On Globalization

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of On Globalization has been translated, prepared, and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published by the German Branch of the Peru People's Movement on pagina-libre.org.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is a comment written by Comrade Gonzalo in the Military Prison of the Callao Naval Base in Callao, Peru in November 1999. It was first published on pagina-libre.org.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#ON GLOBALIZATION

#Gonzalo

#November 1999

#★

In our understanding, it is entirely correct to point out that to begin understanding global events demands taking the analysis of the relationship between imperialism and the oppressed nations as the starting point, besides, of course, the implicit contradictions between the imperialist powers, naturally emphasizing the character of US imperialism as the sole hegemonic power. For this reason we have returned to study, once again, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, and US Imperialism Is a Paper Tiger; these texts remain as brilliant, scientific, and useful as yesterday, if not even more so, in spite of what some people proclaim to the contrary.

In our studies of these works, we have focused on certain paragraphs which, we hope that the reader will excuse, we could not resist transcribing here. In the two works by Lenin, an essential point seems to us to be the following: «Interlocking» means socialization of production. In Section 10 of the first work, it states:

When, then, does this catchword «interlocking» express? It merely expresses the most striking feature of the process going on before our eyes. It shows that the observer counts the separate trees, but cannot see the wood. It slavishly copies the superficial, the fortuitous, the chaotic. It reveals the observer as one who is overwhelmed by the mass of raw material and is utterly incapable of appreciating its meaning and importance. Ownership of shares, the relations between owners of private property «interlock in a haphazard way». But underlying this interlocking, its very basis, are the changing social relations of production. When a big enterprise assumes gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of an exact computation of mass data, organizes according to plan the supply of primary raw materials to the extent of 2/3, or 3/4, of all that is necessary for tens of millions of people; when the raw materials are transported in a systematic and organized manner to the most suitable places of production, sometimes situated hundreds or thousands of miles from each other; when a single centre directs all the consecutive stages of processing the material right up to the manufacture of numerous varieties of finished articles; when these products are distributed according to a single plan among tens and hundreds of millions of consumers (the marketing of oil in the United States and Germany by the US oil trust) — then it becomes evident that we have socialization of production, and not mere «interlocking» [...].¹

Meanwhile, in the second work we find the following masterful words, which are already in force and which have historical perspective:

It is clear why imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism in transition to socialism: monopoly, which grows out of capitalism, is already dying capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism. The tremendous socialization of labour by imperialism (what its apologists — the bourgeois economists — call «interlocking») produces the same result.²

Finally, in the third work, which is by Mao and contains great lessons on the historical development of the people’s struggles, it should suffice here to emphasize the following sentence: «There is no reason for the existence of imperialism.»³ This is a great, inexorable, and incontrovertible truth; however, let us add what is pointed out in the same work:

Now US imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. [...]

[...]

That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might, and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.

It seems that the countries of the Americas, Asia, and Africa will have to go on quarreling with the United States until the very end, until the paper tiger is destroyed by the wind and the rain.³

We think that in the light of these positions, «interlocking» means socialization of production; today, «globalization» means an even greater socialization of production. There is no reason for the existence of imperialist exploitation and oppression of the people of the world, and we must continue to quarrel with the imperialist hegemony of the United States until the very end. In the light of these positions it is possible, in our opinion, to reach a correct understanding of the international class struggle. This is what we aim or intend to do in a work that shall bear the title: The Old Mole Still Burrows.

We also think that the same or similar criteria could be considered for a study on imperialism and the current world situation, whose specific themes could be:

• Economic Bases
  • Globalization.
  • Economic crises.
  • Economic powers: European Union, Japan, Germany, France, and China.
  • Economic blocs: NAFTA, European Union, and APEC.
• Highlights of the International Political Situation

All until 1995.

The last years of the century.

On the point «Highlights of the International Political Situation», we could consider the following points:

• The collapse of the social-imperialist Council Union and its semi-colonies.
• The Gulf War.
• The genocide in Rwanda and Burundi as a part of the Franco-US conflict in Africa.
• The Mexican economic crisis of 1994.
• The agreement on Bosnia imposed by the United States.

These are just some of the highlights until 1995. And although «the last years of the century» will still bring new important situations, it is already possible to highlight the world economic crisis which began in 1997 and has not yet ended due to its repercussions and prospects. This crisis is actually the first great economic crisis of globalization which points toward future ones, and which clearly has undermined Japanese imperialist domination in Asia to the benefit of the United States. The new NATO agreement, which turns this treaty organization into an instrument for US world hegemony, directly threatens Russia and serves to promote aggression, as we have already seen and are still seeing in the Balkans. As to the European Union, the creation of the Euro is a decisive step in the political unification of Europe for the purpose of contending with the United States and Japan for world hegemony. The recent war against Yugoslavia launched by NATO under the leadership of the United States serves to dismember what remains of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, divide up Serbia, and subjugate its people, as well as to promote a regional war that would once again drench Europe in blood and seriously threaten the people of the world, hence the condemnation that this brutal and unbridled war of imperialist aggression is already awakening and will continue to awaken.

What is the conclusion to what we have said so far? In our opinion, it is concretely the following:

• Globalization is nothing but the greatest socialization of production in world history, which implies the deepest and broadest imperialist exploitation and oppression of the people and the nationalities, principally for the benefit of US imperialism.
• This greater socialization of production is subjecting new hundreds of millions of people to the same process of exploitation and continues to ripen the objective realities which will increase their clamour for the transformation of the ruling order.
• US imperialism is not only a gendarme but, above all and once again, the enemy of the people of the world.

Under the baton of the United States, imperialism unleashes wars of aggression, wages wars between the imperialist powers, devastates the oppressed nations, and perpetrates genocide against their people, while at the same time proclaiming the obsolescence of national sovereignty, territorial integrity, the right to national self-determination, and, more than anything else, of course, the people’s right to transform the world through revolution.