INTRODUCTION

1. The working class and the working masses of the planet, have to confront with an exceptionally reactive, contradictory and volatile global situation. The planet is experiencing an unmatched upheaval as a result of the deep contradictions and inconsistencies that are emerging from the ageing body of the capitalist-imperialist world.
   
   We are therefore living in a time of dense, significant and unprecedented events. Critical war fronts emerge, old tensions are rekindled and new ones are born. Countries are changing their orientation, geopolitical shifts are reminiscent of the movement of tectonic plates, and economic, political and social volatility characterise developments from the imperialist metropolises to the countries deeply dependent on them. At the same time, new sections of masses, countries and regions are plunged into poverty, the human seas of misery are increasing.

2. At the heart of the causes of this situation is the relentless struggle of the main imperialist powers, USA, Russia and China, for the seizure of global hegemony. It is this struggle that is pushing for the militarisation of economies and societies, the fascistisation of public life. This fierce competition between the great imperialist powers is upsetting and bleeding the working masses, countries and regions, threatening the entire planet by bringing to the fore generalized war and nuclear destruction! This is because, although our remarks about the limit of the nuclear balance remain, this limit is not only getting closer and closer, but the imperialist cadres are anxiously seeking the conditions for overcoming it. It is therefore no exaggeration to emphasise that we are but in the preparatory phase for the Third World War.
   
   Next to -and especially behind- the main imperialist powers are the second-tier Western European and Japanese imperialists, who are struggling to upgrade their position and role by joining the main contenders of world domination and -at least at this stage - the USA.
   
   Beyond that, a series of regional powers with greater or lesser potential (India, Brazil, Iran) are attempting to emerge from the obscurity of the 20th century, exploiting the gaps in the intra-imperialist competition to promote their ambitions.

3. The struggle for planetary domination-hegemony is inextricably linked to the effort of the capitalist-imperialist system to overcome its deep structural crisis, to find a way out of a crisis which, despite its recessions and its exacerbations, continues to eat away at its insides and multiply its deadlocks and short-circuits.
   
   However, these efforts for a way out, such as the "green" technology and transition, the expansion in spaces (e.g. Africa, the Arctic), even the gigantic infrastructure funding (USA) that are announced, are spasmodic, incomplete, subject to the deep contradictions that govern the system itself, and ultimately to the antagonisms that characterize it.
   
   Thus, the fierce competition of the imperialists also functions as a factor of further aggravation of the crisis and the deadlocks it produces for the system.

4. The relentless imperialist competition and the system's relentless effort to overcome its structural crisis "meet" in the deepening of the generalised attack that capital, led by imperialist capital, has unleashed against the working class and peoples worldwide. They "meet" in the intensified policies of plundering of the dependent countries and peoples by the imperialists.
   
   We are therefore experiencing the consolidation of defeat through capital's attempt to destroy all labour, democratic and social rights that the working class and the peoples had achieved, led by the revolutionary workers' communist movement of the 20th century led by Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong. But the capital also seeks to go much further: to create conditions of total disintegration of the working-popular masses, to deprive them for a long time of the possibility of organizing their resistances and demands. Thus to impose the "thousand-year-long domination" of capital and imperialism on the ruins of the rights and the achievements of the workers and peoples.

5. It's all in vain! Our era, clearly marked by the defeat of the workers' revolutionary communist movement and the restoration of capitalism, remains at the same time the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions! The capitalist-imperialist system is producing its gravediggers by the tens of millions all over the planet. With its barbaric policies, with the war and poverty it spreads, it provokes mass mobilisations of millions, it provides the material for revolts in East and West, in North and South.
   
   Of course, worldwide and in every place, despite the disparities, the general situation of revolutionary groups, organisations and parties -with few exceptions - is characterized by serious ideological, political and organisational deficiencies, immaturity, dogmatism and amateurism, little access and influence among the working and popular strata.
   
   That is why the process of reconstruction of the revolutionary movement can only be a "Long March", it can only have important ideological, political and organisational preconditions and many obstacles to overcome or crush. But the important and essential thing is that it has begun! In this "Long March" the conscious workers must take their position, this "Long March" must be accompanied by the young militants!

HOW WE REACHED THIS POINT

6. If we are to assume a starting point for the current developments, it would undoubtedly be the years 1989-1991. In this three-year period the process of restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, which had begun in the mid-1950s, was completed. The revisionist form of restored capitalism was collapsing and a process of transforming societies into formally capitalist ones was opening up. This event marked a radical deterioration of the relations between the working class and the peoples on the one hand and capital and imperialism on the other. This is because we had at the same time the emergence of the most reactionary elements of the capitalist-imperialist system and the production of a huge wave of disillusionment, demoralisation and disintegration of consciences in the working and popular strata. But, for the global correlations of power of interest here, the collapse and bankruptcy of revisionism was accompanied by a disorganization and eventual dismantling of the imperialist camp that had been built around the so-called Soviet Union and the emergence of the US as the sole superpower and the West as the undisputed winner of the Cold War.
   
   In the 33 years since then we have had a series of geopolitical and economic events - milestones in a turbulent course.
   
   
7. The first decade was marked by the "expansions" of the victors. We had the first war in Iraq (1991) and the dissolution of Yugoslavia by the US-NATO in the course of nearly ten years: "independence" of Croatia and Slovenia with the blessing of unified imperialist Germany (1991), the -made in USA - Dayton Agreement (1995) and the creation of the protectorate of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the three-month US-NATO bombing of Serbia (1999) and the creation of the protectorate of Kosovo. NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe began (1996), i.e. the strategy of encircling and constricting Russia with the objective to make it a second and third line power or even to dismantle it, which we rightly described at the time as an “act of war”. At the same time, US and European imperialists were competing for the control and “conquest” of the former member countries of the Warsaw Pact and ComECON by NATO and the European Union.
   
   
8. The second decade highlights the blockages of the winners and the emergence of the losers, which is also expressed in the overall cohesion-resilience of the system. September 11, 2001, the intervention and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by the US, marking the Bush-Cheney team's practical criticism of their predecessors for missing the historic opportunity to break up Russia in the previous decade. In the same micro-period (2000) we have the end of the Yeltsin illusions of condominium with the US, and the rise of Putin, who is expressing those forces of Russia's New Bourgeoisie, which are attempting to reconstruct Russian imperialism at all levels, while also sending the first sign to the West that it is overstepping its boundaries (intervention in Georgia in 2008). In this same phase we have the US "stagnancy" in Afghanistan and Iraq (with the significant contribution of the Iraqi resistance) and of course the outbreak of the global economic crisis (2008) that shook the system and reflected in the economic field the exacerbation of the generalized crisis of the system that is unable to reproduce itself under the old terms and relations.
   
   
9. The third decade is beginning to highlight the real correlations of power and the dominant contradictions that permeate the body of the capitalist-imperialist world. Russia's intervention in support of the dying Assad regime in Syria (2015) shows the ability of a reconstituted Russian imperialism to break its zone of encirclement, to defend its interests and old alliances in its immediate perimeter, outside the former Soviet space. China is starting, on the one hand, with the "Initiative: One Belt, One Road" and on the other hand, with huge investments in its military-strategic arsenal, to trace the steps of its transformation into an appreciable imperialist power at the regional and global level. The rise of Trump followed, who was strongly criticising the achievements of two and a half decades, officially declaring the beginning of the era of "fierce competition between the great powers" through which the US must confront the mismatch of means and ends, the ever-shrinking distance between itself and its rivals, before it is too late.
   
   
10. This course of 33 years, with the milestones mentioned above and the intermediate periods of accumulation of conditions, has shown two basic things in the field of the imperialist powers:
    
    The first concerns the attempt of US imperialism to seize the historic opportunity given by its incomplete victory in 1989-1991 to become the absolute ruler of the earth. An attempt which, however, has highlighted the mismatch between means and ends for the USA and has ultimately demonstrated the course of relative weakening of US imperialism against its rivals, competitors and allies, a course which, indeed, does not seem to be halted.
    
    The second, which is of course linked to the first but basically has its own terms of development, concerns the emergence, upgrading and promotion of the capabilities, aspirations and ambitions of the imperialists of Eurasia, namely Russian and Chinese imperialism.
    
    The emergence of this "triad" (USA, Russia, China) in the first tier of global imperialist competition does not of course mean that neither the relative position of each power against the other, nor each one’s particular issues and problems are undone, since their historical and political course is very different and unique.
    
    The European imperialists, like Japanese imperialism in the past, through this process discovered again and again, either gently or painfully, that they only count on the world chessboard if they stand next to and behind one of the main imperialist powers.

ON THE PANDEMIC

11. The shock of the pandemic further aggravated and complicated the global crisis of the capitalist-imperialist system. It accelerated the emergence of pre-existing trends, created new and modified old data, situations and balances, and above all loaded the system with more and more deadlocks. It has thus created the ground for greater adventurism, tensions and dangers for peoples.
    
    An important aspect of the intertwining of the pandemic with the structural crisis of the system and its characteristics is that it revealed the "dark side of the moon", i.e. the extensive zones of poverty and absolute misery to which the vast majority of countries and peoples belong. But not only that! It also revealed the miserable conditions, similar to the previous ones, in which the great social majority lives in the "prosperous" metropolises of imperialism.
    
    In fact, the system's relentless effort to find and give a way out of its deadlocks and the increasing number of blockages, had the result of integrating in the most absolute way the issue of health and care of the populations of the planet, as well as all the issues concerning the life of working humanity in the fierce imperialist competition, sacrificing them every day on the altar of the increase of capital's profits.
    
    All this horrific geopolitical use of the COVID 19 vaccines as a profit-making tool in the imperialists' "all against all" war is a typical example of the inhuman character of this system. That is why the meeting of "prosperity" and horror not only did not create conditions for the former to confront the latter, but extended and fed the horror further.
    
    Thus, capital becomes the "owner" of human life while at the same time the imperialist powers clash over the "ownership" of the planet. That is why today, natural and social goods such as land, air, water, healthcare, food, shelter, are more than ever before subordinated to the class interests and aspirations of the capitalist-imperialist system.
    
    Today, system actors are expressing concern about a new cycle of pandemics, much worse than the one we experienced with COVID 19. They are worried and above all they call on the system to prepare itself to face this new cycle with the least possible impact on the functionality of the capitalist-imperialist system, of course without counting in the cost that the peoples will have to pay, but only the profitability of the capital. Of course it is in their nature not to avoid once more that new cycles of pandemics and all preparations for them are part of their fierce competition for domination.

ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS AND EFFORTS AGAINST IT

12. We stand to our basic position from the 9th Conference: "global economic crisis is only an important part and an economic expression of the overall and generalised crisis of the system, a structural crisis, a crisis of reproduction of the capitalist-imperialist system and all the relations that govern it".
    
    In the economic field, the "over-indebtedness" of the planet to the capitalist-imperialist monster continues. Thus, according to data published by the IMF in September 2023, the world debt reached 238% of world GDP, nine percentage points higher than in 2019, while in absolute terms it reached 235 trillion dollars or 200 billion dollars more than in 2021. Similarly, the global capitalist economy continues to slow down, being in 2023, one (1) percentage point below the 2000-2019 average.

13. During these four years, several factors clearly contributed in intensifying economic crises. First came the major blockages and disruptions caused by the pandemic, or rather the intertwining of the pandemic with the structural crisis that preceded it. And then:
    
    - The race to cover the shortage of semiconductors, due to the pandemic and the concentration of production, which was reflected in serious problems in the automobile industries.
    
    - The shortage of copper, a key metal for the electric vehicle industry, wind turbines (a wind turbine producing 1 megawatt of energy needs 3 tonnes of copper) and microprocessor wiring.
    
    - The closure of the Suez Canal for days, due to the grounding of the giant "EverGiven", which caused concern about the stoppage of trade flows, an event that is being repeated today in another, greater dimension by developments in the Middle East.
    
    World trade reflected the consequences first of the collapse and then of the explosion of global demand through e-commerce: traffic jams in the European ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp and in US ports, followed by a full-scale blockade of the container ports of South China.
    
    The effort of the main imperialist powers to integrate the response to the pandemic crisis in the overall framework of their geopolitical competition, has extended, expanded and multiplied the blockades in production, consumption, transport and trade.
    
    An important consequence of the transformation of the pandemic into an organic element of imperialist competition, which was accelerated by the sharp increase in geopolitical conflicts, was the attempt of the West to initiate a complete reordering of global supply chains in order to control them completely. From the previous focus on the cheapest sources of raw materials and components, the focus on the most "reliable" sources (practices of re-shoring, near-shoring, friend-shoring) was promoted for geopolitical reasons, even if they increase costs. But this process is not only costly, but also time-consuming and ultimately far from easy and straightforward, and still has a long way to go.

14. We would finally say that the dominant cause of the turbulence and crisis phenomena in the global economy, the dragging of the crisis and the spectre of a new crash that never left the horizon, was and is the increase of geopolitical tensions and confrontations between the three (USA - Russia - China) and not only them, with the war in Ukraine leading the way.
    
    The need of the imperialist states to cope with the wildly evolving geopolitical competition for the redistribution of markets, spheres of influence, ultimately for the redistribution of the world, leads to the emasculation of the working classes and dependent countries in order to feed the new ferocious "defence" war budgets drawn up by the imperialist states. The most characteristic field of this relentless race is "the struggle for space" which is intertwined with the struggle to upgrade and modernise the destructive capabilities of each imperialist (nuclear weapons, super-supersonic missiles, electromagnetic pulse weapons, etc.).
    
    The same need also leads to a war "for everything". So we have:
    
    - The intensification of competition for access to and control of the seas (90% of goods are transported by sea and 95% of global data by undersea cables).
    
    - An escalation of the trade war, in tariffs (by the US) on key products such as steel and the restriction of semiconductor exports to Russia and China.
    
    - The battle for rare earths is heating up not only in the so-called "green energy technologies" but also in critical areas of the war industry (radar, weapon systems, aircraft).
    
    - Intensifying the war on 5G networks which are related to information control, espionage and military superiority, but in addition constitute the "nervous system" of the most advanced technologies such as robotics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence.
    
    The continuous sanctions of the Western imperialists against Russia, especially in the energy sector, combined with the so-called "green transition", have created strong elements of an energy crisis. Also on the basis of the new terms on which competition is conducted, we see new energy alliances being created, such as those between Russia and Saudi Arabia within the framework of OPEC+. All in all, a race is unfolding in the crucial field of energy resources. On the one hand, imperialist countries such as the US and Russia are using energy as a geopolitical weapon while others such as China are accelerating their pace to become energy self-sufficient.
    
    The war on interest rates, with the central banks (FEF, EKT) constantly raising bank interest rates, in order to raise capital to fuel competition and to tame inflation, certainly had an aggravating and multiplying effect in this situation as a whole. Collateral damage and an indication of the crisis “looking” for ways to come to “ground”, can be considered the collapses of three regional banks in the US, the biggest bank failure since 2008, which, should be noted, is only the tip of the crisis iceberg. Also, despite the end of quantitative easing which led to the contraction of global liquidity and to the large increase in borrowing costs, we had the continuation of strong inflationary pressures that began to coexist with stagnant output (i.e. the emergence of elements of stagflation).
    
    Lately, the relative inflation tightening that had shot up in June 2022, has opened the discussion in the imperialist staffs, to start a new round of interest rate cuts even in 2024, in order to avoid the above, but geopolitical conflicts (Ukraine, Middle East) may postpone the decisions for the future.
    
    "Finally", on the basis of the conditions under which the system operates and in the context of dealing with the crisis and its deadlocks, the policies of austerity have recently been ejected, and they are afflicting and impoverishing hundreds of millions of the masses.

15. Thirty years after the collapses of 1989-1991, the system is trying to face ...itself! It is immersed in its crisis which is fed and fuelled by all fields of activities and relations: from the production and structure of the economy, the routes of transport of goods, energy and information, to the crucial question of "hierarchy" and the relations of the dominant imperialist powers within its framework.
    
    The capitalist-imperialist system is looking for new fields of action and investment in the real economy ("green" technology, investment in infrastructure in the US) or new areas of expansion (Africa, the Arctic). But all its searches are unstable, relative, and temporary and subject to its contradictions and antagonisms.
    
    Thus, for example, the search for a way out in the so-called "green technology", which, by the way, is anything but environmentally friendly, not only does not have terms of continuity with what already exists (the so-called "oil economy") and therefore risks being slowed down/blocked by the contradictions it surfaces, but is subject to the real possibilities (technological, sufficiency of raw materials) for its implementation. Of course, the so-called "green technology" and the "green transition" is used as a tool of blackmail and subjugation of the dependent countries by the imperialists and in the fierce competition between them. Regarding environmental friendliness, let us briefly mention the following: The naming of nuclear energy as "green", bypassing the disastrous consequences of nuclear accidents (Three mile island, Chernobyl, Fukushima), of shells and depleted uranium bombs in Iraq and Yugoslavia and of the mountains of -toxic and radioactive - nuclear waste. The desertification of entire regions and the impoverishment of the grassroots for the promotion of so-called biofuels, the mining of huge quantities of ore for the production of lithium batteries, which results in the production of large volumes of air pollutants, and questions about the environmental impact of their recycling.
    
    The basis of the supposed "shift" towards "green energy and technology" is climate change or, in other words, the climate crisis caused, according to the system's apologists, generally and vaguely by ...humans. On this issue we have to distinguish between the real basis of the concerns and the system's threefold attempt to embellish themselves, to terrorize the peoples and to integrate the solution of the problem into the fierce imperialist antagonism. The real basis of peoples' concerns lies in the fact that the capitalist system for more than two centuries, and especially when it entered its imperialist stage, has been destroying the environment and people's lives, threatening life on the planet. In order to make even greater profit for capital and to respond to the inter-imperialist competition, natural resources are being plundered and depleted in a predatory manner, polluting the land, the sea, the air and even space. The foregoing applies in full, regardless of the extent to which the various elements that the system is “bombarding” us with are valid.
    
    The solutions that are being sought are therefore piecemeal and do not seem so far to be able to provide a comprehensive way out of the system. This is also reflected in the level of the political-governmental solutions being put forward in the capitalist-imperialist metropolises, which take various forms without negating two interrelated constants of the solutions put forward.
    
    One concerns the monstrous intensification of the imperialist competition, the tendency towards war to claim spheres of influence, with the peoples as fuel, while through this struggle the central question of the strategic alliances of the imperialists is attempted to be answered. And alongside this, the escalation of the generalised attack on the working class and the popular strata, which has taken on a paroxysmal character and is bringing the working classes' working and living conditions to their lowest limits, not only in the major regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America, but also in countries of middle development and the imperialist metropolises of North America and Europe.
    
    We would even say that capital and imperialism have succeeded in creating extensive zones all over the planet where workers are living intolerable lives, below or well below the limits of reproduction of labour power, in which the characters of Hugo's "Les Misérables" and Jack London's "The People of the Abyss" are brought into life.
    
    Nor can be ignored the abject trafficking of human beings (mainly women and children), human organs, drugs, a business with huge profits, which complements the allegedly moral business of capital and imperialist states. A business by which millions of people in the slums from all corners of the world "live" and on which they depend by thousands of threads and relations, and through which they are put out of class struggle.

THE IMPERIALIST GEOSTRATEGIC "TRIAD"

THE USA

16. The change from Trump to Biden administration, and the episodic but dangerous way in which it was done (events on the Capitol - January 2021), the fact that one presidential candidate (Trump) is under investigation and the fact that there are attempts to block his candidacy in the Republican Party, while a trial is pending for the son of the other (Biden), are a characteristic expression of the deadlocks and divisions produced by the continuation of a course of relative weakening of US imperialism and at the same time a reflection of the overall problems and deadlocks that plague the capitalist-imperialist system as a whole. The road to the US elections will be a route full of twists, surprises and tension.
    
    The US continue to have most of the "prerequisites" to take on the role of the locomotive for the capitalist-imperialist system as a whole. US imperialism remains the power with the greatest political, military and economic potential. It has established and continues to maintain an extensive network of military bases all around the globe, and is at the head of the only active strategic alliance, NATO, despite the questions that have been raised on it as well. It also continues to maintain and control a vast network of trade and economic transactions, while the dollar remains the dominant currency, an expression of US position and power in the world.
    
    On the other hand, as global developments show, despite its efforts, it is on a continuous course of retreat in relation to its allies and competitors. This is evidenced by facts and events of economic, political and geopolitical nature.
    
    This contradiction, given that the US will not give up its goal of world dominance/hegemony, produces and reproduces the ongoing and growing division within the US. A division that will not abate as it is linked to the choice of tactics and prioritization of adversaries to reverse the course of their relative weakening. In particular, it is linked: a) to whether the option of targeting the two imperialists of the East in the same way and with the same intensity can be feasible and effective, or whether modifications to this option must be made, and b) what concessions to roles and position they intend to make to their allies (European imperialist countries, Japan, etc.).

17. This contradiction increasingly complicates the terms of competition on the imperialist table as it develops. It produces a web of contradictions and short circuits in the antagonisms and conflicts that are developing in all regions of the planet. This contradiction produces the -paradoxical at first sight- "revisionist" behaviour of the USA against the global "status quo" that gives them the first position among the imperialist powers on the planet. This contradiction also has its expression in the deterioration of the internal issues that the US are facing: the demolition of important infrastructure, the relative decline of the real economy, the narrowing of the support base (middle class), the swelling of class and racial divisions and tensions.
    
    
18. On the economic front, given its close relationship with US foreign policy, for a power that bases its position on the control, dependence and plunder of entire regions of the planet and seeks to enrich it, the Biden administration has also tried to address the obvious imbalances. But as happened with the collapse of Trump's plan to fund the construction sector with $1 trillion, the Biden administration miserably failed. Ambitious economic policies of giant funding of the US real economy and especially the reconstruction of the truly aging infrastructure of the US heartland were slashed from $2.3 trillion to a little less than $1 trillion.
    
    If Trump's policies collapsed because they met with the insistence of the capital to invest where it sees immediate and increased profit, the Biden administration was also confronted  -even more than the previous administration - with the problems produced by the policy of "disengagement" from China, while the opening of the front in Ukraine pushed for a redefinition of economic priorities.
    
    That's why the only plan that has been standing, upgraded and implemented over time is the one concerning the enormous amounts of money for military armaments. Of course, apart from the dilemma or even the balance to be kept between investing in research for the production of new weapons or increasing the production of existing ones (Russia has it too), the militarization of the ...militarized US economy and the reliance on the military-industrial complex, does not so far push for an overall upgrading of the US manufacturing-industrial-production base, at least not until US weapons are used to re-share markets and spheres of influence.

19. Equally serious is the question of the formation of a domestic socio-political front that serves the global objectives of the US. The Trump administration's attempt to respond to this issue by assembling middle and popular strata on a far-right, nationalist, racist basis, although seemed to work because it was in full alignment with M.A.G.A (Make America Great Again), eventually caused serious complications and divisions in the US social body, brought to the surface and widened the social rift that had been forming over the last decades in the US social formation. This call and its consequences alarmed and antagonised significant sections of the US establishment. However, the Biden administration not only failed to address the problem, as most of the announcements in this area remained on paper, but with the policies it promoted -in the context of US response to global competition- it continued to deepen the rift in the US social body. Expressions of this deepening are the recent clash of states with the federal government over immigration and the unthinkable talk of 25 states seceding from the US!
    
    The problems of the US are also reflected in the political system itself and its representatives. At one point the debate opened about the antiquated system of government that is out of step with the needs of US imperialism, but it was probably closed because there were no solutions with a broad consensus in the ruling class. However, only one aspect of the problem, albeit the most glaring, is the lack of serious young political figures and the largely forced reliance on a dipole (until when?) that is in its …fourth age.

20. Regarding global objectives, the Trump administration has been highly critical not only of the Obama presidency but also to the earlier administration that let the "unipolar moment" in the early 1990s slip away, the golden opportunity to impose US sovereignty. But in doing so it gave itself the right to be judged by the same strict criteria and found wanting. The Trump administration's regressions and rashness, its flattening and unqualified treatment of allies and adversaries, especially the -at least- "unfortunate" handling of the pandemic that gave arguments to enemies and irreconcilable friends of the US, counted in the final tally. However, the "unorthodox" global leverage that the Trump Administration carried out, i.e. the fact that it put all rivalry, competition or alliance and partnership relationships back into question, objectively gave the new administration the opportunity ("leverage reserve") to attempt to rebuild them, in order to address on better terms than before the common strategic goal of global dominance/hegemony that both saw slipping away.
    
    First of all, the new administration sealed with its words and especially its actions the collective belief of the US establishment, which the Trump administration brought to the fore: the US, in order to cope and emerge victorious in the era of great power rivalry, as the "National Security Strategy" of 2017 and 2018 describes it, cannot "think" and act as before.
    
    Thus, along with its modifications in the prioritization of opponents and in the treatment of European "allies"/competitors, the new administration "kept alive" in its own way, a number of important objectives and policies of the previous one.

21. Of course, if anything was a foregone conclusion from the very first moment, it was that Russia would be put back in the foreground as the strategic adversary that needs to be dealt with immediately, firmly and decisively. In contrast to the Trump approach, which prioritized "economic" confrontation and thus prioritized dealing with China, the new administration prioritized the geostrategic as the field through which the US would approach the goal of dominance/hegemony. Thus the escalation of Russia's entrenchment using the Zelensky regime was a powerful reason for Russia to invade Ukraine to safeguard its interests and start a war the likes of which humanity has not known since the end of WWII. While in the war in Ukraine, the US have some tactical successes (dragging in European imperialists, wedging the EU through the "new Europe", NATO's expansion towards the East), their dilemmas are increasing based on the strategic stakes to which this conflict is linked to, on the one hand, and the unfavourable developments in the battlefield on the other.
    
    The Biden Administration also ensured, using the "Anglo-Saxon axis", to send in time the message that China is now seen as a competitor and rival. Mainly with the AUKUS scheme and secondarily with the QUAD scheme, the US are attempting to have other players in the region (Japan, Australia) join the squeeze of China and Russia, while sending a message of alignment to the European imperialists. The resurgence on the US side of the Taiwan issue, the active front they maintains with North Korea and the sovereignty issues in the South China Sea are aspects and areas of the intensifying anti-Chinese US policy in the Asia-Pacific.
    
    What was evident in the first period of the new administration was the change of "style" and tactics towards the European imperialists and the EU in order to undo the suspicion and resentment that the Trump administration had generated: lifting of US sanctions on NordStream 2, accompanied by the freezing by the EU of its major trade agreement with China, concluded in September 2020, the freezing of the Boeing -Airbus dispute, the joint pacing in certain economic-political fields (establishment of the Council for Trade and Technology, joint promotion of the WTO "reform" with the intention of cornering China). As subsequent developments have shown, the AUKUS agreement and, above all, the squeezing of the EU and the Franco-Germans regarding the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration has chosen the good old route of provoking tension and aligning the imperialists of continental Western Europe with the US aggressive plans through NATO.
    
    Of course, the issue of NATO, the rifts and doubts about the role, the position and especially the perspective of each imperialist in it, is far from being a thing of the past. The strategic blackmail under President Trump to the Europeans, Macron's "brain-dead NATO", may have been temporarily overshadowed by the successes with Finland and Sweden joining NATO and the rallying of this murderous alliance based on the war in Ukraine. Yet the issue is open and ready to be triggered, all the more so when the role of the trigger can be claimed by Washington itself, as Trump's new inflammatory statements show.
    
    At the same time, the Biden administration tried to activate multilateral cooperation schemes by creating "free world-totalitarian regimes" dipoles, which are variations of the "East-West" schemes of the Cold War period, in order to further align the European imperialists and a number of regional powers that resent the developments, or continue not to align themselves completely with the West, along with the strong card of the NATO alliance.
    
    Beyond that there are a number of areas of special weight for US imperialism. In the Balkans, on the one hand, it is trying to consolidate the results of its expansions so far and to expel Russia's strongholds (e.g. in Serbia), but also to prevent the opening of new cracks (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo), continuing its policy of "sealing the Balkans". In the Caucasus it is trying to squeeze in, using Armenia alongside Georgia. While the question remains for the US on how to deal with the footholds that Russia, China and Europeans are building in its "backyard", in Central and South America.

22. It is not only or mainly the fact that the so-called "disengagement" from China has significant economic -and not only- consequences for the US itself, nor that the now extensive network of sanctions against Russia is creating frictions in the cohesion of the West.
    
    The simultaneous effort to confront Russia and China on all levels, not only in the economic, has brought the two Eurasian imperialists closer together, which is creating a never-ending headache for the US establishment. Thus, although the tactical Russia-China alliance has so far reached the level of a relationship that is marginally characterized as strategic cooperation (even that is not to be underestimated), nevertheless, data are constantly being created that bring the US ever closer to the danger of seeing before it what it has been averse to for decades: a strategic alliance of the two Eurasian giants. This is, we reiterate, perhaps the most important strategic dilemma/deadlock that the US faces in its attempt to halt its weakening course. To this strategic dilemma the US strategic impasse in Ukraine is added and superimposed.

RUSSIA

23. For Russia, the inglorious Yeltsin decade of the 1990s is gone irretrievably. Russian imperialism, reconstituted itself to a significant extent in the 2000s, in the following decade it challenged US expansions and in the current decade it began to claim a serious share in world developments, an effort it will defend at all costs.
    
    In 2015, with its critical intervention in Syria, it showed that it demands a role and a voice not only in the former Soviet republics (war with Georgia in 2008) but also in its immediate surroundings and that it has the capacity to break the zone of encirclement that the US is creating around it. At the same time it does not stop using its footholds in areas such as the Balkans and the Caucasus.
    
    Lately, using a series of weapons (vaccines, energy, countries' discontent), it not only continues to support countries in the perimeter of the US (Venezuela) and to drive a wedge into Turkey-West relations, but is now claiming a serious role in areas such as the Sahel in Africa, is close to acquiring  -after Tartus (Syria) - a second base in the Mediterranean (Eastern Libya), and is creating “inappropriate” relations with formerly pro-Western countries in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia). It is thus taking advantage of the retreat of French imperialism in the Black Continent, the gaps left by it and the discontent created by US imperialism and the “collective West” in general. While through the BRICS grouping, together with China, it is trying to significantly upgrade its global influence.

24. However, by far its most important geopolitical strategic choice concerns its invasion of Ukraine. Russian imperialism, rightly believing that these developments will escalate its encroachment and even pose existential questions, has decided to intervene in a decisive manner. By means of the war in Ukraine, it is now, as a matter of fact, placing more comprehensive strategic stakes: Russia must have a say and a role in the 'security architecture in Europe' and on the entire planet. Although it faces not inconsiderable “losses” in the field of geopolitics (Finland and Sweden's membership of NATO) and alliances (European imperialists' stance), it hopes that developments on the battlefield will be able to reverse the currently entrenched situation.
    
    The war in Ukraine, together with US moves in Taiwan and the Pacific, have accelerated the tightening of Russia-China relations. However, for the time being this is not rising to the level of strategic cooperation. On the Russian New Bourgeoisie side there are fears about the rapid strengthening of China and strategic doubts as to whether and to what extent two hegemons fit in the Eurasian space.

25. For the Russian New Bourgeoisie (NB), the continuation of the war in Ukraine also raised a broader question: "which world they belong to". The political leadership of the NB, led by Putin, is attempting a comprehensive response centred on two interrelated considerations: the rise of power and the role assigned to powers in Eurasia and the East, and the decline and unreliability of the "collective West", which it accuses of operating on double standards in world affairs. It chooses to invest ideologically in the so-called “Russian world” and to instrumentalize it as far as the former Soviet territory is concerned. In addition, Russia also appears as the representative of the disappointed bourgeoisies on the planet. Russian imperialism and its references to the multipolar (or polycentric) world is nothing but a tactical option through which it challenges Western domination of the planet. However, it must be clear that this (i.e. the multipolar world) is not a goal but a springboard to set its real ambition, which is hegemony on the planet. It must be equally clear that challenging Western sovereignty is a process that is far from easy and that already faces a number of problems and objections.
    
    The "campaign to Moscow" of the head of Wagner, Prigozhin, highlighted, among other things, the lack of historical depth and the significant gaps and distortions inherent in the incomplete process of the formation of the New Bourgeoisie in Russia. The Prigozhin move reflected the tendency to harden parts of the NB with the logic of turning the "special military operation" in Ukraine into a full-scale war. However, it was also an opportunity for other parts of the NB to express their dissatisfaction and objections to the major setback in the strategic energy relationship with Germany, the breaking of ties with Europe and the overall fracturing of Russian-Western relations. Common to both opposing perspectives is the fact that the Russian political and military leadership did not correctly and in all its depth assess what it would face when it launched the invasion, given that Russia-Europe and Russia-West relations are of concern to the entire NB and its political staff.
    
    In the above context, the overall problem of the political system is superimposed, which is also expressed through excessive support for Putin's ability. This support, under certain circumstances can turn from an advantage into its opposite.

26. The NB's political leadership faced extensive and repeated waves of sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine, including the freezing of Russian state assets abroad. Western sanctions multiplied and deepened the blockades that Russia has never ceased to face from the Western economy (e.g., from the World Trade Organization) instead they increased along the way on various occasions. At the same time, the enormous needs to cope with the war in Ukraine led it to turn the Russian economy to an increasing extent into a war economy.
    
    Combined, these two developments, despite their obvious negative consequences, have forced the Russian leadership to sharply increase the already high degree of independence of the Russian economy and have also motivated a series of parallel developments. The growth of the military-industrial complex was combined with the production of new destructive weapon systems one level above their Western counterparts. At the same time, the process of transforming its production base to cope with global competition was accelerated. Given its shares and capabilities in the energy field, the sanctions have probably backfired on their Western initiators. In fact, it seems that the political leadership through these procedures has caused significant rearrangements in the persons and hierarchy within the NB, thus producing results more compatible with the geopolitical hierarchy of enemies and friends of Russian imperialism.

CHINA

27. The Chinese leadership, after two -at least - decades of frantic capitalist development and accumulation, is facing new and critical facts and situations. Without abandoning, by any means, the policy of "soft power", it is moving rapidly to match its military-strategic power with its economic rise, but also to transform its economic DNA so that it corresponds to an imperialist power of global scope. Of course, the spectre of Soviet 1989 continues to exist for the Chinese NB, which although tries to exorcise it through a process of controlled capitalization, it is certain that at some point will be called upon to face, or in fact will be faced with, the contradiction between the political form and the content of the economic-social relations it builds.
    
    China will continue its "soft power" policy, a significant part of which involves the following two-fold effort: on the one hand, securing roads and hubs that provide it with energy and wider raw materials, know-how and cutting-edge technology, and on the other hand, using these or different roads and hubs to penetrate into critical areas and markets of the planet.
    
    The Chinese leadership, as shown by its balanced attitude or even neutrality favourable to Russia, on the issue of Ukraine, does not want to place the whole of the West against it, it is trying to gain time but also not to sacrifice its economic and commercial relations with Europe and the West. Of course, Chinese imperialism now knows that US tolerance (which existed for geostrategic reasons) is over and that if it does not defend and consolidate the "soft power" policy with political and military power, it risks losing many of the gains of the previous phase. The case of Libya is small in comparison to the obstacles that the Chinese penetration encounters and will encounter in the future: a typical recent example is the US-initiated, competitive to the Chinese modern "Silk Road", interconnection route between India and Europe, in which in addition to the US, the EU, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates participate.
    
    Domestically, despite the serious problems it encountered during the pandemic, it continues at an escalating pace its transformation from an economy of cheap low-tech products to an economy of high-value-added products with integrated cutting-edge technology. But the slowdown in the growth rates of Chinese capitalism is no longer due only or mainly to the previous process. The end of the tolerance of the West and especially the USA, have led, among other things, to a steep decrease in foreign capital inflows into the country. China is facing a "cocktail of crises" with the property market -which accounts for 30% of its economy- in decline and continuous bankruptcies, deflation taking hold and youth unemployment rising alarmingly. These certainly have implications for Chinese imperialism's attempt to create a middle class. At the same time, they lead to a new cycle of attack that threatens the conquests that the Chinese working class won with very hard struggles in the previous period.
    
    The most characteristic expression of the race that Chinese imperialism is doing, is the development of its military-strategic arsenal. It is spending billions of dollars on its space program with the aim of reaching the USA and Russia within the next decade. It completed construction of its own space station in 2022 and sent a manned spacecraft to it in 2023. It is advancing at an alarming pace in the construction of nuclear weapons: in 2021 alone, US spy satellites reported the construction of 200 silos to house a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. China has built its third aircraft carrier, the first to be built entirely in China. It has surpassed the number of US warships as it considers the development of a powerful war fleet as critical to protect the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) sea route, while it has established its first overseas military presence (Djibouti). However, it is still far from the level of both the USA and Russia. The most important problem of the Chinese military is what the Chinese leaders themselves call "the disease of peace"! In other words, unlike the US military that has been involved in a series of wars (interventions) and Russia that is rapidly learning lessons in Ukraine, the Chinese military is not ready for war.
    
    China is moving methodically and in addition to its military preparations, it is working intensively to forge partnerships and alliances with countries in the region in order to counter the growing challenges of the US in Southeast Asia (Taiwan, AUKUS). At the political-diplomatic level, securing a role and position in Southeast Asia and the Pacific against the US's attempt to constrict it, is now combined with diplomatic initiatives and movements of global scope such as the agreement with Iran, the mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia and of course the strong support it provides to the BRICS scheme.

SECONDARY CENTERS AND IMPERIALIST COUNTRIES

THE EUROPEAN UNION

28. The imperialist "wolf-alliance" of the European Union is facing the biggest impasse since its establishment as the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957.
    
    In the past two decades, the adoption of the euro and the creation of the Eurozone, the German-stamped choice of EU enlargement with Eastern European countries, highlighted the prospect of upgrading the international role of the European enterprise. At the same time, however, they were also the reasons for strengthening the internal contradictions of the project. The serious wounds left by the global economic crisis in the body of the European Union and the convulsions created by the separation of Britain (BREXIT), combined with the increasingly sharp intra-imperialist rivalries and the diverging strategies of the imperialist member-states that prevail within its framework, brought to the fore the inherent contradictions of the European imperialist project that was also tested and will be tested in the future by refugee and immigrant flows. Flows created -first of all- by the imperialist policies of the USA and the EU itself against poor and dependent countries and regions.
    
    However, the war in Ukraine not only multiplied the EU's contradictions, problems, centrifugal tendencies and impasses, but violently threw it between the conflicting US-Russian Clash, increasing the risk of even crushing it. A notable dimension of these developments on European soil is the rise of social and class struggles, from the working class, the popular to the middle classes (such as the peasants) who see their standard of living and a number of conquests and rights submerged and sacrificed for geopolitical choices and of course at the altar of fierce competition and the over-accumulation of wealth in the bourgeois classes that it demands.
    
    An important aspect of developments in the European Union is the rise of far-right parties. Each case must be dealt with separately and based on the particular route of each country. However, we cannot help but note that in countries such as Germany, France, and even the Netherlands and Italy, their rise to government positions (Italy, the Netherlands) is not only connected to exploiting the discontent of the popular masses and to a special way of the middle classes from the generalization of the attack. Nor does it reflect only the disrepute of the reformist left as well as the simultaneous weakness or non-existence of revolutionary forces that could turn discontent into struggles and a subversive leftist orientation. It reflects and expresses the thoughts and concerns of the ruling classes concerning and connected with their imperialist role. Thus, the rise of Le Pen in France expresses both second thoughts and the willingness of parts of French imperialism to confront German hegemony in the EU. The rise of the far-right AfD in Germany also expresses the dissatisfaction of a part of German imperialism with the US blackmail that led to the 180-degree turn from OstPolitic. Of course, the general rise of the extreme right in many countries and not only in Europe, seems to be connected to a logic of preventive terror and repression of the peoples and the steps of their awakening. In addition, based on the issues that have been raised in the European continent and in the world, the fact that the Franco-German agreement (no question for axis) is constantly limited costs more than ever, while both the balance and a certain impetus that the presence of Britain gave is no longer there. In addition, less powerful but with a significant presence countries such as Italy and Spain, have raised the tone of diversification, reinforcing an environment of divisions in which the countries of "New Europe" often become the trigger with or without US hints.
    
    We recently had the forced decision on immigration, the agreement to start the process of Ukraine joining to the EU (which is basically political), with Orban going for coffee so as not to spoil the necessary unanimity, while the serious disagreements remain between France and Germany on the new fiscal rules but also on dealing with nuclear energy. EU countries and officials representing it appeared divided over the massacre in Gaza.
    
    Of course and in spite of all this, the European Union remains a venture that gives the capital of the imperialist countries and the imperialist countries themselves that control and guide it, great possibilities on three levels. In the perpetuation of the robbery of wealth-producing sources and the peoples of the smaller EU countries, in the more effective and fiercer promotion of capital exploitation policies inside each country as well as the imposition of an increasingly reactionary legal framework, in the use by the imperialist member states of venture to project power and influence in the rest of the world.
    
    So the future of the European imperialist "wolf-alliance" will not be decided univocally, but definitely, a key role will be played in it by the choices that the main imperialist powers that define it will be called upon to make and the dilemmas that they will be called upon to answer, in conditions of an evolving fierce international competition between USA, Russia and China for the hegemony on the planet.

GERMANY

29. We could say that German imperialism is in the worst position, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the war that broke out from there on.
    
    The German bourgeoisie had chosen a long path of soft power to achieve its hegemony in the EU. This is how it managed to turn the balance in its favour against France and UK. But mainly to upgrade its position through the OstPolitic which now had included not only the strategic energy cooperation with Russia but also the extensive trade-economic relations with China, thus emerging as the country with the largest export surplus in Europe. Thus they believed that through the slippage they would conquer the much-desired emancipation from US custody.
    
    Now the hegemonic power in the EU is forced, essentially unable to do anything else, to reverse "overnight" decades of policies, jeopardizing many of the positions and roles it had in the meantime conquered.
    
    It swallows the sabotage of the NordStream 1 and 2 pipelines speechless, not only freezes the strategic energy cooperation with Russia, but is forced to confront it in the war in Ukraine. At the same time, is being pressured by the US to dramatically limit its trade and economic relations with China. Catalysed by the loss of cheap natural gas from Russia, the German economy from Europe's steam engine is in danger of turning into its great patient. Its industrial production is already experiencing serious problems with the steep increase in energy costs while it is on a shrinking path. That is why part of the economic establishment has shown its displeasure at the subsequent disconnection from Russian energy, something that also manifests itself at the political level with the rise of the far-right AfD. Inside the EU, tries with meagre results to coordinate with France on important issues, while the post-BREXIT centrifugal tendencies remain and the differentiations of countries and groups of countries from the dominant agenda that it has set have intensified.
    
    The announcement of a massive rearmament of the German army with funds amounting to 100 billion Euros remains to be confirmed in practice. In addition, there is an equally important question on the table: how can this empowerment be utilized when the political-military steps that we see German imperialism taking in terms of its strategic emancipation, are problematic?

FRANCE

30. It becomes clear that while French imperialism continues to attach importance to the Franco-German understanding, the divergences between the two protagonists of the European imperialist project have widened. Dissatisfaction with German hegemony has grown stronger in France, which is expressed politically with Le Pen's significant percentages. It seems that the developments in the French political system reflect the overall questions and impasses that the ruling class of France encounters.
    
    In the European field the French bourgeoisie demands less strict fiscal rules, larger shares of the plunder of the dependent countries inside and outside Europe, more flexibility with the "deficits" in order to be able to manage the great popular reaction that manifests itself in France more than anywhere else on the European continent. At the same time, in the energy field, it is trying to project as a European energy supplier, having included in its plans a significant increase of nuclear reactors, which became much more important after the sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
    
    Of course, the French imperialism is just as squeezed as the German one after this invasion, which forced Paris as well as Berlin to accept a new US "landing" on the Old Continent. The French bourgeoisie know that its nuclear arsenal gives it the ability to project power inside the EU against the German bourgeoisie which is strategically "disabled", but against Russia it is not enough and is only able to function in addition to the US nuclear umbrella.
    
    In addition, the retreat of French imperialism from its presence as an imperialist "protector" power from a number of countries in the Sahel Zone is evident, while its attempts to intervene on a number of other fronts (Middle East) do not have any tangible results. However, it has taken some steps, through Greece, in upgrading its presence and influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, but always under the overall framework of US supremacy in the region.

ENGLAND

31. British imperialism continues its journey into uncharted but nevertheless turbulent global waters, after its departure from the EU. The response given to the historic post-war division of the British ruling class, now seems quite clearly not enough to offer the solutions it was looking for. This is because the source of its problems was the continuous reduction of its influence in Europe and in the world, something related to the possibilities it formed over the decades and much less to its participation or not in the EU.
    
    The narrative of "global Britain", which more or less predicted that Britain, now "liberated" from the coercions and commitments of the European project would occupy another place in the world, has not come true.
    
    Financially, it is struggling not to be completely deprived of the privileges it had secured from the special relationship it had essentially entered into with the entire EU project, while its autonomous performance does not cause much optimism.
    
    The frequent changes of Prime Ministers are a sign of the instability inherited by the British political system after BREXIT, which reflects the difficulties of "the next day" that continue to plague British imperialism, as well as the questions over the triangular Britain -EU-(occupied) Northern Ireland.
    
    In the geopolitical field, the British bourgeoisie may make "sedulous" efforts with old acquaintances (Poland, Turkey, British Commonwealth countries) to regain some of its influence in global developments, but basically it has landed and is limited to a role (AUKUS , Ukraine) of the "right hand" of the transatlantic boss (USA) and drawing any power and influence through the Anglo-Saxon channel. The adventurism that marks many of the moves and choices of its political staff (see Ukraine) is typical of the British bourgeoisie's pressures and need to establish its role and place.

JAPAN

32. In the 1990s, the great financial crisis that hit Japan forced it to "withdraw" from world affairs for a considerable period of time. In addition, as one of the defeated powers of the Second World War and in addition as the country whose Constitution was signed on a US aircraft carrier and after having received two nuclear strikes, its entire post-war course faced the geopolitical limitations set by the USA. From the decade of the 2000s an, admittedly slow-moving, return to them began again, which, as before the 1990 crisis, had as its main inhibiting factor its strategic guardianship by the USA.
    
    The recently assassinated (2022) ex-prime minister of Japan, Shinso Abe, along with the effort to rebuild the Japanese economy, imposed the prioritization since the mid-2000s and with greater intensity since 2010, of the revision of the Constitution and overall doctrine of Yoshida (the first post-war prime minister) which effectively made Japan completely dependent on the USA and forbade its transformation into a military force to be reckoned with. The review may not have progressed, but in the previous decade, Japanese imperialism began to lay the groundwork for matching their military might to their considerable economic potential. So that Japan begins, in December 2022, a dramatic transformation of its defence stance with the new National Security Strategy (NSS).

33. The situation brought it so that the USA, with the aim of confronting China and also Russia in the Asia-Pacific, prioritized Japan's tendency to rearm, apparently considering that they can control the orientation of Japanese foreign policy for a long time. Thus, the intensifying nationalist fever of Japanese imperialism, which brings back elements of its militaristic tradition, found an unexpected ally, in the face of the hated USA.
    
    This of course met with Japan's growing concern over China's rise in the East Asian region. The support of the QUAD scheme by Japan, the military cooperation with Australia and very recently the opening of discussions with the USA and Britain on the upgrading of military relations are examples of this "meeting". Taking advantage of this, Japan voted the largest "defence" budget in its post-war history, while converting a helicopter carrier into Japan's first aircraft carrier.
    
    At the same time, since 2010, it has begun a gradual de-dependence from China, which nevertheless remains its largest trading partner. Japan depends on Beijing as a sales market, manufacturing base and source of critical resources. It is not a coincidence that Japan's new NSS argues that economic competitiveness and national security are inextricably linked.
    
    However, Japanese imperialism has many obstacles to overcome in order to reach its goal, and if one and the biggest concerns US supremacy, the other concerns its inherent weaknesses (lack of raw materials, energy self-reliance, etc.).

THE PRESENT PHASE AND THE CRITICAL AND BASIC ISSUES ON THE PLANET

34. There are four main issues on which the relentless struggle is focused, primarily of the "triad", and also closely of the second- and third-line imperialists for planetary domination and redistribution of the world: the unjust war in Ukraine, the Asia-Pacific front, the BRICS and the strategic crossroads of the Middle East, that very recently came to the fore with a momentum again. Next to them coexist or appear, old and new foci of tension concerning important geostrategic areas.

THE WAR IN UKRAINE

35. For important parts of US imperialism and most clearly for the Biden Administration, the goal of world domination passed and passes through the tightening-encirclement of Russia, which had as its characteristic edge, the warlike expansion of NATO to the East.
    
    In this strategy, Ukraine was and is a key country, because it plays an important role in the formation of power relationships in Europe and, by extension, in the world. Russia, with Belorussia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine by its side, would form important conditions for it to rise again to the level of an imperialist superpower. Conversely, the winning of Ukraine by the US would not only put a significant barrier to such a development, but would turn Ukraine into a springboard country for the encirclement by the US. In addition, Ukraine "is suited", since both its historical path and modern developments highlighted its ambiguous characteristics and its vulnerability. The same goes for the New Bourgeoisie of Ukraine, which, apart from being reactionary and adventurous, was and is divided between West and East.
    
    The war in Ukraine is therefore about the control of Ukraine by the US-NATO and Russian imperialists, it is about issues related to the struggle of these imperialists for world domination and that is why it is unfair and reactionary from all sides.

36. Important milestones of the Ukrainian geopolitical "pendulum" and the US/West-Russia competition to win Ukraine, were:
    
    - the US-inspired pro-Western Orange "Revolution" that overthrew the newly elected pro-Russian Yanukovych in 2004.
    
    - Bush's attempt to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO in 2008, which failed due to the objections of Germany and France, while Moscow also gave an "answer" with the war in Georgia.
    
    - The pro-Western Maidan coup in 2014, with the US and EU using fascist/neo-Nazi groups, again toppling Yanukovych, who had meanwhile been re-elected and was attempting a pro-Russian turn. A coup which in turn lead to the autonomy of the Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk as well as the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation.
    
    Then we had the "freezing" of the crisis with the Minsk agreements and the Normandy format, which, however, undermined from the outside (USA) and from the inside, as Merkel herself recently confessed, was the necessary gain of time for the anti-Russian military shielding of the Kiev regime. A freeze that of course left behind almost fifteen thousand Russian-speaking citizens killed, due to the daily bombardments by the Kiev regime.

37. The successes of Russian imperialism after 2015 sounded the alarm to the staffs in Washington. The election of the Biden administration was accompanied by hardening against Russia and the "unfreezing" of the Ukrainian crisis, with the first node being the alignment of Zelensky, who had been elected under the banner of agreement with Russia!
    
    So we have, Biden's characterization of Putin as a "murderer", the adventurist resumption of talks on a fast track entry of Ukraine into NATO (spring 2021) the suffocating stranglehold on Germany especially after the completion of the NordStream 2 pipeline (August 21) but also the pressure to EU to align itself with Washington's aggressive anti-Russian policy. The situation escalates from the fall of 2021 with the rapid equipment of Ukraine, while shortly before the invasion, the discussion opens about the possibility of installing nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory (winter of 2021).
    
    The Russian leadership, despite its reservations, finally takes the decision to invade, a decision of high risk and strategic importance, because it estimated that this was the only way to respond to the evolving de facto NATOization of Ukraine and the global consequences of this process.

38. It has been over two years since the invasion of Russia. The war in Ukraine, this unjust war between imperialist Russia and the Kiev regime, as a proxy of US and NATO imperialists, is not just another war. This war is the largest since the end of the Second World War, to the heart of the European continent and not only disputes Ukraine and its control, but is connected with global and strategic stakes.
    
    That is why, while during the war there were phases/moments when limits were reached and some kind of compromise was sought, it collapsed and the war conflict escalated.

39. The war in Ukraine already has catalytic consequences on all relations-oppositions between all imperialist states, in which it "imposes" a re-evaluation of their hierarchies until now, accelerates in some cases or on the contrary cancels or postpones for later in other cases, their geopolitical ambitions. It is changing the data for the entire capitalist-imperialist system at a crazy pace, putting to a great test but also to great temptations, not only the "great powers" of our time but everyone and of course also the dependent ruling classes. It provokes a frenzy of war armaments, above all it openly threatens the life of working humanity, bringing closer the nightmarish possibility of a generalized war. It attempts "here and now" an unprecedented militarization of the states to respond to the fierce competition, but also to fascistize the internal life of the countries, to impose a graveyard silence on the working class, the people and the youth to accept such a nightmarish perspective.
    
    
40. It is a war, which both militarily is qualitatively and quantitatively superior to anything humanity has experienced since World War II (e.g. in the most recent: US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, Western intervention and war in Libya, war and Western and Russian intervention in Syria, etc.).
    
    For the first time we have the combined use of drones, electronic warfare, enemy observation satellites and online guidance of military operations, automated weapons systems, missile and anti-missile systems of great destructive power and range, alongside the massive use of armoured vehicles, helicopters, airplanes and artillery of all kinds as well as throwing tens of thousands of soldiers into battle who become cannon fodder. More generally, both in attack and defence, but also in their combination, significant upgrades of the previous practices are observed. At the same time, as was natural for a war of such a scale, the decisive importance of industrial production and the technological level that supports military operations, as well as the crucial issue of reserves on each side, emerged again.
    
    Also for the first time since 1945, if we exclude the crisis in the Bay of Pigs, we have again on the table and indeed in a permanent and upgraded way, the nuclear threat, with the risk of generalized global carnage constantly approaching.

41. The evolution of the war and all the geopolitical results produced has highlighted the following issues.
    
    The USA, in reference to the individual goals they had set, have secured partial and imperfect successes. Such are:
    
    - The blowing up of the Minsk Agreements (of which they were excluded), the great rift in Germany-Russia relations and more broadly EU-Russia.
    
    - The "rebirth" of the (according to Macron) "brain-dead" NATO, with the alignment of the European imperialists of Germany and France in the overall US aggressive anti-Russian movement that also includes the successive waves of economic sanctions against Moscow.
    
    - The escalation of Russia's encirclement with the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO, but also with the overall militarization of the northern part of Eastern Europe (installation of 15 US bases in Finland, corresponding to Poland, the concentration in the Baltic of three aircraft carriers with 200 fighter jets).
    
    - The use of Britain and the Anglo-Saxon axis, as a tool of pressure against the centrifugal European tendencies.
    
    Those successes, however, especially those related to the European imperialists, are conditional, while overall the cohesion of the West under the US hegemony, will be severely tested while the news from the front goes from bad to worse.
    
    Russia, after not estimating the size of Kiev's support from the US-NATO and finding itself militarily unprepared, after many waves and adjustments, is creating perhaps the most war-ready army on the planet. Beyond the areas in Ukrainian territory that it appears to be consolidating its dominance, it has led the "Ukrainian counteroffensive" to failure while closing in on capturing some key cities in Eastern Ukraine. Its successes on the battlefield, more generally the fact that it seems ready for a long war but also for its ability to upgrade the destructive power of its military operations to many higher scales, breaks the cohesion of the West. It helps surface Franco-German objections to the whole development, highlights division within the US itself, and questions whether the shift of a compromise to the future will make it increasingly untenable for US aims.
    
    China, on the one hand, did not want and does not want to risk a head-on confrontation with the whole of the West and with it any margins that still remain in the exercise of its "soft power" policy. On the other hand, it knows that, after Russia, its turn will come, while already facing the US offensive policies. On this basis, it continues to maintain a balanced stance, or better yet, a stance of favourable neutrality towards Russia, blaming the West for the entire development. At the same time, it is also trying in this field to establish itself as a mediating force, in order to upgrade its global political-diplomatic role.
    
    The German and French imperialists and with them the imperialist "wolf-alliance" of the European Union, are the losers in this case. German imperialism is in the most difficult position, as it is forced to gradually abandon the "Eastern policy" (OstPolitic), the policy that enabled it to emerge as a hegemonic economic and political power in the EU. This is nothing but a reflection of the strategic impasse experienced by German imperialism. But French imperialism is anything but comfortable with the upgrade of US intervention in the European continent. Britain is trying to be a useful partner in the "Anglo-Saxon axis" having accepted the shadow of the Americans, and is trying to expand its own in this context by making use of its old "acquaintances" (Poland) and often proceeding with adventurous movements and choices.

42. The war in Ukraine had a great impact on our neighbour Turkey. The ruling class of Turkey, dependent -and at the same time with many degrees of freedom- from Western imperialism, in previous years had manifested a series of differences and dissatisfactions with the US-NATO choices (such as the exploitation of the Kurds against Assad's Syria). In addition, it claimed -"requested" from the USA an upgraded role and position in the events taking place in the Eastern Mediterranean and on a competitive basis with the ruling class of Greece. The war in Ukraine basically squeezed it, although secondarily one could say that it was also given an opportunity to redefine its relations with the West. But mainly, through the war in Ukraine, Washington's attempt to anchor neighbouring Turkey in US-NATO waters escalated. Thus the bourgeoisie of Turkey may have appeared at the beginning of the war as an "objective mediator", but afterwards the indications that the policy of "astute neutral" and the claim of role and position could not continue without significant consequences. Thus, in one process, Turkey's ruling class sent increasingly loud messages of adaptation: equipping Kiev with drones, accepting Finland-Sweden's membership in NATO, opening the debate on where will the S-400 be sent, promoting "calm" in the Aegean. While on the US side, the upgrade of the F-16s and the overall discussion about the modernization of Turkey’s military arsenal and the restoration of US-Turkish relations were thawing. This demonstrates, on the one hand, that Turkey has increasingly narrower margins of manoeuver in the heated terrain of the US-Russian confrontation. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie of Turkey considers that it can extract a series of benefits and exchanges for this gradual return to the US-NATO framework. However, the foregoing does not mean that Turkey will stop moving "multidimensionally" in its foreign policy wherever it can, nor that a series of thorns and pending issues in its relations with the USA and the West cannot be a field of new problems and turmoil in the future.
    
    
43. Recently in the war in Ukraine there have been important developments. The strikes on Belgorod but also on the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, the higher-than-ever massive Russian attacks on critical Ukrainian infrastructure, the seizure of Avdivka and the relative advance of Russian troops to the west. In addition, the revelations of the conversations of the German officials, as well as Macron's statements about the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine and of course the Russian response. At the same time that the pressures and scenarios for some imminent compromise with the acceptance of the loss of territories by the Kiev regime and for the possible replacement of Zelensky are increasing once again. All of this is indicative of the impasses and serious dangers that the war in Ukraine entails and also produces. Or to put it in another way, when the US do not even think of losing and Russia to be defeated, the resulting effect is an ever-increasing carnage with the possibility of a compromise -however temporary and fragile- continuously pushed into the future, if and when it is estimated by one or more staff that the situation has reached a dead-end.

THE ASIA-PACIFIC FRONT

44. The region of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean is turning, sometimes more quickly and sometimes more slowly, into a key conflict field of opposing imperialist interests and strategies.
    
    After Trump's aggressive economic policies in relation to China, the most important move by the US with the Biden administration, was definitely the creation of AUKUS. So after several months of secret talks, the new administration suddenly announces (September 2021) the creation of the AUKUS tripartite security agreement. The expediting of the agreement was possibly done to restore some of the lost credibility and prestige of the US after its dishonourable withdrawal one year before from Afghanistan (September 2020). The announcement created significant friction with France, which saw itself hit on the back as its agreement with Australia amounting to 56 billion euro to create 12 conventional submarines was cancelled at the same time.
    
    The military focus of the agreement is the construction of nuclear powered submarines in Australia with the help of the US and Britain. Of course, the agreement extends to the fields of cyber security, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, while indirectly also touching the field of global supply chains.
    
    The political focus is in the containment of emerging China. The agreement also includes Russia, which reaches the Pacific at its east, while it is also a strong message to the imperialists of continental Europe (France and Germany) that their differentiation regarding Russia and China cannot be tolerated.
    
    For China in particular, the agreement reflects an estimation that even more drastic policies are needed to curb its efforts to make Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific a power projection and springboard to advance the global goals it pursues as an imperialist power.

45. Within the framework of the same strategy, Washington activates at the same time broader forms of cooperation, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) with India, Japan, and Australia. Through QUAD, the US aim to play a role and at the same time control countries such as Japan and India whose ambitions are growing. At the same time, and especially with regard to India, the movements of the USA are multi-layered. They know the rivalry of the Indian ruling class against China but also the important relations it maintains and develops with Russia. They are also aware of the decision of the Indian ruling class not to turn to any imperialist but to enter into relations with them to further the avowed goal of making India a regional and global power. By promoting the road/corridor IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor) which is clearly competitive with China's BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) also known as the "Chinese Silk Road", the US are tempting India by offering it a role as a competitor to China. At the same time, they puts an end to the exclusivity enjoyed by the international INSTC (International North-South Transport Corridor) between India, Iran and Russia, which since 2002 has been transporting goods from Mumbai to St. Petersburg and from there to the large market of Europe.
    
    In addition, both Biden's statements negating Washington's ambiguous political-diplomatic position on Taiwan and Pelosi's episodic visit (August 2022) to the island, which of course took place in another international context (the war had broken out in Ukraine) show that the US establishment, without having settled down, is nevertheless flirting with more and more adventurist moves towards China. It arms Taiwan, rewards the most extreme political voices within it, and uses the hostility of countries like Japan towards China, to build a permanent deterrent anti-China front.

46. China, on the other hand, has been trying for a long time to take advantage of the US withdrawal -during the Trump presidency- from a series of interstate agreements in order to build partnerships and alliances in the region. It continues to support North Korea, while it has stepped up efforts to reach out diplomatically to countries such as Vietnam, in order to counterbalance USA’s efforts to isolate it.
    
    Russia, with less access to the region, is developing its traditional ties with India as a counterbalance to US moves, while it has increased joint military gymnasiums with China, projecting power and warning the US and its allies in the region that they do not play alone anymore.
    
    France, which reacted strongly to AUKUS, is the only European power with a presence in the Pacific with overseas possessions and seven thousand soldiers. The most important and substantial response of France to AUKUS, was the attempt to wedge through the Indo-French agreement in which the joint struggle for an open Indo-Pacific that excludes any form of hegemony was meaningfully underlined.
    
    All of the above are but the most basic and characteristic changes in the region's geopolitical "climate" that portend anything but a peaceful future for the Asia-Pacific region.

The BRICS

47. The economic-political grouping of the BRICS and its expansion is one of the issues that have marked and inspirited the debates about the tectonic changes that are occurring in the relations and correlations between the main imperialist powers in the world.
    
    BRICS is the most blatant, so to speak, but not the only, expression of the steps that Russia and China are taking, to transform the tactical alliance (or marginally strategic cooperation) that they have at this point, into a strategic alliance. Something that, however, has many inherent obstacles and in any case has a long way and time -politically- to travel before it becomes, if it becomes, successful.
    
    When it comes to their role in BRICS, they complete one another. Those who, looking one-sidedly at China's economic potential and underestimate Russia's economic potential, energy status and technological depth, while completely ignoring its geopolitical power, are mistaken once again, and that is why they consider that it is participating in BRICS under the guise of China.

48. The BRICS structure is certainly far from being considered a stable economic-political coalition of forces. Solely the participation of China and India in it, powers with a rivalry with historical depth but based on modern contrasts, shows this. All the more since the founding group of BRICS is made up of countries with significant differences in the economic level, the governance model, the alliances and partnerships, the social composition. It is also clear that unlike Russia and China, none of the other founding member countries want the cooperation to turn into an anti-Western bloc. India because it does not want to join anywhere, prioritizing its strengthening above all else, Brazil and South Africa because they do not want, nor can they afford to lose the diverse ties they maintain with the West.
    
    Therefore in this phase, this multilateral cooperation represents the rallying and questioning of the Western hegemony over the global economy and geopolitics, which is now unbearable for everyone. Not coincidentally, its expansion process accelerated after the invasion of Ukraine and the two parallel updates that followed. The use of sanctions as a weapon on the part of the US-West that was ringing the bell for countries that have already been or think they will be targeted by the US. And the ability that Russia has demonstrated to effectively confront not only to the sanctions against it but also militarily on the battlefield -even indirectly- to NATO and almost all its conventional arsenal in Ukraine.

49. The expansion formalized at the dawn of 2024 with the BRICS memberships of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia, is an expression of the displeasure but also of the need of regional powers to balance the one-sided support towards West, an expression of their quest for an upgraded position in their region, a reflection of the realignments taking place in the relations between the main imperialist powers on the planet.
    
    In fact, looking at the countries toward which BRICS expanded, its special weight in the energy field increases considerably, and the possibilities of Russia and China's intervention in the burning Middle East are strengthened. Of course, this expansion, which includes countries (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia) that, despite the recent rapprochement process, maintain strong elements of competition, objectively also expands the possibility of Western interventions, and short-circuits in the expanded BRICS. While the cancellation of joining the cooperation by the new president of Argentina gives a measure of the problems that the BRICS will be called upon to face.

MIDDLE EAST

50. In the very recent period, the very important region, from a geopolitical, economic point of view, and at the same time the crossroad, of the Middle East and the geopolitically neighbouring North Africa, emerged again on the world stage. In the Middle East region, a segment of the relentless intra-imperialist conflict has been going on for a long time anyway, with the US trying to regain control of it and Russia and China struggling to expand their bases.
    
    In the past we had the US invasion, occupation and quagmire in Iraq, because of the Iraqi resistance. Russia's intervention (2015) against the intervention of Western (USA, European) and regional powers (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar), which "resurrected" the dying Assad regime in cooperation with Iran, while also leading to the "inappropriate” Russia-Iran-Turkey relation. The Trump administration has moved decisively to reconstitute the anti-Iranian front, starting with the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal (JPCOA) and ending with the "Abraham Accords": a goal beyond striking Iran's increased influence (in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen) were of course Russia's successes in the region and China which is slowly beginning to emerge. In a reactionary way, the Palestinian issue is included in these developments: Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel, and the transfer of the US embassy there.
    
    The Biden administration, after an initial phase, and with the catalytic event of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, leaves aside any differentiation and essentially primarily copies Trump's Middle East policy. Additional reasons for the US change of course are the dense and unprecedented events in the Middle East and North Africa. Saudi Arabia is systematically distancing itself from Washington's policy, playing with Russia in the energy field and applying to join the BRICS, Egypt is geopolitically searching, the residual US presence in Iraq is crumbling, and in general, US dominance in the Middle East has taken a severe blow after the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco.
    
    It is therefore opening the front against Iran, deeply concerned about the overall upgrading of its relations with Russia and China, but also to torpedo the recent Iran-Saudi rapprochement mediated by Beijing. It is reintroducing the "Abraham Accords" process, this time by putting forward the crucial Israel-Saudi Arabia rapprochement.
    
    The Palestinian organizations rightly estimated that the "Abraham Accords" and their reopening would definitively entrench the solution of the Palestinian issue. Israel would have continued its policy of dehumanizing the Palestinian people undisturbed, the Palestinian issue would have been crossed off the list of international problems and the reactionary Arab regimes would have built the anti-Iranian front with Israel. At the same time, we had a serious deterioration of the situation in Palestine due to the escalation of the policy of occupation and apartheid by the occupying Zionist-fascist state of Israel. At the same time, the complete transformation of the Israeli state into a state with institutionalized racism and neo-Nazi practices was going on, a process which, among other things, produced a month-long political crisis within the state.
    
    The military operation by Hamas and the other Palestinian resistance organizations has put the Palestinian issue at the epicentre as an issue of occupation and the denial of the right of the Palestinian people to a free and independent homeland and has dynamited the rapprochement between Israel and the Arab regimes.
    
    The invasion of the occupying Zionist army in the Gaza Strip and the Nazi-style bombing of residential areas (including schools, hospitals, churches and mosques) with tens of thousands of dead (most of them children and women), wounded and missing, the repeated statements by Israeli officials dreaming of the "final solution" with the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, prove the Nazi-fascist nature of the reactionary morass that the US have planted in the region. A state mechanism of occupation, displacement, and apartheid, only the crushing of which can open the way to the just cause of a free and independent Palestine from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean, with Palestinian Arabs, Jews and Christians living on equal terms and with full rights. This genocidal policy of the murderous state of Israel not only meets the outcry of the peoples worldwide, despite the orchestrated Zionist-imperialist propaganda, but first and foremost it meets the heroic armed resistance of the Palestinian organizations, which has already created serious problems for the Zionist occupation army.
    
    On the one hand, the US will not back down from its support of the Zionist watchdog in the region, which is why it has sent its aircraft carriers and warships, and on the other hand, it is struggling to find outlets for the short-circuits that these updates and the attitude of the Israeli leadership are causing in its Middle East policy. The Israeli leadership, which seems to be on an open line with certain sections of the US establishment that seek tension, is responding with even greater adventurism (assassinations of members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, etc.), which are extending and spreading the war risks throughout the Middle East region.
    
    The US-British attacks against Yemen, as well as Iran's rocket attacks in "response" to the assassinations of its executives by Israel and perhaps not only, have objectively created a new, wider and more dangerous cycle of tension, extending beyond the Middle East region to the eastern part of North Africa and Central Asia. Pakistan is a country which, because of its location, its social situation, its opposition to India and the choices made by the ruling class (distancing itself from US influence, rapprochement with China), is a candidate for being the focus of a destabilization of Central Asia.
    
    The ongoing Zionist massacre has become the epicentre of an earthquake, whose waves are expanding, as are the turbulences it causes. This constant increase in the probabilities of a wider ignition in the region and the major short-circuits that US imperialism encounters in promoting its Middle East policy seem to be leading to an acceleration of developments and in any case are leading to a critical crossroads of choices that will define developments in the region. The growing international outcry and condemnation of the crimes of the Zionist-fascist state of Israel, which is reflected in the major solidarity demonstrations for Palestine, is clearly playing a role in the preceding events. These developments further reduce the ability of the US and Western headquarters in general to manage the situation.

OLD AND NEW SOURCES OF TENSION

51. Next to these main focal points, old sources of tension in geostrategic parts of the world are being stirred up and new ones are emerging.
    
    
52. A typical example of the latter is the turn of events in Africa and especially in the Sahel zone. In particular, the coup in Niger in August 2023, the seventh in two years (Mali: 2020 and 2021, Guinea: 2021, Chad: 2021, Sudan: 2021, Burkina Faso: 2022), brought three points to the surface:
    
    - The intense processes and conflicts between the states of West Africa and the Sahel zone. On the one hand, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS, CEDEAO in French), which condemned the coup. ECOWAS is a grouping obviously influenced mainly by France, but also by the US, in which Nigeria plays the most important role among the African countries. On the other hand, the support of the Niger coups by the military regimes of Mali and Burkina Faso and Algeria.
    
    - The bleak social and economic situation of the vast majority of the masses in the Sahel, one of the poorest regions of the world. A situation rooted in the deep regressive imprint left by the slave trade and the colonial plunder of Africa, its continued robbery by the Western imperialists after gaining its typical independence with policies called  -rightly so- neo-colonialism and, of course, the retreat and disintegration of the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement.
    
    - Above all, the transformation of the Sahel by the imperialists into a field of fierce "all against all" competition. Behind and above the bourgeois cliques and the contrasts of the African states, behind the escalating impoverishment of the masses of the region, are the imperialists of USA and Europe (with a crucial role by France), Russia and China, and their geopolitical and geo-economic interests and aspirations. Thus, next to the geopolitical aspirations, the mineral wealth of the Sahel (significant deposits of diamonds, iron, lithium, gold, oil, copper and uranium) plays the role of a magnet for the imperialists and their monopolies. In particular, these developments show a significant retreat of French imperialism into a privileged area of influence and control for it. This retreat is being replaced by an increase in the influence of Russian imperialism. Chinese imperialism continues to "dig in" economically and politically while the US are clearly alert to intercept emerging Russian sphere of influence and Chinese penetration.
    
    Sudan is a typical example of what colonialism has brought about in Africa as a whole and the results of the imperialists' intensifying effort to control the Black Continent. Sudan was simultaneously under Egyptian occupation and a British colony, with the two countries “guaranteeing” its independence in 1954. Being a country artificially created by the colonialists, from the moment of its "independence" Sudan was torn by years of bloody civil wars (1964-1972 and 1983-2005) and terrible internal conflicts between the North (Muslim populations of Arab origin) and the South (Africans either animist or converted to Christianity). Since 2011 South Sudan became an "independent" country which became dependent on the US-West while the northern part, still called Sudan, went after a military coup to the "arms" of Russia -which now has a military base on its territory- and also of China. Both countries have suffered and are suffering from military coups, while the situation of the broad masses of the people is far from improving.

53. In direct geopolitical proximity and interdependence with the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the events in the Eastern Mediterranean, is the region of North Africa, which is in constant crisis. The focus remains the festering wound of a devastated and torn in two Libya, the creation of the imperialist intervention of the French-British in 2011. The disintegration of the country was followed by a six-year (2014-2020) bloody civil war that resulted in a balance of terror between the westernized and visibly Turkish-influenced Western Libya and the pro-Russian and Egypt-backed Eastern Libya. Thus, the conflict for control between the imperialists and certain regional powers continues, with the risk of another bloody conflict that cannot be ruled out. What is happening in Libya also has an impact on the Greece-Turkey-Egypt "triangle" and especially on the reactionary Greek-Turkish antagonism, which is why the Eastern Mediterranean region, despite occasional calm periods, has a strong background for "turbulence".
    
    
54. Of the old hotbeds of tension, the first places are occupied by the "powder keg of Europe", the ever-dangerous Balkans. The US operation of "sealing the Balkans" (which we have detailed in our previous Conference) mainly from Russian, but also Chinese influence has borne fruit, most notably the Prespa agreement and the accession of North Macedonia to NATO. Overall, progress has been made in bringing the Western Balkans into conformity with the US-NATO context, although a number of outstanding issues remain.
    
    The most critical and important one is the -not easy- towing of Serbia into US and wider Western influence. The Serbian ruling class continues to "sit on two chairs": on the one hand, it is trying to gain benefits from its connection to the European Union and has expanded its relations with the US, while on the other hand it has strengthened ties and dependencies with Russia (in crucial areas such as military and energy) and China (economy, infrastructure). Thus, competition on its territory rages on all levels (from geopolitical orientation to energy and 5G). The war in Ukraine has multiplied Western pressure and blackmail on the Serbian ruling class, which, however, has so far insisted on not participating in anti-Russian sanctions.
    
    Also, despite Washington's successes, Russia still retains important access, apart from Serbia to the Serb-Bosnians, to Kosovo and Montenegro as well as to Bulgaria. Therefore, it also retains a significant potential to leverage conflicts (between Serbia and Kosovo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina) and to undermine US efforts to align with the NATO bloc, which underline that nothing is settled in the region. Particularly in recent years, the Serbia-Kosovo conflict has been expressed through a constant resurgence of confrontations between the protectorate of Kosovo and its overwhelmingly Serb-dominated northern region, which has reached a breaking point.
    
    The recent events in Serbia, which smack of a "color revolution", prove that it remains the key country either for the completion of US-Western domination or for its breakthrough. In any case, the Balkan region, and especially the Western Balkans, has enough combustible material, which can under certain conditions give rise to new tensions and military confrontations.

55. It is no coincidence that another region around Russia, the Caucasus, has in recent years become a focus of military tensions. The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over the autonomous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has revealed two things at once. The action of imperialists in the region, who are trying to exploit the contradictions of the countries in the region, and the serious processes and geopolitical rearrangements and reorientations attempted by the local bourgeois cliques. Thus, the Armenian government paid for its pro-Western course with the loss of Nagorno Karabakh, with Russia building relations with the previously considered pro-Western Azerbaijan. The US and European imperialists are attempting with Armenia to form a second Georgia in the suburbs of the Russian Federation. While the peoples of the region are paying for the umpteenth, but probably not for the last time, for the border changes again with their blood.
    
    
56. "Finally" the distant to us Central and South America, where serious rearrangements are taking place. On the whole, the countries which make up this region are experiencing, to one degree or another, conditions of great political and social instability, reversals in the orientations of the ruling classes, the result of the great social submergence of the majority of the masses in these countries, of the deep contradictions which permeate these societies as a legacy of white colonialism, and of the particular intensity of the competition between the imperialists for their control.
    
    
57. Particularly influential is the US attempt, through the organization of open and covert coups and political blackmail, to regain the losses of positions, influence and control from the penetration of the imperialists of the East (Russia, China) and the Europeans.
    
    As a result of the rapid deterioration in the living conditions of the masses in South America, there is also the increasingly frequent occurrence of social uprisings (Chile) and large-scale struggles in various countries in the region (Colombia, Honduras, Peru).
    
    Moreover, Latin American countries seem to operate more and more as a pendulum between social democratic and neoliberal management. This is because the first wave of social-democratic management and "21st century socialism" (Lula-Rousseff, Morales, Chavez-Maduro, etc.), after having dashed the most important expectations of the popular masses, gave way to openly reactionary policies. However, we are now in a phase in which these policies, promoted from above and from outside under the cloak of "prudent management", are also losing all popular legitimacy and tolerance in a short time, giving governance in some countries once again to a second wave of social-democratic management, even more "realistic", i.e. even more subservient to bourgeois and imperialist imperatives.
    
    This pendulum, which may so far embody great social uprisings and mass struggles, also highlights the continuing domination of the Latin American left by the forces of reformism and compromise and, of course, the serious weaknesses of the revolutionary left. Typical in this respect was the fact that the great uprising of 2019 in Chile was led and contained by the bourgeoisie with the help of the reformists in the parliamentary context by demanding a constitutional change, which was eventually crushed under the unfavourable political relations.
    
    One of the most important developments in South America was the failed US coup attempt (with the help mainly of Duke's Colombia) in Venezuela, aimed at overthrowing the social democratic Maduro regime and replacing it with Washington's protégé Guaido. This failure, which came as a result of the lesser possibilities of influencing and blackmailing the Venezuelan ruling class, but also of Russia's support for Maduro, is yet another aspect of the modification of the correlations in the US backyard.
    
    Equally important, although in reverse and with a temporary outcome, are the developments in the two most important countries of South America, Brazil and Argentina. The extreme social polarization combined with the efforts of the imperialists to line up behind their chariot are “translating” into sharp political turns and reorientations of the elites that coexist with serious social tensions and unrest.
    
    Thus, in Brazil we had in 2018 the rise of the far-right Bolsonaro on the basis of the frustration of the expectations of the masses by the Rousseff (Lula's successor) government of the social democratic Workers' Party. Subsequently, the accumulated indignation of the masses, the complete failure to manage the pandemic crisis, his erratic foreign policy that raised questions for the imperialists and the cereal crisis from which he lost the support of sections of the ruling class, led to the total restoration of the "ex-convict" Inacio Lula to the government of Brazil.
    
    On the contrary, in Argentina, the centre-right Mauricio Macri, who ruled from 2015 to 2019, was replaced by an alliance of neo-peronists and social democrats under Fernandes. The frustration of the expectations of the masses and especially the US pressure regarding Argentina's intention to join the BRICS by Fernandes led to the recent election of the far-right Javier Millay, who is already facing the anger of the Argentine people because of the ultra-reactionary measures he has announced.
    
    The developments and geopolitical (re)orientations in South America also highlight another important aspect: how misguided were the views that overestimated a series of facts, and spoke with great confidence about the so-called "integrations" in the region, underestimating here too the constitution of capitalism on a national basis and the impact of imperialist intervention in these countries.

THE KEY TO ACHIEVING GLOBAL HEGEMONY-SOVEREIGNTY

58. The establishment of US and Western hegemony-sovereignty over the world or, conversely, the challenge and overthrow of US hegemony by the imperialists of the East, will not take place primarily in the economic field.
    
    
59. The much-heralded recent de-dollarization, announced but not coming, will not be the starting point but the result of the overthrow of the primacy of US imperialism. The BRICS will acquire a more serious economic substance, mainly as a result of the increase in the geopolitical power of the “big two”, so that the sceptics and those in between are “convinced” that an anti-Western course is possible. On the other hand, the war in Ukraine, and Russia's need to cope with it, also produces important economic results such as the militarization of its economy, and the push of the Western countries in the same direction. China's trade and economic upgrade is not enough to give it geopolitical weight, and so its leadership is moving accordingly.
60. The question of hegemony-sovereignty will be answered in the political-military field, in building strategic alliances, in developing strategic power and capability. Ultimately, however, the question of hegemony-sovereignty will be answered and "resolved" on the fields of war or in the field of The War...

THE STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES

61. The "multipolar world", despite the illusions that have once again been spread among the peoples and to which forces referring to the left, the movement and the peoples insist on contributing, it is obvious that it can offer nothing positive to working humanity. On the contrary, the merciless imperialist conflict that is being waged within its context, even if it is one day "settled" with the victory of one or the other, in order to open a new cycle for the capitalist-imperialist system, will involve conditions of even heavier slavery for the workers, even greater subjugation and suffering for the new generation and the peoples.
    
    
62. The arrow of global developments is therefore moving on a clearly reactionary and dangerous trajectory. This is what the peoples, led by the working class, are called upon to confront. The peoples, young people and workers who have not ceased to struggle, to revolt, to question the omnipotence of the system and to demand their rights.
    
    A typical example of the awakening of the masses is France, where at every opportunity people shout: the class struggle is here! Following the great five-month workers-youth uprising of 2016 (against the anti-labour law of Valls and the reactionary measures for youth) and the mass struggles from autumn 2017 to summer 2018, a few months before the 9th Conference of our Organization, came the "Yellow Vests" movement at the dawn of 2019, which marked the entry of the small and middle classes into the struggle. The baton was taken up again by the workers with millions of demonstrators against the anti-insurance measures at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020.
    
    In 2021, but also in 2022 and 2023, Europe, with the centre in France, was marked by mass struggles in a number of sectors of workers. The bourgeois media spoke in late 2021 and early 2022 of a strike pandemic on the European continent, referring not only to France but also to the demonstrations of millions in Germany and the mass struggles in Britain, Spain, Belgium, etc. The working class in France came to the fore again with their mass demonstrations that forced Macron to stage a parliamentary coup to push through the anti-insurance bill, but also with the uprising of the poor and marginalized youth of the modern ghettos of French cities that followed another murder by the repressive forces.
    
    The beginning of the summer of 2020 was marked by the Pan-American outrage over the murder of the black George Floyd, which brought to the surface not only the deep-rooted racism of the US state, but also the deep social contradictions of the continuous submergence of the working classes in the metropolis of capitalism. The evidence of awakening on this side of the Atlantic has been the large and long-lasting labour struggles in the US, some of which (such as at the famous car manufacturer General Motors) have resulted in significant takeovers, but also the creation of unions in companies such as Amazon. It is worth underlining here the deafening absence of the communist movement, which allows representatives of the Democrats and Republicans, up to and including Biden-Trump themselves, to appear at the strikers' rallies and be counted as supporters of these struggles!
    
    After all, this absence is evident on a number of issues. So, we have a growing confrontation between the so-called "woke movement" and the "anti-woke movement" in the USA, which are nothing but two reactionary systemic currents, and which are disorienting and dangerous for the people's forces and especially for the youth. In fact, it is a fact that this intra-systemic conflict has begun to be transferred to our country and to affect people.
    
    The swelling of livelihood problems caused by the system's attack, exacerbated by the criminal management of the pandemic by capitalism-imperialism and by the side effects of the unjust war in Ukraine, is the black thread that connects, despite the obvious differences, the smaller and larger uprisings from Lebanon and Sudan to Ecuador and Chile. Of course, uprisings, revolts and mass struggles also come as a result of the particular political and social situations experienced by each country individually.
    
    In our previous Conference we mentioned the 2016 strike in India as a key event, as the largest strike in the history of humanity so far. Equally remarkable was the largest arousal of the farmers of India in terms of size and duration that resulted in the withdrawal of three anti-farmers' bills of the reactionary Modi government.
    
    It is also impossible not to underline the anti-war demonstrations against the unjust war in Ukraine, which, however, failed to gain significant mass, as they had to compete to the allegedly “anti-war”, in fact pro-war demonstrations in Europe on the side of NATO, promoted by European governments.
    
    However, the most recent example of self-denial and sacrifice, of faith in the final victory, an example that shows that people will not stop fighting, even in the most adverse conditions, for freedom, for bread, for justice, is the heroic, armed or not, Palestinian resistance, against the Zionist state of occupation, colonization and apartheid and the imperialists of the USA and the EU who support it!
63. It is therefore urgent and imperative, precisely for this reason that the struggle of the workers and peoples throughout the world against the capitalist generalized attack and the imperialist barbarism that is tearing countries and peoples to pieces, should be linked, grafted, constituted in a revolutionary communist direction.
    
    Estimating the general situation of the groups, organizations and parties which refer to the revolutionary communist direction, we could say that we are at the beginning of a new cycle. These groups, organizations and parties are facing the need to deal in a substantial way with the questions posed by our time.
    
    An important problem is the small connection, in most of the collectives and with few exceptions, with the working and popular masses. This fact, combined with the replacement of the Leninist principle of "concrete analysis of the concrete situation", leads to the emergence of many elements of dogmatism which sometimes lead to totally unsubstantiated estimates of the character of the struggle of the communist movement in each country.
    
    Equally important is the lack of understanding of the depth and consequences of the defeat of the workers' revolutionary communist movement. A fact that influences the analysis of the current state of the movement, in the direction of overestimating the possibilities, sometimes even reaching estimates that we are in a phase of counterattack of the communist movement. A great lack also appears in the deepening of the explanations of the causes of the capitalist restoration in the former socialist countries. Also, in the integration in the daily struggle, in the physiognomy and strategy of the movement of the conclusions drawn by the capitalist restoration counter-revolutionary course. A lack that does not enable the forces that refer to the revolutionary communist movement to face the great problem of the slander of socialism among the broad masses of the youth, workers and peoples, but also to upgrade their influence on them in the face of the new circle that has objectively opened.
    
    Above all and essentially, therefore, organizations with a revolutionary communist orientation have to face in a progressive, substantial and decisive way the threefold task of upgrading our contribution to the class struggle, the strengthening of the revolutionary direction within it and the incorporation into our movement of those elements of physiognomy which derive from the conclusions on the causes of the restoration ebb. At the same time, it is of the utmost necessity to reconstitute the effort of understanding, exchange of views, experiences, and orientation, among the organizations around the world with reference to the revolutionary communist direction.