Shabbir Rizvi
World War I was a bloodbath for the working and oppressed people of the world. In an imperialist war, more than 60 million soldiers were sent into war at the behest of the capitalists of their nations, in a conquest to ultimately secure new markets and resources for each country’s ruling elite.
An estimated 20 million people – between soldiers and civilian casualties – would lose their lives as a result of capitalist greed.
As a quick refresher, the contradictions that birthed the global conflict were, of course, the contradictions brought by capitalism, as Russian revolutionary and Bolshevik party leader Vladimir Lenin argued in one of his defining works – Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917) – capitalism had reached its imperialist stage, which is defined by five key features:
Published during the last half of World War I, the book analyzed the emergence of the imperialist stage, sweeping aside each state’s propagandistic reasons for supporting the war effort. Lenin’s historical materialist analysis guided the Bolsheviks and the Russian masses, who were plunged into the war, in recognizing that this was not a war for the working and toiling masses, but a war for the capitalists who exploit them.
The same year of its publication, the Bolsheviks converted the imperialist war into a revolutionary struggle at home against their own government that sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers for the victory of the domestic capitalist class. The Russian masses, exploited and oppressed for decades by the Tsar, overthrew their bourgeois government, and the October Revolution triumphed with the slogan “All power to the Soviets!”
Why bring up this history now? Today, imperialism is driven by the United States of America. Being the victor of the “Cold War,” the collapse of the USSR created the conditions for the United States to project its power over nearly the entire globe. Still, the endless conquest to control new markets, resources, and forms of exploitation remains an objective for imperialism as it did over a century ago, just with different features and conditions. It is concentrated within one country’s capitalist class that operates internationally, the United States, which has its junior partners (the UK, European Union countries) and neocolonial partners (South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, etc).
Progressive and revolutionary forces within the imperial core must clarify their orientation to imperialism and how to respond to their government’s aggression against sovereign states. This brings us to another Leninist concept: Revolutionary Defeatism.
Understanding Revolutionary Defeatism
The concept of revolutionary defeatism was coined during the First World War, when Vladimir Lenin argued that the war’s interests did not align with the working classes of all the nations involved. The Tsarist rule of Russia brought death and destruction to the working class, as did the imperialist governments of Germany, France, etc. The imperialist nature of the belligerents ensured that even with a country’s supposed victory, exploitation would continue, that the poor and oppressed masses would continue to be poor and oppressed, and that the arm of the ruling class would be strengthened, not creating the conditions for liberation and prosperity but rather expanding the scope of exploitation and strengthening the ruling class oppressors.
Conditions in Tsarist Russia were dire. Wages were at starvation levels. Resources were hard to come by. There was little to no authentic representation for the workers’ interests at the state level, and the state itself was repressing workers for speaking out or organizing against the Tsarist regime.
Therefore, it was in the working class’s best interests to oppose the war, and, as Lenin conveyed it, “transform the imperialist war into civil war” in a bid to put power into the hands of the working and oppressed masses.
Though conditions within the imperial core – the United States – are far from a revolutionary moment, in part due to the lack of a vanguard party or organized movement, and of course, the lack of ideological cohesion, one cannot discount the contradictions of American society that can be raised in pointing out the obvious reasons to oppose the multiple fronts of aggression the US is waging, most particularly against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
In the United States, poverty is widespread. Financial conditions are not improving for the working and oppressed masses, and the destiny of the working class is not in their own hands but rather at the mercy of a group of billionaire capitalists across multiple industries, particularly financial and technological. There is limited access to healthcare, and one must take on debt to receive an education that may be outdated by the time they complete a program, or, worse, made redundant by artificial intelligence, which, again, is not regulated by the working masses. Housing shortages and increased costs of living continue to drive crises across multiple major cities, all while the government, whether run by Republicans or Democrats, responds by strengthening the police state.
These are just a few major problems in a long and growing list, and of course, this is all by design. At the same time, the capitalist state insists on preserving this system, and it wages multi-billion-dollar wars on countries for the stated goal of resource extraction – resource extraction that cements the rule and power of the ruling class that oppresses society. As observed earlier this year, the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was a step towards securing the massive oil resources of Venezuelan society, now to be overseen by American capitalists. The aggression on Iran is no different, with even more dire consequences, as Iran has been the regional power that has prevented total US hegemony over the West Asian region for nearly fifty years.
The slogan of every American who wants better living conditions, who wants actual power over their political system, who wants to rein in the havoc imposed on them by the ruling class, should be “No war on Iran!” More so, in this critical moment, as the aggression is already ongoing, the Americans wanting control over their own destiny should be calling for the defeat of their own military – the US military must be expelled from the region.
The imperialist army is an extension of the will of the capitalists that exploits the American at home, that creates the conditions for the repression of everyday Americans, that oversees the political system that ensnares them. The strengthening of the capitalist class makes any chance at revolution that much more difficult. For example, the profits from newly gained resources and markets for the capitalist are invested in politicians through the powerful lobbying arm of corporations, ensuring that laws are passed that favorably govern society in the capitalist class’s interests. There is no “third way” in which the United States military neither wins nor loses. It must be a strategic defeat that leads to the removal of the US imperialist mechanisms from the region. The imperialists cannot be allowed to gain any profits or strategic leverage from their aggression; otherwise, it will promote further aggression by setting a precedent.
Revolutionary Defeatism in Practice
“Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat.”
– Lenin, “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War”
Though revolutionary defeatism, as we understand it, was coined during World War I, we must not make the mistake of treating that war as a “perfect example” to the current war of aggression by the United States on the Islamic Republic of Iran. WWI was a war of imperialists. The aggression against Iran has one imperialist belligerent, the United States, and an anti-imperialist nation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, defending itself.
To condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran for the act of defending itself is to carry water for imperialism. To carry the propaganda of the imperialist machine against Iran is to carry water for imperialism. To say “neither Washington nor Tehran” is materially taking a position on the side of Washington.
Iran is fighting for its sovereignty against imperialism. It is not an imperialist actor, or an aggressor, by any means.
Within the imperial core, the masses have the responsibility of stopping their own war machine, a war machine that enforces the cycle of exploitation domestically and abroad. Muddying the waters of solidarity is creating the conditions for imperialism to advance, and therefore is an action that only strengthens the shackles of all working class and oppressed people.
Furthermore, the Islamic Republic of Iran is an anti-imperialist state. Its orientation to imperialism is to resist its expansion. Iran does not have plans to dominate the region. It does not have a financial class that seeks resource extraction across the globe. It is not engaged in colonialism. A state does not have to be socialist or communist in order for it to weigh successful resistance to imperialism. And, of course, criticizing how Iran should defend itself, or orient itself in any regard, particularly while living within the imperial core, is not productive, and categorically absurd.
Revolutionary defeatism in our time materially means stopping the US war machine. It means calling for its defeat. Americans must be exposed to the reality of the war machine that destroys, maims, and plunders in their name. The anti-war movement must be focused on creating conditions to prevent the continuation of the war – and imperialist plots in general.
In practice, we can turn to the Student Intifada of 2024, building on hard lessons learned but re-examining tactics and strategies. The divestment movements across the nation specifically focused on Palestine must be expanded in scope to target the entirety of the imperialist war machine – from its AI tools to its logistical services. Connections between the war machine and the tools of repression utilized by “law enforcement” agencies at home must be examined, exposed, and added to the long list of entities that need to be boycotted, divested from, and ultimately economically disabled. The language of imperialism is the language of profit accumulation, and so the imperialists must be cut off from their profit making abilities.
The imperialist propaganda spell must also be broken. The dominant discourse within mainstream media against the war is that the strategy of the war against Iran is wrong, and therefore it cannot be supported. This is not a condemnation of the war against Iran. In fact, the mainstream framing of the war against Iran is framed as the war with Iran, framing it in a way that insists that Iran is an aggressor country. The definition serves to promote the war effort. To take up an orientation of revolutionary defeatism, those within the imperial core must not condemn the strategy of the war, but condemn the war and all aggression itself – whether led by a Democrat or Republican, it all serves imperialist interests.
The revolutionary defeatist position must popularize the true reasons for the war, resource plunder and destabilization, and the anti-war movement must confidently assert that the best way forward is the defeat of imperialism. It must be able to concretely convey the bleak material conditions of American life, its deterioration, and that the success of American imperialism would translate into worsening conditions at home and globally, as the capitalist class would continue to be strengthened, solidifying their grip on society. And within this effort, a serious campaign must be waged to discourage participation within all branches of the US armed forces.
The work is cut out for the movement. Americans can see that their material conditions are worsening. Even the most politically removed person can understand that something is deeply wrong with society. It is up to the politically advanced sectors of society to confront the powerful propaganda machine, promote the defeat of imperialism, and call for a retreat of imperialism. Anything less than the retreat of the US war machine is a material victory for imperialism.
Shabbir Rizvi is the Political Director of Vox Ummah. He is also a contributor to Sovereign Media and has been featured on PressTV, Al Mayadeen, and Orinoco Tribune.
