Opening Speech for the World Anti-imperialist Workers’ Platform
Comrades, Look around you! Amidst a fire that knows no borders, deepening crises and lawless imperialist banditry, what do you see? Chaos? No. ‘Chaos’ is nothing more than a term made up by liberals and the petty bourgeoisie to conceal the decay of the system of exploitation. What we are witnessing today is the total collapse of the imperialist-capitalist world order!
As recently as the early 1990s, the imperialist-capitalist system had proclaimed that capitalism was the only sustainable and invincible system. It claimed that this ‘new world order’ would bring freedom, democracy and equality to the peoples of the world; it described itself as the only system in which humanity could survive. It then launched a full-scale war to bring the working class to its knees across the globe under the guise of ‘neoliberal policies’.
We have moved from classical colonialism to neo-colonialism, and from there to the stage of full annexation. This process involves the destruction of the domestic markets of dependent capitalist countries, their integration into imperialist centres, and the complete externalisation of their control mechanisms. To give a concrete example, according to 2015 figures, a standard smartphone contains no fewer than 250,000 patents. This data clearly demonstrates the savage monopolistic scale to which capitalism has reached and how production has become fragmented on a global scale. National economies are now open to the boundless exploitation of finance capital. However, as time is no longer working in their favour, they are trying to freeze it!
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Palestine… These are not separate entries in a history book, but the desperate struggles of US hegemony. Look at the White House’s maps for 2026; look at the brazen claims over Greenland’s resources, the strangulation of the Panama Canal, the brutal blockade imposed on the Cuban people, and the obsession with Venezuela and Iran. These are not diplomatic manoeuvres, but orders of confiscation!
Yet, despite all their swashbuckling, it has become clear that their promises to protect their allies are, in reality, a massive lie. Middle Eastern countries, in each of which the US maintains massive military bases and to which it has sold billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, have had thousands of bombs rained down upon them without being able to fire so much as a single bullet in return. The myth that the US would protect its allies has been shattered by humiliating defeats in the Sahel, in the face of the Palestinian resistance, and particularly against Iran.
We have seen just how deeply rooted the anti-US and anti-imperialist current is amongst the peoples and workers of the world. This furious and uncompromising anti-imperialist current has been clearly demonstrated by the resolute and militant actions of tens of millions across the globe against US imperialism and Zionist Israel.
However, anti-imperialism that is not combined with anti-capitalism is a dead end! An anti-imperialist structure that is not intertwined with the working-class movement cannot become a truly destructive force. We respectfully greet our comrades in the delegations from the countries that form part of this anti-imperialist platform, which has come together precisely with this aim; we also greet our valued comrades and the militant, pioneering workers from Turkey attending this meeting, as well as our comrades who are militant trade union leaders and representatives.
We know and see that in many countries around the world, numerous organisations claiming to be socialist have sided with the bourgeoisie, betraying the working class and the oppressed peoples. Let them continue to cling to the bourgeoisie’s colourful banner. We wave but one flag: the glorious red flag of socialism, its colour drawn from the struggle waged by the world’s working class and oppressed peoples—a struggle for which every worker who has fought to this day has paid with their blood and lives!
We shall certainly triumph; our victory is certain!
