I feel like this question can only come from someone in the imperial core. The global south wants multipolarity because we want to be the masters of our own destiny and not subjects of the US, we want to establish relations of mutual prosperity not of tribute.
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I feel like this question can only come from someone in the imperial core.
I am trying to understand this question as a Marxist through a Marxist lens. Marxism has the same answers to questions regardless of where you are.
A multi-polar world would allow more unfettered development of the economies of the global south. Over time, this would allow more and more of the population to become proletarianized which should enable more opportunities for the Communist parties of these countries to organize.
A multi-polar world would also disrupt the flow of super-profits from imperial periphery to core which would necessitate a deterioration of the standard of living of the working class in order to maintain the rate of profitability. This would hopefully shake the American working class out of complacently and give more opportunities for mass work by Communists.
Yeah, good addendum to my point.
When two sides are equally strong they have more chance to be forced to discuss and each side to do some concessions. That's the appeal of multipolarity
Its just like how we cant go from liberal democracy or monarchy directly to a stateless classless society without going through the transition period of socialism.
As the empire of the usa degrades there are multiple contenders to try to take their place. None of them are strong enough to take on all the others alone. If the strongest nation tries to seize on the weakness of the usa to take its place directly the others will come together to defeat them. After usa falls everyone will attempt to consolidate their wins an try to form backroom alliances to become the next top power.
For the socialist nations its a trick to pit bourgeois dictatorships against each other. If you can convince them to compete against each other with their eye on the throne they will keep each other in check while the socialist block quietly shows the working class the path of their best interests.
Eventually the socialist block will become the incontestable geo-political power but it has to get there through popular revolution one nation at a time not through mass coercion.
Opens up space for revolutionary situations
The shift from Unipolar to Multipolar is a clear indication that the Western focused world order is ending. As that becomes a reality it means the contradictions in the west are the sharpest they've ever been. These conditions will only strengthen the movement. A multipolar world was the inevitable outcome after repeated recession.
The only way these countries could unite they way they have is directly a result of the failing empire strategy by the US. Having injected itself into nearly every international financial transaction via the ending of bretton woods and the beginning of globalization, the US bit the hand that fed it by weaponizing the SWIFT system to seize Russian assets at the start of the Ukraine/NATO war. Now that system is tainted and driving membership into BRICS.
All of this signals to me to be a death spiral for the imperial core. This is what creates the conditions for a rise in the demand for socialism. These events are also driving the fascist moment happening in the US and other imperial states.
This is a historically progressive moment. There was a long debate during the cold war between the Soviet and the Sino revolutions. The debate was between how to export revolution. Mao believed that the 3rd world states needed to develop capitalism before they could eventual transition to Socialism. The Soviet Union believed that with experienced technicians and loans you could skip capitalism and leap forward into socialism.
As the cold war marched on it became clear that Mao was right. The Soviet strategy yielded resistance from national bourgeois figures and compradors because their solution would result in removing them from power, so they stopped taking the loans.
I think we can see Mao's vision in action from the Belt and Road initiative. Bolstering infrastructure for developing nations, regardless of mode of production, which hardens the nations against imperialism from the west. This is the results of combined and uneven development. Now we see African states building regional self determination, places like Burkina Faso building socialism.
As the empire weakens it allows for other nations to build themselves up. These nations are seizing production lines for national interests, while China is diversifying its economy globally. They support national development and supply chain development. We're looking at decades of development ahead of us in some of the most resource rich portions of the globe.
This will naturally build conditions in the west to develop class consciousness. It also builds the productive forces in the global south that benefits those nations instead of western capital. This eventually allows for sharpening national contradictions that could lead to local development of socialist parties and demands.
As I understand it, Mao held that "3rd world states" (a term he never used), or bureaucrat-capitalist nations, must undergo a period of New Democracy.
Enterprises, such as banks, railways and airlines, whether Chinese-owned or foreign-owned, which are either monopolistic in character or too big for private management, shall be operated and administered by the state, so that private capital cannot dominate the livelihood of the people: this is the main principle of the regulation of capital. —Mao Zedong, On New Democracy
Where did Mao Zedong state that to build socialism, a country should mass-export private capital abroad?
For example, the world in 1914 and 1939 were without a doubt multipolar, and those both resulted in brutal world wars which killed millions.
Do you want to know? The main contradiction of those world wars right now, was imperialist western multi-polarity, competing to swallow the other over, (with the exception of the USSR and the then-imperial-occupied global south)
The multipolarity we have right now, doesn't contain as much of those contradictions, but, in fact, is more ripe to anti-imperialism, including opposition to comprador capital, capital which not only penetrates, but rather make ravage and dependent a periphery nation to a core empire for its own designs, like with West Africa and France.
This coincides with not only national bourgeois interest to making their own hegemony, but proletariat, peasant-esque subsistence farmers, and even temporarily-allied petit bourgeois seeking to break their own chains and make their own working class path, the latter who are most beneficial of anti-imperialist efforts. (though national bourgeoisie is definitely a force to vanquish, yet only dissolve when all of the world's capitalists falls with it as well)
That is why we support multipolarity against U.S unipolarity; it challenges, for example, the status quo of dollar domination, with its stranglehold of balance of payments, that force these working class elements in the periphery countries to work to the bone, for not only profit, but pay off their trade surpluses to the U.S empire, for its prosperity.
Even if Russia is not an imperialist power currently, the nature of capitalism (constant consolidation into fewer and fewer entities, competing over the division and redivision of resources and land) demands that in the absence of an imperialist power, a new one will form. Marxists hold that the dialectical framework understands things to be in constant movement and change over time.
What is to say that the anti-imperialist Russian Federation will not simply take the place of the United States upon its defeat?
What is to say that the anti-imperialist Russian Federation will not simply take the place of the United States upon its defeat?
Because China is going to eat both their lunch and there's nothing that can be done, short of the U.S. and Russia coordinating nuclear first strikes that somehow decapitate China's own nuclear capabilities, that would prevent it
We're already in a multi polar world, China just hasn't swung its dick around yet.
We’re already in a multi polar world,
And it's a world mired in conflict, oppression, disease, anti-communism, and fascist tyranny. I'm not sure what the appeal is.
We’re already in a multi polar world, China just hasn’t swung its dick around yet.
Idk, China's a trader, not a fighter. They'll sell you the rope to hang others, but they're not the type to use it on others. YET.
What is to say that the anti-imperialist Russian Federation will not simply take the place of the United States upon its defeat?
Historical and material reality.
The US didn't appear as a magician on the scene out of nowhere. It invaded western Europe not to defeat Nazis but to ensure the survival of western European capital, under new management of course. With US troops and guns at their backs they were spared their people being liberated by socialism, in exchange fealty was given to the US.
Quite honestly the US is a product of and beneficiary of CENTURIES of European colonialism. Russia cannot reproduce that in a day or a decade.
The wealth, power, geopolitical control, cultural dominance and propaganda hegemony the US enjoys was built off those European empires, their looted wealth, and their influence. Was built off cooperation with the British who in the post-colonial moment of WW2 still had deep penetration of many societies, governments, etc.
Even assuming the US suffers a huge fall in a few years the lingering tendrils of its cultural influence and dominance will be fighting it out with Russian and Chinese influence for many years if not decades to come.
In other words Rome was not built in a day, the US did not morph magically into an omni-power empire in a year or a decade out of nowhere. And Russia cannot do the same.
Western Europe did not resist US imposition as it came as a rescue, they will likely resist joining with or being dominated by Russia to form a new bloc to subjugate the world.
One strong, all-powerful enemy or a bunch of enemies in disarray with shifting alliances, backstabbing, and various weaknesses and uncertainty. In the latter situation one can even bargain with imperial powers scrambling for influence a socialist in some cases because of their weakened state being but one of many smaller fish.
Nobody is suggesting that Russia will become an imperialist power in the course of a day or even a few years. Rather, what is being suggested is that Russia will become one after a difficult series of armed conflicts, annexations, etc. etc. Looking at Nazi Germany, it went from being a defeated imperialist power with practically no sphere of influence to one which conquered nearly all of Europe and waged war in multiple continents in the course of a few years.
Let us no forget that the Russian state was born out of reaction to a similar extent the EU countries were, coming out of the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and rise of the new Soviet bourgeoisie, its undemocratic and illegal dissolution, the rapid introduction of neoliberal "shocktherapy" under Yeltsin, the events of 1993, etc. This state is obviously and backwards force with horrible origins and so it becoming imperialist is not far away to say the least.
For me, Russia is more likely heading back to Socialism rather than turning imperialist if you check the material conditions within the country and external. Some internal conditions mentioned in this post are the following:
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the share of supporters of socialism has grown from 26 to 43%, while support for the capitalist model has fallen to 15%
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Despite the fact that they only know the pioneers from the stories of the older generation, two-thirds of young people are in favor of their return.
For Russia to turn imperialist lots of conditions(happy paths if we use the programming meaning) have to happen before we even consider this a possibility. For me, it is harder to see these possibilities come true knowing that the better route of socialist development is a more favorable view for the common Russian citizen.
Also, let's be real here... If we have the time to only think in the worst possible scenarios, we should also give ourselves time to think in the other more realistic scenarios which is socialism returning to Russia.
Exactly. Our goal should be world socialist revolution, not capitalist multipolarity.
The primary goal of the Leninist movements has always been “workers of the world unite!”
You can’t get there from here; you have to start somewhere else.
I’ve sort-of, tangentially explained it by explaining ML critical support for Russia in the Ukraine war.
While multipolarity isn't inherently socialist or anti-capitalist, the current/coming form of multipolarity seems to be anti-capitalist, and a pre-cursor to countries becoming socialist.
The primary problem in the world right now, is the Amerikkkan settler-colonialist, white supremacist, fascist global imperialist dictatorship. Every single capitalist country on Earth, knowingly or unknowingly (most of the time, knowingly) is a lapdog of the U.S. or followsd in it's cultural, political, social, and economic footsteps and imperial order.
While capitalism will likely continue to exist even after the U.S. empire falls, the fall of the U.S. will likely be a major death knell or the first major domino of a very long chain of events.
With the largest/most powerful stronghold of capitalism/imperialism being dethroned, as countries across the world are rising up against their neocolonial overlords, and supporting each other, they are and will be increasingly turning towards/socialism, bit by bit.
Rather than being dominated by a single unipolar global dictatorship, multipolarity will mean that the countries/continents of the world will finally have a much larger say in their own affairs, and the institution/enhancement of democracy (actual democracy, not capitalist lies sold as democracy) will mean that socialism will be even more on the rise again.
Nobody (or almost nobody) is inherently/blindly supportive of multipolarity, or multipolarity as an end goal. It's just a major step.
There will no doubt be all kinds of horrific suffering and oppression and death, as human civilization enters a new era. But that will likely, eventually, stabilize.
Because socialist movements how a far greater chance of succeeding in a world where major powers are divided rather then the US/NATO having absolute dominance and control. If the US has no major rivals they are free to use their resources on playing world police and smother socialist country or movement before it has the chance to get off the ground. Obviously, worldwide socialism is the ultimate goal, but multipolarity is the most feasible next step towards that.
But isn't having major powers divided going to cause yet another world war which will kill millions or perhaps billions? Wouldn't the end result be Russian unipolarity and thus the same issues you mentioned?
This premise is so disingenuous, the world has been at war for most of the period of US hegemony and it will never end as long as this unfair world system continues to exist, the world is not just Europe you know.