From a South African anarchist group. Engages with a great many orthodox
marxist and neo-marxist texts, as well as the council communist texts (cf.
John Gray's, "For Communism, " website and <URL: http://kurasje.tripod.com/
>
<URL: http://www.zabalaza.net/pam_natlib.htm >
Anti-Imperialism and National Liberation [In this struggle] only the workers and the peasants will go all the way to the end...
Augustino Sandino Anarchist leader of 1927-33 armed rising against the US occupation of Nicaragua
The division of the globe is not between Europe and the Three Continents, but between those above and those below. Autonomous Action Let’s Stop the Congress:Against the World Bank and IMF
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
By imperialism we refer to a situation in which the ruling class of one country dominates the people and territory of another country. In other words, there is a situation of external domination by an outside power. This relationship assumes different forms in different contexts.
As Anarchists we are opposed to imperialism because of the suffering and oppression that it brings. We do not accept the argument that imperialism is a progressive force, whether this argument proceeds from the idea that imperialism “advances the productive forces”, “intervenes to keep the peace”, “civilises” etc. Imperialism is responsible for genocide, national oppression, attacks on working class conditions, war, underdevelopment, starvation, and poverty. Imperialism is not, however, the only cause of these problems, and is itself the product of capitalism and the State (see below).
The key imperialist powers are the dominant First World states and their ruling classes: Western Europe, the United States of America, Japan etc. These are commonly called the First World, or the West, or the “core” or the metropolitan countries. In addition to these countries, the main Eastern bloc countries such as Russia and China have also acted as imperialist powers.
The other side of the coin are the countries and regions dominated by imperialism: Africa, East Europe, South Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Latin America. These countries are often called the Third World, the South or the “periphery”, the “satellite” countries or “colonial and semi-colonial regions”.
At the same time, the Third World is not a homogenous zone. Some countries are more regionally powerful and economically dominant than others. These countries often (but not always) act as the local enforcers and allies of the imperialist powers and are backed up by these powers. This range of countries is sometimes referred as the industrialised Third World, the Newly Industrialising countries (NICs), or the “semi-periphery”. Examples of semi-peripheral countries that act as the local partners of imperialism are South Africa and Israel. Semi-peripheral countries which do not act overtly as the junior partners of imperialism include Poland, Brazil and South Korea.
Although Apartheid/racial capitalism in South Africa shared many of the features of an imperialist relationship (particularly of the settler- colonial type) insofar as a settler-derived oligarchy (ruling class- dominated alliance of different White classes) historically exercised political and economic domination in the country (Apartheid/racial capitalism), Apartheid/ racial capitalism was not strictly speaking an imperialist relationship. This is because this system of domination was internally based. It was not governed from outside in the manner typical of a settler-colony such as Zambia or Kenya. Instead, the settler - dominated ruling class took local State power in 1910, took ownership over most of the economy in the subsequent decades and made the key political and economic decisions. This fact is not changed by the point that the local ruling class (and its African allies the chiefs and homeland bourgeoisie) were backed by the imperialist powers. Thus, there was not an external enemy to be expelled, but a localised situation of oppression to be confronted. This is not to say that South Africa was independent of the broader world imperialist system, as it acted as a semi-periphery / junior partner of imperialismdominating the southern part of Africa.1 <snip>
-- Michael Pugliese