Personally, I fail to see why many Marxist-Leninists support multipolarity. The primary goal of the Leninist movements has always been “workers of the world unite!” and not “non-US-aligned countries unite!”.

To be clear, in saying this, I am not endorsing US-led unipolarity. I am just saying that multipolarity is not inherently good as some MLs suggest. For example, the world in 1914 and 1939 were without a doubt multipolar, and those both resulted in brutal world wars which killed millions.

Could somebody explain why people support multipolarity so much?

  • ☭ Lily ☭@lemmygrad.mlOP
    52·
    10 hours ago

    I have become more and more convinced—and it is only a question of driving this conviction home to the English working class — that it can never do anything decisive here in England until it separates its policy with regard to Ireland most definitely from the policy of the ruling classes, until it not only makes common cause with the Irish but even takes the initiative in dissolving the Union established in 1801 and replacing it by a free federal relationship. And this must be done, not as a matter of sympathy with Ireland but as a demand made in the interests of the English proletariat. If not, the English people will remain tied to the leading-strings of the ruling classes, because it will have to join with them in a common front against Ireland. Every one of its movements in England itself is crippled by the strife with the Irish, who form a very important section of the working class in England. The primary condition of emancipation here—the overthrow of the English landed oligarchy—remains impossible because its position here cannot be stormed so long as it maintains its strongly entrenched outposts in Ireland. But, once affairs are in the hands of the Irish people itself, once it is made its own legislator and ruler, once it becomes autonomous, the abolition there of the landed aristocracy (to a large extent the same persons as the English landlords) will be infinitely easier than here, because in Ireland it is not merely a simple economic question but at the same time a national question, for the landlords there are not, like those in England, the traditional dignitaries and representatives of the nation, but its mortally hated oppressors. And not only does England’s internal social development remain crippled by her present relations with Ireland; but also her foreign policy, and in particular her policy with regard to Russia and the United States of America. —Marx, Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann In Hanover

    In other words, for the British workers to liberate themselves, they must fight for the Irish workers and support them in both words and deeds. Marx advocated replacing the U.K. with a voluntary federation of nations, quite akin to the U.S.S.R.

    • davel@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      5·
      8 hours ago

      In other words, for the British workers to liberate themselves, they must fight for the Irish workers and support them in both words and deeds.

      Marx’s strategy for the 19th century British Isles was never tested, so we’ll never know what would have happened. He also believed that socialism would begin in the most industrialized states, but it didn‘t. It started in a weakened, largely feudal, largely pre-industrial empire after the first inter-imperialist world war, through Lenin’s theory of revolutionary defeatism.

      Marx advocated replacing the U.K. with a voluntary federation of nations, quite akin to the U.S.S.R.

      I don’t know that anybody is arguing against such an outcome. The question is how to actually get there from here. You can’t have a voluntary federation of states until you have sovereign socialist states. For imperialized states, that means that they 1) have been freed from the imperial boot and become properly sovereign and then 2) have overthrown their bourgeoisie. For Imperialist states, they can’t realistically be overthrown until their empires collapse. It’s necessarily so that the intermediary stages between a unipolar, imperial hegemon world and a world federation of socialist nations would be multipolar ones.

    • m532@lemmygrad.ml
      31·
      8 hours ago

      Why would the british workers want to “liberate” themselves from their colonies’ imperial loot?