21st Centuary Socialism

The Russian Army has successfully repelled the NATO/USA sponsored invasion of South Ossetia, signalling the end of the Post Cold War era; an era in which national sovereignty and international law were violated with greater frequency then at any time since WWII. In the Post Cold War era unregulated monopoly capitalism had triumphed over organised labour in most countries of the world. International Finance Capital reigned supreme over endogenous industrialists and lorded over most governments.

But above all it was the era of USA imperial supremacy. In Iraq and Afghanistan one could no longer distinguish between the US army of occupation and the mercenary armies of capitalist multinational monopolies of “the security industry”, Oil & Gas, Finance, “reconstruction” and so forth. The West had morphed into a global privatisation, corporate plunder and military intervention machine, under overall US command.

The defeat of Georgian aggression represents the end of the beginning as far as the decline of US supremacy is concerned. In the beginning of the 21st Century the US Empire faced two worrying challenges: 1) the emergence of multi polarity, mainly in the shape of resurgent Russia and China. 2) The eruption of class war and social revolution in Latin America.

The War on Terror was the American way of dealing with the multi polarity challenge. The Neo-Cons thought that the 9/11 atrocity presented the US with a wonderful opportunity to rally the rulers of Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries behind America’s leadership, in order to regain the lost anti communist discipline of the Cold War years. The Neo-Cons thought that new Islamaphobic solidarity will serve to deter rival capitalist powers from challenging US hegemony. But the US genocide and plunder of Iraq did not work according to plan. The occupation of Afghanistan did not finish off the Taliban nor did it spread Western hegemony over former Soviet Central Asia. Emerging regional powers such as India, Brazil and South Africa started to challenge US global trading policy and China continued to rise in both economic and military power.

THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE PUTIN VER. BUSH CONFLICT

The neo liberal chiefs of the IMF and the World Bank made one serious mistake when they backed Boris Yeltsin in his 1993 bloody Coup against Russia’s elected parliament. The Western powers failed to insist that Yeltsin should open up Russia’s industries to foreign capitalist ownership during the privatisation of Russia’s economy, as pre condition for extending loans. This blunder occurred because in the early 1990s Western governments were too concerned about the old communists returning to power, so they let Yeltsin give away Russia’s riches to his handpicked friends as means of securing loyalty to his regime.

But, many of Yeltsin’s new friendly capitalists were former Soviet bureaucrats and former members of the Communist Party elite. These oligarchs didn’t owe allegiance to international finance capital or the USA. They owed their allegiance to the Russian Government who installed them as owners and chiefs of newly privatised industries. So when President Putin assumed office, all he had to do was make an example of a couple of troublesome oligarchs, for the rest of Russia’s new capitalist class to fall into line behind his government. Putin took back a couple of energy companies into state ownership and left the majority of private firms under no illusion that they may allow Western firms controlling stakes in any Russian enterprises. From then on the bulk of Russia’s energy wealth had to flow back into the domestic economy and not into the oligarchs offshore bank accounts and Western investment banks. At that very moment, Russian corporatist capitalism was born and American led globalisation was dead on its tracks.

The USA’s response to Putin’s break on Western financial expansionism was a clear cut attempt to encircle and isolate Russia in Eurasia. NATO speeded up the incorporation of all former Warsaw Pact countries and former Soviet Republics into the Western alliance. American military bases were constructed along the Russian border. A new Star War system of “Missile Shield” was resurrected in order to make a future American nuclear strike against Russia a more viable option. But above all American diplomacy worked very hard to turn all Russia’s former allies and neighbours into belligerent enemies by encouraging them to take a hard line against the Russian government and Russian minorities in every ethnic, economic and political dispute, arising out of the dismemberment of the USSR. Both the USA and the EU openly participated in the political destabilisation of East European states and former Soviet republics that remained friendly to Russia, (and when that didn’t work as in the case of Serbia, the Western powers engineered a military intervention to help oust a pro Russian government).

Yet on the back of a Chinese fuelled global boom, Russia’s corporate capital grew in wealth and confidence. Spectacular economic growth averaging 6-7% every year helped Putin to weaken his Communist and Neo Liberal opposition. His successful military action against both Al-Qaida and Western backed separatists in Chechnya finally put an end to all attempts to dismember the Russian Federation.

To be continued in Chapter 2



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2008 01:05PM by Antonio Mella.