“Not a single party was prepared for the big shake. Everyone was thinking, dreaming, sensing, trying to guess… Revolution? It was beyond even the possibilites of reality. Everyone knew that revolution was not an option, it was nothing more than a dream. Power, a distant dream… the dream of many generations… Yet, even though I didn’t believe it, I automatically repeated the words of the young secretary: yes, this is the beginning of the revolution.”
The above lines were written by Nikolai Nikolaevich Himmer (Sukhanov), a journalist who sided with the Russian socialist movement, summarizing the unexpected moment of revolutionary triumph over the Tsar.
Today, the world is going through a similar turning moment.
The popular movements from Tunisia to India, from France to the US as the center of the world imperialist system, are at an impasse, with the political system squared off against the rise of class demands.
The imperialist centers are burning
Humanity is vomiting up the capitalist poison that has been digesting since the Industrial Revolution, which long ago has lost its progressive character and taken on a colonial and reactionary character.
Whether in India, where the US-Israel friendly Narendra Modi’s rule has led to the most massive strikes and peasant actions in history, or in Tunisia at the other edge of the world; the people are taking to the streets with demands against poverty and corruption on the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring.
The situation is similar in European capitals; in all corners of France, especially in Paris, the protests against the Rothschild banker supported Macron government continue to toughen. In England, the other side of the English Channel, the Boris Johnson government, which has been left desperate after balking in the face of the epidemic and almost left its citizens to die, is on the verge of collapse.
The situation is no different in Israel, the outpost of imperialism in West Asia. The rulers, who have not been able to provide political stability in spite of the elections held one after the other in recent years, are incapable of producing a response to the rising demands of peace as well as the economic needs of the people.
The leader of the Atlantic system, the US, is also on fire as a result of social unrest. The first spark arose in early 2011 with actions to occupy Wall Street, the heart of finance-capital.
While the anti-capitalist struggle was going on, anti-racist movements aliied themselves with it in the process, and fire was reported from all corners of the empire as a result of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
The Congress Raid in the last days of Trump’s rule announced to the world the dissolution of the two-party order that ensures the continuity of the system and social peace in America.
A spike in consciousness
Apart from the movements mentioned above, imperialism has tried to direct the popular movements in countries it targeted, and intended to use them for its own interests.
Taking advantage from the movements in Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the subcontractor of imperialism, and the actions of FETÖ/PKK-like actors, who tried to infiltrate into the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, are examples of this.
However, the conscious masses in Tunisia and Egypt rid themselves in a short time of the Brotherhood governments, which had arrived to power with the help of imperialism. And the Gezi movement has managed to maintain its Republican character and neutralize infiltration attempts of the PKK / FETO.
It can be stated that during the political upheavals, there is a leap in social awareness and great awakenings among the masses.
In Cairo, which I visited in 2011 and 2013 after two big turning points, I experienced a spike of consciousness like I only had read about in books.
The politicians and thinkers I met in addition to the ordinary citizens sipping their tea in coffee shops and taxi drivers in Cairo, all discussed the Greater Middle East Project in detail. At that time, in Turkey only Kemalistst and left circles were agitating against this project and the US behind it.
In the same period, anti-US banners and discourses used in the Egyptian rallies held by different political movements were stuck in my mind as concrete examples of this “spike in consciousness”.
The anti-imperialist wave’s lack of political leadership prevented a social revolution similar to the Nasser era in Egypt, which is the subject of another article.
When the cover of the epidemic slips off
The economic, political and social rupture on a global scale will show itself more strongly in the coming days when the epidemic is over.
When those days come, actions similar to the raid on Congress in the US will become commonplace in countries where governments refuse to cut the umbilical cord with the global system and continue neoliberal policies.
The new director of the CIA, William J. Burns, all but admits defeat with the following statements; “We are experiencing a new reality. The USA can no longer impose its own discourse as it used to be (…) Reasserting American hegemony is not among the options.”
As the new rulers of the US admit, the US is no longer the center of the world, and the rest of the world is not obliged to shape itself according to US preferences.
International relations do not longer follow the pattern of ‘the United States and the others’, but move towards a structure of independent and equal actors.
We are taking our first steps into a new world where Western imperialism is erased by multipolarity and rising class struggle at the same time.
A world of evolving contradictions, a world without a center, where geopolitical power will be spread more evenly.
And a world where those who oppose labor cannot exist: this period will also see the rise of the popular masses.
“The dream of many generations”, this time, is on a global scale and closer to realization than ever.