Edward Duncan
13th April 2020
When US imperialism succeeded in overthrowing Socialism in the USSR, its pundits crowed that it was “the end of history”. There could be no further changes in the nature of society: capitalism was clearly the ultimate end of social development.
Alas for such rose-coloured fantasies: they lasted only long enough for history to blink. Then the struggle of the working people and the poor took over once again. The exploited will always fight for their rights regardless of what the pundits of capitalism declare.
A clearly baffled Gorbachev was roundly repudiated in Russian elections, the Russian people preferring former KGB officer, Putin, who at least seemed to know what he was doing. (Gorby’s co-conspirator Schevardnadze, who had dumped Gorby to become President of Georgia, was in turn dumped by the Georgians. Gorby is seldom heard of any more, Schevardnadze never. Capitalism will doubtless write touching but meaningless obituaries for both of them in due course.)
Meanwhile, the US capitalists’ dream of the 21st century being “the American Century” has steadily lost ground. We are not yet halfway through it and yet it is obvious that if it is anyone’s century it is China’s.
As Raûl Antonio Capote wrote in Granma as far back as last December, “It is no secret that the People’s Republic of China, with its booming economy, is on its way to becoming the world’s number one power by 2030, and Russia is not far behind.”
That is a prospect that must surely terrify the habitues of Donald Trump’s Oval Office. Almost equally alarming to rational folk, however, is the risk to the world’s people posed by the intemperate actions of a frightened nuclear super-power.
As Capote put it in December, “Now the empire is like a wild beast flailing around with its claws in the air. Its machinery of destruction and subversion is working overtime. Worse yet is that this machinery is directed by a group of troglodytes, dinosaurs anchored in the time of gunboat diplomacy, which they learned about in comics and television series – not history books.
“These powerful cavemen are profoundly ignorant, their vision of the world has been built in the closed environment of fundamentalist opinion; they don’t even know their own country.
And what of the Democrats’ futile attempt to impeach Trump, to remove him without causing too much disturbance to the status quo? Capote describes them as a “lesser evil” challenging the Trumpites, “not because they consider them a real danger to US interests, to the future of the empire.”
No, they bet on impeachment of the property tycoon President as a way to save themselves. “It is a desperate measure because they know the country has deep internal problems, in the economy and in its structure as a nation, and a crisis could lead to disaster.” This was written before the Covid 19 crisis.
South and Central America have seen recent moves by Washington’s agents to oust progressive governments in Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia and more. Capote is unfased: “They are facing the people’s wrath, the history they have tried to erase with money and weapons.”
Waxing lyrical, he becomes poetic: “Returning are the immortal spirits of our liberating soldiers, the warriors of our original peoples, the ‘indians’ of the highlands, Sandino’s troops, Che’s men, who sit in their saddles and grease their rifles.
“They are Bolivars’ guards that are ready to weather the storm and triumph. Yes, now.”
