FINALLY let us take a look at the anti-globalisation protests. Domination of speculative finance has been a major feature of the present round of globalisation, and this has meant a massive depoliticisation of the economy. Stock exchanges do not produce trade union struggles and unless there are major upheavals or scams they generate little political heat either. Meanwhile nation-states are busy excusing themselves with this rumour of erosion of sovereignty and forced retreat of the state. With the economy getting depoliticised, ‘culture’ has become central to politics and all sorts of identities have sprung up. Huntington's thesis of the clash of civilisations is premised on the centrality of culture to politics. Depoliticisation of the economy and centrality of culture to politics are two sides of the same coin.

Viewed against this backdrop, the anti-globalisation protests are serving to repoliticise the economy, bringing the economy back on top of the agenda. This despite the fact that the anti-globalisation protesters are drawn from all backgrounds including many who have come through the culture route in politics. And now since September 11, the question of imperialism has come up in a big way and the anti-war anti-imperialist agenda has been forced on the anti-globalisation movement. This transition would of course not be smooth, but if the massive anti-war protests are any indication, there has been no major depletion in the ranks of anti-globalisation protesters. The ongoing economic crisis and the massive job cuts announced since September 11 – half a million jobs have been cut in the US alone – have also fuelled enough resentment merging with the global outrage against imperialist war and doublespeak on terrorism.

We must remember that while imperialism generates popular protests and resistance, it also causes splits in the ranks of the working class movement. The edifice of international workers’ unity broke down in the face of the First World War. Lenin came down heavily on opportunism in the working class movement, his polemics with Kautsky was not confined to the economics of imperialism, and it was focussed sharply on the ideological-political debates of the day. While Kautsky defended his position in the name of broad working class unity, Lenin condemned him for toeing the opportunist line and siding with the opportunists who were busy siding with the bourgeoisie of their own respective countries. Lenin exposed the social roots of opportunism in the labour aristocracy and the economic basis of labour aristocracy in the spoils of imperialist super profits and called for ridding the working class movement of the culture of bourgeois respectability and what he called Lloyd-Georgism bred by bourgeois labour parties, an infection that the opportunists carried within the socialist-communist movement. In his.famous article “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism” (Vol. 23, Collected Works), Lenin enunciated the revolutionary Marxist tactics against imperialism in the following words :

“On the one hand, there is the tendency of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists to convert a handful of very rich and privileged nations into “eternal” parasites on the body of the rest of mankind, to “rest on the laurels” of the exploitation of Negroes, Indians, etc., keeping them in subjection with the aid of the excellent weapons of extermination provided by modern militarism. On the other hand, there is the tendency of the masses, who are more oppressed than before and who bear the whole brunt of imperialist wars, to cast off this yoke and to overthrow the bourgeoisie. It is in the struggle between these two tendencies that the history of the labour movement will now inevitably develop. ...

“Engels draws a distinction between the “bourgeois labour party” of the old trade unions — the privileged minority — and the “lowest mass”, the real majority, and appeals to the latter, who are not infected by “bourgeois respectability”. This is the essence of Marxist tactics!

“Neither we nor anyone else can calculate, precisely what portion of the proletariat is following and will follow the social-chauvinists and opportunists. This will be revealed only by the struggle, it will be definitely decided only by the socialist revolution. But we know for certain that the “defenders of the fatherland” in the imperialist war represent only a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain socialists to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are really allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we teach the masses to appreciate their true political interests, to fight for socialism and for the revolution through all the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.

The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics.”

Earlier, the First International had also collapsed in the wake of the Paris Commune following the rupture between Marxists and anarchists. Right now, anarchism seems to be the dominant trend in the anti-globalisation protests. The terrorist strikes and the legitimacy acquired by imperialist militarism in its wake are also bound to have opportunist echoes within the working class movement. Consequently, the ideological-political struggles waged during both First and Second Internationals will also have their echoes within the anti-globalisation, anti-imperialist movement. Of course no struggle repeats itself in history in exactly the same manner, but nevertheless communists once again will have to wage a determined ideological struggle against anarchism and opportunism.