Remembering November: Imperialism in these Adverse Times
Nilotpal Basu
In the run up to the final moments of reckoning for the New York City mayoral elections, as it was becoming apparent that Zohran Mamdani would win, no one less than Donald Trump himself confirmed what was going to happen in his own inimitable fashion. A rank outsider in the political process in the United States, Mamdani was leading all the other candidates hands down. In his post on Truth Social, Trump blurted out – “If communist candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the election of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum that are required to my beloved first home, because of the fact that, as a communist, this once great city has ZERO chance of success, or even survival. It can only get worse with a communist at the helm, and don’t want to send, as President, good money after that. It is my obligation to run the nation, and it is my strong conviction that New York City will be a complete and total economic and social disaster should Mamdani win. His principles have been tested over a thousand years and never once have they been successful. I would much rather see a Democrat, who has a record of success.”
A testimony for the impending defeat could not be any more emphatic. Defeat, howsoever transient it may be, was clearly threatening Trump’s colourful imagination. In his scheme of things, this was certainly a pause if not an actual disruption. The premonition was not for the possible outcome in the count of votes, but the process which has led to this consequence. Perhaps the only element of uncertainty was the scale of Mamdani’s victory. Clearly, in not even his worst premonition did he anticipate the scale; that Mamdani would secure more than half the votes cast.
But even then, Trump with all his institutional sway over the establishment of the most powerful state of the world right now, was apprehending the implication of the emerging trend. Not only the Republican party, which he represented and spearheaded, the resurgent ultra-right wing, not just in the US, but the entire capitalist world was on the verge of an ignoble defeat. But it was not being substituted by the Democratic party. A rank outsider with only one per cent of popular support a year back was posing a threat of undermining the binary which had sustained over the last hundred years or perhaps more. People were looking for options beyond the typical false alternatives that capitalism poses before them.
NOVEMBER REVOLUTION
AND THE CURRENT CONTEXT
The sense that Trump carried was reinforced by the course of developments after the setback suffered by the Soviet Union and other East European socialist governments. For Trump, his predecessors and other naysayers, this was a moment of final triumph. ‘Capitalism is the end of history’ and it was now only a one-way traffic for complete hegemony over the economy and politics of the planet.
Going back into history, in dealing with the challenge of uniting the working class across Europe, Lenin came to the inescapable conclusion that nation specific finance capital was driving towards rivalries and conflicts, eventually to wars. The quest of Nation-State specific finance capital was to secure larger markets, natural resources and cheap labour. This was the setting for the first world war. This was the feature where National Finance Capital was graduating to the stage of imperialism.
That war was invariably linked to imperialism was apparent. This would help unite the working class against imperialist war. This analysis led to understanding of imperialism; combating imperialism was essential for the triumph of the working class against exploitation, for the establishment of socialism. The key theoretical question that Lenin posited and addressed was in uncovering the laws of capitalism that Marx had set out in the Communist Manifesto in the context of the backward Tsar-governed Russian backyard. Marx’s assertion that capital was bound to evolve finance as its principal instrument was also a key to understanding the later emergence of imperialism. It followed from this vision that backward Russia was the ‘weakest link in the imperialist chain’ and that implied the likelihood of its defeat.
That concentration and centralisation of capitalism was key to capitalist dynamics was part of Marx’s vision. Therefore, the prophetic assertion that opened his conceptual framework – “The spectre of communism is haunting Europe.”
It is here that Lenin and the Bolsheviks crafted the success of the November Revolution. Today, it is truly incredible that the same tone of fear is echoed in Trump’s latest observations.
FINANCE DRIVEN
CAPITALIST ORDER
That concentration and centralisation of capitalism was key to capitalist dynamics was part of Marx’s vision. The key question remains, the battle between capital and labour. Howsoever powerful capital may appear at any given point in time in history, it cannot replace labour, much less overpower it. Thus, capitalism ‘gives rise to the emergence of its grave diggers.’ The quest for exploitation and profit cannot change the eventual course of history. In the contemporary context of the global hegemony of the US, the fountain head of imperialism and international finance capital is appearing to be equally helpless.
During the course of nearly four decades of the post-Soviet world, the basic direction, though at times foreshadowed by complete and absolute control over the dissemination of ideology through the infrastructure of propaganda, is alive and kicking. Therefore, Trump and Wall Street, the spring board of modern international finance capital, had to watch the march of Mamdani to victory. Mamdani’s campaign platform sought votes for a more affordable life with direct intervention from the city corporation through freezing of rents, health and education as rights, supply of affordable grocery and so on, with redistribution of tax wealth. Mamdani and his socialist democratic manifesto were responding to key challenges that contemporary finance capital was posing – mounting inequality and sky rocketing unemployment. Though not as explicit, but the hint of the socialist alternative was implicit. And that led to the charge that Mamdani was a communist despite his own protestations, so candidly asserted by Trump himself.
Who knew that Marx would come alive and Lenin’s critique and his poser of alternative to imperialism would hold good in the context of contemporary capitalism in 2025! That is why the campaign of discredited candidates like Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams came to naught, despite the billions of dollars pumped into the campaign by the likes of Elon Musk!
PALESTINE: THE INCREDIBLE RESISTANCE TO IMPERIALIST ZIONIST ALLIANCE
The world watched the horrific genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the terrible reenactment of the Fascist holocaust. It was clearly a campaign of ethnic cleansing and annihilation for absolute control. Absurd arguments painting opposition to the genocide as anti-Semitism could not conceal and justify Zionism and its untenability without imperialism aiding and abetting it. This was an absolute game of hegemony that was being played out. Lenin became yet again relevant – ‘imperialism and war are Siamese twins’ – mutually reinforcing each other to survive and drive the course of history.
Again, thought it appeared impossible at times, the people prevailed. The massive solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for resistance ultimately could push back the aggressive agenda, at least for the time being. Gaza also vindicated the historical essence of what Marx and Lenin had foreseen. Concentration and centralisation of capital, perhaps never as much before as in the aid of international finance capital, were bound to give rise to uneven development. Regions, demography, gender, identity, would all become victims and will be at the receiving end of the march for profit maximisation.
Therefore, it is not a coincidence that the solidarity movement which drew wider sections of democratic support was initially powered by immigrants all over the world. Mamdani’s assertion clearly speaking out for the Palestinian cause is the clearest manifestation of the changing US public mind about the ghastly crimes committed in Gaza. New York’s Jewish population amounting to 30%, higher than any city outside Israel itself, rallied significantly behind Mamdani who was bold enough to demarcate between Jews and Zionists and clearly indict Netanyahu as a criminal!
INDIA TODAY
The emergence of the ultra-right wing in India today is an equal vindication of the dynamics of capitalism and imperialism. It is now clear as never before that the two principal elements embrace an aggressive finance driven paradigm which eventually descends to promotion of brazen cronyism.
But as much as the concentration of Capital takes place, unemployment and astronomical growth of inequality follows, giving rise to the urgency to divide; hate filled othering is an inevitable consequence. In the corporate communal nexus that powers the current dispensation, that this is untenable even on a medium term, is also apparent with the subversion of formal methods of democratic functioning allowed under the present democratic secular Constitution of India. It degenerates into neo-fascist ways to lure and intimidate over one and a half billion of diverse people by accentuating identity driven polarisation on the one hand and the hijacking of a free and fair electoral democracy on the other.
THE ALTERNATIVE
Therefore, now is the time. There has to be a clear alternative. The need for uniting all sections of the working people, along with all those who cherish democracy, is paramount; but that process of unified mobilisation would have to be complemented by a clear choice of alternative which not only seeks to protect political and social democracy as enshrined in the Constitution, but goes beyond. It will have to assert economic and social equality, equality and opportunity for a youth-led demographic, genders and identities. The direction is cut out. The future is socialism, a paradigm of people over profit. That is the clear message that the remembrance of November conveys.
