Different leaders who define themselves as anti-imperialists, from Brazilian PSOL, Castro Chavismo, from communist parties in different countries, as well as popular “influencers”, try to justify the shameful Venezuelan Chavismo surrender to imperialism, stating that it is necessary to recognize the immense power of Trump, against which little can be done, and that Delcy Rodríguez actions (which includes denying oil to Cuba and sending it to Israel) is a brilliant tactic to buy time.
At the same time, most left-wing organizations, including several self-proclaimed Trotskyist, paint a world reality where there are only defensive struggles, and they never tire of talking about the dangers of the ultra-right, of which Trump would be the greatest example, which grows indefinitely, is very difficult to confront and which would justify from broad electoral fronts with Stalinists and reformists of all kinds, to voting for candidates of governments in power.
As it could not be otherwise, these positions of most left organizations and leaders influence many workers, students, and popular fighters.
Many times, when faced with our proposal of the need for socialist revolution to put an end to capitalism and build a new society, they respond: “That would be very good, but it is impossible, because imperialism not only has the largest armament in the world, but they have the mastery of technology, so they can do what they want.”
If that were true, there would never have been a revolutionary triumph, because the owners of power have always had control of weapons and technology at different times in history, but revolutions and wars are not only defined by military power.
That is why U.S. imperialism, the greatest military power on the planet, was defeated, in 1975, in Vietnam, which had a qualitatively lower military capacity. That difference was abysmal, China sent weapons in dribs and drabs, the shortage of weapons was so great, that there were Vietnamese sectors that confronted the powerful marines with bows and arrows and making traps with poisonous snakes in the middle of the jungle.
The Vietnamese had a million dead, only fifty thousand in the U.S. side, but they had to flee. The videos showing Yankees running to catch up the planes that would take them out of Vietnam are shocking. This was because the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese people was combined with a large mobilization in the U.S. against the war, led by relatives of soldiers who demanded the return of their children and students who refused to be drafted. Mobilization that had the support of important artistic and sports figures. The most significant of these figures was that of world boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who refused to go to war saying he would not fight against a people who never harmed him, since it was in his country where he had received all the attacks for being black and poor.
Vietnam is the ultimate example of how military might does not define wars, but it is not the only one. Already in the 21st century, U.S. imperialism was defeated again in Iraq and then in Afghanistan, and at the present time it is not doing very well.
Imperialism concerning Gaza and Iran
The proposals of the vast majority of leftist organizations contain two wrong issues in relation to the attacks on Palestine, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, immigrants.
The first has to do with the fact that they see it as if it were an attack only by Trump, that is, by the ultra-right, and not by imperialism as a whole, and with that they give the reason to the campaign that everything will change if the Democratic Party wins the elections in the United States. Something that in different countries is expressed in the need to defeat the ultra-right, giving electoral support to “progressive” candidates like Lula, Boric, Petro.
When in reality it’s a recolonization offensive by Yankee imperialism as a whole, the proof is that both Biden and Trump gave total support to Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza, that so far the largest number of deportations of immigrants occurred with the Obama administration and that, although with different forms and discourses, the recolonization attempts against Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, have been coming for some time, under both republican and democrat administrations.
The other big mistake is to think that Trump’s current attacks (including tariffs) are a show of imperialist strength. On the contrary, they are a desperate way out to confront the economic, political and social crisis in the United States.
A policy that has turned against him, since his triple crisis has been strengthened: the expenses of war deepen the economic crisis, popular economy is damaged by the consequences of war and that catalyzes massive mobilizations against the government, Trump is not well placed for the next elections, tariffs policy and the attack on Iran has generated conflicts with European imperialism.
The triumph that Trump obtained in Venezuela was not due to the strength of a “super imperialism”, but to the shameful handover and collaboration of Chavismo. The same can be said in relation to Cuba, which had the explicit collaboration of the Venezuelan government that, following orders from the imperialist master, stopped sending oil to Cuba to send it to Israel, and with the capitulation of the so-called progressive governments that, in fact, complied with the oil siege imposed by Trump.
But where there is resistance, that does not happen, quite the opposite. For two and a half years they have been giving total support, politically, in arms, in money to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and they have not achieved their objectives. On the contrary, the heroic Palestinian resistance and the immense demonstrations of solidarity around the world and in the U.S., have caused an international isolation of Israel like never before, and led Trump to change his luxury “resort” project in Gaza for his fake Peace Plan, forcing Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire to obtain the release of the hostages. Isarel after two and a half years of permanent attacks has not managed to seize the entire territory (reports show 40% is not under control) and they have not been able to achieve the disarmament of the resistance. Despite Trump’s threats, Hamas and the rest of the organizations have not accepted disarmament and everything indicates that, despite suffered casualties, they have recomposed. They carried out genocide, the suffering of the people of Gaza is terrible, but what Israel and the U.S. have achieved is the deepening of their crisis. That is why, politically, they have been defeated, which, as we say in the article “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism”, strengthens the hypothesis of Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé, that we are at the beginning of the end of the Zionist state of Israel.
Again, the resolution of a war is not based solely on military might or on the number of casualties and destruction of the adversary. If so, the outcome would already be defined before war began, in favor of Israel and imperialism and against Palestine and Iran.
Vietnam proved it, Palestine is showing it, and Iran is once again laying out the great possibility of a political and military defeat of U.S. imperialism, which will mean an important victory for workers, students, and anti-imperialist fighters around the world. If it materializes, this defeat of imperialism will strengthen the struggles against all capitalist governments, including that of Iranian workers, students and women against the dictatorship of the Ayatollahs.
Trump tried to repeat the success obtained in Venezuela by declaring, together with Israel, war on Iran on February 28. He tried to take advantage of the situation of instability of the dictatorship of the Ayatollahs, which had faced the insurrectional process that broke out in January with brutal repression. The pretext was to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons development, and its stated goal was to end the regime, either by imposing a new government or putting it at its service as it did in Venezuela. Obviously, there was an economic objective, to seize the world’s third largest oil reserves, and a political objective, to control the main country in the region and the most powerful ally of Palestine. They planned to achieve all this in a few days and called on the January insurgents to join the struggle against the Iranian regime, but the Iranian people did not fall into that trap and prioritized the struggle against the imperialist attack.
It has been three months of war and there are many bourgeois analysts who have been saying that Trump is losing.
In this sense, it is interesting to see what the enemy says. Mexican journalist Témoris |Greco analyzes an article by Robert Kagan published on May 10 in The Atlantic newspaper entitled “Checkmate in Iran. Washington cannot reverse or control the consequences of losing this war.”
Robert Kagan is co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, a central reference for neoconservatives (hawks). He was the mastermind of the Iraq war and is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, another neoconservative center.
In that article Kagan states: “(…) The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly, but they did not permanently damage the overall position of the United States in the world, as they took place far from the main arenas of global competition.
But now: “The defeat in the current confrontation with Iran will have a completely different nature. It cannot be repaired or ignored. There will be no return to the previous status quo, no definitive American triumph that undoes or overcomes the damage done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be open again, as it was in the past.”
“After 37 days of intense bombardment that destroyed much of Iran’s military infrastructure and eliminated a significant proportion of its leadership, Iran neither collapsed nor made concessions on anything. The turning point of the conflict was the Iranian response: the Israeli attack on the South Pars gas field caused the counterattack on the Ras Laffan facility in Qatar, damaging the global capacity to produce liquefied natural gas for years. Trump stopped the bombing and declared a ceasefire without extracting any Iranian concessions (…) “The Trump administration hopes to achieve by blocking Iranian ports what was not achieved by military force, but a government that did not surrender to five weeks of relentless attacks is unlikely to surrender solely to economic pressure.”
To get out of this situation, what this “hawks” ideologue advises is: “Wage a large-scale land and naval war to overthrow the current Iranian regime and, subsequently, occupy Iran until a new government can take power.”
An exit that the majority of military chiefs are against and that has already caused a strong crisis in the U.S. Armed Forces.
What Kagan does not propose is that the consequences of the war on the economy of the workers and poor sectors in the U.S., is one of the important causes that mobilized millions for “No Kings.”
As we say in the title of this article, it is possible to defeat imperialism. That implies that the triumph of the socialist revolution is not impossible, for which it is necessary to advance in the construction of a world revolutionary leadership. These topics will be developed in upcoming articles.
