Author Archives: Anvil

China: An Emerging Imperialist Power and the Underlying Implications

Although China cannot directly challenge the US in one on one conflict because China is still much weaker than US in terms of military capacity, yet, recent years have witnessed a clear emergence of a new imperialist axis under the joint leadership of Russia and China in opposition to the US led imperialist axis. The ongoing wars in Middle East especially in Syria are clear indications of the sharpening of these inter-imperialist contradictions. Emergence of multilateral organizations such as Shanghai Cooperation Council and BRICS in itself is sufficient to refute the myth of unipolar world. Meanwhile signs of split in NATO are also becoming clear with the exit of Britain from the European Union and due to Trump’s protectionist policies in US. This opens a possibility that some European countries may also switch the camp. In any case, it is certain that the inter-imperialist conflicts are going to sharpen further in the days to come. Although the chances of a World War seem to be remote in the current circumstances, still regional wars and violent incidents are sure to increase.

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Imperialism • •

Trump’s Jerusalem Move – A sign of desperation of American Imperialism

To understand the implications of and the reasons behind US decision of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, it is necessary to understand the rivalry between two imperialist axes — The axis of Arab countries and Israel under the American leadership and Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis under the Russian leadership. It needs to be noted that US move to intervene in the Syrian civil war to overthrow Bashar Al Assad’s government appears to be backfiring. The Islamic State has turned out to be a Frankenstein that is now hell bent on devouring its own master. The main reason behind US’s strategic failure is the open intervention of Russian imperialism in support of Syria because of which the Assad government appears to be standing on its own feet again.

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Imperialism • •

Gujarat and Himachal Elections: What Lies Ahead?

There is still another section of the liberal “left”, which is still striving to form an aggregative equation of oppressed identities in order to defeat Modi and Fascism. The lacklustre performance of the BJP in the elections was primarily due to the class anger of certain sections of society, even though they were not class ‘politically’ conscious or class ‘politically’ organized. However, people of this section claimed that the anger of the dalits, adivasis, Muslims, OBCs, etc combined to defeat the BJP. read more

Editorial • Fascism

Marx’s Capital : 150 Years and Beyond

Marxism is not an aggregation of everything that Marx said or did. Marxism is a worldview, approach and a method. This worldview and method of materialist dialectics is Marx’s epochal contribution to science. As Lenin said, Marx could never write his planned separate treatise on materialist dialectics, but he left us Capital, which is the application of the materialist dialectics in the arena of economic phenomena. read more

Marxism •

Report of Sixth Arvind Memorial Seminar on Imperialism

The Arvind Memorial Trust organizes a national seminar each year on some important aspect of the movement for social change in memory of Com. Arvind Singh, editor of the magazine ‘Dayitvabodh’, a brilliant Marxist intellectual and activist. The first two seminars held in Delhi and Gorakhpur focused on different aspects of the labour movement while the third seminar was held in Lucknow on the democratic rights movement in India. The fourth seminar was centered on Caste Question and Marxism while the fifth seminar in Allahabad was on problems of socialism. read more

Imperialism • Reports

The Rajsamand Killing and What It Tells About the Indian Fascism

The Rajsamand killing is not one off incident. It can neither be brushed aside as an act of lunacy. A recent report has pointed out that there has been an unprecedented spike in hate-crimes, incidence of violence and terror acts especially against Muslims, over the last three and a half years since Bharatiya Janta Party and Narendra Modi assumed power in May 2014. The incidents of lynchings and violence in the name of the “cow-protection”, beef-eating, “Love Jihad”, “Ghas Wapasi” that has been unleashed since the coming to power of Hindutva Fascism must be viewed in a continuity.  Even as the aftermath of Rajsamand barbarity was still unfolding, other scenes of Fascist violence were on full display in yet another laboratory of communal Fascism, Madhya Pradesh. In Satna district, Bajrang dal goons attacked Catholics who were out singing Christmas carols and even set blaze a Catholic priest’s car. The police, instead of taking action and slapping relevant charges against the attackers, booked cases against the carol singers themselves!

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Fascism •

Caste Question, Marxism and the Political Legacy of B. R. Ambedkar

To answer the question ‘what is caste’ we must answer the question ‘how did varna/caste system originate?’ In my opinion, to understand caste system in its contemporaneity, it is essential to comprehend it historically. One of the main weaknesses of sociological studies of caste is their disdain for a historical view. This positivistic fetish to record the myriad contemporary particularities of caste prevents most of the sociological studies to arrive at a balanced historical understanding of caste system. read more

Caste Question •

Naxalbari and Subsequent Four Decades:  A Retrospection (Part-2)

The root cause of stagnation-disintegration of the movement was not the state repression, but its own ideological line (Left adventurism) and wrong understanding of the Indian program (program of New Democratic Revolution following the path of the Chinese Revolution). The state repression can push back a country’s revolutionary struggle for some time, but it cannot be the fundamental reason for the stagnation-disintegration that continues for more than four decades. With hindsight, this point can be easily made with complete certainty. read more

Communist-movement • National •