US President Biden took office after some highly unusual processes. Trump’s departure was “colorful.” Parliament was raided. Biden took office after this raid. In fact, there is a fact that West’s “intellectual” names influential in ” public opinion manufacturers ” has been trying to keep from coming to the fore for a while: starting with Reagan, US presidents are not of the old caliber. Neither in their cultural background, nor their capacity and understanding. It’s almost looks like this: O world, look, if we’re making our most “idiot” the president, go think about the rest! It’s as if they are saying this (those who take peoples so lightly actually know no bounds in their farce). People of low caliber are constantly walking around in high places. This situation is not unique to the US. It is common as seen in Johnson’s, Macron’s case. For our part, we have Erdoğan. Poor Yıldırım Akbulut[1] had a much more “high profile.” Now, the famous “public opinion manufacturers ” writers and “thinkers” of the West can no longer conceal this fact. In the coming period, in the days to come, this need for “cover” will also disappear. Although warfare includes all kinds of tricks, it takes more overt forms and, after a point, the things that are “hidden” become less and less.
It is as such, truths are stubborn things, they come out eventually.
Compared to Trump, Biden was described as “more gentleman”, “more decent”, of course, more “democratic”, more “anti-war”. Well, these lies were short lived. While they were presenting Biden, many knew what Biden really was. But honestly, it was hard to predict that this image would last so short. On this occasion, a note is needed: now, the lifetime of the lies of the rulers (one can call this their shelf life) is decreasing.
The fault is in the new advertising channels. In the past, a thousand people could be reached with a newspaper advertisement. However, for modern capitalism, namely monopoly capitalism, capitalism based on mass production, these thousand people meant nothing. The remedy came immediately. When we came to the 1880s, with the dominance of monopolies, newspapers with a circulation of 1 million began to form. It wasn’t enough. The invention of modern photography (maybe the first appearance in 1839 and in France) and the process of its gradual printing on paper further improved the developments. Monopoly capital developed advertising a great deal to manipulate mass consumption, to sell products of large-scale mass production, to maintain market dominance, to gain additional monopoly profits, to guide people. Or did you think that newspapers with a circulation of millions were printed so that the people and the masses could reach the news? You were wrong, sorry, but you should know this. Neither mobile phones nor the increase in newspaper circulation a hundred and fifty years ago have anything to do with your freedom of access to news. Maybe it was a byproduct. After all, why would you buy a “newspaper” full of advertisements without even news in it? Modern advertising was further advanced by TV, color photography, and things like Freud’s experiments. And the consumer society tended to create a “human that exists as he consumes.” That’s how the phrase “you are what you have” came about; it’s not such an old saying, it’s just yesterday’s child. What you have started to determine your “quality.” You, as a human being (man or woman), are no longer faced with the questions of what kind of person you are, you are saved from this (perhaps some would call this liberation). You are being measured with a new measure, “quality,” “quality man,” “quality woman” (they don’t say quality human being and they should not) is actually someone who is evaluated by what they have. While the fashion designer-tailor used to think while designing a beautiful dress “I can only sell this beautiful dress if I exhibit it on a beautiful woman’s body,” over time, “the thing that makes a woman look beautiful is her dress.” This is another expression of your beauty and your worthless[2]. Quality is, in fact, a wholesale appeal and an apt term for the “image” or “dream” the advertisement wants to sell. A quality man or woman includes many things, including a secret taste, a hidden and therefore more attractive sexuality. A quality man or woman must be found surprising. Because when I am called as such, I feel like a commodity. It is an insult (After all, commodity relations is a humiliation of human beings. Why would I allow the adjective “quality” to be added to the beginning when I am called a woman or a man? I would rather be called a “crazy” without the words man or woman, rather than being a quality man or woman). But the modern consumer society, thanks to its widespread and effective advertisements, has been able to turn humiliation into praise. A dress that can be sold to you by saying “It is the dress that makes you look beautiful” can be sold on the condition that you perceive your humiliation as praise and admiration. As the consumer society developed, different ways of advertising were discovered. All the way from home to work, whether you read them or not, hundreds of advertisements will reach you. It can be in small screens, subway, home, school, factory, etc. Finally on cell phones. Facebook, Instagram etc. channels actually present you to the market. What they are selling is you yourself. You are the buyer of advertising and you are also the consumer. So, you are objects to them, not human beings. And now when they say “consumer rights,” you as a consumer like it. Yes, you are the consumer. But that also means, Mr. quality consumer, not being a human, do you realize this?
In the end, there arises a problem with these tools and advertising networks that have been adapted to this monopolistic desire for domination: They quickly run out, quickly become dysfunctional. Take newspaper advertisements, for example. There are no advertisements, there is almost no newspaper.
There you see, when we said that Biden was not at fault, we had to put this process in the picture as well.
The image drawn for Biden faced the most common disease of such a large advertising industry: wearing out quickly, losing its effect quickly.
Biden has not only fallen victim to this advertising industry, there is also the flow of events. US hegemony has declined so rapidly that it is difficult to stop. Biden was polished with the image of the “man of institutions” to halt the disintegration of hegemony but he no longer had such a long time as the “polished stone age”[3] .
His exit from Afghanistan accelerated the process.
At the end of September 2021, the three names appeared before the US Senate Armed Services Committee and gave “testimony” regarding the Afghanistan process. These three names are: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and CENTCOM (Central Forces) Commander General Kenneth McKenzie.
Austin said two main things: First, he expressed that they ” were very surprised that the Afghan army was dissolved without firing a single bullet,” secondly that they “helped establish a state, but could not turn it into a nation.” These are confessions. The experiments of the imperialist masters regarding the processes of “nation creation” must be taken into account for every geography of the world. Did they “succeed” for us? But that’s not our point.
The committee asks Austin a question: The question is something like, did you request a base from Russia? The answer is: “General Milley recently had a meeting with his Russian counterpart. I can assure you that we do not ask permission from Russia to do anything. The general can speak for himself, but I believe the general asked his counterpart for clarification as to what that proposal was.” (Gazeteduvar, September 29, 2021). When General Milley was asked the same question, he did not answer. But after Milley said that during the occupation of Afghanistan, 4 residents, 8 chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, dozens of defense ministers changed and 20 generals were on duty, he said, “Such a result has not appeared in the last 5 days or 20 days or 1 year. The result of this war was strategic failure. There is an enemy in the administration. Therefore, there is no way to state that this result is the output of 20 days, not 20 years.” Even though Biden said they arrived at the withdrawal decision with the unanimous decision of the generals, Mille said that this meeting took place after the withdrawal, after the Taliban said it occurred after the entry into Kabul. So he denied Biden’s account. “The developments have damaged our reputation,” he said. The White House, on the other hand, denied some of Milley’s statements.
Now, we can line up the events once again.
US hegemony is dissolving, and this started neither with Trump or Biden. It is a pre-existing process which the Syrian has accelerated.
The US invasion of Afghanistan was, in fact, an expression of its insistence on world empire plans to re-establish this hegemony once and for all. Their withdrawal is described by Milley as a “strategic failure.”
After the Syrian war, the loss of power of the US increased even more and the dissolution of its hegemony almost got on an inclined plane.
The US tried to encircle Russia and its surroundings in order to recover its hegemony. This is the Ukrainian operation. However, the desired result could not be achieved. Of course, they are still trying.
At the same time, EU countries and NATO allies were shown the threat of ISIS in order to get their support and asked to act together. With all his cowboy attitudes, Trump humiliated his NATO allies and tried to intimidate them. Mutual trade sanctions were introduced. But Macron, who said that NATO was brain dead, must have stated that this process was clogged.
And at the same time, the creation of a common target was attempted.
Thereupon, Russia and China were declared enemies. Biden as a “man of institutions,” through hostility towards Russia and China, moved to raise the “brain-dead NATO.” With the brain transplant that took place, NATO took an open stance against Russia and China and signed the NATO 2030 document.
Thus, the US promised to make some concessions to its NATO allies, Germany, England and France. For example, it had to approve the Nord Stream 2 line at the request of Germany. But, for example, it has not been that sensitive to the wishes of Italy.
From the point of view of the US, this agreement was understood in every respect as temporary. Just like the agreements made before the First World War. Successive agreements are made, and successive agreements invalidate the previous ones. These are the situations when no one is sure that they will win the war yet.
Simultaneously, the US wanted to enter into different agreements with its distant “ally” Japan. It would not do to leave there blank.
Thus, China and Russia were put on the table.
When China and Russia are put forward and a Western alliance against them is emphasized, the impression that the main war is actually against Russia and China would be maintained. However, the real war is between the US, Germany, Japan, England and France.
The appearance is brought forward once again to hide the truth. Of course, this request of the US was found very suitable by others. Because the military superiority of the US was obvious to them. They are in favor of postponing the war to a longer term. It is the desire of the US to stop the dissolution of its hegemony that makes the war up to date.
Before the First World War, Germany was one of the two countries that put the most pressure on the British hegemony, the other being the US. The powers that shook the British hegemony economically were Germany, the US and Japan, but France was not very effective. But one of the most colonized was, of course, France. Of course, France was very different from Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain who had colonies. Portugal and Spain lost many colonies, while the Netherlands emerged with less loss of power. Germany and Japan did not win the war. The winner was England, but it was the US that took over the Spanish colonies. This was a great opportunity for US hegemony, and after the Second World War, this hegemony was fully revealed and institutionalized.
Germany had acted very aggressively and enthusiastically in both world wars. Maybe this was because of its proximity to England and France. Today, however, Germany chooses to act extremely calmly. At least that’s what it’s trying. Sometime after the US fined Volkswagen, it fined Google. Even when they deciphered Merkel was being spied on, they acted as if they had not found this out themselves. They do not want to present their relations with the US as “conflict.” In short, Germany and Japan, although they are the two imperialist powers that are undermining the hegemony of the USA, are doing this humbly. One reason for this is the military superiority of the US. Another reason is that time is working in their favor for now. The pandemic process must have shown that this advantage of time will not always follow the same course.
All other imperialist powers had responded with “welcome America” to the “we are back” cry of the US. March 2021 witnessed these images. When Biden declared his allegiance to NATO, Macron, who said that “NATO is brain-dead” and spoke of “loyalty to the alliance.”
However, the process of withdrawal from Afghanistan has shed some of the polish of this polished era. UK and Germany said they were not aware of the withdrawal. Both of them first withdrew their own soldiers and said that they had no information. For them, “great power meant great responsibility” and the US had to do it.
Then, France took the first blow.
The US, which has offered new proposals to the UK and Australia, must have expressed its desire to establish a more special relationship with these two countries. But there was a condition: Australia had to cancel the submarine purchase agreement it made with France 5 years ago. It was so. “We were stabbed in the back,” France said.
So, for every imperialist power, we are now in the period of “protecting your back.”
The US’ we are back announcement in March 2021 required some steps to be taken.
– Embargo and sanctions against Russia were one of them. The EU did not hesitate in this.
– Sanctions against China: The EU did not hesitate in this either.
– Getting closer to Russia in the Black Sea.
– Expanding NATO towards Russia.
– Placing nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe.
It is probable that the EU received something in return for each of these. Some of these started to come to life. But the fact that the termination of France’s agreement with Australia was a condition for the US-England-Australia agreement is proof that the agreements made a few months ago will not be permanent agreements after all.
Already, the EU already took action to establish a new European Army.
The United States has taken several steps after the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The first of these seems to indicate a closer relationship with England. It is a matter of debate how permanent a path they will take in this regard. Because, Britain will not want the US to prevent its hegemony from being dissolved, but to hand over the hegemony to itself as it was in the past. So, it is one of the candidates. In fact, if the hegemony of the US will result in an imperialist war, it will be the UK that will be the candidate to take this hegemony after Germany and Japan. If the capitalist system is not destroyed in the meantime. I must state this because we are in favor of just that. We are not only on this side, we also see the possibilities for this.
If so, we can say that the US has taken this step, provided that the permanence of the issue of proximity with the UK is always a question mark. We see this in Turkish relations as well. If Akar is its post-Erdogan candidate, this would be a move that the US-UK duo put on the table against the EU. It is clear that Gül will also be involved in this move. If the re-ignited move of the Turkish state towards the former Soviet republics will give births in the name Turan, its father will be England. In other words, the US-England rapprochement is also being activated in Turkey, against Germany-France.
The second step of the US is to provoke war against China in the Pacific, to develop “deeper” relations with Japan in this field, and to make moves against China through Taiwan. This step aims both to keep Japan on its periphery and to block the economic moves of China that actually covers the entire region. In order to hit China, they increased freight prices, making shipping trade expensive, and in this way these international monopolies are trying to curb China’s growth. It won’t be long before China gets over that. The “silk road” project is a proof that this is foreseen, and it will not be too difficult for China to activate its cargo ships.
But the US wants at first Japan, India and South Korea and then, Indonesia etc. to enter into conflict with China. First of all, they want to break up the existing economic relations of these countries with China. Australia is also within this framework. The US-British support to Australia is based on hostility towards China.
These moves of the US were attempted to be fueled by the incidents of sending submarines to Taiwan. According to reports, a US submarine was hit, but it is not clear what it was hit by. Thus, the US paused these moves. As with anything, we should say a “temporary” hiatus.
Moreover, against Japan taking action on the US side, Russia frequently mobilizes its submarines and planes. Every time Japan steps in, Russia also makes a move. It’s as if Russia is saying “don’t get involved” to Japan in the US-China conflict.
The third step of the US is to start comprehensive talks with Russia, whose ambassadors it expelled. These negotiations, the first of which took place at the end of August and the second on September 30, are still ongoing. In these negotiations, the US is in a different search. In our opinion, the US told Russia, “Leave China alone, we will not disturb you, we’ll withdraw from Syria, Black Sea, solve the problems in the Caucasus, withdraw from Ukraine, etc.” Of course this is a guess. The only place where signs of this can be seen is the Syrian field. The US does not shine the green light to the Turkish state for operations and tends to give less support to the ISIS gangs in Syria. Good, but maybe it can be said that this situation is specific to this field, where it is already in a difficult situation. It is possible.
On the other hand, US and UK ships are constantly circulating in the Black Sea, and NATO exercises are constantly being held.
Not with standing, the US is constantly making moves for Ukraine. In order to defend the Ukrainian army, which is constantly engaging in attacks Donetsk, the US tells its allies in the EU that Russia is massing on the Ukrainian border. It is clear that they are looking for every opportunity to scratch the Ukraine issue, where they managed to bring the former neonazis to power, and in this way to threaten Russia.
That’s not enough either. It is placing new weapons and missiles in Eastern European countries. This is also a step in the policy of encircling Russia. Furthermore, new weapons are constantly being placed in Greece.
And meanwhile, special operations are being launched against Belarus. Although there is EU support behind this, it is mainly a US operation. Thus, it also wants to show that the Nord Stream 2 line will not be a safe line. While saying “I approve of this line” to Germany, it is actually preparing a move that will practically eliminate this line and render it inoperable.
All these moves could also be part of the bargain to leave China alone. It may be, because making such aggressive preparations and having extensive talks with Russia would have no other meaning. Russia is presented as both a threat and a compromise, that is, both a carrot and a stick. Good, but is it possible for Russia not to monitor or see this process? Is it very difficult for it to understand that if it leaves China alone, it will be its turn?
The USA made moves in these three areas, namely, forming a closer alliance with Britain, organizing a front against China in the Pacific, and preventing Russia from supporting China.
It has been 9 months since March 2021, that is, since the US said “we are back.” And at the end of these nine months, the US both showed that the Western alliance is not very strong, and it was understood that Russia and China, who had become the main target of the war, would not take a step back.
Russia and China can enter this capitalist world system only if they accept to be colonies. The masters do not want new partners, they want new colonies and areas of plunder. The issue is clear as such.
In the meantime, it is clear that they made many preparations to hit both Russia, and especially China, from the inside. The statement that “we withdrew from Afghanistan to escalate the war” is known. The issues that the CIA deals with as the Uyghur issues are clear. Most recently, in September, it was announced that the CIA had set up a special unit to monitor China. It is for this reason that these “image”-laden moves are made, as if China would tremble when they announced that they had established such a unit.
On the other hand, the issue needs to be addressed in terms of the working class, the world working class, the working people of the world.
We know that there is no internationalist organization of the working class in the world today. The development of the world working class in each country is largely weak, although it has many differences from one another. It has been 30 years since the dissolution of the USSR. The disorganization of the labor movement has not come to an end in 30 years. We know this.
But we also know that the ongoing class struggle has resurfaced in many areas. If the idiom fits, the period of bottoming out has begun. In many parts of the world, workers’ actions and social opposition actions have emerged in different forms and continue to exist in a certain ways.
Another issue is the exhaustion of the capitalist-imperialist system. The 2008 crisis revealed this a little more. The capitalist system, which is based on the plunder of the world and people, that rises on an insatiable profitability, that spread the relations of domination to all areas of life, polluting and corrupting every area of life, is no longer sustainable. Even many bourgeois democrats are of the opinion that capitalism is obsolete. Those who say “working class is over” because of developing robots etc,, although they never admit that capitalists who were never actually needed production etc is over, nevertheless admit that the capitalist system cannot continue like this.
As long as capitalism survives, it will destroy the planet we live on. Therefore, the war against capitalism is also now the war of humanity.
When we say war of humanity, we mean that the scope of the war also makes it easier for the middle classes to find reasons for participating in the war. Otherwise, we are not saying that this war need not be a war led by the working class. The vanguard of this war is the working class, the revolutionary working class.
For a while, things that those who view the protests against the system with liberal eyes suggest, what they see in those protests, or what they say they see, are no longer defensible. They were looking at the actions and preaching to us, “Look, these activists don’t want a leader, they don’t want an organization which means hierarchy.” Their sermons will also be short-lived.
It’s as if we don’t have eyes, as if we don’t know why they talk as such (we are not sure if they see it this way). As if these spontaneous actions were happening for the first time in history and spontaneous actions always did not start without a leader.
To say that they are not looking for leaders, not looking for hierarchy-organization is, in fact, the trouble of explaining exactly what the necessary measures are for these actions to fail. These statements are cooked by “public opinion manufacturers” so that they can reach us. There will anyways always be those who join this choir and say, “I see it like this too.’ Here they want to hunt them, they target the “literate team” that is closer to us, the working class. This is one of the ways of creating public opinion. However, all these actions are spontaneous actions and spontaneous mass actions begin without organization and leader.
Yes, we understand you, you want to show that a revolution cannot happen. Do you want to show this to us or to yourself? Gezi[4], you say, “what happened, was it successful?” You want exactly to tell us that we can’t be successful. We see you as a sick “patient.” Believe me, you will get better, a little patience, a little persistence, it is not death waiting behind the threshold, but life.
A spontaneous action is, as per its name, without an organization.
Those who participate in this action are willing to oppose unbearable living conditions and unbearable injustices. It is not a deliberate, planned action, if we are to say it with one of the rare legal terms which I like, not “willful.”
They are unorganized actions and when people in unorganized actions take action on their own, this cannot be proof that they are advocating disorganization. You may be afraid of hierarchy. However, doing work means hierarchy. Hierarchy does not mean arranging people one on top of the other. Hierarchy that doesn’t line things up is seen in the capitalist state wheel, they like to line people up more. This is what it means to be sovereign. Don’t lecture us on hierarchy by looking at hierarchy there. A writer lines up what to write and when, a literary work does not occur by writing whatever comes to mind. There is a mechanism for doing a job. One of bullets coming out of the gun’s barrel comes out first, the others after.
The desire to stay away from the organization is different, but if you look at things from this perspective, you would say that there was no hierarchy in Gezi . However, Gezi is a place where many things are done, and breaking the barricade by clashing with the police is precisely a hierarchical cooperation. Which stone will be thrown first, right? From spontaneity to a system.
The fact that the actions taking place around the world are more spontaneous is, of course, a clear expression of the crisis experienced by the system.
But another important aspect of these actions is that although they are spontaneous actions, they also carry “advanced forms of action” in their heart. Workers who do not have a plan to occupy a factory can suddenly occupy the factory out of desperation. Many new methods of struggle similar to this can come into play. These new forms of action are, in fact, an indication of the accumulated revolutionary potential within the working class.
In many demonstrations, the resistors, who are confronted with the naked state power, also experience serious leaps of consciousness. Again, for example, women are able ask the police force, who intervenes against those who want to defend nature, “whose police are you?”
These examples are not unique to our country. They are spread all over the world. Even looking at the recent protests from the Middle East is quite informative. The actions that took place in Lebanon and Iraq are also an expression of objectivity. Red flags that multiply suddenly, sprout from under the concrete like snowdrops.
All these provide an insight into the potential of revolutionary organization. In other words, we are entering a period in which revolutionary organizations will develop and mass workers’ movements will rise all over the world.
To this we must add that different components of the working class are beginning to express themselves in the areas of action. The actions of the workers in the “service” sector in the big imperialist metropolises are actually the sign that their psychological resistance to “being a worker” is being overcome gradually. We know that workers in factories have a more disciplined structure. But the structure of Walmart or Google workers is a little different. The reactions of these workers in the face of increasing exploitation and deteriorating work and living conditions both enable them to know themselves and result in the working class getting to know their brothers on the street.
It is possible to say that there is a period ahead of us when the class struggle will toughen all over the world.
It can be said that spontaneous actions will gradually increase both in number and in quality in areas where contradictions become sharper.
And it is clear that there are areas where revolution ferments more rapidly around the world. It should also be realized that the struggle of the working class will be open to different influences from the struggle for division between imperialists.
The important thing for the world proletariat today is to make the struggle that develops in each part more organized. For this, the working class must part ways with its false friends. These false friends, who end up improving capitalism and give advice to stay away from the organization, are doing the greatest harm to the struggle. Whether knowingly, by virtue of their duties, or unknowingly. The lessons of revolutionary struggle and mass actions cannot be learned by listening to the tales of these “friends.”
The world proletariat must attain a core, even if it’s small, revolutionary structure in every part, in every country. And the 150-year history of revolutionary socialism teaches us that we must not compromise the internationalist character of this revival.
There is no other way for the working class in one or more parts of the world to save the planet, to save humanity, to prevent war, to establish a world without war and exploitation, to spread freedom to every corner of the world, to end private property, except to break the capitalist-imperialist chain.
Let’s say that this revolution seems too far away for you now, we can accept this, but there is no other way.
Let’s say that this revolution seems too difficult for you, if so, join our ranks so that it will be easier.
Let’s say this seems like a distant dream to you, so dream it and join a side so the dream can become a reality.
[1] T/N: Yıldırım Akbulut was the former prime minister.
[2] T/N: Writer suppossebly refer the lyrics of famous singer/poet Aşık Veysel’s which is: “…Your beauty is worth nothing / If it wasn’t for my love / Can’t find a place to have fun / If there is no mansion in my heart…”
[3] T/N: Neolithic age, which in Turkish appears as above in literal translation. This is included above to keep the word play with “polished.”
[4] T/N: Gezi Resistance which was spread out at 2013 first. Millions of people were part of it.
