The Gang Leaders of Western Counterrevolution Are Faltering

 

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 25 September 2019, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

I would like to share with the readers some observations on the world situation. To make it clear, this is not a comprehensive analysis of the world situation. ⁱ I rather want to limit myself to point out some, as it seems to me, highly interesting developments.

 

It strikes me as highly remarkable that several of the most important figures representing the spearhead of the Western imperialist counter-revolution are tottering. The gang leaders of Western Counterrevolution – Trump-Netanyahu-MBS-Sisi-Johnson – are faltering. Neither of them is out but each of the is weaker than ever before.

 

U.S. President Trump seems to have crossed a certain Rubicon by pressurizing the Ukraine government to help him by criminalizing Joe Biden, the leading contender of the Democrats for the upcoming presidential election. In addition, the U.S. Administration has suffered a series of public humiliations by military strikes of Iran in reaction to the aggressive sanctions campaign launched by Trump one and a half years ago. ⁱⁱ Furthermore, Trump is stuck in a trade war which he launched in 2018 against China and which he claimed was “easy to win” (remarkable words for history!). It is now evident that whoever will win this trade war, it won’t be the Orange Man! ⁱⁱⁱ

 

Needless to say that Trump has already provoked the hatred of large sections of the working and middle classes (as well as the bourgeoisie) by his unique combination of arch-reactionary attacks, utter stupidity and outright failures. No one likes a king who pushes boundaries in evilness as well as dumbness and who is a looser at the same time! All this has resulted now in the launching of a formal impeachment inquiry – a nearly unprecedented development in modern U.S. history! ^iv

 

Netanyahu, the longest serving Prime Minister of Israel and the driving force in an unashamed racist radicalization of the Zionist society, is now weaker than ever before. Trump’s closest ally in the Middle East has lost two elections in the last six months. Last week he was stopped from launching a war on Gaza by the Attorney General of Israel. Discredited by a lengthy list of corruption cases, he might soon switch the governmental office with the front row of the courtroom. ^v

 

General Sisi, the tyrant of Egypt since July 2013, faces now a spontaneous popular uprising. Years of bloody repression with thousands killed and tens of thousands in prison could not silence the masses. His military dictatorship is a pillar of the counterrevolutionary offensive which was waged against the Great Arab Revolution beginning in 2011. A fall of the Sisi regime would have tremendous repercussions and would immediately open a new period of the revolutionary process in the Middle East. ^vi

 

His brother in crime and financier, Mohammed bin Salman, likewise faces huge problems. Discredited around the world after the barbarous murder of the oppositional journalist Jamal Khashoggi one year ago, he is facing now a humiliating defeat in Yemen. ^vii Years of unlimited bombardment and the killing of tens of thousands of people did not succeed in smashing the heroic Yemeni resistance. ^viii Quite the opposite, the Yemeni collaborators of the Saudi-led military alliance have fallen out with each other and started a bloody civil war among themselves! As it is well-known, MBS is another close ally of Trump.

 

Related to this is the end of the crucial counterrevolutionary Gulf alliance between Saudi-Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These two gangsters have now started to turn against each other.

 

In addition, MBS just faced a major humiliation when Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure was attacked and severely hit on 14 September, resulting in the greatest disruption on record for world markets. All the billions of dollar spent for the most modern weaponry could not stop this attack by drones and cruise missiles (in fact, the Saudis and their American masters did not even see this attack coming until the oil fields were burning!).

 

We note in passing that another important figure in this counterrevolutionary alliance, General Haftar in Libya, has also suffered a series of setbacks in his military offensive against Tripoli. ^ix

 

Add to this Trump’s new twin, the blond clown in Downing Street No. 10. Boris Johnson tried everything to launch a coup against the parliament and to push through his reactionary Brexit project. Despite all efforts, he first suffered a series of defeats in parliament and now the Supreme Court just quashed his decision to shut parliament. ^x

 

Let us add to this that Macri, the conservative whip of neoliberal reforms in Latin America, faces near certain defeat in the upcoming Presidential elections in Argentina. Brazil’s version of Trump remains in power. But Bolsonaro is certainly weaker than he was a few months ago. ^xi

 

The Eastern counterparts to these gang leaders are less struck. Xi, Putin, Rouhani and Assad face certainly not as many challenges to their rule as Trump-Netanyahu-MBS-Sisi-Johnson do. None of them seems to be close to removal – in contrast to their Westerns counterparts.

 

Nevertheless, each of them also faces serious domestic challenges. The Stalinist-capitalist regime in Beijing faces a popular insurgency in Hong Kong – the most serious unrest in China since Tiananmen in 1989. ^xii The results of the communal elections in Moscow and the series of arrests around this event suggest that the Kremlin’s rule is less stable as it seemed to be. Assad has still not managed to defeat the Syrian Revolution which is continuing its heroic liberation struggle in Idlib. And he has no chance in winning the civil war without the massive help of Russia and Iran. ^xiii And the Mullah regime in Teheran has also faced a series of protests in the last year.

 

To avoid any misunderstanding: we do not predict the immediate downfall of the Trump-Netanyahu-MBS-Sisi-Johnson gang. Each of them can manoeuvre to survive for some time (and one or the other probably will succeed in this). But the very fact that the Holy Alliance of Western Counterrevolution is severely battered is in itself highly relevant for all those committed to the struggle for a socialist future! It demonstrates once more, as the RCIT has pointed out numerous times, how wrong those socialists have been who pessimistically view the world situation as thoroughly reactionary or counterrevolutionary and hereby ignored the extraordinary instable and contradictory nature of the current historic period! ^xiv

 

As I said before, these are only brief observations which cannot replace a comprehensive analysis of the world situation – a world situation which is characterized by the decline of capitalism (the next Great Recession has already started or is very close to that), the accelerated rivalry between the imperialist Great Powers U.S., China, EU, Russia and Japan (Global Trade War, etc.), the escalation of counterrevolutionary assaults (Kashmir ^xv, Palestine, South Africa ^xvi) as well as ongoing or new upsurges of important class struggles (Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Sudan ^xvii, Hong Kong, Yellow Vests in France ^xviii, mass protests in Honduras ^xix, the global Climate Strike movement ^xx, etc.).

 

Nevertheless, I think that these brief notes are sufficient to draw attention to the fact that big things are coming. Political contradictions are accumulating and quantity might transform into quality rather sooner than later! Watch out, comrades, and prepare!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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