigger such a war? You trigger it by getting a religious war started in the Middle East. … And now we come again to the point that August is coming, and the threat of a new war, this time perhaps a religious war, is about to break out.”

And September 11 attacks fit well in these developments. Arms industry is one of the crucial parts of the US economy. Likewise the Gulf War was the beginning of a boom in the US economy. It is not necessary to be very clever in order to understand that the arms monopolies in USA are expecting the same thing. However there is a much more important economic target. Oil reserves of Middle East and  oil and natural gas reserves of Central Asia. If one marks the points on which US attacked militarily on a world map, this fact can be seen more clearly. The loot that will be obtained by the victors of present war and of wars in the future is the oil and natural gas.

Everybody knows the importance of Middle East for the imperialist world system. But Central Asia is a new title in world politics. Caucasus, Caspian Sea and the Turkic Republics –all of which were within the border of USSR before it collapsed– have very rich oil and natural gas resources. The natural gas resources of Caspian Sea and its neighborhood are estimated to be 20-25 trillion cubic meters. And the oil resources around 250 billion barrels. These are considerable figures. And these resources are largely intact.

The partitioning of such a colossal resource is, in effect, the main reason of military conflicts, civil wars and of political-diplomatic crises experienced both in Caucasus and in Turkic republics in last decade. Russia regards the region as his backyard, and the EU tries to play a more effective role in the region especially over the Caucasus bridge, while the USA along with Turkey covets all the region. The outcome of Baku-Ceyhan pipeline and the events during process preceding it are yet fresh in minds. USA wants to make sure of the exploitation of these resources. But for this, a cheap and secured pipelines are needed to transport these sources to the sea. Even constructing these pipelines means huge profits for giant monopolies. Thus the countries through which these pipelines will pass should prepare the required infrastructure, reduce the tariffs as low as possible and take the necessary measures for low construction costs. Moreover and most importantly, these countries must be reliable and stable allies of the USA. This means that it is necessary to eliminate the influence of China, Russia and Iran over the region. That is why the imperialist countries which were boasting as the champions of democracy after the fall of USSR have been condoning the dictatorships, anti-democratic practices and civil wars in the Turkic republics for years. This is also the reason of why and how, in Afghanistan, such an organization like Taliban could suddenly appear and took the power after winning the civil war. So we come to the question of why this war began in Afghanistan.

The Taliban which appeared all of a sudden in September 26, 1994 and got hold of large part of the country was in fact a product of Pakistani intelligence and of CIA-backed Pakistani government. During the guerilla warfare against USSR, thousands of Afghans were organized, trained and backed financially and materially in the ranks of Mujaheedin by CIA. However, because the civil war that broke out after the retreat of USSR could not be solved in favor of any warring fractions, USA organized the Taliban with the help of Pakistan and employed it as a force that would bring stabilization to the country. But things did not work out as imperialists wish. There were two main problems. Although Taliban gained control over the large part of the country, Northern Afghanistan remained outside its control. This has meant that US’s hopes about Taliban had not materialized. Soon after, from 1997 on, bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization (which from the beginning was the favorite of US) has begun to get out of CIA’s control. Opposing the Middle East policy of US it declared an unexpected jihad against the USA. In other words, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda had transformed into a Frankenstein. As the Taliban could not get the northern region under its control and has been showing signs of going out of control, now there was no need for them. Since the end of that year, in order to lay the ground for present war USA has set about to carry the question of Afghanistan into various platforms as a question of international terrorism. Also the idea that a clash between Islam and the West is unavoidable has begun to be worked out in that period.

To have a stable regime in Afghanistan under complete control is very important for the US imperialism since it is the only passageway to Central Asia and is like a knife stuck into the backyard of China and Russia. Moreover, the pipeline to transport Caspian oil and natural gas to the Indian Ocean is planned to pass through Afghanistan. The political instability in Afghanistan is the obstacle to this project. John Maresca, vice president of the Unocal consortium which will build this pipeline, said in a speech made at the US Congress in February 12, 1998: “From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company.”

And that’s not all. Present war of USA, surely, will not be limited to Afghanistan. This is also the bankruptcy of the CIA policy of backing fundamentalist organizations and using them as a shield against former USSR. US administration is also aware of this. And after the second half of 1990s, ideological and propaganda preparations of a campaign against this kind of organizations has been underway. Now USA is attempting to crush various fundamentalist movements. Just like Turkey has begun to treat its offshoot Turkish Hizbullah –which was fostered by Turkish secret services– as a threat and crush it. And Afghanistan means a turning point also from this standpoint.

But it is merely a beginning, not more than that. The war will not be limited to Afghanistan. It is very clear that it will inevitably spread soon to Iraq and that there will be a big turmoil all over Middle East, especially in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. Moreover it is a strong likelihood that a spark which would drop into Iraq will again put the question of Kurdistan on the agenda and make Turkey unavoidably be involved in. Entire region is under threat and this area which stands on oil resources is ready to be flamed up and is a candidate for being the first of new imperialist partitioning wars as soon as the sparks drop on it. Everything depends on how urgent the power butting is for each pole, the confidence of each one to its own power and a rational evaluation of the power of their rivals.

It is clear that, military reckoning between imperialists will break out sooner or later. No other force than the working class can defeat imperialism both in the present war and in the inevitable imperialist partitioning wars in the future. It is necessary to mobilize all the forces of world proletariat both to defeat the US imperialism which is one of the sides of present war and to defeat other imperialist poles which will be more apparent in the next period. The one who will defeat USA (or any other imperialist power) is not the ruling classes of the countries like Afghanistan, Iraq etc., but the world proletariat and first and foremost its detachment in USA.

The imperialist world order since its birth has been making humanity face hundreds of wars both local and general. And the most basic fact that must be understood by the proletariat is that the humanity cannot reach the peace until the capitalist system will be overthrown. The question of peace is a question of proletarian revolution in our time as it was in yesterday. The only thing that the bourgeoisie understands from peace is its own victory. Proletariat must also understand the same thing from peace. Permanent peace both for the working class and for the humanity as a whole remains to be a dream unless the working class overthrows the power of bourgeoisie by a revolution and replaces it with his own world federation.

Before the working class, there is no choice other than utilizing from war for proletarian world revolution and pointing the weapons at the enemy at home by turning imperialist war into a civil war. It is also clear that, the proletariat cannot fulfil this task in an unorganized and spontaneous way. Unless there is not a powerful International capable of leading it on a world scale, it is impossible for proletariat to accomplish a victorious revolution that will prevent a likely imperialist partitioning war or to turn imperialist war into a civil war. As we always say, the working class is either organized and means a lot or disorganized and means nothing. Our task remains the same as in yesterday, to mobilize all our forces to develop the international organization of the working class, to utilize from the conditions that will be created by war for this purpose and to set the vanguard of the proletariat into motion on this basis.