The crisis of 2008 in US and Europe opens up space for
expansion of the influence of BRICS on the planet
Humberto Rodrigues
1) an unparalleled mass of workers and energy resources;
2) because unlike the semi-colonies that are unable to
resolve outstanding bourgeois tasks and live subjugated by imperialist
oppression, China and Russia held the bourgeois historic tasks during the
period in which they were workers’ states, through bureaucratic or distorted
proletarian dictatorships;
3) the crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn of
imperialism opened space in the world market for China to spend to import from
other countries what the imperialist metropolises in recession stopped buying,
and for Russia to broaden its energy sales (gas and oil) and weapons in better
condition.
In 2009, China became the largest exporter and importer of
goods to Brazil. Since 1500 Brazilian trade has been dominated by the
successively dominant capitalist powers on the planet at the time, Portugal,
England and then the USA.
In 2015, the economies of the five members of the BRICS
account for 20% of world GDP and the exchange between them corresponded to 250
billion dollars. Capitalist relations between the BRICS states are dominated by
the export of goods, especially commodities and on the export of capital. The
bourgeoisies of China and Russia has imperialistic pretensions, but they are
not as yet imperialist. For Marxists, imperialism is characterized by the
export of capital and is the expansionist policy of finance capital. Thus,
capitalist relations between the BRICS themselves and between BRICS and other
non-imperialist countries are relations of bourgeois exploitation of workers,
against which we fight, but not relations of imperialist domination. In every
fight, we always take the side opposed to imperialism. However, even though in
this fight we are on the side of the oppressed country or people against
imperialism and its agents, we always pursue our struggle to build a
revolutionary workers’ party for the conquest of workers’ power.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
When it recovered from the acute phase of the 2008 crisis,
thanks to growing poverty and wage reduction of its working class, the US
resumed the initiative in the geopolitical field and tried to restore by all
means, especially economic blackmail, their commercial influence and lost
policy. The coup is the most violent form taken for the resumption of this
influence when the governments of countries dominated by imperialism do not
peacefully cede to imperialist interests.
Before being triggered in Brazil in 2013, several coups were
performed under this strategy in smaller countries such as Honduras, Paraguay,
Libya, Ukraine, Thailand, where governments approached the BRICS or governments
that are near to the Bolivarian of Venezuela and Bolivia. These were the blows
against the periphery of the BRICS.
The coup is an expression of imperialist counter-attack. We
are living in the second wave of imperialist counter-attack now against the
very members of the BRICS, imperialism moves all his pawns, trade war, speculative
attack, economic blockade, sponsors challenging candidates and harassment by
civil war. To resist this counterattack many countries form a resistance block
headed by Russia and China. This began the conflict intensification which is
the new cold war, this time between capitalist states. This cold war already
sees conflicts and indirect military disputes, as in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.
The conflict is heading towards a Third World War.
PHASE TWO OF THE COUNTER-ATTACK OF IMPERIALIST
IS A RACE AGAINST
TIME TO COMBAT THE DE-DOLLARIZATION THREAT
The main threat of BRICS imperialism in the current stage of
the Cold War lies in the economic and monetary issues. The BRICS want to
negotiate among themselves without paying tribute to the US. They seek to avoid
this by conducting their business transactions in their own currencies and by
creating banks to boost their relations and investments. These moves are
designed to dispense with the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
and the World Bank which are controlled by imperialism and used at the same
time to control other nations. The US profit from the dollarized world economy
because they can print paper and buy what they want. The US imperialist economy
will be harmed by the de-dollarization of economic relations advocated by the
BRICS. Printed papers lose “value”. As a consequence they would no longer be
accepted. Those who keep dollars would want to get rid of them because they
would be depreciating, which would flood the market. All US government bonds
will be worthless. It would be impossible to finance their purchases. Foreign
trade in dollars would evaporate. The financial market would explode. The
American, Japanese and European economies would be wiped out. And as a
consequence the US government’s ability to finance its war machine.
If the artificial ballast imposed by the military
superiority since 1971 is dismantled, then the “Super Imperialism” acquired by
the US and spoken of by Michael Hudson, the Bretton Woods Agreement established
with England at the end of World War II is lost. (Hudson, M. (2003). Super
imperialism: The origin and fundamentals of US world dominance (2nd ed.).
London, UK: Pluto Press.) That is why there is such a great struggle to prevent
the establishment of alternative currencies, or multilateral organizations to
replace the IMF and the World Bank.
In April 2016, the imperialist counterattack entered its
second phase. Honduras, Paraguay, Thailand, Libya, Ukraine, were on the margins
of the BRICS. Now, the attack is directed against the weakest members, beginning
with South Africa and Brazil. The replacement of the dollar standard for gold
immensely would be immensely beneficial to South Africa. Imperialism lost a
battle for Zuma’s impeachment in South Africa and won another in Brazil against
Rousseff, already salivating by its strike against Petrobras.
