CAPITALISM has dived into the abyss of a world crisis that threatens not simply trade wars but world wars on a scale never seen before.
The ‘old world order’ established by the imperialist powers with the agreement of the Stalinist regime in Russia after the end of World War II has been shattered, ushering in a period of trade wars and threats of military action by bankrupt United States capitalism.
The post-war ‘rules-based order’ was supposed to guarantee the rights of nations, granting them equality before the international courts and ushering in a lifetime of peaceful cooperation, economically and politically.
This was a fiction from the start that only worked as far as it suited the interests of US imperialism.
National aspirations for freedom from imperialist domination were dealt with through a succession of brutal wars and invasions designed to assert the right of the US and its allies to exploit the people of the world and the resources considered vital for the profits of the ruling capitalist class.
The entire post-war period has been one of wars – from Vietnam through to the carnage inflicted on the Middle East that cost millions of lives in order to secure its oil riches.
Today this fiction has been torn up by a US president desperate to salvage what remains of American imperial dominance through trade wars and with threats of real military wars to ensure the profits of the ruling capitalist class.
This has become clear since Trump became president on January 20 when he moved swiftly to impose tariffs on his geographical neighbours – Canada and Mexico – and the US’s main rival, China.
The EU countries are also in his sights.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau reacted with shock, bleating that Canada had been the most trustworthy partner of the US, sending its troops to fight alongside America in all the wars.
Proof, if any were needed, that in its massive economic crisis and weakness US imperialism has no friends or allies, only enemies to be crushed or forced into servitude by whatever means necessary, including a world war.
Trump has been accused of frenzied attacks, but this is not down to his personality, it is an absolute requirement of US capitalism, drowning in over $37 trillion of national debt while its hegemony over the world is rapidly collapsing, with the rise of a powerful economic rival, China, which is a deformed workers state.
In October 1917, the Russian working class under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party took power in the first successful socialist revolution.
The Bolsheviks under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky were absolutely clear that socialist revolution had to be carried out worldwide to overthrow the capitalist system.
After Lenin’s death in 1924 and on the back of the failure of the German revolution, which Lenin always insisted was vital for the future of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin became leader.
Under his leadership, and following the expulsion of Trotsky from the Soviet Union, Stalin adopted the counter-revolutionary position of building socialism in one country and ‘peaceful coexistence’ with imperialism.
This reactionary position is held to this day by the leadership in the degenerated and deformed workers states of Russia and China.
As events have dramatically shown, there can be no peaceful coexistence between the Stalinist bureaucracies in China or Russia and the Western Powers, and nor can there be any peace between the capitalist nations themselves. They are at each other’s throats in a war that is now a survival of the fittest.
With the world moving rapidly in the direction of another world war, and with the prospect of nuclear weapons being used, it is clear that in its death agony capitalism is on the brink of destroying humanity.
Only the working class and its allies in the masses of the world have the power to deposit imperialism into the dustbin of history by advancing humanity to a socialist future. This requires the completion of the world socialist revolution that Lenin and the Bolsheviks took forward in 1917.
Above all it requires the building of the revolutionary leadership to organise the strength of the working class to seize power. This means building up the WRP and Young Socialists in Britain and building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to lead the world socialist revolution to its victory.
