As Trotsky sets out in his later writing, in the 1930's, the Stalinists were to become even more overt, in seeking to enable imperialism to bring about such stabilisation, on the bones of workers. It was the basis of their Popular Front policy in France and Spain, and of their attempt to form an international military bloc with “democratic imperialism”, against Hitler and Mussolini. Today, one camp of social-imperialists, represented by the USC, does exactly the same, seeking a rotten bloc with NATO/Ukraine, whilst an opposing camp of social-imperialists seek a rotten bloc with Russia and China.
That social-imperialism, driven by petty-bourgeois moralism, picks a side (campism) based upon which imperialist bloc it views as the lesser-evil. The fact that the Zionist led genocide against Palestinians, has broken out, in the ensuing period, showed the bankruptcy of that petit-bourgeois, moralist approach, creating contradictions that blew it apart. Biden's latest "senior moment", was revealing, when, actually discussing the air-dropping of aid into Gaza (itself simply a futile, face-saving gesture) he mistakenly referred to Ukraine. The difference being, of course, that the US is supplying the arms to the Zionists that are bringing about that genocide, and famine, whilst providing no arms to the Palestinians to defend themselves against it, whereas, in Ukraine, they impose global sanctions on Russia, and arm the Ukrainian imperialist state to the hilt, as well as putting its own troops on the ground!
As US imperialism backed the Zionist holocaust in Gaza, contradicting all of the claims about "democratic imperialism" supporting an "international rules based system", based on the rule of law, right of national self-determination and other such crap, it also sent those in the USC that had allied with it, into an inevitable contradiction, as the petty-bourgeois milieu in which they operate, and which daily presses down on them, were led to support the Palestinians. Not least was that contradiction faced by those, such as the AWL, who are not only openly social-imperialists, but self-confessed Zionists. It appears that for whatever reason, of which we can only speculate, the AWL's commitment to Zionism, and US imperialism, has been greater than its need to respond to the pressure on it from its own petty-bourgeois milieu.
At the same time, the social-pacifists of Stop The War sit in the middle, pointlessly calling for peace, as though peace, in the short-term, is possible without the military victory of one of these imperialist camps over the other, or, in the longer-term, without a revolutionary war conducted by the working class to overthrow the ruling classes of both camps, and their states.
All of the similar hypocritical and moralistic talk from those, such as A. Blinken, that the genocide committed by Zionism in Gaza, alongside its continued occupation and oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank, is contradictory to its long-term interests, is nonsense. If the Zionists wipe out Palestinians in the West Bank, as their open public statements now, admit is their aim, that clearly is in the interests of Zionism, as it will annexe that territory, and eradicate a continuing military threat to it. It will facilitate its further subjugation and annexation of the West Bank, enabling it to commit a similar genocide against Palestinians there, and so creating a stabilisation based upon the original founding principles of Zionism, restated by Netanyahu and others, now, of creating a single Zionist state from the river to the sea. That is the real bourgeois solution, and not the delusion of two bourgeois states, which has been used simply to fob off western, gullible liberals, and bourgeois Arab leaders.
“The domestic depression, in the face of the available resources, makes more than likely an extensive economic intervention in China by the United States, before which the Guomindang will evidently hold the door wide “open”. One cannot doubt the fact that the European countries, especially Germany, fighting against the rapidly aggravated crisis, will seek to debouch upon the Chinese market.” (p 176-7)
Yeltsin performed that role in Russia, and Zelensky does so, now, in Ukraine. It is clearly the strategy of US imperialism in the Middle-East, which has long since been trying to develop its ties with the Gulf States, and other bourgeois regimes in the Middle-East, which it seeks to ally with Israel, but which has been frustrated by the existence of those pesky Palestinians, who just won't just lie down, and whose plight has also rallied the Arab Street to their cause. From the perspective of US imperialism, the faster Netanyahu can do to the Palestinians what Sherman did to the Native Americans, or Britain did to the aborigines in Australia, the better, and the sooner, then, Israel can normalise relations with Saudi Arabia and so on, opening the door for large-scale western, particularly US, investment in the region, and the more effective exploitation of Arab workers, and the resources of the region. Hence their willingness to openly support genocide, to be willing accomplices in it, to finance it, and arm it, and to even militarily support it themselves with the military intervention in the Red Sea.
Trotsky elaborates the conditions, in China, which made possible a recovery, in its economy, and opening for direct investment, particularly in infrastructure, by the US and other imperialist states. Such investment was desirable, not least because the economic recovery creates the best conditions for the rebuilding of the working-class. It was inevitable, however, that any such investment would be undertaken on terms favourable to the imperialist powers, making a mockery of the idea of “anti-imperialism”, on the part of the KMT, and the same is true in Ukraine, today, as witnessed by the London Conference, called to discuss the future exploitation of Ukrainian workers and resources. In both these cases, that is also facilitated by the corrupt nature of the political regime in the recipient country.
Trotsky points out that the US would be keen to build roads, in China, as a necessary condition of it, then, being able to sell its surplus car production, there. Ironically, it is, today, China that directly invests billions of Dollars in infrastructure, in developing economies, in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Central Asia, as part of its Belt and Road programme, which not only facilitated its access to resources, but also opens markets for its manufactured products, whilst extending its global strategic influence. Hence, also the need for the US to challenge it, by reasserting its own influence in the Middle-East by a "final solution" to the Palestinian problem at the hands of Netanyahu's Nazis, opening the door to its alliance with other US clients, like Saudi Arabia, in the region.
China is already positioning itself for the point where NATO's war against Russia, in Ukraine, hits the buffers, and Ukraine negotiates a peace deal with Russia. It will be able to offer cheap financing and infrastructure construction to a shattered Ukraine. The US will lose interest, and the EU will not want, and be in no position, to take in a bankrupt Ukraine. If it does, the EU, itself, is likely to fail and disintegrate, as the problems of having taken in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria previously indicated. For China, however, it fits, perfectly, into its ambition of creating a Eurasian politico-economic bloc. The further advantage, for China, is that the social-patriotic leaders of the Ukrainian labour movement will have proved themselves bankrupt, by their opportunism and support for Zelensky, and NATO imperialism.
As Ukraine does a deal with Russia, and the vast might of NATO/EU is found impotent, the Ukrainian workers will be set back, as happened with the Chinese workers, after 1927. They will be in a poor condition to resist the onslaught of Ukrainian capital, and its state, as it seeks to do deals with China, for large-scale direct investment, conditioned on Ukrainian workers being screwed. Something similar is happening with Chinese investment in Afghanistan, following the defeat and withdrawal of NATO imperialism. Its rather like the way US imperialism expanded, after WWII, after the old European colonial empires were disbanded.
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