In Defence of Marxism

After all hell broke loose in the Himalayas as a result of the earthquake last October, tens of thousands of the survivors now face certain death in the severe Himalayan winter. The ruling elite are trying to divert attention away from their failure to save lives in the aftermath of this calamity. The rottenness of the state and the system stand utterly exposed. However, the trauma of the masses of Kashmir and Pakhtoonkhwaa can quickly turn into anger and rebellion and will have dire consequences for the ruling classes and the capitalist system. The Pakistani regime is lurching from one crisis to another. The regime stumbles through regional conflicts and strife and is faced with an unprecedented quagmire from which they have no way out. Yet indifference and apathy reign supreme in the echelons of power. After all what can they do?

They simply do not have many options left. All they can do is try to avoid the realities that they cannot control. But the clock does not stop ticking and the crisis is now so deep and intense that any event could trigger the anger of the masses. A revolutionary uprising of the masses, whose tolerance has been stretched to the limit, can transform the whole situation.

In the Middle East, the role of imperialism has exacerbated the conflicts in the region and these now stand in the way of the efforts of the imperialists and their regional toadies to control things. There have been great upheavals in Israeli politics. Likud has split and there have been great changes in the Labour Party. The same goes for Palestinian politics where Mahmood Abbas and his coterie are increasingly loosing ground and their governance is threatened.

The conflagration in Iraq refuses to relent. The Americans are bent upon destroying whatever is left of this tragic country. Imperialist savagery is spilling more and more innocent human blood in the killing fields of Iraq. In the process they have over stretched their Empire to an extent reminiscent of the Roman Empire before its fall.

The Syrian regime is in crisis, the more it tries to compromise with the imperialists and the UN, the more it will accelerate its own demise. The anti-Zionist rhetoric of the Iranian Mullahs is more for domestic consumption rather than any serious anti-imperialist struggle. Paradoxically, American threats to take action against Iran and Syria are in all probability destined to remain threats. More American troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year than in the actual invasion. The political hierarchy in India is being rocked by corruption scandals with increasing frequency. And, last year there were more strikes last year in China than at any other time in its post-revolutionary history. We have truly entered the period of the global crisis of capitalism.

The Central Asian states have been engulfed by renewed political crises and social unrest. The year 2005 was witness to severe instability, escalating violence, rapidly increasing poverty, stunning misery, massive natural disaster, all of which brought these bellicose and belligerent states to the brink. It looks as if things will become even bleaker in 2006. This turbulence is bound to erupt with volcanic ferocity.

The winds of change that are blowing in Latin America will inevitably influence Asia. The curse of religious fundamentalism, the poison a national chauvinism, the politics of neo-liberalism cannot hold back the tide of the upsurge of the masses for long. The masses can no longer endure the poverty, misery, disease, destitution, and exploitation they face on a daily basis. The threshold is nearing rapidly. One spark, in the form of a mass movement, could quickly spread like wildfire across the whole of the continent. The consciousness of the masses is fast catching up with events. When this historic rendezvous takes place, a gigantic wave of mass revolt will be unleashed, and socialist revolution will be on the order of the day.