By U. Karunatilake
Lenin once said that the death struggles of capitalism could go on for a considerable period. The end would be slow and painful. He only wanted to speed up a process that was inherent in capitalism, and make death swift and merciful.

Before the turn of the 19th century indentured slave labour was toiling in colonial plantations all over the world. Twentieth century industrial squalor now began to spread while near slavery in the plantations and mines provided the cheap commodities, raw material and fuel for industry seeking cheap labour.

In this fast spreading exploitation of our planet there was bound to be competition for spheres of influence.

This was the age-old character of all brands of imperialism and the 20th century saw it set the stage for global confrontation. Yankee capitalism had spread over both Americas in the name of liberty and it became an American preserve. Now they were squinting Asiawards to China and Japan. They called for a global parley on colonial plunders and set globalism going as a new development at the Washington conference in the twenties.

Whatever the consensus reached at this conference the techniques unleashed on China were the same as those used in the ‘liberation’ of Latin America. Gun-running up the rivers to regional insurgents who became China’s warlords effectively undermined China’s territorial integrity, dismembering and weakening this great and ancient nation for total exploitation by the colonial powers.

Japan avoided this situation because of national unity, but unfortunately aped the West by setting out on its own colonial adventures in Korea and Manchuria.

Thus, the first quarter of the 20th century saw capitalism take on commercial and technological brigandage on a global basis. Maybe various old brands of imperialism had enslaved the world from ancient times, but modern imperialism was much more ruthless and destructive, unleashing World Wars, and taking capitalism to its lunatic fringe in Fascism.

However the Russian revolution saw the emergence of the Soviets as a new historical factor of change. Intervention militarily against the new Soviet state by the capitalist powers was decisively defeated in the first decade of its existence, and by the nineteen thirties the Soviets had emerged as a world power.

Stalin reporting to the 18th Congress in March 1939 outlined the need to provide an alternative to globalization and dominance by the capitalist powers.

"The foreign policy of the Soviet Union is clear and explicit. We stand for support of nations that are the victims of aggression. We are ready to deal two blows for every blow delivered by the instigators of war who attempt to violate the Soviet borders. In its foreign policy the Soviet Union relies on the growing political and cultural might, the moral and political unity of Soviet society, the mutual friendship of the nations of our Union, its policy of peace, and the moral support of the working people of all countries."

Instead of the tame insipidity of globalization, Stalin counter-posed the dialectical alternative - the challenge and confrontation of two systems in the key areas of progress. Economics, trade relations, monetary policy, intellectual advance, and power relations, including links with countries that bore the brunt of global exploitation.

Stalin systematically forged the key link with China, and finally sent the Red Army to fight alongside the Chinese Communists pushing the Japanese out of Manchuria. All this internationalism however was negated and destroyed by the Krushevites who broke with China and turned the clock backwards with the serious theoretical and policy blunders of the notorious 20th Congress, paving the way for the capitalist revanchism of the Gorbachev’s and the Yeltsin’s.

So, capitalism makes use of the brief breathing space it has won, by talking about globalization and a return to the aftermath of the Washington conference, gun running to the mushroom insurgencies in the post-colonial world, destroying their economy with a return to ‘free trade’ which they themselves have checks and balances against, creation and propagation of poverty, unemployment and total helplessness.

After this, re-entry in the role of global savours, aid-donors, conflict mediators (in their own proxy wars), renders of humanitarian assistance, tutors of market and consumer culture, completes the picture of the neo-colonial process.