6. ANTI-IMPERIALISM
[In this struggle] only the workers and the peasants
will go all the way to the end ...
Augustino Sandino, the Anarcho-syndicalist leader
of 1927-33 armed rising against the USA occupation of Nicaragua.
cited in A. Bendana (1995), Sandinista Commemoration of the Sandino
Centennial. Speech given on the Anniversary of the Death of General
Sandino, held in Managua's Olaf Palme Convention Centre. Distributed
by Centre for International Studies, Managua. Trans: F.S.
Courneyuer
1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1. By imperialism we refer to a situation in which the ruling
class of one country dominates the people and territory of another
country. In other words, there is a situation of external domination
by an outside power. This relationship assumes different forms in
different contexts.
2. As Anarchists/Syndicalists we are opposed to imperialism
because of the suffering and oppression that it brings. We do not
accept the argument that imperialism is a progressive force, whether
this argument proceeds from the idea that imperialism "advances the
productive forces", "intervenes to keep the peace", "civilises" etc.
Imperialism is responsible for genocide, national oppression, attacks
on working class conditions, war, underdevelopment, starvation, and
poverty . Imperialism is not, however, the only cause of these
problems, and is itself the product of capitalism and the State (see
below).
3. The key imperialist powers are the dominant First World states
and their ruling classes: Western Europe, the United States of
America, Japan etc. These are commonly called the First World, or the
West, or the "core" or the metropolitan countries. In addition to
these countries, the main Eastern bloc countries such as Russia and
China have also acted as imperialist powers.
4. The other side of the coin are the countries and regions
dominated by imperialism: Africa, East Europe, South Asia, the
Caribbean, the Middle East and Latin America . These countries are
often called the Third World, the South or the "periphery" , the
"satellite" countries ro "colonial and semi-colonial regions".
5. At the same time, the Third World is not an homogenous zone.
Some countries are more regionally powerful and economically dominant
than others. These countries often (but not always) act as the local
enforcers and allies of the imperialist powers and are backed up by
these powers. These range of countries are sometimes referred as the
industrialised Third World, the Newly Industrialising countries
(NICs), or the "semi-periphery". Examples of semi-peripheral
countries that act as the local partners of imperialism are South
Africa and Israel. Semi-peripheral countries which do not act overtly
as the junior partners of imperialism include Poland, Brazil and
South Korea.
6. Although Apartheid /racial capitalism in South Africa shared
many of the features of an imperialist relationship (particularly of
the settler-colonial type) insofar as a settler-derived oligarchy
(ruling class-dominated alliance of different White classes)
historically exercised political and economic domination in the
country (Apartheid/racial capitalism) , Apartheid / racial capitalism
was not strictly speaking an imperialist relationship. This is
because this system of domination was internally based. It was not
governed from outside in the manner typical of a settler-colony such
as Zambia or Kenya. Instead, the settler -dominated ruling class took
local State power in 1910, took ownership over most of the economy in
the subsequent decades and made the key political and economic
decisions. This fact is not changed by the point that the local
ruling class (and its African allies the chiefs and homeland
bourgeoisies) were backed by the imperialist powers. Thus, there was
not an external enemy to be expelled, but a localised situation of
oppression to be confronted. This is not to say that South Africa was
independent of the broader world imperialist system, as it acted as a
semi- periphery / junior partner of imperialism dominating the
southern part of Africa <1>. SEE POSITION PAPER ON
FIGHTING RACISM FOR MORE DISCUSSION
ON SOUTH AFRICA.
7. Anarchism and Syndicalism have an exceptionally proud record of
anti-imperialist commitment.
7.1. This repudiation of the theory and practice of imperialism is
logically implied by Anarchist- Syndicalism's rejection of coercive
political structures and economically exploitative modes of
production in favour of a freely constituted international federation
of self- administrating communes and workers' associations based on
stateless socialism <2>.
7.2. On the theoretical and practical level, theorist-activists
such as Bakunin, Reclus and Berkman all condemned and fought against
imperialism. In the colonial world, Anarchist- Syndicalists played an
important role in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles,
including those in Cuba, Ireland, Korea, Macedonia, Mexico ,
Nicaragua and the Ukraine. For example, the national hero of
Nicaragua, Augustino Sandino, who led a revolt against the American
occupation in the 1920s and 1930s was an Anarchist-Syndicalist; in
Mexico, the Anarchists and Syndicalists of the PLM , the IWW and the
CGT consistently challenged American imperialism and anti-Mexican
discrimination in Mexico, both before, during and after the Mexican
Revolution; James Connolly, the famous martyr of the 1916 Easter
rebellion in Ireland against British imperialism was an Anarchist/
Syndicalist union organiser in the United States and Ireland and was
strongly influenced by Syndicalist ideas; in Korea the Anarchists
were a key force in the struggle against the Japanese occupation that
begun in 1910 and even managed to establish a massive self-governed
liberated zone in Manchuria in the 1930s; in the Ukraine, the
Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Nestor Makhno expelled the occupying
Central Powers in 1918-9. In the imperialist countries, Anarchist-
Syndicalists were also at the forefront of the fight against
imperialism. For example, in Japan, the prominent Anarchist Kotoku
Shusi was framed and executed in 1910 after his Commoner's Newspaper
campaigned against Japanese expansionism; in 1909, the Spanish
Anarchists organised a mass strike against intervention in Morocco
(the "Tragic Week"); in Italy, the Anarchists consistently opposed
Italian expansionism into Eritrea and Ethiopia in the 1880s and 1890s
and organised a massive anti-war movement against the Italian
invasion of Libya in 1911, and interventionis in Albania in 1919
<3>.
2. CAUSES OF IMPERIALISM
8. Imperialism existed before capitalism and the modern State.
9. However, imperialism has been a central feature of capitalism
and the modern State since their emergence 500 years ago in Europe
and their subsequent global expansion. Indeed, this period has been
characterised by imperialism on a scale unprecedented in world
history. In 1800 the Western empires claimed 55 per cent of the
Earth's surface, although in practice they only held about 35 percent
of it. By 1878, the proportion held was 67 per cent, and, by 1914,
had come to hold 85 per cent of the Earth as colonies, protectorates,
dominions and commonwealths . Of these powers, Britain and France
were pre-eminent, holding between them Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, colonies in North and South America and the Caribbean, most
of Africa, the Middle East, the Far East as well as the Indian
subcontinent in its entirety. Japan also embarked on colonial
expansion in South East Asia, intervening in Korea, China and other
countries. Since the relative decline of the European and Japanese
imperialist powers in the post- World War Two period, the United
States has risen to pre-eminence as dominant imperialist power.
<4>.
10. Imperialism in the modern period has been driven by two
factors <5>.
10.1. Firstly, there is an economic dimension to imperialism: the
system arises in part to benefit the imperialist ruling classes (or
at least important factions within those classes) by, for example,
providing extra- high levels of profit from cheap labour and cheap
raw materials, and blocking the access of rival ruling classes to
these resources.
10.2. The second factor is the international State system . In the
same way that capitalist companies compete in the market, so too do
States compete: for territory, for strategic advantage (e.g. sites
for military bases), and for expansion. This provides a pressure for
national conflicts, war , foreign conquest and attempts at forcible
assimilation of conquered peoples as the smaller States are swallowed
up and the "greater" ones strive to increase their power and reach.
3. IMPERIALISM IN THE PRE-1945 PERIOD <6>.
11. Imperialism has assumed different forms during the history of
capitalism and the State.
11.1. Merchant Capitalism And Slave Labour . This early stage of
capitalism dates from the early 1500s to the late 1700s, and was
characterised by the accumulation of capital through trade , plunder
and the exploitation of European workers and peasants. This was the
period when capitalism began to forcefully expand itself into Africa,
the Americas, and Asia. Slave plantations were set up in the Americas
and elsewhere, and supplied by an enormous slave trade. The roots of
modern racism may be found in this period: slavery generated racism-
racism did not generate slavery. A key feature of this period was the
forcible articulation of non-capitalist modes of production as
subordinate components of an emerging world capitalist system. The
riches acquired through plunder and trade, in conjunction with the
exploitation of European artisans and peasants, laid the basis for
the industrial revolution. This period was associated with genocide
in the Americas .
11.2. Colonial Conquest: From the 1500s until the 1900s,
capitalism and its State were involved in the conquest and
colonisation of Africa, the Americas and Asia. This period was
associated with genocide in South Africa, Australia and elsewhere.
11.2.1. A major aim of the imperialists in this period was
creating a source of cheap (often forced) labour, cheap agricultural
and mineral raw materials (for First World firms) and also markets
for First World manufactured goods. This had a strategic dimension
insofar as part of the point of colonial occupation was to deny rival
imperialist ruling classes access to the markets and resources of
one's own colonies. The pattern of trade established in this period
was one in which Third World/colonial countries exported raw
materials (mineral and agricultural) and imported finished products
(machinery, tools etc.).
11.2.2. This is a negative situation . Firstly, Third World
exports were typically based on the displacement of local economic
activities such as growing food crops in favour of export -oriented
activities such as growing cash crops. One result of this was growing
food security on the part of Third World peasants, who were now
growing crops for export rather than focussing on food to satisfy
their needs. Secondly, a large number of Third World countries were
producing fairly similar products for sale to a few huge monopoly
corporations, who in turn manufactured the finished goods that were
exported back to the First World. This unequal situation allowed the
large monopolies to drive down the prices of raw materials whilst
driving up the costs of the finished goods that the Third World
economies needed to survive <7>.
11. 3. Africa was formally divided amongst the main European
powers at the Conference of Berlin in 1884, and by the start of the
1900s partitioned and occupied (with the exception of Ethiopia, whose
feudal ruling class was able to fight off the invasions). In many
cases, the indigenous ruling classes and elites collaborated in the
colonial enterprise as they felt that it would be to their advantage
to do so. Again, not only were vast territories plundered, but local
societies and economies were drastically and forcefully restructured
into the world capitalist system by the imperialists. Again,
colonialism provided racist ideas with fertile ground. <8>.
11.4. In general, two main types of colonies were established in
Africa: the so-called "peasant" colonies, in which a tiny foreign
ruling force, in conjunction with local chiefs, governed the colony
(e.g. Ghana) ; and colonies of white settlement in which a sizeable
White settler population dominated political and economic life (e.g.
Algeria, Zimbabwe). The ruling class in the settler colonies did not
comprise all the Whites as many Whites were middle and working class
and as the ruling class included those local people who held
important positions in the State apparatus or economy (e.g. chiefs) .
Nonetheless, the ruling classes were White-dominated with its leading
members of European descent . The White ruling classes deliberately
sought to draw in allies from other White groups such as the middle
class and working class by providing material benefits such as job
reservation, exclusive trading areas etc. We can refer to this
alliance of all White classes and a section of the local elite as an
oligarchy or power bloc
4. IMPERIALISM IN THE POST-1945 PERIOD.
12. Imperialism entered a new phase after the Second World War. It
is important to note that although this period saw the end of the
formal colonial empires, key features of political and economic
features of imperialism continued to exist despite the attainment of
formal independence. These include continuities in colonially-
established economic relationships of "unequal exchange", the
continued global political dominance of the First World countries,
and military interventions in the Third World on the part of
imperialist powers. This is why this period may be referred to as the
"neo-colonial phase" of imperialism.
The key features of the neo-colonial period are: (1) the end of
the formal colonial empires and their replacement by relations of
neo- colonialism, (2) the rise to prominence of the USA as the
central imperialist power, (3) the development of a "semi- periphery"
of more developed Third World countries allied to imperialism (4) the
emergence of the multinational corporations (MNCs) (5) the creation
of international organisations to enforce the system, notably the IMF
and World Bank. and (6) the emergence of a second set of imperialist
powers in the East bloc.
*End of the formal colonial empires
13. END OF THE FORMAL COLONIAL EMPIRES <9>. The formal
empires were dismantled for a number of reasons. Firstly, there was
the economic exhaustion of the West European and Japanese powers.
Secondly, there was the pressure from the USA which wanted access to
the markets, material and labour of the old empires. Thirdly, there
were massive anti-colonial struggles in the period from the 1940s to
the 1970s. For example, uprisings and even insurrections took place
in against Holland in Indonesia, against France in Indo- China and
Algeria, and against Britain in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and India.
These struggles paralleled an earlier wave of risings against
colonial rule in the late 1700s and early 1800s that destroyed the
formal colonial empires of Spain, Portugal, France and Britain in
most of the Americas and the Caribbean.
13.1. Generally speaking, the imperial ruling classes took care to
manage the process of decolonisation in order to reach a settlement
that helped secure the preservation of their own interests . This
typically meant: a long period of negotiation in which the masses
became politically demobilised, negotiations with moderate
nationalists, and the marginalisation, elimination or co-optation of
hostile elements.
13.2. Although overall this strategy succeeded, and power was
transferred in substantial measure to local ruling classes who would
defend capitalism , the State and imperialism, there have been
exceptions. In cases such as Mozambique and Nicaragua and Iran in
1979 radical nationalist movements won independence, often on the
basis of armed insurrection In these cases resources and industries
were typically nationalised and some social reforms (e.g. health)
instituted. These struggles created not socialist societies but state
capitalist regimes of various forms; however, by seizing imperialist
property and by demonstrating a development path independent of the
West (although often dependent on the East, and certainly not
independent of world imperialism as a whole) they posed a threat to
imperialism which was ruthless in its response. Imperialism used
blockades, sanctions, cutting foreign aid etc. and, in the last
instance, force such as campaigns of destabilisation or even direct
military invasion (e.g. the wars against Vietnam, Grenada, and Iraq)
<10>. The use of direct armed intervention by the USA, backed
by Japan and Western Europe, seems set to increase with the collapse
of the limited deterrent provided by the Soviet Union , an
alternative imperialist power <11>.See below for more
discussion on the nature of Third World ruling classes.
*Rise of USA Dominance
14. THE RISE OF US DOMINANCE <12>. The USA took the
opportunity provided by the crisis of the old imperialist powers to
become the dominant imperialist country. First it sought -through the
Marshall Plan, which gave or lent to Western Europe and Japan $17
billion between 1947- 1955, and through other aid programmes, to make
the competing imperialist nations dependent on US capital. Secondly
it formed military blocs which it controlled such as NATO (1949) and
SEATO (1954) to guard against the "spread of communism," that is, to
defend its spheres of influence from the Soviet and other East bloc
capitalists. Thirdly, it set up a new world monetary order based on
the supremacy of the dollar. The USA's plans to create the "American
Century" began to unravel from the 1970s with the end of the post war
economic boom, the re-emergence of Western Europe and Japan as major
capitalist centres, and the rise of radical liberation movements both
in the USA and the "Third World". Nonetheless, the USA remains the
dominant imperialist power.
*Emergence of the Semi-Periphery
15. EMERGENCE OF THE SEMI-PERIPHERY <13>. As a whole,
African and other Third World countries continued to rely on the
export of agricultural and mineral products, and the import of
manufactured goods. In other words, the colonially-derived patterns
of trade typically continue in the post-colonial period. However, we
must note the existence of what has been called the "semi- periphery"
. Although still at least partly subject to imperialist domination,
some Third World countries have developed a sizeable locally owned
industrial base which allows them to be less dependant on the
production of agricultural and mineral goods (however, they were
still dependent on exporting local products to import the capital
goods and machinery that powered the new factories) . Often this
development has been at least partly promoted by the imperial powers.
In some cases these countries, act as local enforcers for imperialist
rule e.g. South Africa and Israel In other cases, they do not act as
junior partners of imperialism, although their ties to the
imperialist powers may be quite close e.g. South Korea, whose
development was deliberately promoted by the USA in order to provide
a buffer gagainst the "spread of communism" (i.e. of Soviet and
Chinese imperial influence) in South East Asia. The semi-peripheral
countries may also have investments outside their own borders, and
even their own MNCs (e.g. South Africa's Anglo American Corporation
has operations in Zambia, Bermuda, Peru, Ghana and the USA)
<14> .
*Rise of the Multinational Corporation (MNC)
16. RISE OF THE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION. One of the key features
of neo-colonialism is the rise of the multi - national corporation
(MNCs). The MNCs can be defined as gigantic corporations (owned
either by the state or private capitalists) who have operations in
more than one country . These planet- spanning corporations are
typically (but not necessarily) based in the imperialist countries.
16.1. Many of today's MNCs grew out of the small family- owned and
controlled businesses of nineteenth- century Europe and the USA,
which first expanded their operations in their countries of origin
before expanding abroad <15>. An important reason for expansion
abroad was that within the First World countries the various nation-
wide firms, together controlling the greater part of the economy,
tended to collaborate with their competitors to keep prices up, wages
at standard levels and the like. However, rich pickings were to be
made by the corporation that could outwit its competitors by
controlling markets, the supply of raw materials or developing new
products that made the old obsolete. Result: some firms invested
abroad in order to secure control over their raw material
requirements, to control marketing outlets, and to forestall other
corporations gaining control of raw material and markets . This was
the origin of the MNCs. MNC s first moved into the Third World in the
late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century, focussing in this
stage on primary industry (raw material extraction and production) .
In the 25 years after World War 2 (1939-45), there was an
"unprecedented expansion" of MNC activity, initially led by US firms,
but since the 1960s overtaken by European and Japanese firms. This
has often involved activity in the manufacturing sector As a general
pattern, MNCs tend to invest where the political and cultural
influence of their home countries has been the greatest <16>.
16. 2. The size of the MNCs is striking. For example, a large and
growing proportion of world production is controlled by a few hundred
MNCs and by the year 2000 about 400 MNCs will own two thirds of the
fixed assets of the entire globe <17>. In terms of size, the
largest MNCs have sales that exceed the Gross Domestic Product (total
output) of most Third World countries (for example, in 1984, Exxon
had sales of $73,6 billion, which exceeded the total output of
Nigeria ($73,5 bn), Algeria ($50,7 bn), Libya ($30,6), Egypt ($30,1),
Morocco ($13,3) etc.) <18> . 500 MNCs control 80% of all direct
foreign investment . MNCs also play a predominant role in trade. For
example, MNCs account for 90% of all trade in which the USA is
involved and also dominate the marketing of Third World exports
<19> . MNCs also play a central role in developing and
controlling new technology .There are also MNC banks which have
historically loaned money to the Third World. With the onset of a
world capitalist crisis in the 1970s, however, these banks have
demanded faster repayment and charged higher interest rates.
16.3. Assorted bourgeois ideologists and economists like to argue
that the activities of the MNCs are beneficial to the Third World
because they promote development and social peace; MNCs are examples
of harmonious co-operation between the First and the Third World.
This view is pure fiction <20>.
16.3.1. Firstly, when serious conflicts with Third World
governments (not to mention popular forces) take place (e.g. attempts
to nationalise foreign firms in order to put them under the control
of the local bosses and rulers), the MNCs can rely on their home
governments' ability to exert "pressure" to change the policy of
Third World governments. We have seen above what such "pressure" can
entail. In other words, the MNCs invoke the continuing power of the
imperialist ruling classes to secure their interests.
16.3. 2. Secondly, MNCs are central players in the system whereby
the Third World exports raw materials and provides a market for First
World goods. As we noted earlier, this arrangement allows the
systematic underpricing of Third World exports and the systematic
overpricing of Third World imports.
16.3.3. Thirdly, where MNCs are involved in the manufacturing or
industrial sector, not only do these investments have few links to
other parts of the economy (and so do not have positive spin offs
e.g. jobs) but they centre on the super- exploitation of a low paid,
coercively contraolled and rightless workforce . This allows the MNCs
to reap higher than average (or "super") profits, not to mention
undercutting the wage and welfare gains won by First World workers.
MNCs are notorious for their labour policies in the Third World .
16.3.4. Fourth, MNCs also block or retard Third World development
by extracting surplus (i.e. production above that needed to satisfy
basic needs- and thus suitable for use in building productive
resources, infrastructure, services etc.) from the Third World. This
is done by means of sending profits made back to the First World (for
example, it is estimated that US MNCs sent 79% of their declared net
profits out of Latin America between 1960- 1968), by manipulating
prices charged in trade within the firm ("transfer pricing") and by
manipulating charges for patents, product and technology licenses,
brand names, and management, marketing and technical services (Elson
1988). A similar process happens through the repayment of loans to
MNC banks and to the IMF and World Bank: in the 1980s, it was shown
that there was a net capital loss from Africa to the First World
banks, the supposed benefits of bank loans notwithstanding (see below
for more on the IMF and World Bank).
16.3.5. Finally, MNCs undermine local industries by "taste
transfer", that is, by promoting the replacement of locally produced
goods (often labour-intensive, artisanally produced) with more
expensive imported ones utilising far less labour but requiring far
more investment and foreign currency.
*Role of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
17. ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND AND WORLD BANK IN
IMPERIALISM <21>. Institutions like IMF and World Bank are
central to enforcing modern imperialism. Founded in 1946 at Bretton
Woods in the USA, the IMF and World Bank initially focused on
rebuilding Western Europe and Japan after World War 2. They were a
key component of the USA's attempts to create a dollar- centred
international monetary system. Then, from around 1971, the focus of
IMF and World bank shifted to the Third World, and especially to
Africa. Despite IMF and World Bank's rosy views of themselves as
neutral, purely technical aid agencies their role in these regions
has been objectively imperialistic. This is clear in both political
and economic spheres.
17.1. Pro - imperialist structure of the IMF and World Bank.
Although most States in the world are members of the IMF and World
Bank, and pay into the central coffers of these institutions, their
decision making processes are dominated by the imperialist countries
of the First World. Rather than a "one country, one vote" system, as
can be found in United Nations organisations, a percentage of votes
is granted according to the economic size and contribution of a given
country, a system which favours the First World states : the USA has
19.9% of the total vote; the United Kingdom 6.9%; and the USA,
Western Europe, and Canada combined have 53% of the vote <22>.
17.2. Pro-imperialist political role <23>.The IMF and World
Bank have always operated in the political interests of imperialism .
Aid and funds have historically been readily given to Third World
regimes favourable and friendly to the USA and other imperialist
States - like South Africa (before the sanctions campaign got
underway- e.g. massive loans after the crushing of the 1976
uprising), the death squad ARENA regime in El Salvador, and Daniel
Arap Moi's regime in Kenya. This takes place no matter how much the
despicable and vicious crimes committed by these regimes are in stark
contrast to the professed liberal, democratic and human rights
concerns of the imperialists. But more radical Third World states who
fail to toe the imperialist line, or introduce social reforms that
are seen as destabilising are refused loan facilities. For example,
the elected social democratic government of Salvador Allende in Chile
was refused assistance in its reform attempts. (The USA's Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the American MNC ITT subsequently
assisted the military coup which overthrew Allende in 1973) . In this
way the IMF and World Bank help ensure the perpetuation of
capitalism, the State and imperialism.
17.3. Pro - imperialist economic role <24>. The IMF and
World Bank act to perpetuate the colonially-derived world division of
labour which relegates most Third World countries to producers of raw
,materials and importers of finished goods. They also act to further
the interests of MNCs by promoting free market policies that
facilitate the operations of the big companies by attacking worker
rights, freeing capital movements and removing tariff barriers. Since
their founding, the IMF and World Bank have been committed to the
construction and regulation of an international capitalist system of
free trade and capital movements. This aim is reinforced by the
General Agreements on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) (now called the World
Trade Organisation (WTO)) which was established at the same time as
the IMF and World Bank with essentially the same aims <25>.
17.3.1. One key way of attaining these objectives is to insisting
that Third World ruling classes adopt the appropriate free-market
policies as a precondition for financial assistance . Another method
is to try to influence government policy thinking as a whole by
promoting free market ideology. Consequently, the increasingly
stringent conditionalities placed on loans made available by these
institutions to African states as the economic crisis deepened
emphasised policy reforms such as currency devaluation , trade
liberalisation and reduction of the economic role of the State (in
practice, this means cutbacks in public sector jobs, slashing welfare
services, and removing wage and price controls). Conditionality also
involves the seconding of IMF and World Bank staff to government
ministries to monitor the implementation of these policies, a marked
parallel to colonial administration. This package of policy
prescriptions is called Economic Structural Adjustment Programme
(ESAP). These policy prescriptions are informed by the free market
theory that the crisis of Third World States such as those in Africa
economic crisis was rooted primarily in internal factors such as
inappropriate State interventions in the economy and "bloated" civil
service, all of which could be resolved by a growth path premised on
neo-liberal prescriptions and emphasising reliance on Africa's
"comparative advantage" in the export of raw materials.
17.3.2. To these economic conditionalities were added political
conditionalities encompassing improved "governance" (more
accountable, honest, legitimate, open and consensus-based
government), which IMF and World Bank technocrats came to see as
vital to the effective implementation of the economic reform
programme . This is not the same as even parliamentary democracy- the
issue for the IMF and the World Bank is not the establishment of
democratic States but of governments with an increased capacity and
efficiency in implementing ESAP <26>. Overall, then, ESAP
functions to facilitate the operations of MNCs and the continuation
of the imperialist world division of labour.
17.4. ESAP is an attack on the Third World working class , working
peasantry, and the poor. It's effects on popular living standards are
highly negative. For example, in Zimbabwe, ESAP led to price control
relaxation resulted in dramatic rises in the inflation rate (running
between 25% and 40%), a fall in consumer demand of up to 30%, a drop
in average wages to the lowest levels since the early 1970s (due in
part to wage restraint and high inflation), and at least 55,000 jobs
losses up to 1995 ( particularly in the civil service where 22,000
employees have been retrenched<27>. These job losses have an
especially severe impact in a country in which fewer than 20% of
school-leavers each year are able to find employment in the formal
economy: and more than 50% unemployment in the formal sector. ESAP
also involved severe cuts in spending on social services . with
health spending falling by 39% in 1994-5, expenditure on low-cost
housing dropping by Z$4,3 million, and spending in the primary
education sector at its lowest levels since independence. In
addition, the imposition of cost recovery principles requires that
all but the poorest of the poor (those earning under Z$400 a month)
have to pay school and clinic fees. ( At the same time, however,
President Mugabe awarded himself, his top officials, and members of
parliament salary increases ranging from 116% to 134%! It might also
be noted that, in general, the export - orientation of ESAP increases
food insecurity as increasing amounts of land are given over to cash
crop production.
17.5. The IMF and World Bank also promote ecologically destructive
policies, by encouraging countries to cut down and export resources
such as rain forests (as part of the drive to export raw materials),
or to import toxic waste (in order to raise foreign currency).
Laurence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank wrote in a
confidential memo in December 1991 " Just between you and me,
shouldn't the World bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty
industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? ... I think the
logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country
is impeccable and we should face up to that ... I've always thought
that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under- polluted
... The problem with the argument against all these proposals for
more pollution in the LDCs (intrinsic rights, moral reasons, social
concerns) ... is that they could be turned around and used against
every bank proposal for liberalisation " <28>.
17.6. Given these negative effects of IMF/World Bank policies, how
is that that many (perhaps most) Third World countries have adopted
them? Several factors need to be taken into account.
17.6.1. Economic Crisis: In the African context, at least, a key
factor is the economic crisis that began in the 1980s. Africa is the
poorest region of the world and the only one consistently getting
poorer. It would be fair to say that living conditions have declined
over the last 30 years. This situation reflects both "external" and
"internal" factors. By external factors we mean the effects of
imperialism; these have mostly been examined above and include things
like worsening terms of trade for Third World exports, the loss of
capital to MNCs and higher interest rates on foreign loans
<29>. Internally, the main cause of the crisis has been the
local ruling class . The local ruling class is firstly, allied with
imperialism and is thus directly culpable for the continuing negative
effects of imperialism (see below). Secondly, the ruling classes in
Africa are strongly dependent on a State connection and / or position
for the accumulation of wealth: through passing contracts onto
friends and family, corruption (primitive accumulation directly from
the State coffers), nationalising private property in order to put it
in the hands of government rulers <30>. This has negative
effects, both economically (declining infrastructure, endemic
corruption and inefficiency, the implementation of ineffective
state-led industrialisation and economic development schemes) and
politically (the centrality of the State to accumulation means that
competition for State power is especially intense and typically
culminates in the establishment of military rule or a one-party State
as one faction of the ruling class strives to monopolise access to
the sources of power and wealth).
17.6. 2. Class Inequality <31>. The crisis predisposes
African governments to use the various loan facilities of the IMF and
World Bank, which provide not only cash but also a "stamp of
approval" that indicates to MNCs that a country is a safe investment
. the point is that it is not the masses who turn to the IMF and
World Bank, but the local rulers and bosses. Faced with a crisis
situation Third World elites find ESAPs a comparatively attractive
option . ESAPs allow the local ruling classes to install "adjustment"
policies that (i) transfer the costs of the crisis onto the working
people (e.g. cut backs on welfare spending, falling wages ) and (ii)
provide opportunities for retaining power as well as increasing
profit through new links to MNCs, opportunities to buy up privatised
State companies, lower corporate taxes etc. Indeed, in countries like
Zimbabwe the economic crisis was not severe enough to force the
ruling class to adopt an ESAP: in fact, the ruling class willingly
chose an ESAP because key factions within that class believed that
the free-market policies of ESAP would promote economic growth (and
therefore profit) <32>. This clearly shows that ESAP is not
simply the result of some sort of imperialist conspiracy imposed on
innocent local elites, but rather a policy which accommodates the
class interests of the local rulers and the imperialist bourgeoisie.
Nonetheless, it is certainly an additional advantage of ESAP that it
allows the local bosses and rulers to claim that the policies that
hurt workers are solely imposed by the IMF and World Bank demands .
The blatant biases in ESAP against working people are reinforced by
the nature of negotiations over ESAP conditionality : these are
conducted in total secret between local rulers and IMF and World Bank
executives; ordinary people are denied any say at all.
*Rise of Eastern Bloc imperialism
18. RISE OF EAST BLOC IMPERIALISM. The collapse of the old formal
colonial empires, and the rise of the United States the main
imperialist power was paralleled by the increasingly expansionist
role of the so-called "socialist" countries of the Soviet Union and
China. Both of these states occupied neighbouring territories on the
grounds of "historical affinity" ( China in Tibet) or "spreading
socialism" (the Soviet Union in East Europe and the Middle East). As
Anarchists, the very clear parallels between the imperialism of these
countries and that of the United States and the West is not
surprising, we have long recognised that these countries were not
socialist but State-capitalist and thus subject to all the general
laws and tendencies of capitalist / State development. SEE POSITION
PAPER ON THE NATURE OF THE SOVIET
BLOC.
*The United Nations
19. THE UNITED NATIONS <33>. The United Nations is not a
neutral international peacekeeper, it is part and parcel of the
imperialist system. Overall, it is nothing more than a loose
federation of different States, a convention of exploiters and
rulers. And from the start it has been dominated by the key
imperialist powers who sit on the Security Council: the USA, the
Soviet Union, France, Britain and China, all of which had the right
to veto UN operations; the effect was to legitimise any spheres of
influence enjoyed by these countries. As a result, UN intervention
depended on, and was shaped by the interests of these countries. No
action was ever taken against the Soviet invasion of Hungary or
Czechoslovakia, or against the US war against Nicaragua.
Interventions either took place where they were essentially
irrelevant to imperialist interests (e.g. Rwanda) or compatible with
them (e.g. the Gulf War had UN support). In addition, the UN solution
for ending wars (when it actually does intervene) is to use the
"official" channels : talking to governments and local warlords. For
example, UN aid to Rwanda in 1994 was often channelled through the
former government officials who controlled the refugee camps in Zaire
and who were themselves implicated in the genocide; it strengthened
these individuals who were part of the problem. Generally speaking,
the UN seeks to reach "settlements" which are compatible with the
interests of the imperial and local bourgeoisies, not the popular
masses. The UN was and is incapable of ending war because it is the
creature of those who cause war: the ruling classes of the world.
5. DO FIRST WORLD WORKERS BENEFIT FROM IMPERIALISM?
20. We reject the idea that First World workers benefit from
imperialism. According to this type of argument, these workers
receive a share of the colonial booty and this improves their
standards of living to levels which would not otherwise be possible.
This argument, which originated in large part with Lenin's 1916 book,
Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, is a recipe for
disunity in struggle. It is morever inaccurate and unfounded.
20.1. This argument misrepresents living conditions in the First
World. For example, in the United Kingdom (UK) (Britain and Northern
Ireland) , which was historically one of the "greatest" imperial
powers, at the start of the 1980s, the top 10% of the population
received 23.9% of total income while the bottom 10% received only
2.5%. The top 10% of the population also owned four fifths of all
personal wealth, and 98% of all privately held company shares and
stocks. The top 1% itself owned 80% of all stocks and shares.
Meanwhile the bottom 80% of the population owned just 10% of the
personal wealth, mostly in the form of owning the house they live in.
These economic inequalities correspond to material deprivation and
hardship. A study published in 1979 found that about 32% of the
population of the UK (15-17.5 million out of a population of 55.5
million) was living in or near poverty. A. A 1990 United Nations
survey of child health in the UK showed that 25% of children were
malnourished to the extent that their growth was stunted <34>.
20.2. This argument is theoretically and empirically flawed. It
provides no explanation of how the alleged transfer of wealth takes
place. It merely asserts that it happens. Nor does it provide any
proof of the alleged process.
20.3. For example, it has been claimed that there were different
wage rates for est African and Scottish miners in the 1930s and that,
subsequently, the alleged disparties between the incomes of the two
groups reflected a process whereby the Scots were somehow allegedly
subsisdised by the exploitation of the Ghanaians <35> .
However, it simply does not follow that from a demonstration that
there were nominal differences in wage rates between two groups of
miners that the one benefited from the exploitation of the other.
20.3.1. Such wage figures are misleading as they are almost never
adjusted to take into account the real value of the different
currencies relative to one another, differences in the cost of
living, the effects of inflation and so on. As such, merely listing
off figures does not actually establish that there were substantial
differences in living standards between Third and First World
workers. In other words, it is risky to take different figures and,
without contextualising them, use them as a basis for an argument.
20.3.2. Moreover, even if substantial wage gaps for workers in the
same occupation in different countries were clearly shown to exist,
it does not follow that they necessarily reflect a transfer of value
from one set of workers to the other. A mere demonstration of
disparities does not automatically establish what mechanism accounts
for these disparities. At one level, there is no evidence of a
correlation between imperialism and living standards in the First
World. For example, the nineteenth century is commonly recognised as
one of the most extreme periods of mass impoverishment in British
history, the period of child labour in the coal mines and so on, yet
it is precisely during this period that British imperial power in
Asia and Africa and the Caribbean was at its height. Similarly, the
welfare State , which provided some social insurance and benefits for
First World workers and which marked one of the most substantial
periods of working class material advance in the First World, took
place after World War Two. That is to say, the welfare State was
established precisely the period in which the European colonial
empires in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean collapsed. Similarly,
Western military interventions in the Third World have increased
greatly since the late 1980s with the end of the Cold War, yet this
same period has seen the greatest attack in working class conditions,
and the greatest decline in real living standards in the First World,
since the 1920s and 1930s. To take another example, Spain and
Portugal are amongst the poorest countries in Europe, yet it is
precisely these countries which had the longest standing colonial
empires, dating from the 1400s to the 1970s. At another level, a
number of alternative explanations for the patterns of change in
working class conditions in the First World have been well
established. These include: mass struggle which reached a
revolutionary level (the key factor in the establishment of the
welfare State); an economic boom (the greatest capitalist boom in
history took place from the 1950s to the 1970s, resulting in
increased crumbs available for social services without disturbing the
underling patterns of income inequality); increased mechanisation in
production (greatly increasing workers 'productivity thus allowing
bosses to pay slightly higher wages while extracting greater levels
of surplus from workers than ever before; this actually means that
the rate of exploitation in the First World has increased, not
declined).
21. It would be more accurate to claim that the interests of First
World working people are actually harmed by imperialism.
21.1. Firstly, the coercive forces and repressive techniques
developed in the colonies and imperial dominions can and are utilised
against working class resistance "at home". This coercive force is
built up through taxes on the working people, consuming resources
that would be far better used elsewhere e.g. on welfare <36>.
The clearest example of this was in the Spanish Revolution where the
fascists used the Spanish colonial army from North Africa to launch
their attack in July 1936 and to slaughter Spanish the workers and
peasants.
21.2. Secondly, the national chauvinistic and racist ideas
promoted by the ruling class in order to generate support for
imperialism act to divide the international working class and divert
it from realising its true interests <37>. These sorts of
national hostilities are also promoted by Third World elites and
nationalists who also oppose the idea of international class struggle
unity. In this way, British workers are divided from French workers,
and both are divided from Asian and African workers. This allows the
bosses and rulers to divide and rule the workers and peasants, whose
interests across the whole world are in fact identical. The more
unity the bosses and rulers can try to build with local workers
against a supposed foreign enemy, the lower the level of class
struggle, and, therefore, the lower the wages and the worse the
working conditions of the proletariat. The real ally for the workers
of one country are the workers of another country , not the local
elites; the real enemy in a war is at home, in the form of the local
ruling class.
21.3. The negative effects of imperialism are especially evident
in the era of neo-colonialism. In this period, the MNCs are able to
shift their investments around the world in search of the cheapest
and most controlled labour; the threat of packing up and going where
workers are more pliant is used to attack workers living standards
across the world. In other words, the existence of repressive Third
World regimes who smash unions, shoot peasant organisers etc.
(thereby pushing down labour costs) is in direct contradiction to the
interests of First World workers as these regimes directly help cause
job losses, plant closures, wage cuts etc. in the First World itself
as MNCs transfer their investments elsewhere .
21.4. Given that there is no evidence or theoretical support for
the notion that First World workers benefit from imperialism, it is
clear that the recipients of increased rates of surplus value due to
low wages in some Third World contexts are capitalists, and not
workers. In other words, the super-profits are going to the bosses
not the workers. This strengthens the ruling class as a whole
relative to the working class and working peasants.
6. WHY NATIONALIST POLITICS CANNOT DELIVER FREEDOM FROM
IMPERIALISM <38>.
22. Nationalism is a specific political strategy for
decolonisation that is based on the idea that all classes within a
given nation or people must unite to achieve decolonisation and
self-determination through some sort of people's government.
Nationalism has historically been a powerful current in anti-colonial
and anti- imperialist struggles across the world. For example, in
South Africa the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan-Africanist
Congress of Azania (PAC) and the Azanian People's Organisation
(AZAPO) all subscribe to one or other variant of nationalist
politics.
23. We reject the idea and the assumption that nationalism is the
"natural "form of anti-colonial struggle. This idea is commonly put
out in books and political commentaries which either claim that
nationalism was the only way that colonised people responded to an
imperialist relationship, or which use the word "nationalism" to mean
the same thing as "anti-colonial struggle" <39>. While clearly
any serious politics has to address the issue of national oppression,
it does not follow that the experience of national oppression
automatically results in the dominance of nationalist politics. In
South Africa, colonialism met with large- scale political responses
amongst the oppressed ranging from liberalism, to religious
millenarianism, "tribalism", and socialism. In other contexts, anti-
colonial struggles have been led by political forces ranging from
anarchism (Ukraine 1918-21) to religious fundamentalism (Iran 1978-9)
to Stalinism (China 1948). The dominance of nationalist politics in a
given struggle needs to be explained and challenged, not assumed away
as inevitable.
24. As Anarchists/Syndicalists we believe that nationalist
politics are fatally flawed and are unable to deliver freedom from
domination to the majority of people in the colonially and imperial
ist- dominated world. For nationalists, freedom is achieved when an
independent local government is established (as, for example, when
the British colony of Gold Coast became independent Ghana in the
1950s). While we defend the right of people to choose to have a
independent State, and while we support the establishment of systems
of free elections to governments as an immediate demand, we disagree
with nationalism as it cannot provide freedom for the majority of
people living under a situation of imperial domination.
25.1. Nationalist politics cannot deliver freedom from external
domination.
25.1.1 . Basic imperialist relationships continue to exist despite
the establishment of an independent State. The ex- colonial countries
are integrated into the world capitalist system as small economies
exporting raw materials, and as sites of cheap industrial labour.
Given that this world system is dominated by Western multi- national
corporations who act as monopsonic buyers of these commodities and
who control access to modern technologies, given that, moreover, the
metropolitan countries dominate the multi- lateral financial
institutions (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank) on
whom many peripheral countries depend for development and fiscal
loans, and given that, finally, countries such as the United States
and France in particular have shown a continuing willingness to
engage in military interventions in the Third World, it is clear that
most of the patterns metropolitan imperial domination continue to
exist even after the attainment of formal independence. Above we
called these relationships "neo-colonialism".
25.1.2. This does not mean that there is no difference between
direct colonial rule and neo-colonialism. In the latter case, there
is no direct rule from London from Paris; the local State can form
alliances with a variety of different imperialist powers, thus
increasing its scope for manoeuvre as well as its ability to exact
more concessions and favourable terms from the imperialist ruling
classes, particularly if it is strategically important (witness the
manner in which Third World countries played off the Soviet and
Western powers in the Cold War to accrue maximum advantages); and the
international laws and public opinions on the right of countries to
govern themselves constrain the ability of imperialist powers to
decree policy in the Third World. In other words, neo-colonialism is
a slightly weaker form of imperial control than direct colonial rule,
although it is still a powerful form of imperialism .
25.2. Nationalist politics cannot deliver freedom from internal
domination.
25.2.1. In addition to being subject to continuing external
domination, the majority of the population of the post- colonial
State also experience internal domination. The State is a
hierarchical structure of coercion which concentrates power in the
hands of a small ruling class. It defends the class system and the
forms of oppression (e.g. sexism) that the class system generates.
Rule by the State makes it impossible for the mass of the people to
actively participate in the decisions which affect their conditions
of life .
25.2.2. In other words, decolonisation on the nationalist model
delivers power to a new local ruling class. It does not provide self-
determination for the working class and peasant majority. Even if
nationalists take up socialist sounding slogans in order to win
working class support, the interests of workers are not central to
these movements, they are incidental. The effect of nationalist
politics is to hide the very real class differences that exist even
amongst colonised populations, and in this way nationalism smoothes
the way for a local elite claiming to speak for a homogenous "nation"
to take power for itself. In fact, it is the function of nationalist
politics to deny the importance of class differences within the
nation in order to facilitate the construction of a class alliance
between local workers and peasants and local bosses and rulers.
Nationalism is a politics of the frustrated local elite who seek to
build a mass base for their own class programme by arguing that class
alliances and State power are the way to resolve the genuine anti-
colonial grievances of the popular masses.,
7. WHY THIRD WORLD RULING CLASSES ARE PART OF THE
IMPERIALIST SYSTEM
26. The argument that there are no ruling classes in Third World
countries because real power supposedly lies outside the borders is
wrong.
26.1. This argument sometimes pops up the African context in the
form of the claim that the holders of State power who currently
govern the country are really only a "petty bourgeoisie" (a middle
class). As Anarchist-Syndicalists we do not accept the idea that the
only criterion for determining class status is ownership or
non-ownership of productive resources. Any group with State power is
by definition part of the ruling class. Moreover, the Third World
elites do control substantial parts of the local economy,
particularly by means of State ownership and control of key
industries such as mines and railways. As we discuss below,
nationalisation does not equal socialism, all that it means is that a
State capitalist rather than a private capitalist controls the means
of production. The claim that there is no "real" indigenous ruling
class is also inaccurate as it ignores the massive disparities in
wealth and power that exist within the Third World. On the one hand,
there is a small elite controlling the resources of the State such as
the military. On the other, a disproportionate amount of income
accrues to a tiny section of the population. In Chile ca. 1996, the
wealthiest 10% receive 41% of available income while the poorest 40%
receive only 13% ; 28% of the population is below the official
poverty line. In Zambia in 1974 the top 5% received 35% of the
national income; by 1983 the top 5% got 50% of the national income.
In Zimbabwe in 1991, the richest 3% got 30% of total incomes while
50% of the population got less than 15% of total annual incomes.
While the United Nations 1996 Human Development showed that 338
billionaires have more assets than the combined incomes of countries
home to 45% of the worlds population, it also showed that about half
of these billionaires were based in Third World countries. Clearly,
the argument that there is no Third World ruling class is a gross
distortion of the facts <40>.
26.2. Nor do we see Third World ruling classes as nothing more
than the tools of the imperialist ruling classes. These classes have
their own interests and agendas which do, however, tend to coincide
with the interests of imperialism (see below).
27. The local ruling class who vault into power in nationalist-
dominated anti-colonial struggles may, obviously, mouth anti-
imperialist rhetoric. Indeed, it is likely to, given that it is the
new elite's claim to have defeated colonialism which legitimises its
place in power. Nationalism , "national unity" etc. may become the
official ideology of state. Nonetheless, in objective terms, the new
rulers are the allies of the imperialist ruling classes of the First
World.
27.1. The local ruling class is dependent for its economic and
political survival on the maintenance on close ties with imperialism.
They defend the colonially derived economic relationships which they
inherit at independence: they need to export copper etc. in the
medium term in order to keep their economies functioning, and thus,
their State funded and their lifestyles luxurious. They accumulate
wealth by relying on the multi - national corporations, who it joins
in business ventures, sells land and mineral rights, taxes and so
forth enters into joint business ventures, charges taxes (they also,
as noted above, accumulate wealth more "dishonestly" by plundering
the State coffers, passing business contracts onto their friends and
family, and by nationalising property). They are funded by IMF/World
Bank loans and other forms of aid.
27.2. This requires, in turn, that they continue to dominate and
exploit the workers and the peasants who do the actual work in the
agricultural, mining and manufacturing industries. In other worst,
they maintain the old imperialist economic relationships, as well as
the foundations of those relationships, which are the exploitation of
the working people. Moreover, when the masses rise up, the new local
bosses and rulers are happy to call on the aid of their friends in
the imperialist States to help crush the resistance, because both the
local and imperialist ruling classes are opposed to worker and
peasant resistance. This is particularly evident in the ex-French
colonies in Africa <41>.
27.3. It is therefore incorrect to characterise Third World ruling
classes as anti-imperialist, or to call for their defence against
imperialist aggression. Firstly, these ruling classes are an
essential part of the imperialist capitalist system as they provide
the economic and political preconditions for continued imperialist
domination throughout the ruling class. It is these ruling classes
who bludgeon workers, throw peasants off the land and shoot students.
Secondly, these ruling classes are unable to act in a consistently
anti-imperialist manner as they are constrained by the continuing
patterns of neo-colonialism, and as they are the direct beneficiaries
of, and are dependent on, continuing imperialism to maintain their
positions of wealth and power. Given a choice between worker
revolution and continued imperialist domination, they will always
choose the latter as it is in their direct class interests. For their
part, the imperialist ruling classes will not undermine a local
ruling class , even if it is something of a renegade (see below) , if
this raises the spectre of mass revolution. On the contrary, the
imperialist ruling class will put aside whatever conflicts it has
with a local ruling class if continuing on a confrontational path
threatens the bigger picture of continued State/capitalist rule.
Thus, the US-led forces withdrew from their assault on Iraq in 1991
when deserting soldiers joined with peasants and workers in the North
and South of the country to establish workers councils ("shoras") and
raise radical demands. This withdrawal provided Saddam Hussein with
the opportunity to slaughter the local rebels <42>.
27.4. This is not to deny that conflicts will not arise between
Third World and imperialist First World ruling classes. Conflicts
often arise. The Third World ruling class may raise radical rhetoric
which the imperialist ruling classes fear is too disruptive, or they
may even nationalise foreign property in an attempt to bolster their
own power-wealth position. The local ruling class will probably
resent being trapped in a role as suppliers of raw materials and may
undertake efforts to industrialise the country. In such situations,
good examples of which are Cuba from 1959 onwards, and Nicaragua and
Iran in the 1980s, the imperialist powers may intervene through means
like sanctions, military action and other forms of pressure to bring
the "renegade" local bosses and rulers back into line. This is a
clear example of the power of neo-colonialism in the world.
Nonetheless, all such conflicts are "secondary" in the sense that
they are about the appropriate way to manage capitalism and the
State, rather than about whether these structures should be
preserved. Both sides agree on "primary" matters such as the need to
maintain class structures and the systems of exploitation and
domination entailed by capitalism and the State. All of the
supposedly "radical" Third World regimes (China, Vietnam, Mozambique,
Ghana etc.) were based on the repression and immiseration of the mass
of the people, that is to say, the workers, the poor and the working
peasants. At most power was transferred from local landlord and
business elites to State elites. Nationalisation does not equal
socialism, it only means that a State bureaucrat rather than a
corporate bureaucrat is running the economy. SEE POSITION PAPER ON
FIGHTING RACISM FOR MORE ON NATIONALISATION.
27.5. We do not, therefore, characterise the Third World ruling
classes as "sell-outs" because this implies that they have become
corrupted and failed in their alleged anti-imperialist mission and /
or common destiny with the masses. Instead, we recognise that it is
their natural role is to act , in objective terms, as partners for
imperialism. Nor do we see the only problem with the Third World
ruling classes as one of insufficient anti-imperialism. Even if the
local ruling classes were anti-imperialist (which they are not), we
would still not defend them because their existence as a ruling class
is based on the dispossession and exploitation of the majority of the
population, which is the working class and working peasantry. In
other words, the pro-imperialist nature of the Third World ruling
classes is only one of their many faults, and not necessarily the
worst of these.
8. THE CLASS STRUGGLE ROAD TO FREEDOM
28. As we have indicated, imperialism is part and parcel of
capitalism and the State. So long as these structures continue to
exist on a global scale, it is impossible to end imperialist
relationships. Indeed, even attempts by local ruling classes to
isolate themselves from imperialism in order to develop independent
forms of capitalism are typically met with blockades, war and
intervention. Clearly, this has several implications.
28.1. Firstly, an anti-imperialist struggle cannot succeed if it
is isolated in one country. There can be no "anti-imperialism in one
country" as hostile imperialism will either (a) subvert the autonomy
of that struggle through subjecting it to the logic of the
international State/capitalist system , or (b) intervene against
and/or destroy regimes its considers too renegade (in the case of a
socialist revolution, armed intervention is a certainty). Thus a
successful struggle against imperialism requires maximum
international support and solidarity, both within the First World and
across the Third World. The revolution needs to spread into nearby
territories dominated by imperialism as well as into the imperialist
countries themselves. In other words, it requires an assault on the
whole edifice of world capitalism and the world State system.
28.2. Secondly, imperialism cannot be defeated without
simultaneously defeating capitalism and the State. In other words,
the struggle against imperialism can only succeed if it is
simultaneously a struggle against capitalism and the State. Since
capitalism and the State can only be defeated by class struggle, and
since the Third World ruling classes are objectively pro-imperialist,
imperialism can only be defeated by means of a class struggle against
all rulers and bosses, local and imperial.
28.2.1. Alliances with local elites are a disastrous and anti-
revolutionary strategy. In other words, the key force on
decolonisation is not the "nation" but the international proletariat
and working peasantry. In this struggle, therefore, the allies of the
working classes of the Third World are not the local elites, but the
working classes of the imperialist countries. The formation of an
alliance with a local ruling elite requires the proletariat to put
its revolutionary programme on hold in order to maintain bourgeois
support, providing a veto to an exploiting class whose aid is neither
desirable nor necessary to the anti-imperialist struggle. SEE
POSITION PAPER ON FIGHTING RACISM
FOR A CRITICISM OF THE IDEA OF REVOLUTION BY "STAGES".
28.2.2. The real division is not between the First and the Third
World, it is between those who rule and exploit and those who take
orders and toil. Within the Third World, "settler " working classes
are potential allies of the colonised indigenous toilers, although
clearly, such alliances are not always possible (e.g. in Zimbabwe an
alliance was highly unlikely due to the extreme material benefits the
White working class received for its acquiescence in racial
capitalism); while always desirable, the lack of such an alliance
does not negate the need for a class struggle approach to the anti-
imperialist struggle as this struggle can be based on the
organisation of the indigenous toiling masses. Our approach is social
not racial, the problem is not people's skin colour, its a certain
social system. We are not for the expulsion of all "settlers", but
for an international, multi-racial social revolution that
restructures politics and economics in the interests of all the
masses . SEE POSITION PAPER ON CLASS
STRUGGLE FOR MORE ON THIS POINT. 28.2. 3. The aim of the
anti-imperialist struggle should not be the establishment of
independent "nation" States, but rather the establishment of an
international stateless socialist system which would embody the
principles of equality, co-operation and grassroots democracy.
9. NATIONALITIES AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
29. As Anarchists we recognise the right of different
nationalities/ethnic groups to express their own cultural beliefs and
ways of life. These differences , like the individual, are a natural
historic and social fact which must be recognised. Every
nationality/ethnic group has the right, just like the individual, to
think, feel, desire, speak and act in its own ways. A defence of the
right to be oneself is a natural consequence of the principles of
liberty and equality.
30. At the same time, however, it is also necessary to add certain
general points on this issue.
30.1. We reject the idea that there is a unified "national"
culture which encompasses all the classes in one country. The
different social and material conditions of different classes make
impossible a shared set of customs and values. There are also
regional differences within each country which enhance this
fragmentation. At the same time, it would not be an exaggeration to
maintain that that there is more in common in terms of habits and
customs between the working people of different countries than there
is between the owning and non-owning classes within each country
<43>.For this reason Anarchists sometimes distinguish between a
"nation" (everyone living in the same country e.g. "the Germans") and
a people (a class-bounded nationality (e.g. "German workers" ).
30.2. A defence of the rights of different cultural groups within
the working class and working peasantry does not imply an
unconditional and uncritical defence of all elements of a given
culture. On the contrary, we defend in each culture only the
progressive and neutral elements, and we oppose all backward and
reactionary manifestations. We do not defend "national rights" which
violate the principles of liberty. To accept culture as an aspect of
freedom means to reject elements of that culture (e.g. sexist
practices like genital mutilation; acceptance of the monarchy) which
contradict this general principle. In addition, as the victims of
backward practices are themselves part of that culture, it is also
inconsistent with their own rights to self-expression to maintain or
endorse such practices; these groups too have a valid claim to "own"
and change that culture.
30.3. We also reject the idea that there is a common "national
interest" between the different classes within a "nation". Their
interests are in direct contradiction. The phrase "national
interests" hides the interests of the ruling classes, which are
against the interests of the mass of the people themselves.
31. We reject the idea that the State, whether post-colonial or
otherwise, provides a vehicle for the expression of different
cultures.
31.1. States exist within a competitive State system which
generates strong pressures towards national conflicts, and,
ultimately, to wars, foreign conquest and attempts at forcible
assimilation of minority groups. The basis for inclusion in a given
State is typically not some sort of "national" characteristic, but
the ability of a State to conquer and incorporate new territories and
peoples. It is also common for newly independent States to deny
national rights to their own subordinate minorities. Attempts by the
State to impose or promote cultural uniformity upon the variegated
population it rules ("nation- building"), and to inculcate loyalty to
its structures amongst its subjects ("patriotism") leads to attempts
to destroy cultural specificity's and, in particular, to the
repression of the national rights and languages of ethnic minorities;
no nationality can find suitable conditions for the free development
of its culture within the confines of a State organisation that seeks
to level all differences.
31.2. Moreover, State power dampens artistic expression and
cultural creativity amongst the population as whole; the more
pervasive the power of the State, the lower the general levels of
creativity in the country as a whole. Consequently, the free
development of the arts and humanities requires a reduction of State
power to a minimum. It also requires a society that prioritises human
development over profit, a society that will give all people the
maximum opportunity to develop their forms of expression, while
imposing on everybody the obligation to work for the common good.
31.3. The State is not a vehicle for the expression of the will of
the majority of the people- the workers, the poor and the peasants-
but is instead a tool of the ruling class. Consequently, the
realisation of an independent State usually means the realisation of
the right of the local elite to take power and exploit the
proletariat.
31.4. While we defend independence and secessionist movements (see
below) we argue that genuine self-determination for the majority can
only come through an Anarchist revolution that puts power in the
hands of the working class and working peasantry. In Anarchism,
society will be based on the free association of individuals into
communes and syndicates, the federation of syndicates along
industrial lines, and of communes on regional , country-wide and
ultimately international lines. The new country-wide federations will
not necessarily coincide with the borders of the previous States.
These structures would be co-ordinated by democratic committees, and
councils of delegates and would be defended by a democratic workers
army. This system will remove all causes of war and oppression, and
allow every people of whatever size the right to self-determination
with the provisions only that their internal structure does not
threaten the freedom and self-determination of their neighbours, and
that the fact of voluntary association does not permanently bind a
member. Such a society can only be realised through a united,
integrated international worker-peasant revolution that includes all
races, peoples, genders and sexualities.
10. WORKERS SOLIDARITY FEDERATION ACTIVITY AGAINST
IMPERIALISM
General perspectives
32. As Anarchists we are avowed opponents of imperialism. We
believe that imperialism must be fought through mass action by the
working people . We get involved in struggles against imperialism for
their own aims, for the confidence that campaigning gives people, and
because we stand in solidarity with our class. We recognise that it
is in struggle that people are won to revolutionary ideas. We always
try to link daily struggles against imperialism to our vision of a
free society, and we argue that only a working class revolution can
finally uproot and defeat imperialism.
Guidelines for day-to-day activities
33. We are opposed to the intervention of any collection of
imperialist "peacemakers" and this includes the United Nations. We
are opposed to such interventions in all circumstances as they are
examples of the continuing power of imperialism and as they are not
part of the solution, they are part of the problem. We do not believe
that such interventions are motivated by good intentions such as
"restoring democracy" but are rather the product of political and
economic calculations on the part of the imperialist ruling classes.
There can be no "just settlement" that involves any imperialist power
or the UN or similar bodies. Instead. such settlements will always be
designed to protect the interests of the imperialists. Therefore we
oppose any intervention in any region of the world for whatever
reason by the imperialists. We are for the unconditional withdrawal
of troops from the imperialist countries from any country they are
occupying. Given that wars and occupations are largely the result of
ruling class drives to increase power and wealth, we do not decide
who is right or wrong in a given situation on the basis of who is the
apparent aggressor, nor do we take sides in wars between States.
Instead, we argue that for the workers in each country the real enemy
is their "own" ruling class, and that their allies are the working
people of the enemy State. On this basis we would seek to undermine
the war effort.
34. In a situation of imperialist aggression towards a Third World
country or ruling class (e.g. the blockade of Cuba, the Gulf War
against Iraq), we do not raise slogans such as "Defend Castro" or
"Victory to Iraq". Instead, we call for a solidarity with , and a
victory to, the popular masses of those countries (e.g. "Solidarity
with Cuba, not Castro"), as it is they who bear the brunt of hardship
imposed by imperialism. We make this concrete by offering solidarity
including material aid to independent working class and working
peasant and anti-authoritarian organisations. We do not send aid to
the local State as it can use this to repress mass resistance. Aid of
any sort must go to the masses of workers and peasants and allow them
to organise to defend and advance their own interests. We call on
First World workers to oppose the interventions. Local defeats for
imperialism are to be welcomed as they give confidence to working
class struggles in the imperialist countries and as they encourage
anti-imperialist struggles in other countries. However. any defeat of
imperialism that does not have Anarchist-Syndicalist goals will not
be able to remove imperialism from that country or region. We
recognise that the local ruling classes are unable to challenge
imperialism and that only a international worker-peasant revolution
can actually defeat imperialism, capitalism and the State.
35. We defend movements for greater regional autonomy. We defend
the right of ordinary people to choose to have an independent State
and/or secede from an empire, and we support every independence
struggle that expresses the will of the peasants and proletarians,
even if we do not support the political currents that dominate that
struggle. We demand the liberation of all colonies and sites of
imperial oppression, and we oppose all imperialist interventions
against secessionist movements. This reflects our general commitment
to progressive struggles and to freedom and equality. We always stand
in solidarity with the struggles of the working class and the poor,
even if they fight under the banner of nationalism. We support all
progressive struggles for their own aims and for the confidence that
campaigning gives to people. However, only a victory of the toiling
masses can deliver genuine freedom from imperialist domination.
36. As Anarchists we recognise that in the course of an anti-
colonial or anti-imperialist struggle that the nationalists are on
the side of the progressive forces. They are not the real problem in
this context, the situation of colonial / imperialist domination ,
capitalism and the State is the problem. Therefore we defend
nationalists from attacks by colonialists and imperialists and we
support progressive initiatives on the part of nationalist
organisations.
36.1. Nonetheless, we clearly have deep political differences with
nationalist organisations. Although we are willing to fight alongside
various nationalist currents who represent or advocate class
alliances, we will not hide our politics, we will not enter into
alliances that undermine our ability to function as an organisation .
We will argue for class politics, direct action, anti- statism, anti-
capitalism and the need for revolution. Our role as Anarchists is to
take up the battle of ideas and we know that this is most effectively
done in struggle. Thus, while we side against imperialism by
defending nationalist organisations, our role is to win workers and
peasants away from these movements by exposing the limits of their
politics and their class nature as the politics of the frustrated
local elite. So although we defend nationalists against imperialism
we do this on the basis of building a mass Anarchist-Syndicalist
movement that will replace them. In place of "national" identity we
promote class pride, class unity and class struggle. SEE POSITION
PAPERS ON THE ROLE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY
ORGANISATION AND ON RELATIONS WITH OTHER LEFT GROUPS FOR MORE
DETAILS.
36.2. In countries where nationalist movements do come to power
our role is not to support them but rather to organise for a
revolution that will place power in the hands of the working class
and working peasantry. In the imperialist country concerned our role
is to undermine the war effort and argue that the workers of such
countries are the natural allies of the working classes of the
colonial countries. The final defeat of imperialism requires an
international working class and working peasant revolution in both
the First World and the Third World.
37. No ESAP has yet succeeded in resolving the African economic
crisis, despite its government's promise that ESAP would improve
living standards, increase employment and establish a modern, growing
and internationally competitive economy has proved a hollow one.
37.1. This could be related to the technical faults in the
programmes. For example, the ESAP package assumes that the cause of
the African economic crisis is internal, the result of too much
government intervention in the market.
37.2. However, this question is merely an academic one as the
workability of ESAP is irrelevant to as Anarchist-Syndicalists. Our
concern is with fighting capitalism, not designing better ways for it
to work. We do not choose one set of capitalist economic policies
over another, we do not collaborate in economic restructuring. We do
not fall into the trap of calling for the reform of the IMF, the
World Bank, the WTO or any other imperialist institution, or into the
trap of calling for a more (or less) State-led economic capitalist
development process . Instead, we realise that it is only class
combat, not policy intervention, that will deliver real material
gains to the working class, the working peasantry and the poor. Even
in the course of day to day struggles, this holds true. Welfare
reforms in Europe after World War Two (the welfare State) were not
won by allegiance on the part of workers to Keynesian demand
management economics, but through titanic class struggles that forced
the ruling classes to introduce some basic reforms. Consequently, our
role is to reject and resist any policy that harms the interests of
workers and peasants, and to do so by means of mass struggle. We
resist all attacks on the conditions of working people by means of
mass struggle, we strive by the same means to advance the gains of
the working class and peasants, and, ultimately, we stand for the
destruction through of imperialism, capitalism and the State through
mass action and revolution.
38. We are for an international minimum wage and international
working class unity. If capitalism is global, the workers struggle
must become global as well. The way to defeat MNC manipulation of
different national wage rates in order to attack workers is not
protectionism against cheap imports or surrender to the demands of
capital, it is international unity in support of basic worker and
consumer living standards across the world. We therefore support all
initiatives at international trade union unity. We are for solidarity
strikes between workers in different countries in general, and for
solidarity action and trade union unity between workers employed by
the same MNC in different countries in particular. The international
integration of production, which sees different parts of the same
product made in different countries, does not necessarily weaken
workers. A workers strike in one country can disrupt production
across several countries; just-in-time production techniques which
mean that forms produce exactly enough goods at short notice in order
to cut down on warehousing costs increase the bosses vulnerability as
they run out of stock almost immediately that a strike takes place;
the new communications technology used by the bosses to co-ordinate
the MNCs (e.g. the Internet) are also available to workers and
provide a powerful potential resource.
NOTES
<1> . South Africa as a semi-periphery is discussed in M.
Legassick (1977), "Gold, Agriculture and Secondary Industry in South
Africa, 1885-1970" in R. Palmer and N. Parsons (ed.) The Roots of
Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa.
<2>. See Daniel Geurin , (1970), Anarchism: From Theory to
Practice. Monthly Review Press. (New York and London ). pp. 56-69.
<3>. On Bakunin, see Daniel Geurin , (1970), Anarchism: From
Theory to Practice. Monthly Review Press. (New York and London ). pp.
68-9; on Reclus, see P. Marshall (1993), Demanding the Impossible: a
History of Anarchism, chapter 20 (on Elisee Reclus) (Fontana:
London); see A. Berkman, "The Only Hope of Ireland", The Blast!
vol.1, no.13, page 2; May 15, 1916; on Macedonia, see "East: a
Freedom Workshop", January/ March 1991, in The Raven: Anarchist
Quarterly, no. 13, pp. 31-2; on Cuba, see F. Fernandez, (1986), Cuba:
the Anarchists and Liberty (ASP. London.); on Nicaragua, see A.
Bendana, (1995), A Sandinista Commemoration of the Sandino
Centennial. Speech Given to the 61 Anniversary of the Death of
General Sandino, held in Managua's Olaf Palme Convention Centre.
Distributed by Centre for International Studies, Managua. Trans: F.S.
Courneyuer; on Ukraine, see esp. P. Arshinov, (1987) History of the
Makhnovist Movement 1918-21 (Freedom Press); on Korea and Japanese
solidarity, see Ha Ki-Rak, (1986), A History of Korean Anarchist
Movement. (Anarchist Publishing Committee. Korea) and Alan MacSimoin,
"The Korean Anarchist Movement", talk to the Workers' Solidarity
Movement, Dublin Branch, Ireland, in September 1991; on Italy, see C.
Levy, "Italian Anarchism 1870-1926", in D. Goodway (ed.), 1989, For
Anarchism: History, Theory and Practice. (Routledge. London and New
York).
<4>. Figures from E. Said, (1993), Culture and Imperialism.
(Vintage. London). p. 6.
<5>. See, among others, M. Bakunin, 1990, Marxism, Freedom
and the State (Freedom Press. London), pp29-30; P.A. Kropotkin,
Anarchism and Anarchist Communism: Two Essays, 1987, ed. N. Walter.
(Freedom Press. London), p. 39; G.P. Maximoff, 1985, The Programme of
Anarcho- Syndicalism. (Monty Miller Press. Australia).
<6>. See, for example, Joe Black, summer 1992, "1492-1992:
Christopher Columbus, Slaver and Thief", in Workers Solidarity:
Magazine of the Workers Solidarity Movement, no. 35. Dublin, Ireland;
Endless Struggle, spring/summer 1990, "Against imperialism:
International Solidarity and Resistance", in Endless Struggle, no.
12. Vancouver; see also A. Webster, (1990), Introduction to the
Sociology of Development . Macmillan. 2nd edition, chapter 4; on
Africa, B. Freund, 1984, The Making of Contemporary Africa: the
Decvelopment of African Society Since 1800. (Indiana. Bloomington
University Press).
<7>. The issue of food insecurity is touched on in P.
McCarthy, winter 1992/3, "Famine in Somalia- its not a natural
disaster, its murder", in Workers Solidarity: the Magazine of the
Workers Solidarity Movement, no. 37. (Dublin. Ireland ). Unequal
exchange ois discussed in R. Sandbrook, 1985, The Politics of
Africa's Economic Stagnation. (Cambrideg University Press), chapter 2
and 3. At the same time, it is important not to focus all attention
on external causes, as the first reference here tends to do- as we
discuss below, the local elites are as culpable as the imperialist
bourgeoisies.
<8>. B. Freund, 1984, The Making of Contemporary Africa: the
Decvelopment of African Society Since 1800. (Indiana. Bloomington
University Press) provides a useful, class consciuos analysis of the
partition and the resistance it encountered.
<9>. The process of decolonisation isn Africa is surveyed in
B. Freund, 1984, The Making of Contemporary Africa: the Decvelopment
of African Society Since 1800. (Indiana. Bloomington University
Press). See also Endless Struggle, spring/summer 1990, "Against
imperialism: International Solidarity and Resistance", in Endless
Struggle, no. 12. Vancouver
<10>. On the Gulf War, see D. MacCarron, spring 1992, "New
World Order: Same Old Slaughter", in Workers Solidarity: Magazine of
the Workers Solidarity Movement, no. 34 (Dublin. Ireland). On US
aggression more generally, see N. Chomsky, 1991, Terrorising the
Neighbourhood: American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era (AK
Press. Pressure Drop Press). More on western interventionism in
Africa can be found in R. Sandbrook, 1985, The Politics of Africa's
Economic Stagnation. (Cambrideg University Press).
<11>. On the role of the USA in the post-Cold War period ,
see N. Chomsky, 1991, Terrorising the Neighbourhood: American Foreign
Policy in the Post-Cold War Era (AK Press. Pressure Drop Press) and
also A. Flood, summer 1992, "The Return of the 'White Man's
Civilising Mission' : Imperialism Is Not Just Another Buzz Word", in
Workers Solidarity: the Magazine of the Workers Solidarity Movement ,
no. 35. (Dublin. Ireland).
<12>. On the emergence of the USA -dominated imperialist
period, see especially Endless Struggle, spring/summer 1990, "Against
imperialism: International Solidarity and Resistance", in Endless
Struggle, no. 12. Vancouver. Also see Teeple,G., (1995),
Globalisation and the Decline of Social Reform.New Jersey Press.
<13>. On the Newly Industrialisng Countries, see A.G. Frank,
1983, "Global Crisis and Transformation" , Development and Change,
no. 14.
<14>. On Anglo-American, see D. Innes, 1984, Anglo:
Anglo-American and the Rise of Modern South Africa. (Ravan.
Johannesburg). <15>. The rise of the MNCs is discussed in
D.Elson, 1988, "Dominance and Dependency in the World Economy", in B.
Crow, M. Thorpe et al, Survival and Change in the Third World.
(Polity Press). <16>. See D.Elson, 1988, "Dominance and
Dependency in the World Economy", in B. Crow, M. Thorpe et al,
Survival and Change in the Third World. (Polity Press), and also, R.
Jenkins, 1987, Transnational Corporations and Uneven Development
(Metheun. London).
<17>. See A. Webster, (1990), Introduction to the Sociology
of Development . Macmillan. 2nd edition, chapter 4.
<18>. R. Jenkins, 1987, Transnational Corporations and
Uneven Development (Metheun. London). pp 8-9.
<19>. R. Jenkins, 1987, Transnational Corporations and
Uneven Development (Metheun. London). p 8; also R. Sandbrook, 1985,
The Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation. (Cambridge University
Press).
<20>. D.Elson, 1988, "Dominance and Dependency in the World
Economy", in B. Crow, M. Thorpe et al, Survival and Change in the
Third World. (Polity Press), and also, R. Jenkins, 1987,
Transnational Corporations and Uneven Development (Metheun. London);
A.G. Frank, 1983, "Global Crisis and Transformation" , Development
and Change, no. 14. <21>. On the IMF and World Bank, see
Endless Struggle, spring/summer 1990, "Against imperialism:
International Solidarity and Resistance", in Endless Struggle, no.
12. (Vancouver) and Endless Struggle, spring / summer 1990,
"Development of the IMF", in Endless Struggle, no. 12 (Vancouver)
p.25; F. Cheru, (1989), The Silent Revolution in Africa. (Zed.
London); F. Haffajee, (1993, August 20-26), "An African Alternative
to the IMF's Programmes [report on lecture by Bade Onimode]", Weekly
Mail and Guardian. (Johannesburg). p.38; L. Harris, (1989), "The
Bretton Woods System and Africa", in B.Onimode (ed.)., The IMF, the
World Bank and the African Debt: the Economic Impact. Zed and IFAA.
(London and New Jersey); Makgetla, N., (1993, October 13), "Need SA
Fear 'Rule by IMF'?", in The Star. (Johannesburg.); B. Onimode
(ed.)., The IMF, The World Bank And The African Debt: The Social And
Political Impact. (Zed and IFAA. London and New Jersey); Onimode, B.,
(1989b), "IMF and World Bank Programmes in Africa", in B. Onimode
(ed.), The IMF, the World Bank and the African Debt: the Economic
Impact. (Zed and IFAA. London and New Jersey); Teeple,G., (1995),
Globalisation and the Decline of Social Reform.New Jersey Press.
<22>. See especially Endless Struggle, spring / summer 1990,
"Development of the IMF", in Endless Struggle, no. 12 (Vancouver)
p.25; B. Onimode (ed.)., The IMF, The World Bank And The African
Debt: The Social And Political Impact. (Zed and IFAA. London and New
Jersey); Onimode, B., (1989b), "IMF and World Bank Programmes in
Africa", in B. Onimode (ed.), The IMF, the World Bank and the African
Debt: the Economic Impact. (Zed and IFAA. London and New Jersey).
<23>. Endless Struggle, spring / summer 1990, "Development
of the IMF", in Endless Struggle, no. 12 (Vancouver) p.25
<24>. References as for <21>. The rise of neo-liberal
(free market) policies in Africa cannot, however, be explained solely
by reference to the interventions of the IMF and the World Bank: it
is also promoted by the general capitalist crisis, by the apparent
colpase of state-centred forms of capitalism, and by the rise of
internationally mobile capital.
<25>. On the GATT/WTO, see ECN, March 1994, "GATT and the
New World Order", in Contra Flow. European Counter Network); B. Webb,
1995, "Nothing to Lose But Our Gains", New Stateesman and Society:
Guide to Trade Unuions 1995; K. Watkins, 1992, "GATT and the Third
World: Fixing the Rules", in Race and Class. vol. 34. no. 1.
<26>. S. Decalo, (1992), "The Process, Prospects and
Constraints of Democratisation in Africa", in African Affairs. vol.
91.
<27>. On Zimbabwe, see Saunders, R., (1996, July), "ESAP's
Fables II", in Southern Africa Report. vol. 1.. no. 4.
<28>. quoted in Work in Progress, (July/August 1992).
(Johannesburg). p. 40. See also on the issue of the link between the
IMF/World Bank and environmental destruction, R. Bruce, 1994,
Mortgaging the Earth: the World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment
and the Crisis of Development (Earthscan) and W. Bello and S.
Cunninghma, "The World Bank and the IMF: the Reagenites and the
Resubordination of the Third World", Z Magazine (July/August 1994).
<29>. see the references in <21>.
<30>. see R. Sandbrook, 1985, The Politics of Africa's
Economic Stagnation. (Cambridge University Press). C. Ake, (1983),
"Explanatory Notes on the Political Economy of Africa", in Journal of
Modern African Studies. vol. 2. no. 3. provides an excellent
discussion of class in Africa.
<31>. See N. Makgetla, (1993, October 13), "Need SA Fear
'Rule by IMF'?", in The Star. (Johannesburg).
<32>. See T. Skalnes, (1993), "The State, Interest Groups
and Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe", in Journal of Development
Studies. vol. 29. no. 3.
<33>. See P. Sullivan, Autumn 1996, "The Real Spirit of the
United Nations: Rulers of the World Unite", in Workers Solidarity:
Magazine of the Workers Solidarity Movement (Dublin. Ireland); also
A. Flood, summer 1992, "The Return of the 'White Man's Civilising
Mission': Imperialism Is Not Just Another Buzz Word", in Workers
Solidarity: Magazine of the Workers Solidarity Movement , no. 35.
(Dublin. Ireland).
<34>. Figures for the UK from Robert Lekachman and Borin van
Loon, (1981), Capitalism for Beginners. Pantheon Books. New York,
esp. 44- 5, 67, 70. and Class War (1992),Unfinished Business: The
Politics Of Class War. AK Press and CWF, p. 77.For the USA see Lind,
Micheal, The Next American Nation, cited in "Stringing up the
Yuppies", (24 September 1995), Sunday Times, p14; Business Week which
estimated in 1991 36 million Americans (15% of the total population)
were living in poverty; and New York Times, Sept. 25, 1992.
<35>. by P. Fryer, Black People and the British Empire.
Pluto.
<36>. see A. Berkman, "The Only Hope of Ireland", The Blast!
vol.1, no.13, page 2; May 15, 1916; P.A. Kropotkin, Anarchism and
Anarchist Communism: Two Essays, 1987, ed. N. Walter. (Freedom Press.
London), p. 39 et seq.
<37>. A. Flood, summer 1992, "The Return of the 'White Man's
Civilising Mission' Imperialism Is Not Just Another Buzz Word", in
Workers Solidarity: Magazine of the Workers Solidarity Movement , no.
35. (Dublin. Ireland).
<38>. The general perspectives outlined in the remainder of
this paper draw on Alfredo M. Bonanno, 1981, Anarchism and the
National Liberation Struggle. Second English edition. Translated by
Jean Weir. (Alfa Grafica Sgroi. Italy. Bratach Dubh Editions no. 1
London); A. Flood, summer 1992, "The Return of the 'White Man's
Civilising Mission' Imperialism Is Not Just Another Buzz Word", in
Workers Solidarity: Magazine of the Workers Solidarity Movement , no.
35. (Dublin. Ireland); A. Berkman, "The Only Hope of Ireland", The
Blast! vol.1, no.13, page 2; May 15, 1916; Endless Struggle,
spring/summer 1990, "Against imperialism: International Solidarity
and Resistance", in Endless Struggle, no. 12. (Vancouver); G.P.
Maximoff, 1985, The Programme of Anarcho-Syndicalism. (Monty Miller
Press. Australia); Workers Solidarity Movement, 1992, Ireland and
British Imperialism, (Dublin. Ireland).
<39>. e.g. E. Said, (1993), Culture and Imperialism.
(Vintage. London).
<40>. on Zimbabwe, see Saunders, R., (1996, July), "ESAP's
Fables II", in Southern Africa Report. vol. 1.. no. 4; on Zambia, J.
Hanlon, 1982, Apartheid's Second Front, p.86; on Chile, C. Madlala,
29 december 1996, "Hot Recipe for Growth from Chile", in Sunday
Times, (Johannesburg), p16. . <41>. See R. Sandbrook, 1985, The
Politics of Africa's Economic Stagnation. (Cambrideg University
Press).
<42>. See D. MacCarron, spring 1992, "New World Order: Same
Old Slaughter", in Workers Solidarity: Magazine of the Workers
Solidarity Movement, no. 34 (Dublin. Ireland); and A. Flood, summer
1992, "The Return of the 'White Man's Civilising Mission'
:Imperialism Is Not Just Another Buzz Word", in Workers Solidarity:
Magazine of the Workers Solidarity Movement , no. 35. (Dublin.
Ireland.
<43>. Rudolph Rocker, (1978) Nationalism and Culture.
Croixside Press, StillWater, Minnesota p.270-1 makes this point as
does Alfredo M. Bonanno, 1981, Anarchism and the National Liberation
Struggle. Second English edition. . Translated by Jean Weir. (Alfa
Grafica Sgroi. Italy. Bratach Dubh Editions no. 1 London) and Endless
Struggle, spring/summer 1990, "Against imperialism: International
Solidarity and Resistance", in Endless Struggle, no. 12. (Vancouver).
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