The country has a larger problem… “intellectual nihilism,” as the writer Noam Scheiber recently labeled it. Since 9/11, often, but not always, under the right’s aegis, truth has been destabilised in America. The Bush administration’s contempt for what it dismissed as the “reality-based community” was vindicated when it successfully ginned up a war by convincing Americans that the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis and that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Our susceptibility to elaborate, beautifully wrought myths remains intact… whether we’re being spun by politicians, captains of finance pumping up a bubble, or sports heroes like Lance Armstrong and Joe Paterno. The news business, which we once counted on to vet hoaxes and fictions, is now so insecure about its existential future that it was cowed to some extent by the Scarboroughs, Noonans, and Roves, with most of the networks, not just Fox, ignoring the statistical data of Silver and others and instead predicting a long, nail-biting Election Night. In reality, the election was called for Obama at 23.12 EST on NBC, just twelve minutes after it had been in 2008. Our remaining journalistic institutions have even outsourced what used to be the very core of their craft, fact-checking, to surrogates relegated to gimmicky sidebars (awarding Pinocchios and “pants on fire”). The fact-checkers have predictably become partisan targets, only further destabilising the whole notion of what is meant by “news”.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan might be surprised to learn that he’s now remembered most for his oft-repeated maxim that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts”. Yet, today, most Americans do see themselves as entitled to their own facts, with one of our two major political parties setting a powerful example. For all the hand-wringing about Washington’s chronic dysfunction and lack of bipartisanship, it may be the wholesale denial of reality by the opposition and its fellow travellers that is the biggest obstacle to our country moving forward under a much-empowered Barack Obama in his second term. If truth can’t command a mandate, no one can.
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Much the same is happening in the OCA Succession Crisis (Part Deux)… some parties are paying no attention to what goes on right in front of their noses, so much so that the coming result may be just as much a shock to them as President Obama’s convincing victory was to the rightwing blogosphere. For instance, the Blunder was recently in the USA. The konvertsy all go gaga over this POS pseudo-intellectual. Trust me, he’s nothing but a powerless vicar bishop… indeed, he used to be a ruling bishop, but he fucked up so royally that HH demoted him (especially after his tits-up in England over the Osborne Affair). He has ONE PARISH in Bolshaya Ordynka under his jurisdiction, that’s all (there are archpriests with more parishes than that under their care).
HH took away two-thirds of the old DECR away from him, and he made sure that Vsevolod Chaplin and Mark Golovkov were out from under his thumb. All real people know that the real “foreign minister” of the MP is Mark, who’s HH’s kinsman to boot. I don’t know why the konvertsy blowhards fall for him… the evidence to the contrary is there for all to see. One of the closest confidants to HH is Varsonofy Sudakov, but you never hear the konvertsy speak his name, ever. As an MP source told me, “They’re so close [HH and Varsonofy] that you couldn’t slip a piece of paper between them”. Vsevolod Anatolyevich is the closest confrère of HH, and Mark is obviously his “anointed”. Yet, none of the konvertsy experts at Monomuckos speak of that… could it be that they’re ignoring reality?
The Blunder’s visit to Villanova University (a papist institution… the Catholics have more regard for this quasi-papist twit than the Centre does) in Philadelphia had been on the burner for quite some time… it had nothing to do with Hurricane Sandy. He met with Tikhon Mollard and with the Syosset/SVS set… not with anyone else. However, this visit did clear up one thing… it proved that Tikhon Mollard is the cat’s paw of the Syosset set, who’ve made a shaky truce with Bobby (as was shown by Mollard’s signing on to the appointment of Perich to the District).
Nothing has changed. Yustinian Ovchinnikov served with Mel Pleska at St Nick’s… not with Tikhon Mollard (nor was Fathausen present). Don’t be fooled by Fathausen’s closeness to Potapov. Potapov’s been ploughing his own furrow for years. He’s always had an independent source of income due to his job in the Langley apparat… that’s meant that he’s had the money to pursue an “independent” path. Do bear that in mind. Most of all, he wasn’t named to the “Gang of Four” (Lebedeff, Gan, Balashov, Dudko) charting the course and outline of the New ROCOR.
The Centre’s nod is still for Mel Pleska. Do your duty…
For decades, Western propaganda trumpeted that the USSR and its “satellites” were to blame for conflicts in the world and the appearance of trouble spots on the planet’s map. Western politicians and the media brazenly claimed that the USSR harboured expansionist plans. Twenty years have passed since the collapse of the USSR. Has the world become any safer? What do we see today? The planet sinks ever deeper into a quagmire of chaos and violence. Acute interstate, social, and religious conflicts flare up, more than ever before. Even in once-prosperous Europe, mass protest actions mount against the attempts of the bourgeois authorities to make not only the proletariat, but also the so-called middle class, bear the brunt of the deepening crisis caused by the greed of the global oligarchy.
However, the most acute and violent conflicts rage outside Europe. Tensions around Iran have built up for many years, and one hears ever-more vocal threats of military intervention against that country. The DPRK is under constant pressure. In the heart of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for many years, a civil war simmered away unabated. The West’s insane policy with regard to Libya didn’t only destroy one of the most successful states on the continent, but had dire consequences for neighbouring countries. For example, Northern Mali fell into the hands of religious fanatics; it’s seceded for all intents and purposes. A similar process is taking place in East Africa, where the split of Sudan led to a state of constant armed confrontation between its northern and southern parts.
None of this is happening accidentally. Of course, each of these conflicts has its own internal causes. However, the main source of global instability is due to the Western powers’ policy of seeking to impose a neo-colonialist development scenario on the whole of mankind. Again, the world is at a turning point in its history. Contrary to recent cheerful claims that the economic recession’s over, capitalism sinks deeper and deeper into an all-embracing crisis. This is inevitable because it hasn’t eliminated the underlying causes of the crisis. This time around, it hit Europe, where a whole group of countries faces bankruptcy. The ruling élites are trying to shift the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of the mass of the population. Contradictions between the collective character of modern production and the private appropriation of its results have sharpened.
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In what direction will the world move? One needn’t say that the world élite will seek to preserve a capitalist system of social organisation dominated by the “golden billion”, which wallows in money and parasitic consumption. That being said, the more farsighted members of the privileged are beginning to understand and admit that the West is driving the world into a dead end. Franz Müntefering, the leader of the SPD, said, “In 1990, when communism and its planned economy found themselves on their knees, we rejoiced in vain, believing that now the social market economy finally triumphed. In reality, after that, a different capitalism developed throughout the world, with all of its abuses and without any of its social component. Communism exerted a disciplining impact on capitalism. We must consign the present form of capitalism, which doesn’t feel responsible to man and society, to the dustbin. We must stop the abuses of unbridled financial capital”. Former German PresidentHorst Köhler (CDU) said that he saw the breakdown of “Anglo-Saxon capitalism“, run by gamblers and adventurers, saying, “Money-making without rules, without responsibility, and without conscience has collapsed”. The leaders of other European countries echo him. The President of the USA, from which the paroxysms of crisis shaking the whole world emanate, never tires of urging the need for change… sweeping, profound, and fundamental change. Obama hurls accusations at “fat cats”, who grow richer, even at the peak of the economic crisis.
Therefore, sober Western leaders already realise that the “uncontrolled self-regulating market economy” model has reached an impasse and that we need to scrap it. However, the formal leadership doesn’t always lay down foreign policy guidelines. Neoconservatives hidden in the bowels of the American establishment express the interests of the more aggressive transnational monopolies and banks, whose interest is in global control over markets and in political diktat. They believe that they can reach both these ends by using military force, which they increasingly buttress with aggressive information and propaganda campaigns. Another element in the neocons’ strategy is managed chaos. It only seems that all the events referenced above are spontaneous. There’s a profound inner link between them; all of them, to varying degrees, manifest the class strategy of the most-belligerent Western circles, which seek to subjugate the whole world.
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The West is the main sponsor of international terrorism, which it uses to further its global ends. There’s a growing conviction in the world that American power structures planned the events of 9/11 (the terrorist strike on New York) to provide a pretext for a “worldwide offensive against international terrorism”, which is, in reality, an expansion of American global economic, military, and media power. However, the concept of a unipolar world is crumbling and collapsing in front of our eyes. Even Zbigniew Brzeziński, a foremost apologist of American globalism, admits the failure of the “American dream” in his recent book. That’s why socialism is increasingly attractive in the 21st century as a new focus of civilisation. Above all, it connotes a harmonious development of productive forces, a reasonable level of consumption, and a prudent attitude to nature, with well-being and progress for each and every one.
Opposition grows worldwide to globalisation American-style. After the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, it seemed that there wouldn’t be a counterweight to the rampant greed and aggressiveness of the West, but an alternative centre of political and economic influence recently appeared in the alliance of the BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). These countries are home to more than half of the world’s population, and account for an ever-growing part of the world economy. South Africa‘s joined the alliance, completing its “southern arc”. The growing economic, political, and military might of the BRIC bloc not only increases its international influence, but also, for the first time since the collapse of the USSR, puts an obstacle in the way of Western expansion, in the way of attempts to restore a neo-colonial world order. We must emphasise that unlike the USSR and the socialist bloc, which provided a powerful political and military alternative to the West, but failed to draw level with our rivals economically at that stage, today, China’s steadily turning into the “workshop of the world”, entering ever-new markets, including Europe and the USA. Together with the fast-growing economies of India and Brazil, that creates a fundamentally new situation in the world.
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It’s important that the international system based on the UN, created with the active participation of the USSR, has withstood the test of time. In spite of all the attempts by the USA and its allies to gain control over it, the UN’s still a key element in stabilising international relations. The principle of the balance of forces at the Security Council instituted by its founding fathers, including Soviet leaders, make it possible to restrain open acts of aggression on the part of financial imperialism. With the disintegration of the USSR and the humiliatingly pro-Western policy of the Yeltsin group, including notorious Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, the role of the UN Security Council sharply diminished. This situation lasted a long time, which enabled the USA and its allies to launch a series of brazen acts of aggression against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. However, because of the changing balance of forces, the system of legitimising aggression by using the UN misfired for the first time in the last two decades. That happened when Russia and China vetoed draft resolutions that would give the West the right to perpetrate armed intervention against Syria.
Therefore, the USA and its allies are trying to build a new parallel system of world governance by expanding the role of NATO and the WTO. Their aim is to gain global control not by crude military force, but by preserving and deepening the unfair economic relations and non-equivalent exchange between the rich industrialised North and the planetary South, which possesses vast natural resources. There’s no doubt that the WTO, contrary to its official declarations on removing barriers to international trade, in reality, serves centuries-old colonial goals. They seek to get natural resources and manpower from the South at miserly prices and sell the goods from the North at staggeringly-high prices. They achieve this through a system of international courts entirely dominated by Western representatives. Those recalcitrant leaders who challenge the justice of such a state of affairs are likely to suffer the fate of Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi.
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GalicianUniate priest in Nazi service serving traitors in the Waffen-SS… reflect on this… the USA and the UK protected Nazi collaborationist scummers from Estonia, Latvia, and Galicia, and still do!
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In the context of the deepening crisis of capitalism and the inevitable concomitant mounting protests, one must assume that the leading imperialist countries would seek to limit the influence of communist and left-wing parties. They’ll intensify persecution and reprisals against their leaders. In particular, Eastern European countries go out of their way to demonstrate their loyalty to Uncle Sam. They openly glorify Bandera and other Hitler accomplices as fighters against communism, erect monuments to surviving fascists, ban Soviet and communist symbols, intimidate honest and upright politicians, and pass legislation that equates communism and fascism. In spite of all this, communist and left-wing movements have noticeably strengthened their positions at the international and regional levels. Elections for parliaments and local legislatures in many countries bring ever more proof of that.
Meanwhile, it’s important to understand to what extent the position of the Russian élite on international issues meets Russian national interests. We see that Russia’s external policy is markedly class-oriented. The constant neglect of the country’s interests for the sake of the personal ambitions and selfish interests of the ruling group manifests this. From the early 1990s, the Russian “élite” was eager to become part of the Western “establishment”. Initially, they kept them out, but then they graciously allowed them to enter the Western club, but only as a junior (and often unprivileged) partner. The Russian élite tolerate all this. It can’t be otherwise, because, as is well known, not only the Russian oligarchs, but top bureaucrats keep their money in Western banks, send their children to Western universities, spend their holidays in Western holiday resorts, and have “standby landing sites” in the shape of apartments, villas, and castles in Western countries.
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The Pyatnitsky Choir… one of the national treasures of Russia (they’re more worthwhile than a roomful of crapitalist greedsters… and most people would agree with me).
It’s a well-known truth that one must base a successful foreign policy on three foundations:
patriotic sentiment in society
a powerful economy
powerful armed forces
Russia doesn’t have any of these three components. Speaking about patriotic sentiment, throughout the twenty years after the coup d’état of August-December 1991, the ruling group has, in fact, done its best to eradicate patriotism. Indeed, the very word “patriot” has acquired a derogatory meaning. A continuing process seeks to eliminate love of country, folk traditions, and national customs, and to impose alien values upon us. The state of the Russian economy is well-known. It’s become a source of raw materials for the Western and, more recently, Eastern industry. It’s a semi-colonial economy heavily-dependent on demand on the part of the developed countries, and the slightest fluctuations in the global economy have very unpleasant consequences for Russia. Moreover, the bulk of property has already been withdrawn from our country’s jurisdiction and is in offshore zones. As for the armed forces, they’ve practically lost their combat ability because of continuous “reforms” lasting many years. The share of modern weapons is at best 10 percent. The officer corps has been decimated. The reforms under Defence Minister Serdyukov resulted in the expulsion of tens of thousands of the most experienced and knowledgeable officers from the Army. One can go on detailing the destruction of the national self-consciousness, the ruining of industry and agriculture. The message is clear… we can achieve nothing by merely professing the determination to uphold national interests.
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One has to bear in mind that even the modern empire, the USA, with its huge economic, military, and political power, needs allies. The Americans work vigorously to ensure that each of their foreign policy actions gets the broadest possible global support. On the contrary, in recent years, Russia pushed away all its traditional allies. Today, practically, we have only one reliable strategic ally, Byelorussia. However, that fraternal people again and again comes under powerful pressure from pro-Western elements in the Russian ruling élite. One has a feeling that these influential forces at the top would be genuinely glad if Byelorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko fell from power, and the economic actions of the Russian government indicate attempts to create prerequisites for a worsening of living standards in Byelorussia and for the growth of protest sentiments there.
To sum up, one can safely say that the world has entered a zone of tempests and storms. If the huge Russian ship is to sail through that zone safely, we need a skilful crew and reliable equipment, and the passengers need the assurance that the ship is being steered in the right direction. So far, society’s increasingly doubtful that we’re moving in the right direction. We’re totally convinced that our country would regain its status as a great power, the respect of its rivals, and the trust of its friends only if the popular patriotic forces led by the KPRF came to power.
On Tuesday, Georgian PresidentMikhail Saakashvili conceded defeat in the Georgian parliamentary election for his United National Movement (UNM), adding that his party would go into opposition. He went on to say in a special address acknowledging the victory of the opposition Georgian Dream in the 1 October election, “As the leader of the UNM, I declare our party will go into opposition. For me, there were fundamental unacceptable views held by the Georgian Dream coalition. There are big differences between us, and we think that its views are false. However, democracy works that way, the majority of the Georgian people have decided this, so, we respect their choice”.
I’d say that there isn’t anything to cheer about in the Georgian election yet. Bidzina Ivanishvili, the leader of Georgian Dream, is an oligarch who holds much of the country’s wealth (some sources say up to 50 percent)… the proportion of the country’s GDP that he holds personally is far above John D Rockefeller Sr’s 1 percent of the American GDP in 1900 (which was a gross stash and hoard in itself).
Therefore, I’d say that Georgia might have gone from the frying pan into the fire. Ivanishvili may be MORE of a lickspittle to the Americans and EU, as his main preoccupation is his wealth, not the welfare of the Georgian people. I’d wait to see the reaction of people such as Nino Burdzhanadze. Langley knew that Saakashvili was on the way out, and it didn’t want Burdzhanadze in charge of the parliament for some reason (she was pro-American at one point… has she changed her spots?). Ergo, it put up Ivanishvili, who has no political experience or connections (beyond those that all of the Affluent Effluent has). That is, was the Inside the Beltway crowd using an obliging oligarch to rid itself of an increasingly-irritating liability? After all, the K Street commandos did support Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden at one time, didn’t they?
The only qualification that Ivanishvili has is his wealth… which blinds the Mammon-worshipping and money-grubbing Americans. They don’t realise that if Ivanishvili doesn’t deliver on real change (that is, abolish Saakashvili’s Neoliberal pro-oligarch/anti-people “reforms”), he’s out, too. Oh, yes… Vova’s in the wings… he be patient… the fruit WILL drop from the tree in due course.
The Syrian Government agreed to the Kofi Annan peace plan. Why won’t the armed “opposition” do so as well? We’ve seen it all before, and it’s becoming so obvious that one would have to live in a cave under a rock not to have noticed it… one can’t take the words of the USA through its international spokesman Hillary Clinton at face value. If you tell a lie, if it’s big enough, and you repeat it enough, people will believe it. During the Bush years, it was a key tool of the USA on the American public, now, they’re exporting it, and, as America continues to attempt to take over the world on every front, they attempt to subjugate the entire world to their “big lie”.
Hillary Clinton just can’t seem to get enough of making provocative, if not factually challenged, statements about Russia, but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. What we’ve seen before is what’s become the standard modus-operandi of the USA in invading countries and raping their resources. To wit:
Make a lot of noise about a humanitarian crisis and if one doesn’t exist make it up or create it (lie 1).
Make sure the country can’t fight back, force them to disarm (Iraq, Libya, Iran, and now Syria), or get rid of their defensive weapons (lie 2).
If needed, arm the opposition in the country, no matter who they are, and deny it (lie 3).
Create a reason for a military invasion, this can be weapons of mass destruction, implementing a no-fly zone, etc. (lie 4).
Take control of needed resources through front companies, planted officials, and the like (lie 5).
Make millions on reconstruction of the countries they destroy, for the good of the people, of course (lie 6).
Now, let’s look at the latest lie by Hilarity Clinton, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but how can you not laugh at some of the utterly hilarious things she says, such as, “…we came, we saw, he died”. Outrageousness! This time, Clinton continues in the same vein by claiming that Russia’s arming the Assad régime to kill poor demonstrators. Of course, it must stop, and, of course, it’s up to the world’s great policeman to come in and blow the hell out of everything in the country (and pillage, of course, and rebuild, no doubt). Which they can’t do yet… because, guess what? Russia sold defensive weapons to Syria. I repeat… defensive. Defensive. Defensive. Defensive.
Now, in reality, Clinton knows this, just as she knows Russia was fulfilling contract obligations when it supplied and serviced Syrian transport helicopters, something we talked about recently. Comments she was forced to take back, by the way. However, the USA needs to make sure that Syria can’t fight back before they invade it (was the recent F-4 downing a test case?). It’s a cowardly strategy, just like the use of drones controlled from the comfort of some bunker in California, by some guy who doesn’t even have to make sure who he’s killing. Therefore, Clinton will keep up the big lie about Russia arming the evil Syrian government, whilst her CIA is running arms to the Syrian opposition and importing terrorists into the country to continue the violence and the killing of Syrian civilians.
Interfax recently reported that Clinton said that it was important that Russia stop providing Damascus with weapons. She stressed it was of utmost importance to cut off the arms supply to the Assad régime, and continues to ignore Russian claims that none of the weapons it’s ferried to Syria are used to crack down on protests, saying the USA has a different opinion. Of course, you have a different opinion, Madam Secretary of State, this doesn’t fit into your prepared scenario, and any weapons of the defensive type must be gotten rid of because the USA needs to be able to go in, wipe out the country, and suffer no casualties, otherwise, the voters back in Iowa might get upset when their boys start coming home in body bags and all of those involved in launching another unprovoked war might have to answer for their deeds.
Given that we know that the USA is just itching to launch an attack on Syria, and continue their damn-it-all-cowboy-diplomacy of shoot first and get paid for the cleanup later, given that we know that the CIA’s backing, funding, and arming the Syrian opposition, it isn’t surprising that said “opposition”, if you can call armed insurgents, mercenaries, and imported terrorists that, have now, lo-and-behold, refused to enter into peace talks and are complaining that participants in the Cairo conference “reject any idea of armed interference to save the people”. This doesn’t fit into American plans for an invasion, and they won’t rest until they see Bashar Assad brutally murdered, as they did with Hussein, Gadaffi, Milošević, and others.
Let’s pause for a minute and look at the Kofi Annan peace plan and at exactly what the Syrian “opposition” opposes in it. The text of the six-point plan:
Commit to work with the Envoy in an inclusive Syrian-led political process to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people, and, to this end, commit to appoint an empowered interlocutor when invited to do so by the Envoy.
Commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective UN-supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties to protect civilians and stabilise the country. To this end, the Syrian government should immediately cease troop movements towards and end the use of heavy weapons in population centres, and begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centres. As these actions are being taken on the ground, the Syrian government should work with the Envoy to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective UN supervision mechanism. Similar commitments would be sought by the Envoy from the opposition and all relevant elements to stop the fighting and work with him to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective UN supervision mechanism.
Ensure timely provision of humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the fighting, and to this end, as immediate steps, to accept and implement a daily two-hour humanitarian pause and to coordinate exact time and modalities of the daily pause through an efficient mechanism, including at local level.
Intensify the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily-detained persons, including especially vulnerable categories of persons, and persons involved in peaceful political activities, provide without delay through appropriate channels a list of all places in which such persons are being detained, immediately begin organising access to such locations and through appropriate channels respond promptly to all written requests for information, access or release regarding such persons.
Ensure freedom of movement throughout the country for journalists and a non-discriminatory visa policy for them.
Respect freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed.
The Syrian Government agreed to the plan. Why won’t the armed “opposition?” In an interview with Bloomberg, Clinton was asked about article 7 of the UN Charter to which she replied, “…if Kofi Annan comes to the Security Council and reports to us that the government’s not cooperating, that other parties aren’t cooperating (does she mean the USA will go in and stop the armed insurgents?), that he’s not making progress. Then, I think we’d have to act”. Chapter 7 of the UN Charter authorises implementation of military force to ward off any threat to the global peace.
Very interesting, the single most dangerous country in the world today, and the single greatest threat to world peace is the USA and their plans for global domination, (the Project for the New American Century anyone?). In reality, we could apply Article 7 to the USA. In the name of world peace, the world could get together, and in the name of world peace, rid these homicidal lunatics of their weapons of mass “humanitarian intervention”.
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Will Russia be Able to Weather the Tempests and Storms?
Tags: 9/11, Afghan War (American), Afghanistan, Africa, Barack Obama, BRIC, CDU, China, Christian Democratic Union, Communist Party of the RF, Congo War, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, EU, European Union, Franz Müntefering, Gennady Zyuganov, globalisation, Horst Köhler, Iran, Iraq, Iraq War, Israel, KPRF, Kurdish insurgency, Kurds, laissez faire capitalism, Libya, Libyan Civil War, Mali, Middle East, Middle Eastern, Moscow, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi, NATO, neoconservatism, North Africa, North Mali rebellion, occupied Palestine, Palestine, Palestinian statehood, Palestinian territories, political commentary, politics, Proposals for a Palestinian state, right-wing, Russia, Russian, Russian history, Saddam Hussein, Sanctions against Iran, security council resolution, Slobodan Milošević, Socialist Party of Germany, South Sudan, Soviet Union, SPD, Syrian Civil War, Turkey, UN, UN Security Council, United Nations, United Nations Security Council, United Nations Security Council resolution, United States, USA, USSR, Vladimir Putin, West, Western world, World Trade Organization, World War II, WTO, Yugoslav Civil Wars, Zbigniew Brzeziński
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For decades, Western propaganda trumpeted that the USSR and its “satellites” were to blame for conflicts in the world and the appearance of trouble spots on the planet’s map. Western politicians and the media brazenly claimed that the USSR harboured expansionist plans. Twenty years have passed since the collapse of the USSR. Has the world become any safer? What do we see today? The planet sinks ever deeper into a quagmire of chaos and violence. Acute interstate, social, and religious conflicts flare up, more than ever before. Even in once-prosperous Europe, mass protest actions mount against the attempts of the bourgeois authorities to make not only the proletariat, but also the so-called middle class, bear the brunt of the deepening crisis caused by the greed of the global oligarchy.
However, the most acute and violent conflicts rage outside Europe. Tensions around Iran have built up for many years, and one hears ever-more vocal threats of military intervention against that country. The DPRK is under constant pressure. In the heart of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for many years, a civil war simmered away unabated. The West’s insane policy with regard to Libya didn’t only destroy one of the most successful states on the continent, but had dire consequences for neighbouring countries. For example, Northern Mali fell into the hands of religious fanatics; it’s seceded for all intents and purposes. A similar process is taking place in East Africa, where the split of Sudan led to a state of constant armed confrontation between its northern and southern parts.
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Islamist rebels in Syria
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At present, the Middle East is the focus of stormy events. Immediately after the Second World War, the region became a source of constant tension and numerous wars because Israel and its Western allies refused to comply with UN resolutions on ending its occupation of Arab territories, the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland, and the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Meanwhile, during the past two years, almost all the Middle Eastern and North African states were destabilised to varying degrees. Today, a fratricidal civil war ramps up in Syria. Afghanistan and Iraq are areas of great instability. In Turkey, Kurds wage an armed struggle for national liberation. Most recently, relations between the People’s Republic of China and Japan deteriorated sharply over territorial disputes.
None of this is happening accidentally. Of course, each of these conflicts has its own internal causes. However, the main source of global instability is due to the Western powers’ policy of seeking to impose a neo-colonialist development scenario on the whole of mankind. Again, the world is at a turning point in its history. Contrary to recent cheerful claims that the economic recession’s over, capitalism sinks deeper and deeper into an all-embracing crisis. This is inevitable because it hasn’t eliminated the underlying causes of the crisis. This time around, it hit Europe, where a whole group of countries faces bankruptcy. The ruling élites are trying to shift the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of the mass of the population. Contradictions between the collective character of modern production and the private appropriation of its results have sharpened.
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In what direction will the world move? One needn’t say that the world élite will seek to preserve a capitalist system of social organisation dominated by the “golden billion”, which wallows in money and parasitic consumption. That being said, the more farsighted members of the privileged are beginning to understand and admit that the West is driving the world into a dead end. Franz Müntefering, the leader of the SPD, said, “In 1990, when communism and its planned economy found themselves on their knees, we rejoiced in vain, believing that now the social market economy finally triumphed. In reality, after that, a different capitalism developed throughout the world, with all of its abuses and without any of its social component. Communism exerted a disciplining impact on capitalism. We must consign the present form of capitalism, which doesn’t feel responsible to man and society, to the dustbin. We must stop the abuses of unbridled financial capital”. Former German President Horst Köhler (CDU) said that he saw the breakdown of “Anglo-Saxon capitalism“, run by gamblers and adventurers, saying, “Money-making without rules, without responsibility, and without conscience has collapsed”. The leaders of other European countries echo him. The President of the USA, from which the paroxysms of crisis shaking the whole world emanate, never tires of urging the need for change… sweeping, profound, and fundamental change. Obama hurls accusations at “fat cats”, who grow richer, even at the peak of the economic crisis.
Therefore, sober Western leaders already realise that the “uncontrolled self-regulating market economy” model has reached an impasse and that we need to scrap it. However, the formal leadership doesn’t always lay down foreign policy guidelines. Neoconservatives hidden in the bowels of the American establishment express the interests of the more aggressive transnational monopolies and banks, whose interest is in global control over markets and in political diktat. They believe that they can reach both these ends by using military force, which they increasingly buttress with aggressive information and propaganda campaigns. Another element in the neocons’ strategy is managed chaos. It only seems that all the events referenced above are spontaneous. There’s a profound inner link between them; all of them, to varying degrees, manifest the class strategy of the most-belligerent Western circles, which seek to subjugate the whole world.
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The West is the main sponsor of international terrorism, which it uses to further its global ends. There’s a growing conviction in the world that American power structures planned the events of 9/11 (the terrorist strike on New York) to provide a pretext for a “worldwide offensive against international terrorism”, which is, in reality, an expansion of American global economic, military, and media power. However, the concept of a unipolar world is crumbling and collapsing in front of our eyes. Even Zbigniew Brzeziński, a foremost apologist of American globalism, admits the failure of the “American dream” in his recent book. That’s why socialism is increasingly attractive in the 21st century as a new focus of civilisation. Above all, it connotes a harmonious development of productive forces, a reasonable level of consumption, and a prudent attitude to nature, with well-being and progress for each and every one.
Opposition grows worldwide to globalisation American-style. After the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, it seemed that there wouldn’t be a counterweight to the rampant greed and aggressiveness of the West, but an alternative centre of political and economic influence recently appeared in the alliance of the BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). These countries are home to more than half of the world’s population, and account for an ever-growing part of the world economy. South Africa‘s joined the alliance, completing its “southern arc”. The growing economic, political, and military might of the BRIC bloc not only increases its international influence, but also, for the first time since the collapse of the USSR, puts an obstacle in the way of Western expansion, in the way of attempts to restore a neo-colonial world order. We must emphasise that unlike the USSR and the socialist bloc, which provided a powerful political and military alternative to the West, but failed to draw level with our rivals economically at that stage, today, China’s steadily turning into the “workshop of the world”, entering ever-new markets, including Europe and the USA. Together with the fast-growing economies of India and Brazil, that creates a fundamentally new situation in the world.
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It’s important that the international system based on the UN, created with the active participation of the USSR, has withstood the test of time. In spite of all the attempts by the USA and its allies to gain control over it, the UN’s still a key element in stabilising international relations. The principle of the balance of forces at the Security Council instituted by its founding fathers, including Soviet leaders, make it possible to restrain open acts of aggression on the part of financial imperialism. With the disintegration of the USSR and the humiliatingly pro-Western policy of the Yeltsin group, including notorious Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, the role of the UN Security Council sharply diminished. This situation lasted a long time, which enabled the USA and its allies to launch a series of brazen acts of aggression against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. However, because of the changing balance of forces, the system of legitimising aggression by using the UN misfired for the first time in the last two decades. That happened when Russia and China vetoed draft resolutions that would give the West the right to perpetrate armed intervention against Syria.
Therefore, the USA and its allies are trying to build a new parallel system of world governance by expanding the role of NATO and the WTO. Their aim is to gain global control not by crude military force, but by preserving and deepening the unfair economic relations and non-equivalent exchange between the rich industrialised North and the planetary South, which possesses vast natural resources. There’s no doubt that the WTO, contrary to its official declarations on removing barriers to international trade, in reality, serves centuries-old colonial goals. They seek to get natural resources and manpower from the South at miserly prices and sell the goods from the North at staggeringly-high prices. They achieve this through a system of international courts entirely dominated by Western representatives. Those recalcitrant leaders who challenge the justice of such a state of affairs are likely to suffer the fate of Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi.
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Galician Uniate priest in Nazi service serving traitors in the Waffen-SS… reflect on this… the USA and the UK protected Nazi collaborationist scummers from Estonia, Latvia, and Galicia, and still do!
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In the context of the deepening crisis of capitalism and the inevitable concomitant mounting protests, one must assume that the leading imperialist countries would seek to limit the influence of communist and left-wing parties. They’ll intensify persecution and reprisals against their leaders. In particular, Eastern European countries go out of their way to demonstrate their loyalty to Uncle Sam. They openly glorify Bandera and other Hitler accomplices as fighters against communism, erect monuments to surviving fascists, ban Soviet and communist symbols, intimidate honest and upright politicians, and pass legislation that equates communism and fascism. In spite of all this, communist and left-wing movements have noticeably strengthened their positions at the international and regional levels. Elections for parliaments and local legislatures in many countries bring ever more proof of that.
Meanwhile, it’s important to understand to what extent the position of the Russian élite on international issues meets Russian national interests. We see that Russia’s external policy is markedly class-oriented. The constant neglect of the country’s interests for the sake of the personal ambitions and selfish interests of the ruling group manifests this. From the early 1990s, the Russian “élite” was eager to become part of the Western “establishment”. Initially, they kept them out, but then they graciously allowed them to enter the Western club, but only as a junior (and often unprivileged) partner. The Russian élite tolerate all this. It can’t be otherwise, because, as is well known, not only the Russian oligarchs, but top bureaucrats keep their money in Western banks, send their children to Western universities, spend their holidays in Western holiday resorts, and have “standby landing sites” in the shape of apartments, villas, and castles in Western countries.
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The Pyatnitsky Choir… one of the national treasures of Russia (they’re more worthwhile than a roomful of crapitalist greedsters… and most people would agree with me).
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From the 2011 Slavyansky Bazar festival in Belarus
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It’s a well-known truth that one must base a successful foreign policy on three foundations:
Russia doesn’t have any of these three components. Speaking about patriotic sentiment, throughout the twenty years after the coup d’état of August-December 1991, the ruling group has, in fact, done its best to eradicate patriotism. Indeed, the very word “patriot” has acquired a derogatory meaning. A continuing process seeks to eliminate love of country, folk traditions, and national customs, and to impose alien values upon us. The state of the Russian economy is well-known. It’s become a source of raw materials for the Western and, more recently, Eastern industry. It’s a semi-colonial economy heavily-dependent on demand on the part of the developed countries, and the slightest fluctuations in the global economy have very unpleasant consequences for Russia. Moreover, the bulk of property has already been withdrawn from our country’s jurisdiction and is in offshore zones. As for the armed forces, they’ve practically lost their combat ability because of continuous “reforms” lasting many years. The share of modern weapons is at best 10 percent. The officer corps has been decimated. The reforms under Defence Minister Serdyukov resulted in the expulsion of tens of thousands of the most experienced and knowledgeable officers from the Army. One can go on detailing the destruction of the national self-consciousness, the ruining of industry and agriculture. The message is clear… we can achieve nothing by merely professing the determination to uphold national interests.
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One has to bear in mind that even the modern empire, the USA, with its huge economic, military, and political power, needs allies. The Americans work vigorously to ensure that each of their foreign policy actions gets the broadest possible global support. On the contrary, in recent years, Russia pushed away all its traditional allies. Today, practically, we have only one reliable strategic ally, Byelorussia. However, that fraternal people again and again comes under powerful pressure from pro-Western elements in the Russian ruling élite. One has a feeling that these influential forces at the top would be genuinely glad if Byelorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko fell from power, and the economic actions of the Russian government indicate attempts to create prerequisites for a worsening of living standards in Byelorussia and for the growth of protest sentiments there.
To sum up, one can safely say that the world has entered a zone of tempests and storms. If the huge Russian ship is to sail through that zone safely, we need a skilful crew and reliable equipment, and the passengers need the assurance that the ship is being steered in the right direction. So far, society’s increasingly doubtful that we’re moving in the right direction. We’re totally convinced that our country would regain its status as a great power, the respect of its rivals, and the trust of its friends only if the popular patriotic forces led by the KPRF came to power.
Gennady Zyuganov
Chairman of the KPRF Central Committee
Pravda
As quoted in 21st Century Manifesto
http://21centurymanifesto.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/will-russia-be-able-to-weather-the-tempests-and-storms/