Imperialism’s March toward Fascism and War by Barnes was first published in issue no. 10 of New International, a magazine of Marxist politics and theory distributed by Pathfinder Press. The first edition of the Greek translation was issued by Diethnes Vima in 1995. The preface is copyright © Pathfinder Press 2004. Reprinted by permission.
 

This book is based on a 1994 talk by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, given to regional educational conferences in several U.S. cities. Since that talk was presented almost a decade ago, U.S. imperialism has codified in the so-called Dayton Agreement of 1995 its “belated” intervention in the Yugoslav crisis discussed in these pages. In the process of that military campaign and its subsequent stages in Kosova and repercussions throughout the Balkans, Washington dealt blows to its imperialist rivals in Europe. At the same time, now acting as the major “European power,” the U.S. government imposed its interests on the Yugoslav victims of what is presented as a “humanitarian mission.”

These events and their political consequences are of particular significance to working people and youth in Greece, since Athens, one of the weaker members of NATO and the European Union, has sought throughout to enhance the relative profits and power of Greek finance capital by increasing its “sphere of influence” in the Balkans and throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.

Through Washington’s lethal lightning assault on Iraq in 2003, and its continuing imperial occupation of that country, the U.S. rulers are dealing further blows to competitors in “Old Europe”—primarily France and Germany—who are not accepting the U.S. government’s lead rapidly enough. With a “New Europe”-based “coalition of the willing” now behind it, Washington is increasing its blackmail through intensifying military pressures against Iran, north Korea, Syria, Libya, and other countries. “You’re next!”—that’s the brutal message of the “war on terrorism.”

At the same time, the imperialists in the United States, the European Union, and elsewhere, regardless of other ups and downs, are maintaining their decades-long hostility and punitive policies toward the people of Cuba and their socialist revolution. And they are preparing to intervene anywhere in the Americas, beginning in Venezuela, where the toilers resist attempts by the imperialists and local propertied classes to turn back the clock.

Toward the end of the 1990s, with the exception of Japan, the long-term retreat of the labor movement bottomed out across the imperialist world. This sea change in working-class politics opens modest but genuine and ongoing opportunities for the communist movement worldwide to integrate itself within, and to respond to, resistance by workers, trade unionists, and other toilers. And as Barnes demonstrates in these pages, U.S. imperialism is far from all-powerful. To the contrary, he stresses the historic decline of that power and points out the line of march of the toilers toward overturning capitalist rule, establishing a government of the workers and farmers, and joining in the world-wide struggle for socialism. Working people across the imperialist world, including in Greece, confront these same historic tasks.

We urge those of you who find this book of interest to also seek out, read, and discuss with others the companion title by Jack Barnes, published in 2002 by Diethnes Vima, entitled “U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War.”

Bobbis Misailides
Diethnes Vima
January 2004  
 
 
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