Central Committee

December 26, 1991

Political Violence Is on the Rise

There are consequently rising levels of political violence in the third world countries. There are repeated food riots, coup attempts and counter-coups, ethnic and religious conflicts and civil wars. These are occurring on a widening scale. The passing illusion of world peace pertains mainly to the disappearance of the bipolar confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union and to the debilitation and defeat of political entities previously dependent on the Soviet Union.

The Persian Gulf war between the U.S.-led alliance and Iraq is actually a manifestation of the limits and crisis of neocolonialism. The United States was compelled to resort to the classical violence of modern imperialism (this time using hightech weapons of mass destruction effectively on the peculiar terrain of Iraq) on a recalcitrant neocolonial client-state, which had been driven by the costs of the Iran-Iraq war (instigated by the U.S.) and by the world oil glut to come into conflict with another neocolony, Kuwait.

Under socialism, certain countries of Eastern Europe were able to establish basic industries even while the Soviet Union overconcentrated on military production and channeled scientific research and high technology to arms production. But as they increasingly adopted capitalist-oriented reforms, they took on the ills afflicting the neocolonies. Even before the revisionist ruling parties and regimes were replaced by undisguised bourgeois parties and regimes, based on an anticommunist intelligentsia, the corrupt bureaucrats and private entrepreneurs, they had already become hooked to patterns of production and consumption dictated by the West and most of them had already been burdened with foreign debt which they could not pay back. To this day, the East European countries in varying degrees can export only agricultural, steel and textile products which are overproduced by the industrial capitalist countries and the newly-industrializing economies.

The capitalist wonderland has not at all come to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Such ills of third world capitalism as unrestrained bureaucratic corruption and privatization, blackmarketeering, massive unemployment, lack of social guarantees, hyperinflation, fuel shortage, shortages of basic necessities and so on are rampant. Only the upper five percent of the population relish the new conditions.

In so short a time, capitalism is in total disrepute among the broad masses of the people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The new regimes, which are bureaucratic combinations of long-time anticommunists and a large number of overnight excommunists, are proving to be worse than the regimes in the pre-Gorbachov period. The advantage for genuine communists who are now under persecution in these countries is that the downfall of revisionist ruling parties and regimes that used to maintain communist and socialist facades, has put the responsibility squarely on the new bourgeoisie.

The main civil exports of the former Soviet Union are oil, natural gas and gold. But the production of these has broken down as a result of continuing misallocation of resources, political chaos, ethnic conflicts, previous withholding of funds from the center by the republics and general strikes. At the same time, the former Soviet Union has already abused foreign borrowing in so short a time. This has been used mainly for the importation of Western consumer products and not for the retooling and expansion of production facilities. The successor states of the Soviet Union can sell weapons for hard currency. But the capitalist powers discourage them from doing so.

In brief, the full integration of former revisionist-ruled countries of the East into the world capitalist system is not an undiluted blessing for it. These countries do not have export-products in high demand in the West. At the same time , there is a shortage of capital for lending to those who have patently limited capacity to pay pack. Besides, in the current shrinkage of the world capitalist market, the capitalist powers cannot be too eager to allow these countries to become additional industrial competitors.

Multinational firms have preferred to export their surplus finished products to these countries and have invested only in the most profitable lines of business, which often do not involve new production facilities nor retooling of old ones. There is in fact a process of de-industrialization, involving the closure of industries and the redirection of manpower and resources away from industrialization.

A study of Yugoslavia is useful to illustrate the total bankruptcy of modern revisionism. Yugoslavia has had the distinction of being the first country (since 1948) to be ruled by modern revisionism. It has not grown into a strong industrial capitalist country under the new bourgeoisie. Neither have the capitalist powers heavily invested in it in order to develop it industrially. It has even been worse than the Philippines as an overconsuming and overborrowing country. Now, it is in the throes of disintegration and rebalkanization. It is rent asunder by a civil war, arising from the nationalism and separatism of the dominant ethnic and religious communities in the various republics and the rising passions of deepseated ethnic conflicts.

Regarding the former Soviet Union, what the capitalist powers are most worried about now is the dispersed location of 28,000 nuclear warheads in four independent republics (Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan) and the probability of civil wars bigger than the current ones. At the moment, these republics are preoccupied with replacing the old Soviet center with a "commonwealth of independent states". The strong currents of nationalism, the interrepublic and intrarepublic ethnic and religious conflicts, the gross differences in economic development, the breakdown of the economies, the border disputes of the republics and the presence of large foreign enclaves (especially Russian) in non-Russian territory are likely to generate more turmoil and civil wars.

There is potential civil war between a Great-Russian chauvinist center or a central military command dominated by Russians and a republic that possesses nuclear weapons and refuses to follow the dictat from the Russian or military center and is accused of mistreating the Russian enclave in its territory. The republics with nuclear weapons can also take opposing sides in the various conflicts of republics and the ethnic and religious communities within republics. Because of their economic interests and fear of the possible mishandling of the nuclear weapons, the capitalist powers would be more prone to intervene in civil wars in the former Soviet Union than in the current ones in Yugoslavia.

A civil war in the former Soviet Union, similar to that in Yugoslavia but gravely dissimilar due to the factor of nuclear weapons in the equation, is not a farfetched possibility. Great-Russian chauvinism is likely to arise to oppress and exploit the other nations and use the Russian enclaves within the other republics to exercise Russian domination. After the demagogues of today shall have passed away (and they will do so soon because of the overwhelming economic crisis and political chaos), the rise of fiercer nationalists and military fascists can run ahead of the resurgence of the revolutionary forces.

In several respects, the status of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has been degraded to that before World War I. There can be no complete duplication of any previous period in history but there can be comparisons of historical periods in certain respects and under precise qualifications. At any rate, the leaders and strategists of the capitalist powers have started to fear that there is a greater possibility of a war breaking out in Europe than during the cold war period as a result of the disintegration of Soviet power. The current ravages of capitalism can give way to unbridled nationalism and military fascism.

However, the proletariat and the people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have come to know what is socialism, modern revisionism and undisguised capitalism. They have made great achievements under socialism, while disguised and undisguised capitalism has degraded them. They certainly abhor their disempowerment by the bourgeoisie and the scandalous private appropriation of the social wealth created by them in more than seven decades. The great legacy of Lenin and Stalin cannot be totally extirpated. The genuine communists who are now under persecution and the oppressed and exploited proletariat and people are certain to fight back and wrest back the power appropriated by the bourgeoisie. The resurgence of the forces of socialism is bound to come.

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