The Path to Collapse
Mücadele Birliği (Struggle Unity, Türkiye)
I
What do we mean by a “world system”? Let’s settle for the simplest explanation: it is the process by which a mode of production with economic and political cohesion becomes dominant in different regions of the world, and the relationships of cooperation, division of labor, and domination among these regions take shape around that dominant mode of production. World-system connections are not unique to modern times; they also existed among slave-owning and feudal societies. Just as in today’s imperialist-capitalist system, the strength and cohesion of these historical networks depended heavily on military, technological, and logistical capabilities—all of which were fundamentally determined by the development of productive forces.
The development of the slave-based mode of production into a world system took thousands of years; it reached its peak with the Roman Empire and underwent a centuries-long process of decline that accompanied the empire’s dissolution. At the height of its power, Rome was a world capital. It was referred to as such in all diplomatic correspondence of those years, and indeed, in the known world of that era, “all roads led to Rome.” While commercial colonies and military garrisons, which ensured the security of caravan routes, guided the development of the slave-based world system, “Pax Romana” military alliances were being organized.
First, the Pax Romana collapsed with the division between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires; then, slave revolts broke out one after another, and invasions by barbarian tribes dried up the trade routes, bringing an end to economic unity. Finally, in A.D. 476, when a Germanic military leader seized the throne in Rome, the slave-based world system had long since disintegrated, and feudal lordship had begun to prevail in Rome’s small, immediate territories.
It also took centuries for feudalism to develop into a world system. Four centuries after the fall of Rome, the Holy Roman-German Empire founded by Charlemagne brought hegemonic power—which would change hands many times thereafter—to the feudal world system. River barges and sailing ships replaced commercial caravans pulled by pack animals; windmills replaced waterwheels. The Crusades could only have been the product of feudalism that had reached the level of a world system.
At first, various coastal regions broke away from this feudal world system. The Netherlands in 1640 and England between 1640 and 1688 had been the scenes of bourgeois revolutions. The turning point that made these revolutions defining events of an era came from France, the heart and soul of the feudal world system. The Great French Revolution of 1789 had so terrified and shaken the rest of the feudal world that, had the military might of Tsarist Russia not intervened, the system could easily have been completely shattered. By this time, however, the world was effectively split into two, and feudalism had been permanently branded as obsolete. Consequently, the revolutions of 1848 swept through like a devastating storm, shattering a feudal order that still retained—to varying degrees—the traits of a world-system. When Russia, long the last military bulwark of feudal rule, remained a mere spectator to these events, the final nails were driven into the nobility’s coffin. The 1848 Revolutions spread from country to country as fast as carrier pigeons could fly, making them impossible to contain through a military alliance. Three years later, when the last barricades finally fell, the ruins of feudalism as a world-system were left in their wake. The surviving regimes had no choice but to adapt to the inevitable. During this same period, empires left to navigate their own fates—the Ottoman Empire, China, Russia, and Japan—became the staging ground for a wave of reforms that paved the way for capitalism.
Thus, as the feudal world system first fragmented and then began to withdraw from the world stage one by one, capitalism—which would itself take the form of a world system—began to emerge right alongside and right above it. It did not take centuries for capitalism to become a world system and dominate the globe. For England had accumulated more than enough power and capacity to raise the banner of the new order upon the ruins of the old.
As the capitalist mode of production expanded into an imperialist world-system, steam engines yielded to internal combustion engines, railways to aviation, and the telegraph to satellite communications. Consequently, networks, institutions, military pacts, economic divisions of labor, and international cooperation—along with the relations of domination that shaped them—attained an unprecedented density, turning the world into what is fashionably, if somewhat tritely, called a ‘global village.’ Yet the density of this system was matched only by the sharpness of its internal contradictions. The eventual rupture came early: the 1917 October Revolution and the popular revolutions of 1945 spread to one-third of the globe an alternative destined to become the imperialist system’s gravedigger.
By the mid-20th century, there were now two world systems that were mortal enemies of one another. The side with the longer history, accumulated resources, and experience was the imperialist-capitalist world system. Moreover, facing a mortal enemy head-on accelerated the formation of military pacts and facilitated the concentration of all the economic and coercive instruments of imperialist domination—designed to subjugate the rest of the world—into a single center: U.S. hegemony.
In contrast, the socialist system—which was embarking on the experience of becoming a world system for the first time—was forced to devise solutions against both a severe economic blockade and military threats. The Sino-Soviet split cast doubt on the hegemon—the primary condition for consolidating a world-system. The fact that countries that had carried out their revolutions were at very different stages of development created resistance to economic integration, another key condition. The military pact that was established (the Warsaw Pact) was entirely defensive in nature and ineffective. However, aside from the USSR and Cuba, countries such as Angola, the Horn of Africa, Namibia, and Afghanistan—which had shown limited cooperation only for the Vietnamese Revolution—were unable to participate actively in military operations aimed at protecting the socialist world. Geographical distances gave the system a highly fragmented structure, which led to numerous economic and military difficulties.
Despite such weaknesses in this initial experiment, the existence of the socialist world-system served as a beacon of hope for the oppressed and exploited masses of the imperialist-capitalist world—a vivid, living example that bolstered their resilience in the face of suffering and the losses of struggle. Socialism could only succeed as a center of attraction against the imperialist-capitalist system—with which it clashed head-on in every arena—by maintaining its character as a world-system.
However, the inevitable weaknesses of this first experiment ultimately prevailed, and the socialist world-system repeated the path of collapse followed by its predecessors. Economic integration began to unravel: China had long since declared its own distinct path, while the people’s democracies of Eastern Europe were now borrowing the resources they needed from the capitalist world. Soon after, the military pact collapsed almost overnight. The loss of these two pillars undermined the claim to being a world-system, swiftly neutralizing the ideological lines of defense built upon it. This created a fertile ground for counter-revolutions rooted in a petty-bourgeois worldview. The final nail in the coffin was the collapse of the USSR—the system’s cornerstone, if not its hegemon. Most importantly, the enemy—the imperialist-capitalist world-system—remained fully intact, operational with all its institutions and military alliances. In just three years, socialism had ceased to be a world-system, leaving the remaining socialist countries to fend for themselves.
From the analysis presented so far, it is possible to discern the broadly similar paths leading to the collapse of a world-system. Undoubtedly, like any brief summary applied to such a vast history, this conceptualization remains incomplete. Yet, while it may not fully capture every nuance, this framework is robust enough to shed light on the contemporary debates we will address.
A world-system enters its final collapse when:
1. The military alliance that explicitly sustains it becomes untenable or is officially or effectively dissolved;
2. The economic infrastructure, financial architecture, and commercial relations—which ensure its effective functioning by making interest alignment beneficial for every sovereign actor—can no longer reproduce themselves, causing the interests of the parties involved to diverge rather than converge;
3. The ideological lines of defense that legitimize its existence have collapsed;
4. A psychology of defeat takes hold within the system’s ruling class—manifesting as a sense of despair born from the absence of an exit strategy—leading these ruling groups to turn on one another;
5. As a result of all this, the barriers holding back the destructive rage of the oppressed and exploited masses lose their efficacy;
6. And, marking the definitive turning point, the hegemonic power that has upheld the system across all domains (military, economic, ideological) realizes it can no longer bear the system’s weight and steps aside—or is abandoned by those who recognize it can no longer shoulder the burden.
It is only under these conditions—and at a pace dictated by the density of global systemic integration, the reach of the hegemonic power, and the level of development in communication and transport—that the system is ultimately consigned to the dustbin of history by the forces poised to build a new society and a new world-system.
Within this general framework, the fifth factor—the destructive rage of the masses—was not an effective driver in the collapse of the socialist world-system. Moreover, these phenomena may appear in different historical periods as causes and effects of one another in varying sequences. Now, in light of this theoretical framework, we can examine how the imperialist-capitalist system is progressing toward its own 1989–91 moment.
The past 80 years under U.S. hegemony in the imperialist-capitalist world-system were marked by military alliances, where political coercion became inextricably linked with economic coercion. The overarching impact of military pacts on the world-system stemmed from cutting-edge weapons technology reaching unprecedented levels, alongside the absolute necessity of remaining on constant alert against a more advanced social order—the socialist world-system.
NATO served as the direct front line pitted against the socialist world and constituted the core of this military alliance structure, though it was not the only element. The School of the Americas (SOA)—which trained collaborationist armies in Latin America and turned torture and military coups into routine policy—hung like a sword of Damocles over the peoples of the Global South. Pacific Command, stationed across the quadrangle of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea, formed a containment wall encircling the periphery of the socialist bloc. Spanning a vast geography that included the Middle East and Africa, CENTCOM—the central command overseeing hundreds of military bases—was another formidable instrument of the military alliance directly managed by the United States.
The first significant fissure in NATO appeared as early as the 1990s. European imperialists, eager to level the playing field against dominant U.S. influence, began quietly floating the argument that “since NATO was established to counter the socialist bloc, and the socialist world has now collapsed, NATO is no longer needed.” The civil war they instigated and fueled in Yugoslavia presented EU imperialism with an opportunity to assert itself. They succeeded to some extent, bringing the warring parties together at Dayton without involving the U.S. However, as negotiations were underway, the Srebrenica Massacre—staged by mercenary militias deployed by the U.S.—derailed their plans. With the EU masters suddenly rendered helpless, Clinton emerged with his smug smirk as the savior who rescued Europe from a crisis. In the Kosovo crisis of 1999, orchestrated to finish this unfinished business, no one looked back at Berlin or Paris anymore; all eyes were fixed on Brussels, home to NATO headquarters, and on its American commanders. The blood of tens of thousands had been injected into a comatose NATO like a lifesaving serum.
That same year, NATO concluded that the 21st century would be a “Century of Uprisings.” This was no mere pretext manufactured to ensure NATO’s survival; it was intended to transform NATO into the “pivotal force of a global civil war” as a countermeasure to the most extensive challenge the imperialist-capitalist world-system had ever faced.
Yet the U.S., having easily quashed ambitions for European strategic autonomy within NATO, would pay a heavy price for this maneuver. Much like Japan, the European Union imperialists set aside the development of their own military capabilities, diverting their resources instead toward pursuing economic advantages against the United States. Sidestepping military competition created an asymmetrical vacuum within NATO. When France moved in 2011 to execute the UN resolution against Libya without waiting for NATO, the full extent of this void became glaringly apparent. When then-French President Sarkozy took this step—likely driven by a rush to destroy evidence of his financial dealings with Gaddafi—he was horrified to discover within a week that strategic military munitions had been completely exhausted. It thus became clear that NATO, a major force in this global civil war, was nothing more than a lame horse with a horseshoe on only one hoof. And everything ultimately depended on the power, prestige, and ability of the United States—the sole owner of that single horseshoe—to maintain its image of deterrence.
With the aim of filling the void, the EU prioritized NATO’s expansion program, and Ukraine—with its immense military-industrial potential—was selected as a target equivalent to 10 Eastern European countries. Much later, a report by the Hudson Institute would admit the extremely compelling justification for U.S. participation in this game instigated by Europe: “The USSR must be completely erased from human history; it must be destroyed. Its traces are all too present in Russia today.” But they failed miserably; their opponents were both formidable and strategically astute. While the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics mounted a massive resistance against the fascist coup in Ukraine, the Moscow government patiently waited until the date NATO withdrew from Afghanistan, thereby securing its rear.
The most reliable NATO weapons in Ukraine were crushed by Russia’s superior military technology. The axis power of the global civil war turned into a lame horse floundering in a deep pit, and the U.S.’s military capacity failed to generate the power needed to pull it out of the pit that had trapped it. From then on, developments gained downward momentum, leading NATO toward its demise. First, the Greenland crisis eroded trust among allies; then, the Hormuz standoff pulled the rug out from under the alliance, which had been propped up with great difficulty. France and Germany openly began seeking an EU military alliance—not out of hope that they could create something better, but because they no longer wanted to carry a dead weight.
Another equally practical observation is this: Once it became abundantly clear in Ukraine that imperialist capitalism had lost the military capacity to guarantee a world system under U.S. hegemony, it became evident that not only NATO but all other military pacts have also ceased to exist. As a result of this practical line of thinking, Japan has moved to repeal the constitutional provision that has limited the development of militarism since World War II. In reality, Japanese military technology is by no means lagging behind that of the U.S.; on the contrary, it has surpassed it in some areas. For example, when the U.S. failed in its years-long tests of a hypersonic missile, it turned to the Japanese, who, in an extraordinarily short time, developed an extremely expensive hypersonic missile system for the U.S.—one unit costing $40 million. To view Japan’s attempt to lift the constitutional barriers that limit militarism simply as the rise of “imperial nationalism” is a superficial perspective. Japan is doing this in preparation for the day when imperialist capitalism as a global system will cease to exist, and those left behind will be abandoned to their own fate.
Another imperial power following the same path is Germany. Boris Pistorius, the perennial defense minister and darling of German financial capital, aims in his “overall defense concept” to fill the strategic vacuum emerging within NATO with a Europe-centered leading military capacity. When Prime Minister Mertz—who feels no need to conceal the economic collapse—admits, “we are no longer a welfare state,” and the Chief of the General Staff, referring to the war in Ukraine, confesses, “we need this war for at least another five years; otherwise, we cannot transition to a security society,” it becomes much clearer that Germany is indeed preparing for a Europe-wide civil war. Thus, the major powers of the imperialist-capitalist world system are readjusting their military capabilities—either solely for regional security or in preparation for a civil war. The military pacts that encircle the globe—one of the main pillars of the world system—are being replaced by armies geared toward civil war.
The blow this development deals to economic integration and relations of domination is undeniable. An American general once said, “Without McDonnell Douglas, McDonald’s couldn’t open a single branch anywhere.” Now it is time to examine the massive tectonic shifts in the economic foundation of the imperialist system, as well as the major earthquakes and destruction they have caused.
II
Looking at the war and the standoff over control of the Strait of Hormuz, one thing becomes clear: A story begins and ends where it started.
When the U.S. ascended to the throne of hegemony in the imperialist-capitalist world system, the entire world was busy clearing away the rubble of World War II. The U.S. had anchored the division of labor and relations of domination that would emerge in the world system to be built upon this rubble to a single peg: the 1 ounce of gold = $35 peg. This anchor, intended to revive the imperialist-capitalist world system, offered a definitive guarantee. It assured the capitalist world: “Conduct all international monetary transactions based on the dollar anchor; I am ready to exchange every penny you accumulate for dollars.” However, by the 1970s, this guarantee had become untenable. The productivity gap between the U.S. and other imperialist powers had rapidly narrowed, and in dependent countries, an import-substituting, tariff-protected industrial infrastructure had generally become operational. The capitalist world had reached a stage where it could realize the social scale of production on a global level. Under these circumstances, having a national currency pegged to gold serve as a global equivalent was like forcing the global production chain into a shirt that was far too tight.
To overcome the crises this tight shirt inflicted on capital, the U.S. took its first step by setting the exchange rate at 1 ounce of gold = $70, but the backlash it faced was staggering. No one wanted to hold dollars; the throne of hegemony was being shaken to its foundations. Every minor tremor sent the dollar at the top reeling. Because the foundation was inflexible—as if paved with stone—gold, whose value had changed very little over the centuries, had to be replaced by a more flexible universal measure of value capable of absorbing the shocks of such tremors. From this perspective, oil was the most suitable commodity. Its high rate of rent allowed it to maintain its position as a commodity that stabilizes supply, despite the rapid fluctuations in its price. Thus, the world’s demand for oil would be able to dictate the demand for the dollar. The problem was that, in the early 1970s, oil prices were very low, and the rent band was quite narrow. The U.S. would resolve this issue in a manner befitting its position as the imperialist hegemon: First, provoke; then, facilitate the outbreak of war; and finally, play the role of arbiter.
The story is well known: The first move involved the idea of an “Arab mission” which led to the 1973 Arab-Zionist Israeli war and caused oil prices to skyrocket tenfold in a short period. The stage was set for the second move. According to an agreement reached in 1974, oil profits, laden with massive profit margins, would be held in U.S. banks, and with that same money, dependent countries now struggling to purchase oil would be turned into debtors. This move also served to establish the cornerstone of the era euphemistically termed “neoliberal.”
Undoubtedly, the massive piles of petrodollars flowing from the Gulf were not the sole source of the debt capital that has held the capitalist world captive since those years, but the cornerstone that indexed the ever-growing mountain of debt to the dollar and kept it in balance was in the Gulf. This was so crucial that whenever a threat to the dollar’s throne emerged, a military intervention in the Gulf would follow. When Saddam in Iraq decided in 1990 to conduct oil exports in currencies other than the dollar, the 1973 scenario played out once again: Provoke, start a war, intervene!
When the dot-com crisis erupted in the late 1990s, the dollar’s throne was shaken once more, and this time the scenario was designed for a global civil war—which brings us to today… The U.S. seemed confident that the same scenario would play out. However, the buffoons in the Trump administration were so consumed by arrogance that they overlooked a fundamental truth: “The fact that the U.S.’s military and political claims have outstripped its actual capabilities is a classic process of imperial decline.” In the past, military attacks on the Gulf to maintain the dollar’s dominance had been fervently supported by the rest of the imperialist capitalist world. But this time, when the U.S. called for help, its allies in Europe and Asia were looking the other way. Hegemony had run its course.
Much has been written about the global cost of the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. Already, there have been an 80% increase in LNG prices, a 70% increase in freight costs, a 100% increase in jet fuel prices, and a 30% increase in fertilizer prices. The International Energy Agency issues daily statements calling this “the greatest oil crisis in history.” Refineries, filling stations, and pipelines are increasingly becoming dysfunctional and approaching the point of becoming scrap. But beyond all this, what is truly collapsing are the financial mechanisms of the imperialist-capitalist world. Insurance for large container ships and tankers is the most important derivative of the petrodollar and, just as much as the petrodollar itself, a key element of Wall Street’s role in the global economy. In the very first weeks of the war, risk premiums skyrocketed by 1,000 percent, and policies were canceled one after another. Yet these policies constituted a massive portion of the global credit line overseen by Wall Street. To understand the importance of insurance giants in the global financial arena, one need only look back to 2008. To rescue the insurance giant AIG, the U.S. Treasury was willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars almost overnight, yet companies like GM and Chrysler were denied a mere $10 billion in support. The reason is quite clear. Credit and money created through speculation, manipulation, and debt relationships ultimately rely on a wall of insurance. Giants like AIG are like Atlas, the titan who carries Wall Street on his shoulders. These insurance titans owe their stability to the role they play in global trade. The damage inflicted on the global financial architecture by policies canceled due to the Hormuz conflict is rending the wall of security to shreds. It is not difficult to foresee the aftershocks of this devastation. Funds that have been relying on having their equity capital insured while engaging in highly risky manipulation operations are rapidly exiting the market. The drying up of hot money flows leaves every position—overloaded with debt in the short term—vulnerable to collapse. Already, the supply shock in oil has thrown monetary balances into disarray, and a series of dependent countries—from Egypt to Thailand to South Korea—have been placed under the threat of a “sudden halt” in production and circulation. Across this vast geography, there is a massive concentration of proletarian and working-class masses, and events are rapidly heading toward an uprising.
Given the advanced level of economic integration—which creates a tight alliance of interests—within the imperialist capitalist world system, the stance of these allies in turning their backs on the U.S. may seem surprising. First and foremost, the EU is so dependent on the U.S. in terms of defense, energy supply, technology, and financial relations that “if the transatlantic ties were severed, not only would both sides be weakened, but 300 years of Western hegemony would also come to an end.”
It is a well-known and well-documented fact just how advanced the economic integration of the imperialist-capitalist world system is; there is no need to go into detail. What concerns us here is the outcome. The more advanced the integration of a world system, the more sensitive it is to its “weak link.” And now that weak link is the collapse of the petro-dollar and the insurance pump upon which the global financial network is built. Yes, the story ends where it began. The second step in the historical pattern observable in the collapse of a world system is unfolding in full. The economic structure and financial network can no longer reproduce itself and is fracturing along the lines of conflicting interests.
It has become a practical reality to assume that the military alliance no longer exists, and the mechanisms sustaining economic integration are being shattered one after another by shock waves. What remains is the disappearance of the ideological defense line, a strategic vacuum following the establishment of a defeatist mentality among the ruling elites, and, as the final step, the system’s hegemonic power officially declaring that it can no longer bear this burden. In light of recent developments, we will see that the momentum gained in these remaining steps of the collapse policy far exceeds what was anticipated.
Another milestone in the policy of collapse is the destruction of the defensive lines that legitimize an order as a world system. Today, the Trump administration is providing the most stark demonstration of the demolition of the ideological wall. The fact that the shadow of these small-minded people—whose performances are often mocked but more often inspire revulsion—has stretched so far and grown so large signifies only one thing: The sun is setting.
We find the fundamental class reality behind the repulsive performance of a handful of buffoons in this year’s storm-stirring Davos Report. This year’s Davos Summit, through its report and keynote speeches, presented a complete picture of the collapse of an ideological wall. “The global order is shaped more by power competition than by the pursuit of cooperation (…) strategic isolationism (…) global fragmentation (…) a new economic reckoning is on the horizon (…) All of this concerns the future of the ‘social contract’ more than the markets (…) The chasm between the streets and the elites is widening.”
Those at the summit of the world-system are declaring it openly: the system is fracturing, a reckoning is near, and bourgeois society itself is in the crosshairs. The masters of this imperialist-capitalist order are acutely aware of both their capabilities and the potential of those they rule. Unlike the petty bourgeoisie, they do not cry out that “now is the time of monsters,” nor do they share the anxiety over an unready vanguard—a concern that finds no echo on capital’s balance sheets. The ruling elite calculates every step with the coming revolutionary storm in mind. Every line of the Davos Report quakes with this very fear.
That the masters of a four-century-old system have pivoted from denial to panic within a single year is a historically profound shift. The collapse of this world order is well underway: its military alliances and economic architecture have fractured irreversibly, while its ideological lines of defense have crumbled. This provides indisputable proof that, at critical historical junctures, events unfold in leaps and bounds.
Unsurprisingly, a race to assign blame for this historic failure is gaining momentum at the top. A major rift erupted at the Davos Summit. The Canadian Prime Minister—interrupted twice by applause—declared: “This is not a transition, but a rupture. We always knew the ‘rules-based order’ was a fiction—one useful for sustaining American hegemony. We put the sign in the window because it benefited us. Now, we are taking it down. The old order will not return, and nostalgia is not a strategy.”
Accusations flew from the podium. Ursula von der Leyen, who only a year prior had gifted Trump a $2 trillion EU fund, suddenly declared a “parting of ways with the U.S.” This shift in attitude extended beyond the summit: as the Hormuz crisis escalated, German Chancellor Merz noted bluntly, “Iran is humiliating the U.S.”
Although attempts to scapegoat others may evoke the ancient ritual of casting a sacrificial goat into the wilderness, it offers no comfort to the ruling class. They know all too well that the rage of the working masses knows no bounds. We can gauge the depth of this anger from the main report of the Munich Security Conference, aptly titled “Under Destruction.” The report places the concept of Zerstörungslust—the raw lust for destruction—front and center, signaling a profound collapse of faith in the myths of progress and reform. People no longer merely oppose the status quo; they are consumed by a desire to tear it down first and ask questions later—a sentiment born from a genuine severing of ties with an order that has inflicted immense suffering.
This reveals the fifth pillar of the world-system’s collapse: the pent-up rage of the exploited no longer respects any barrier. Neither the naive hope that things will improve, nor the numbing promises of reform, nor the habit of submitting to centuries-old institutions can contain it any longer. This break from the status quo is fueled by deep-seated hatred. For a revolution, violent and explosive emotions are far more potent than docile, calculating apathy.
Finally, we arrive at the factor that determines the end point: the hegemonic power—the cornerstone of the world-system—declaring, “I am out of the game.” The U.S. administration under Trump is executing this withdrawal by actively dismantling the pillars of the global order. Tariff rates changing multiple times a day have gutted the WTO framework built over four decades. The Greenland crisis was an open admission that the U.S. will no longer shoulder the burden of NATO and the Atlantic Alliance. Moreover, despite plunging the world into an unprecedented energy crisis, its relentless blockade in the Strait of Hormuz reflects a stark reality: Washington now preserves its power not by sustaining the world-system, but by undermining it. Telling core institutions—including the UN—to fend for themselves, the U.S. has forced even the EU to break its silence and declare, “Enough is enough!”
The policy of collapse has advanced in giant leaps. The disintegration of a four-century-old world-system—unfolding in a matter of years—demands the very audacious optimism that a Leninist would never hesitate to embrace.
To imagine a revolution without leaps is sheer foolishness. The path toward collapse is accelerating toward its seismic climax—the moment when imperialist capitalism ceases to function as a world-system. Beyond this threshold, regional imperialist blocs and individual capitalist states may linger for a time, but they will be left to face their fates alone. The outcome is clear: social upheavals and an era of revolutions—reaching into the very imperialist centers—are entering their most critical, rapid, and impactful stage.
