For Online Discussion on Lenin’s Legacy and Imperialism, sponsored by ILPS-Australia

By Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson Emeritus, International League of Peoples’ Struggle 

Dear Comrades and Friends,

By the time that Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916, he had already made major contributions to the development of Marxism in the fields of philosophy, political economy and social science.

I wish therefore to present first how Lenin’s theory on modern imperialism is related to and interconnected with his previous and prospective works that would together comprise his entire revolutionary legacy. Then, I proceed to focus on this theory, its implications and consequences in the socialist revolution in Russia and in the entire world in the time of Lenin. Thereafter, I discuss the implications and consequences on a world scale since the time of Lenin.

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NZ 2019 mass shootout

Professor Jose Maria Sison, chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), said that it was “hysterical fear of white genocide” that drive Australian mass murderer Brendan Tarrant to kill 50 Muslim worshipers in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand on March 15. He further added that “the white victim complex and the hysterical assertion of white supremacy are two sides of the same coin” that led to the mass shooting. Full text of the ILPS chairperson’s statement follows.

Monopoly Capitalism Is the Cause of Mass Migration
and the White-Victim and White-Supremacy Complex

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International League of People’s Struggle
17 March 2019

In his 74-page manifesto, the Australian mass murderer Brendan Tarrant raves about the “great replacement” of white people by non-white peoples and blames the liberals for advocating mass migration, white displacement and cultural diversity in the same perverted way that the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Brevik blames “cultural Marxism”.

The hysterical fear of white genocide drove Tarrant to commit the massacre of at least 49 Muslim worshipers in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. The victims came from various underdeveloped countries as well as from war-torn countries. The white victim complex and the hysterical assertion of white supremacy are two sides of the same coin that leads to the atrocity.

White people in the developed countries are themselves victimized by the monopoly bourgeoisie but are misled by the demagogues of the capitalist system to believe that the migrants, especially the Muslims, are to blame for the erosion of the wage and living conditions of the white working class and middle class.

The neoliberal strategists, think tanks, academe and mass media of the monopoly bourgeoisie obscure the fact that economic and social conditions are becoming worse for the working class and even for the middle class because of the crisis of overproduction and the unsustainable abuse of credit.

Neoliberalism and the adoption of higher technology have pressed down wages, eroded social benefits and services and have increased unemployment and poverty among the whites and non-whites. Those few whites turned hysterical and murderous by a combination of white-victim complex and white supremacy do not think much beyond their personal and national egoism.

They are kept ignorant of the fact that the mass migration from the underdeveloped to the developed countries is the result of the policies of the monopoly bourgeoisie to avail of cheap labor, to keep the underdeveloped countries more underdeveloped and to wage wars of aggression to put down anti-imperialist governments and popular movements asserting national independence and demanding broader democracy, social justice and industrial development.

As a result of decolonization due to the direct and indirect effects of armed national liberation movements, the imperialist countries have used mass migration towards them since the 1970s to make up for the loss of colonies and semicolonies. To make up for the tendency of the profit rate to fall in their own home grounds, they have also utilized neocolonialism to cause the further underdevelopment of former colonies and semicolonies to maximize profits. The widening mass unemployment and poverty drive the people to emigrate.

And whenever certain governments and revolutionary movements arise and assert national sovereignty, nationalize the economy and promote industrial development, the imperialist countries unleash campaigns of destabilization for regime change and wars of aggression, which are the biggest and worst form of terrorism. Thus, the imperialist countries themselves have been culpable for the increasing number of both political and economic refugees since the 1980s, especially from the war-torn countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Whenever the monopoly bourgeoisie finds it too difficult or is frustrated in using liberal democracy or social democracy to disarm and sedate the working class, it resorts to the outright use of the most reactionary ideas and sentiments to obscure the roots of the crisis of monopoly capitalism, to mislead the broad masses of the people and the use the grossest form of violence and deception to suppress the anti-imperialist and democratic mass movements which aim for national liberation, people’s democracy and socialism.

We are living today in a crisis-stricken world capitalist system in which only one percent of the population, the top circle of the monopoly bourgeoisie, own 50 percent of the world’s wealth and only 10 percent own 75 percent. The gross social inequality means the increasing polarization of all societies and the intensification of the anti-imperialist and class struggle.

Under these circumstances the monopoly bourgeoisie unleashes all kinds of monsters and atrocities, including state terrorism and private terrorism of white supremacists, in order to counter the rise of revolutionary consciousness and movements among the proletariat and people in every country and on a global scale.

More than ever, it is necessary for the revolutionary parties of the proletariat to arise and strengthen themselves in order to promote proletarian internationalism among the workers of the world as well as international solidarity among the broad masses of the people of the world in order to overcome and defeat all the strategies and tactics of the monopoly bourgeoisie to divide the white and non-white workers and peoples of the world with the use of chauvinism, xenophobia, racism and fascism. ###