Tag: Imperialism

Trump takes hostility toward Cuba to new heights

Washington’s current foreign policy toward Cuba, following a script of more than six decades of aggression, is part of the reactionary global projection of a desperate government writes Francisco Arias Fernández.

Poetry Corner: The United Fruit Company by Pablo Neruda

The United Fruit Company by Pablo Neruda , 1950.

Pablo Neruda was a prominent Chilean Communist, as well as a Nobel prize-winning poet in both literature and peace (slightly more deserving than the current warmongering president of the US). Neruda played key roles in two Chilean governments and experienced the outlawing of Communism in 1948 and later became a close adviser to the Socialist President Salvador Allende only to die in hospital of cancer at the time of Pinochet’s US-backed coup.

Communists: Britain must confront its racist and imperialist past – and present

Following the toppling of a statue of Edward Coulston, a notorious slave trader, in Bristol on Sunday (7 June 2020) by protesters involved in Black Lives Matter demonstrations, there has been a general backlash in the mainstream and right wing media. Coulston was responsible for forcibly transporting at least 80,000 slaves to the Americas, with tens of thousands dying in the process.

The Communist Party’s Anti Racist Commission and the Young Communist League released the following statement yesterday (10 June 2020) in support of the action.

Turkey & USA agree secret carve up of Libya

Authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared today (9 June 2020) that he has reached an unspecified agreement with Donald Trump for imperialist control of Libya during telephone talks.

3 weeks on: US silence following terrorist attack on Cuban Embassy

Cuba’s Foreign Ministry was yesterday (21 May 2020) demanding answers from the United States three weeks after the island’s embassy in Washington was the target of a terrorist attack on 30 April 2020.

The Cuban Embassy in Washington, only a few blocks from the White House, was attacked by Alexander Alazo Baró with an AK-47. 32 rounds were fired at the building, with a clear intention to kill diplomatic staff – although thankfully no one was killed in the attack.

7. Imperialism (Part 1)

Lenin argued that “the most deep-rooted economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly” and that imperialism could be briefly defined as “the monopoly stage of capitalism” (Imperialism, 1916). Under capitalism, cyclical economic crises, combined with the advantages of scale held by large companies over small- and medium-sized businesses, lead inevitably to the annexation of smaller companies by larger enterprises.

8. Imperialism (Part 2)

The history of imperialism can be roughly divided into three phases.

The first phase of imperialism, up until 1945, was characterised by inter-imperialist rivalry and the drive to divide and re-divide the world into spheres of influence of the dominant capitalist countries. It is important to note that this was a global, not national or regional, process and that imperialism has always been a global system.