 As Executive Chairman of the American Communist Party, I'd like to analyze the recent 'sweeping victories' of the DSA in an objective matter. I'm far from a delusional sectarian blind to clearly observable shifts in US politics, but I also find the commentary surrounding these events lacking in basic Marxist analysis. Hype is building around the DSA as a consequence of two NYC “Democratic Socialist” candidates securing congressional primary victories, extending the momentum of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral election last year. Suddenly, leftist ‘purity testing’ appears irrelevant and impotent. ‘Results’ speak for themselves: You cannot really argue with winning actual seats of power on the basis of millions of voters. In comparison to the various sects that predominate the American radical left - or worse yet, “principled” leftists who lack any collective organization at all - the ‘objective, clear, and obvious’ recent victories by the DSA appear to break the decades-long trend of obscurity, irrelevance, and marginalization by the radical left. CORE DIFFERENCES WITH THE PAST Bernie Sanders normalized words like “socialism” in US politics over a decade ago. There’s nothing new about “DSA members” securing victory in Congress. The main difference is that there was no clear direction of momentum. AOC herself was very selective about advertising her affiliation with the DSA. The key difference today is momentum. Zohran’s victory, and now the two congressional primary victories, make the DSA appear decisively relevant in ways it had never before been. Today’s context is crucial: Currently, the Democratic Party lacks any positive vision. Trump’s election in 2024 discredited the older generation of Democratic Party politics. The DSA, though weakened, had built itself up for a decade as the default repository of ‘alternative,’ youthful politics within the Democratic Party. It seized upon this vacuum and has capitalized off of Trump’s rapid deterioration of popularity across the nation (economic grievances compounded by the Epstein files and Iran war). That is why the DSA has become seriously relevant in ways it never was before. I myself have pointed out the fact that it’s not hard for leftists to win in NYC and that’s not a proxy for the nation. But there’s nothing else going on in the Democratic Party - the only officially recognized opposition party today - that has any semblance of vision or energy, and this has seized the attention of the entire nation. CLASS ANALYSIS: BURSTING THE BUBBLE So, it's a no brainer. The DSA is surely an organic, rising socialist movement in the United States! Except, it's really not. The key distinction historically between bourgeois and proletarian politics (which gives rise to 'socialist movements') are the material foundations of the political power itself. So where did the actual material foundations - I'm talking about money, by the way - behind this 'DSA momentum' actually come from? It definitely doesn't come from the proletariat. In the political class struggle, there are two forms of material power: One rooted in support from the bourgeoisie, and one that arises from the collective power of the proletariat. In the past, the proletariat first organized itself into trade unions, which accumulated vast revenues from dues that provided the foundation of an independent, proletarian Party. That's how the Socialist Party in America came to be a century ago. But in both congressional primaries that saw Democratic Socialist victories, organized labor with the sole exception of UAW 9A, sided with the incumbent/establishment candidates. Worse, UAW 9A is not even primarily a proletarian union, but is more like a petty-bourgeois, pencil-pushing professional guild. Basically every other form of organized labor sided with the losing side. Surely, this is just the privileged labor aristocracy, opposing a new mass of true proletarians gate kept out of the labor bureaucracy! PETTY BOURGEOIS PROFESSIONALS, NOT PROLETARIANS Exit polling about the congressional primaries are currently sparse, but if Mamdani's 2025 Democratic Primary election is anything to go by, this is also wrong. According to the New York Times interactive precinct analysis (June 25, 2025): Mamdani performed stronger than rivals in precincts where the majority of residents are college graduates, and in middle-income and higher-income neighborhoods. Cuomo had more support in lower-income neighborhoods and among the NYC working class. Mamdani excelled in renter-heavy gentrifying neighborhoods often associated with upper-middle-class young professionals. Even the exit polls of the general election prove that Mamdani's margins over Cuomo among the proletariat were much smaller than among the more affluent petty-bourgeois professionals. When we use education alone as a proxy we even find:
Note that 57.5% of NYC adults (population age 25 and over) have no college degree. That means that voter turnout itself was skewed in favor of the professional petty-bourgeois who already find large concentration in cities like NYC relative to the rest of the country. Surely the momentum built by the DSA following Mamdani's victory might have reversed this awkward trend? Far from it. Here's a breakdown from all three recent congressional primary victories: NY-13 is probably the most 'working class' district in comparison to the other two districts that saw 'Democratic Socialist' or 'progressive' (Lander) victories. But based on an analysis of precincts
NY-7 is a a combination of gentrified neighborhoods and working class Latino neighborhoods. (Brooklyn (Bushwick, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Ridgewood areas) and Queens (Long Island City, Astoria, etc.))
The recent 'DSA' sweep is not driven by the working class. It represents a strong consolidation of force, solidarity, and will by the professional petty-bourgeoisie. But the fact that the Democratic establishment is openly getting nervous about these recent primaries is telling. In contrast to Mamdani's campaign, neither of the two DSA candidates received support from the Working Families Party. There are some signs that indicate Mamdani has, in some sense, 'gone rogue.' The "Grassroots" Mamdani Myth In contrast to the preposterous narratives that Mamdani was able to gain momentum on the basis of 'grassroots support' and 'beat the establishment,' a basic examination of facts tells a very different picture. Zohran Mamdani is not a modern day Eugene Debs. He is not some organic, grassroots working class leader selected by the masses to represent a newly militant and organized proletarian. Zohran also did not just spontaneously become 'popular' one day and take off. Mamdani's political origins are thoroughly rooted inside of the bourgeois political machine. This is not sectarian gibberish about his ideology. It is on the basis of recycled billionaire money and donations that Mamdani acquired his political relevance and that is a fact. Zorhan Mamdani was able to tap into $4.47 million dollars from billionaire backed and funded Super PACs, PACs, nonprofits, and NGOs. Before the Democratic congressional primary, Zohran Mamdani received at least ~$1.5M in support from PACs. On March 29, 2025, the Working Families Party voted to support, endorse, and lend their resources to Zohran Mamdani. The WFP is a front group of the financial capitalist class, having received $23.7 million from George Soros alone since 2016! Confining ourselves to Soros' Open Society alone, which severely understates things, key activist groups, NGOs, and nonprofit networks which were decisive in the rise of Zohran Mamdani had a long history of receiving millions of dollars from the Open Society foundations. The following organizations represent just some of the vast infrastructure, resources and institutions that were necessary for Mamdani to be relevant in the first place, which simultaneously exist only thanks to donations from George Soros' Open Society Foundations:
This is by no means an exhaustive list. It represents only some of the organizations allied to Zohran's campaign, which were indispensable on the campaign, activist, staffing and operations ecosystem that was a condition of Zohran's success and which his 'grassroots momentum' simply took for granted. Activist-NGO-Philanthropy Ecosystem Propagandists of the DSA will often cite the organizational power of their 'grassroots socialist movement' as being primarily responsible for the rise of Zohran Mamdani. The truth is, the majority of the organizers of Zohran's campaign in the DSA were already submerged in a huge activist-NGO-nonprofit political ecosystem tied at the hip to the Democratic Party. It's known that DSA is not a political party, but it's not even a real socialist organization. It's one of the many network-pools that people loosely affiliate with, while often times being 'members' of dozens of other organizations. What drives people into these affiliation-networks is not really different from what drives young models to attend depraved sex parties at billionaire mansions. Money and career advancement. I'm not claiming that these organizations SOLELY depend upon billionaires like Soros. I'm claiming that without that support, they COULD NOT HAVE, in the first place, had a 'fighting chance.' That is the condition and premise of their ability to tap into resources - not crowdfunding from the working class. For example, take the American Communist Party. Why can't we tap into these organizations and networks that the DSA does, which recycle the vast resources of the billionaire class?
Your particular views on these matters do not actually matter. They are objectively a proxy of having positions that are different from the hegemonic bourgeoisie, and therefore an objective proxy of organizational independence from the bourgeois hegemony. The point is not whether you should agree with us on these matters. The point is: Do you even have the rational, discursive freedom to agree with us? You don't, because if you do, you get cut off from the networks that are decisive for acquiring 'political relevancy.' The Double Standard: DSA vs. ACP I am far from interested in being reductive regarding Mamdani and the DSA. Although, that is very generous of me. Because Jackson sat down with Tulsi Gabbard like 8 years ago (just as all other alt-media figures did), DSA members continue to insist that the ACP owes its existence entirely to her. Unlike them, nothing the ACP has ever done, has presupposed support from billionaires or any other members of the bourgeoisie. Yet they are confident enough in labeling us as bad-faith actors because Jackson took a photo with Tulsi Gabbard and made AI memes of him beside Trump years ago. Imagine if we subjected DSA to even 1% of the scrutiny they tried to subject to the ACP - if we traced its key organizers, leaders, and their affiliations in the broader DNC-aligned activist/political ecosystem. If we were even 1% as reductive as they are, it would be an open and shut case: They are direct proxies for the imperialist bourgeoisie and nothing more than that. ACP relies solely on support from its own primarily working class cadre. Nearly half of whom are actual, blue-collar proletarians - compared to the DSA, which can boast what, 10%? We have no readily-made resources or infrastructure we can draw from. They take these things for granted like taking air for granted to breathe. Yet no one knows the real price of political independence more than the ACP. And whether you agree with us or not is immaterial: We are independent, and that alone is why we are not as 'successful' as the DSA at the moment. The cynical, unprincipled, opportunist DSA propagandists will respond: Too bad, so sad, get your money up! But when the ACP does seek to address this problem pragmatically, in a way that does not infringe upon its political independence - Party enterprises - we get 'canceled' by these same fuckers for being 'landlords' and 'capitalists.' Despite owning zero rental properties! But were it not for the philanthropic support of the capitalist class and landlords, they would not have any legs to stand on in the first place! Zohran vs. Cuomo: Opposing Reductionism I'm aware of the fact that Zohran's opponents got more money. I'm also aware that the majority of Zohran's funding came from 'small donations.' Although this is itself misleading: Were it not for the giant PACs that spent millions of dollars on advertisements, astroturfing, etc. - Zohran would not have been able to raise as much money as he did in the first place. In the same way that advertising is indispensable for the sale of a product - 'selling' Zohran's campaign was also accomplished in large-part thanks to existing infrastructural support by PACs and other billionaire-funded organizations. Both Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani depended on support from the big bourgeoisie. The difference is that Zohran obviously got less support. That is why, for the purposes of an objective analysis, it is meaningless to be reductive. Zohran may have depended on the bourgeois political machine, but it alone was not enough to carry him to victory - or get the ball rolling for DSA's current 'sweeping momentum.' I simply point this out because most people are too cynical to understand that not everyone interested in politics takes for granted the vast institutional and infrastructural support that comes from minimal alignment with the bourgeoisie on key issues. People laugh at how small and irrelevant the American Communist Party is in 'comparison' to the DSA - but it really is an organization that, in addition to being only two years old, began from scratch had only two forms of 'capital' to begin with:
People, for that reason, dismiss us as a 'party of online influencers,' but when they do that, they are implicitly admitting that this is our sole form of 'starting capital' - as opposed to the vast resources that come from minimally acquiescing to the Democratic shitlib machine. Our leftist opponents seem to take those resources for granted, as somehow not fundamentally and materially attaching them to the bourgeoisie, but we do not and can not. DSA Gone Rogue? So, if and only when we take for granted support from the bourgeoisie (and not the organized proletariat) - what is the real decisive factor behind the DSA's existing momentum? I think there are signs Zohran, the DSA, etc. are 'going rogue.' They are beginning to make the Democratic establishment feel nervous. Many of my own comrades will not be receptive to such an observation - but it does us no good to be blind to reality, and confine ourselves to the various slogans and 'left-wing' truisms about Zohran, et. al being Zionist shills of the Democratic Party. These are truisms, but now it's on us to explain the contradictions that appear to emerge among the bourgeoisie. A Rebellion by the Professional Petty Bourgeoisie The professional petty-bourgeoisie is today characterized by the following characteristics:
In places like New York City, the professional petty-bourgeoisie is concentrated enough geographically, and in sheer volume of population and numbers - that it can band together (like a fasces, if you will), unite, and become a major political force. This strategy cannot scale nationally for the simple reason that in other parts of the country, winning over the working class as a mass is electorally decisive. The 'top-heavy' strategy of consolidating the professional petty-bourgeoise, and then brute-forcing their way into garnering influence and hegemony, with more marginal victorious leads among the working class - is not tenable in regions where the professional petty-bourgeoisie is less concentrated or capable of collective self-organizing. But the interesting factor is that the collective self-organization of the professional petty-bourgeoisie has become an alternative source of momentum, power and hegemony to the institutions of the big bourgeoisie. The masses are always the prize. In traditional Marxism, proletarian versus bourgeois forms of leadership/organization compete over hegemony over the popular masses. In the case of the DSA, we find neither proletarian organization, nor the simple bourgeois institutional hegemony - we find an organized rebellion by the professional petty-bourgeoisie, splintering off as a rogue force from the bourgeois institutional hegemony itself. It was able to do this in New York City, because the professional petty-bourgeois are concentrated there, while themselves simultaneously constituting a politically decisive electoral mass. Why This Cannot Scale Nationally or Even in New York State DSA victories depend on a top-heavy strategy of electorally suppressing or marginalizing the proletariat (largely lulled as it is by the bourgeois hegemony) and massively mobilizing educated, professional segments of the population. Though a brute-force approach, massive turnout by the professional petty-bourgeoisie combined with 'grassroots' media campaigns, allow for comparatively slim, yet observable victories even in largely working class neighborhoods and precincts. Obviously the affluent bourgeoisie, and the wealthy/well-to-do layers of the professional petty-bourgeoisie can be completely marginalized, since they are not numerous enough to constitute a mass. In New York City, the majority of the population are proletarians. Yet the professional petty-bourgeoisie constitutes either a majority or a massive plurality of the actual electorate. The brute-force approach cannot scale. I'm not even sure how viable it is in cities outside of New York City. What is for certain is that in regions of the country where the professional petty-bourgeois do not constitute the necessarily decisive mass, they will not be a able to brute-force their way into victory, however self-organized and self-conscious they are. To carry momentum outside of enclaves like NYC, the DSA would have to convert its organizational force into something more selfless then it currently is: Aimed at mobilizing not simply its own professional petty-bourgeois class brethren, but the working class masses of the country. It would have to convert its vast petty-bourgeois professional apparatus into service for the American proletariat, and really compete with the bourgeois hegemony over the proletarian masses/electorate as the prize. Right now, it only regards the professional petty-bourgeois masses concentrated in NYC as the prize. It lacks even the discursive intelligence to recognize that the proletarian masses are quite separate from the 'masses' that constitute the core of the DSA. In all their self-serving narcissism, they truly believe they are the working class. But it's not so. And what material incentive do DSA members have to be selfless, as old petty-bourgeois members of the socialist intelligentsia at least tried to be?The material incentives behind the growth of the DSA, in the first place, are based on the self-serving class interests of the professional petty-bourgeoisie. Bursting the Bubble The truth is, the DSA is now lining itself up for electoral slaughter by the hegemonic bourgeoisie at the national level, who, at the present moment, have a much greater stranglehold on the actual working class than the DSA does (both the Democratic and Republican parties) - even in New York City itself! The DSA is able to ignore this problem in New York City, since the professional petty-bourgeoisie reaches a critical enough mass threshold to 'brute force' their way into electoral victory, skirting by from very slim margins of victory (and even in some cases defeat!) in places with large working class concentration. The DSA could potentially be converted into an apparatus for the construction of something like proletarian hegemony - despite its origins in the bourgeois political machine - but I consider that deeply unlikely. Pikerdom - a Major Factor I think a major factor behind the DSA's momentum, in addition to all the material and class factories I just mentioned, lies in the support and direction provided by Hasan Piker. The Iskraist understanding of politics comprehends that the concentration of strategy and vision through media is fundamental. I straight-up, deadass think that Piker is the only thing that is unifying the current DSA momentum - not even necessarily Zohran Mamdani himself. ACP was derided for being based in 'streamers' and 'content creators' but I know first hand the power of having a dedicated live-streaming community and how that can translate into real-world power pretty directly. Hasan Piker's community is much larger than mine and has existed for much longer. It is clear to me that Hasan Piker is a decisive factor here, and that is not because he is mobilizing the masses. It's because he is mobilizing huge quantities of personnel, activists, staffers, etc. - who are all more or less under the influence of his vast content-creation network, community and parasocial orbit. It may sound ridiculous to many, but we are now living in an age where live-streaming personalities are actually, directly politically relevant. I call Piker's influence and mini-hegemony 'Pikerdom.' Aside from the pure media reach provided by Jackson Hinkle and Midwestern Marx, the ACP was able to get off the ground (as modestly as it was) from two factors:
Right now, DSA's current momentum appears to be rooted in:
What happens now? At a certain point, a decisive confrontation will occur between the DSA/Pikerdom and the Democratic Party establishment. I think the DSA will ultimately lose that confrontation. The DSA/Pikerdom will have to learn the hard way that they lack the material foundations to challenge the Democratic Party because they do not have any independent material basis. The independent material basis provided by support from the professional petty-bourgeoisie alone in NYC cannot scale nationally - because at the national scale, the professional petty-bourgeoisie alone cannot provide the material basis for anything, especially in Swing states. At some decisive point, activists in the DSA will learn the hard way that they're going to have to tap into material foundations created primarily by the proletariat (whether that is organized labor or something else) in order to challenge those created by the bourgeoisie. The American Community Party will definitely attempt to capitalize off of this loss, having upheld the correct line and maintained the correct analysis through it all. The masses of declassed professional petty-bourgeois will either be lumpenized or proletarianized - and I believe the majority will probably be lumpenized. These are the conditions that will make abrupt political revolution and civil war inevitable in this country. As Executive Chairman of the American Communist Party, I'm fully aware that we ultimately benefit from the DSA's renewed 'momentum.' Ideologically, the overton window is shifting. The DSA is basically gathering together future Communist Party cadre for us. They are creating a critical mass of personnel and activists dedicated to building out some kind of organization. I am currently banking on the expectation that enough of them (though not the majority) will be won over to the ACP's strategic vision once the bubble bursts and they realize that what they're doing in NYC can't scale nationally. Proletarianization As the professional petty-bourgeoisie are declassed, those among them who proletarianize - and this characterizes the majority of blue-collar members of the ACP - will be the most receptive to joining. Funnily enough, scores of these petty-bourgeois professionals were outraged by SwampCommunists' (of all people, what a surprise!) recent tweet, saying: We dont need more or better Marxist professors we need a Marxist organized proletariat. Drop out of college and go move boxes for UPS or come lash shipping containers at the port https://x.com/SwampCommunist/status/2066200258732868010 It clearly struck a nerve, all the glasses-wearing petty-bourgeois professionals were soy raging over it. But the sad truth is that they may not have a choice. For the bulk of young professional petty-bouregeoisie now represented by the DSA, both present and aspiring, they have two choices:
These are the only viable 'career' prospects that offer a way of living compatible with the current material conditions facing the nation. The lumpen will probably just become psycho killer-clown fascists. At present time, the American Communist Party is largely drawn from people who made the latter choice. All the peculiar qualities and characters of the ACP - including its 'cancelable' positions on foreign policy and culture - reflect this class character. The DSA's momentum is unsustainable when you actually analyze its material foundations and class character. I know many people are hyped up and excited, but facts are stubborn things. Time will tell if this material analysis proves correct. Some people like to make fun of the ACP and compare it to the DSA. The truth is, we are an organization and Party of the future. We could not possibly be as 'relevant' as the DSA is now, since the majority of the current generation have not accepted the inevitability of proletarianization. But without accepting proletarianization, proletarian politics is impossible for the current generation, which either aspires to become or have already become petty-bourgeois professionals. Originally published on Haz Al-Din's X account
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6/23/2026 The 105-Year History of the Chinese Communist Party and Its Legacy for Humanity By: Ximena Madrigal AmadorRead Now We mark the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, which took place on July 1 in Shanghai. By that time, both Shanghai and the rest of China had already suffered—and would continue to suffer for several more decades—the British, French, and Japanese foreign invasions that condemned an entire people to constant humiliation and prevented them from consolidating themselves as a prosperous and strong nation. Seventy-seven years after the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, the Asian giant continues, at its own pace, to build that path. It is noteworthy that while much of the world already speaks of China as a superpower, its own communist leadership resists accepting that label, still recognizing the country as a developing nation that has not yet achieved its highest objectives. As an observer from a small Central American nation who has been fortunate enough to visit this ancient civilization, I would argue that the label "superpower" is inadequate—not when measured by the bourgeois, liberal, or imperial standards from which China consciously distances itself, but because China represents something greater: a beacon of hope and a model for the Global South. It demonstrates that inequality can be reduced and economic growth and advanced technological development can be achieved without exploiting weaker nations, subordinating allies, or intervening in the internal affairs of others. Seen in this light, the founding of the Party and, later, of the People's Republic were not merely national milestones; they were, in many respects, a gift to humanity. It is worth recalling that China has lifted over 800 million people out of extreme poverty, maintained economic stability through a series of global crises, and secured widespread access to essential services, education, housing, and healthcare for a population that, a century ago, was associated with famine and semi-colonial subjugation. At the same time, China has emerged as a leader in green technology development, benefiting much of the world—especially countries that are reducing their carbon emissions through the use of Chinese-made solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles. Most significant of all, these accomplishments are not isolated successes. They stem from a consistent set of principles that have guided China since 1921 and continue to shape its relationship with the world today. This continuity begins with Mao Zedong, whose view of international relations was profoundly shaped by China's experience of foreign intervention and national humiliation. For Mao, imperialism represented the greatest obstacle to the independence of oppressed nations. From that understanding emerged the principle of zili gengsheng—self-reliance—as the foundation of true sovereignty. While Xi Jinping no longer speaks in the revolutionary vocabulary of the Maoist period, his repeated denunciations of hegemonism, unilateral sanctions, and bloc-based politics stem from the same fundamental concern: ensuring that powerful states cannot impose their political and economic will on weaker nations. It was Zhou Enlai who transformed anti-imperialist ideals into a practical framework for diplomacy. At the Bandung Conference in 1955, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were established: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. These principles would become the bedrock of China's foreign policy. During his 1963–1964 tour of Africa and Asia, Zhou emphasized that all nations—large or small, powerful or weak—are equal. Out of that same diplomatic effort came the Eight Principles governing Chinese foreign aid: cooperation on an equal footing, free of political conditions, and designed to promote the recipient nation's self-reliance rather than dependence. The TAZARA Railway, constructed by China between Tanzania and Zambia at the height of the Cold War without requiring ideological conformity or domestic policy changes, remains the classic example of these principles put into practice. Deng Xiaoping inherited this tradition and reshaped it for a new era. While remaining committed to sovereignty and non-interference, he came to view economic modernization as the country's foremost mission, arguing that development itself constituted a form of national liberation. From this perspective, China's opening to foreign investment, trade, and technology did not represent a departure from the legacy of Mao and Zhou. Rather, it was an effort to achieve the same fundamental objectives—sovereignty, national dignity, and self-determination—by different means. Viewed through this lens, Xi Jinping is not an innovator so much as a continuator. He extends and deepens an existing tradition. The idea of a Community with a Shared Future for Humanity broadens Zhou Enlai's doctrine of peaceful coexistence into a comprehensive vision of global governance. China's advocacy of multipolarity echoes Zhou's belief that international affairs should not be dominated by a small number of powerful states. Likewise, the Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013, can be seen as the globalization of the development-oriented diplomacy that Zhou pursued in the 1960s. Xi has repeatedly described the initiative in language that closely mirrors Zhou's Eight Principles. He has characterized the Belt and Road as "a public road open to all, not a private path belonging to any one party," emphasizing that participation is open to all interested countries and that its benefits are meant to be shared. Cooperation, he argues, should be guided by development and mutual benefit, offering hope to the developing world. In tracing the roots of this approach, Xi has explicitly linked contemporary Chinese policy to earlier diplomatic traditions. Referring to the progression "from the TAZARA Railway to the Belt and Road Initiative," he argued that China has consistently sought to support other developing nations while creating new opportunities for the world through its own development. In doing so, he drew a direct line of continuity from the principles articulated by Zhou Enlai to China's present-day international engagement. The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), established in 2000, preferential trade arrangements with African nations such as Mauritius, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (founded in 2016), and the China–CELAC Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean all represent modern institutional expressions of Zhou Enlai's Eight Principles. Their influence can be seen in China's financing of ports, railways, dams, power grids, and other infrastructure projects, typically without imposing domestic political conditions. This approach contrasts with the structural adjustment programs historically associated with the IMF and the World Bank, which often tied financial assistance to privatization measures and austerity policies. China's vaccine diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic can be interpreted through the same lens. Donations of Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines reached dozens of countries across the Global South at a time when many wealthy Western nations had secured the bulk of the earliest vaccine supplies, reinforcing China's presentation of its international engagement as a form of South-South cooperation. The continuity is acknowledged even in China's official discourse. When Zhou Enlai declared during his African tour that all nations, large and small alike, are equal, and when Xi Jinping, decades later, maintains that the future of the world should be determined collectively by all countries, the two statements convey the same fundamental principle. Though separated by more than fifty years, both express a commitment to sovereign equality and resistance to the domination of weaker states by great powers. Xi reaffirmed this principle in April 2022 when he introduced the Global Security Initiative. There he called for a vision of security that is common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable, placing at its center the requirement to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations, reject interference in their internal affairs, and uphold each people's right to choose its own development path and social system. In essence, this is a modern restatement of the principles Zhou Enlai articulated at Bandung nearly seven decades earlier. The language has evolved, but the core idea remains the same: international order should be founded on sovereign equality rather than great-power domination. For those of us observing this historical continuity from the Global South, what is at issue is something fundamentally different from the experience our predecessors had with the dominant powers of their age. What is being offered is not the threat of bombs or coercion, but the sustained promise of a diplomacy grounded in mutual benefit—one that allows the nations of the South to participate in shaping their own futures. This does not mean replicating China's model wholesale. Doing so would run contrary to the very principle of self-determination that the Party espouses. Rather, it means acknowledging China's achievements and considering which underlying principles—socially oriented planning, deep roots in local traditions, and the conviction that the strong bear responsibilities toward the vulnerable—might serve as inspiration for building our own institutions and development paths, adapted to our own histories and conditions. The goal, in this view, is not imitation but inspiration: drawing lessons that can help create distinct and sovereign solutions within our own societies. This great giant does not come bearing bombs or wielding a big stick. It offers cooperation, mutual benefit, and the prospect of a more equitable diplomacy—one in which the nations of the Global South can develop their own political paths and economic alternatives without being subordinated to larger powers. China is a country whose recent history bears the wounds of imperialism and war. Precisely because of that experience, the author argues, it seeks not to imitate those practices but to advance a form of governance that many in the West once assumed had vanished, yet which remains vibrant—and, in some respects, renewed—in Asia. For those born in the late 1990s and afterward, a generation that has known China only as a major global power, and that has simultaneously witnessed what it sees as social decline in parts of the West, it has become increasingly easy to look across the Pacific, where, in the author's metaphor, a great sun is rising. Why China Is Not Imperialist: An Empirical Perspective This continuity in Chinese diplomacy, the author argues, is also rooted in deeper structural realities that have been explored by recent economic scholarship. In a 2021 article published in the Review of Radical Political Economics, economists Zhongjin Li and David M. Kotz examine whether China should be understood as an imperialist power from a Marxist theoretical standpoint. Their conclusion is that it should not. Starting from Lenin's classic conception of imperialism—as a system in which the ruling class of one country uses state power to exercise economic and political domination over another in pursuit of extraordinary profits—they argue that imperialism requires a state fundamentally controlled by a capitalist class with a material interest in such domination. According to Li and Kotz, contemporary China presents a different configuration. Although its economy contains a large and growing capitalist sector—by 2018, private firms accounted for more than four-fifths of industrial employment—the state remains under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. In their analysis, the Party is not directly governed by the interests of the capitalist class but instead pursues broader strategic goals, including economic development, technological modernization, international influence, and environmental sustainability. As a result, they argue, China lacks the structural incentive that historically drove capitalist powers toward imperial expansion. Rather than converting economic growth into systems of political domination abroad, the Chinese state has stronger incentives to pursue cooperative arrangements that generate mutual benefits while avoiding the substantial military, political, and financial burdens associated with maintaining an empire. The empirical evidence assembled by the authors supports this conclusion. A large share of Chinese loans and overseas investments does not originate from private capitalists seeking profits, but from two state-owned development banks—the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China—which operate according to the objectives of the Party rather than the logic of private profitability (Horn, Reinhart, and Trebesch, 2019, cited in Li and Kotz, 2021). Many of these loans are extended at interest rates close to zero; some are repaid through natural resources, and others are eventually forgiven altogether (Brautigam, 2009, cited in Li and Kotz, 2021). By 2019, China had provided approximately $56.48 billion in development assistance to more than 160 countries and had deployed over 600,000 development personnel (Xinhua, 2019, cited in Li and Kotz, 2021), representing a scale of South-South cooperation that contrasts with the structural-adjustment conditionalities historically associated with the so-called Washington Consensus. Independent field studies have confirmed this pattern on the ground. Researchers from the School of Oriental and African Studies, after years of comparative work in Angola and Ethiopia, found that Chinese state-owned enterprises were more responsive than other foreign investors to requests from host governments concerning job creation and labor conditions (Oya and Schaefer, 2019, cited in Li and Kotz, 2021). Cases such as the evolution of Chinese agricultural cooperation in Zambia—which moved from aid projects to commercial relationships without becoming a form of territorial or political control (Yan and Sautman, 2010, cited in Li and Kotz, 2021)—point in the same direction. From this economic perspective, the same conclusion that emerges from the diplomatic history of the Party, from Zhou Enlai to Xi Jinping, finds support in a structural analysis of China's economy: China is growing and expanding its global presence without, thus far, generating a dynamic of imperial domination over other peoples. Chinese official discourse repeatedly addresses this same question. At the ceremony marking the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party in July 2021, Xi Jinping reviewed China's history of national humiliation since the Opium War and, speaking about the future, stated explicitly that "the Chinese nation does not carry within its genes the traits of aggression or hegemony." He added that the Party is concerned with the future of all humanity and seeks to advance together with progressive forces around the world, committing itself to safeguarding world peace, contributing to global development, and preserving the international order (Xi Jinping, Speech at the Ceremony Commemorating the Centenary of the Communist Party of China, July 1, 2021). A few months later, before the United Nations General Assembly in September 2021, he made a similar argument, declaring that "China has never invaded or abused others, nor has it sought hegemony," presenting China as a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, a defender of the international order, and a provider of public goods for the international community (Xi Jinping, Speech at the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 2021). Addressing the nations of Southeast Asia in November 2021, on the thirtieth anniversary of dialogue relations between China and ASEAN, Xi was even more explicit, promising that "China will never seek hegemony, much less bully smaller countries," while advocating a regional order built on dialogue rather than military alliances and bloc confrontation (Xi Jinping, Building a Bright Future for China–ASEAN Relations, November 22, 2021). Taken together with the empirical evidence presented by Li and Kotz regarding the structure of Chinese investment and lending, these statements suggest that China's self-description as a non-imperialist power is not merely rhetorical but is, according to the author, reasonably consistent with the observable behavior of the Chinese state in international affairs. For all these reasons, on this 105th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, a sincere congratulation is due—not only to the Chinese people, but to the very idea the Party represents: that the development and dignity of one people need not be built upon the subordination of another. One hundred and five years after that July 1st in Shanghai, the consistency between what the Party promised and what it has sought to build—from Mao to Zhou, from Deng to Xi—is, in itself, a cause for celebration and an open invitation for the Global South to find, within its own histories and traditions, not a model to copy, but a path to follow. References
Originally published on LaRepublica. Author Ximena Madrigal Amador — Historian (University of Costa Rica), social communicator, and international affairs analyst. @rabot_rants 6/22/2026 Do Cuba’s Economic Reform Mean the Abandonment of Socialism? By: Dr. Carlos L. GarridoRead Now Cuba’s recent economic reforms, consisting of 176 new measures, have led many to claim that the blockade finally broke them. But is socialism actually being abandoned, as many are now speculating? This is, to the dismay of the Cuban American community in Miami (also known as “gusanos”), not at all what is occurring. Since the 1990s Cubans scholars have been studying the Chinese model for insights into integrating markets and private capital into a state controlled centrally planned economy. Different sectors of the Communist Party held that various degrees of China-style reforms should occur within Cuba’s economy for decades. During the era of Raul Castro’s presidency there was an initiative to promote small private businesses and non-agricultural cooperatives, and these thrived. Thanks to the easing of the blockade during the period of the Obama-Cuba thaw (mediated of course by the late Pope Francis) Cuba was able to have one of the highest GDP growths in the region, a growth which was reflected in more wealth and opportunities flowing to the population as a whole (as opposed to the irrelevancy that GDP growth has for normal working class communities in the capitalist West). Cuba kept on developing steadily until the asphyxiation of the genocidal blockade returned in full swing with the first Trump administration. Trump, let us recall, wanted initially to continue Obama’s policy toward Cuba, and even speculated about doing his own business deals in the island. It was the pressure from the Cuban American lobby (perhaps a better word is mafia) in Florida which changed Trump’s initial position on Cuba. As it is well known, the blockade’s intensity would be sustained by the Biden and second Trump regime, with the screws of the blockade’s infrastructure tightening even more in the recent months. The deadly mixture of the blockade, Covid’s effects on tourism, and the assault on regional allies like Venezuela (culminating in the kidnapping of Maduro and the stoppage of Venezuelan oil to Cuba), has prevented Cuba’s economic recovery and return to the trajectory it was on around 2014. These recent measures must therefore be seen, as everything always should in Cuba, in light of the genocidal pressure the blockade imposes upon the Cuban economy, state, and people. However, they cannot simply be described as capitulation or the return to the “capitalist road”. Cuba has not knelt. It will still prefer death, homeland, and sovereignty to capitulation and submission. The Cuban people are still arms-ready in the case of an invasion. The context of these reforms is not simply the recent intensification of the blockade by the Trump regime, but also the decades long interests in moving toward something akin to the Chinese and Vietnamese models of socialist economic development. Starting in 2013 Cuba developed the Mariel Special Economic Zone, allowing Brazilian, Spanish, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Canadian, Italian, and Belgian capital to invest in a controlled, special zone of Cuba. The port there was primarily built by Brazilian capital and financed by the Brazilian Development Bank. The basic idea was that this economic liberalization (if we even want to call it that) would work best if tested in a controlled, local environment before ever expanding nationwide. Does this sound familiar? It should if you are aware of how Reform and Opening Up occurred in China. Well before it expanded across the country, there were Special Economic Zones in cities like Shenzhen which tested the newly proposed methods out. What Cuba is currently pursuing is precisely an expansion of this to a national scale, trying to replicate in turn how China carried out their process of Reform and Opening Up. Central planning and state control of the commanding heights of the economy is still intact, but now it can be aided by the development of the productive forces which can ensue when you bring in foreign capital and expand market sectors, just like China has done since the late 1970s. For the Marxist faced with predicaments such as these, no longer are they questions of mere speculation. In 2026 we have both the experience of the Chinese and Soviet reforms to look back on and examine what led one to liquidation and counterrevolution and the other to the advancement down the socialist road, development of the productive forces, and lifting nearly a billion people out of poverty. It was the fundamentally different character of the Soviet and Chinese reforms which led the Soviets to collapse and the Chinese to becoming the beacons of the global communist movement. In the case of the Soviet Union, key sectors of the economy were privatized and – most importantly – the political system was “liberalized,” with the Communist Party delegitimized and weakened. Proletarian dictatorship, embodied through the control of the Communist Party, was completely undermined. In China the Party has always remained in power. “Political capital,” as Mao called it, was never up for grabs by a capitalist class, even if they were allowed to develop economic capital. In China the Communist Party remains in total control, both in the sphere of the commanding heights of the economy and in the sphere of the state. This is why it’s been able to successfully ride the tiger of capital, or, to put it in Xi’s terms, have the visible hand tame and oversee the chaotic “invisible hand” of the market and private capital. We must only recall what happened to Jack Ma when he attempted to undermine this scheme to understand that power has always laid in the hands of the Party, in the hands of the people’s democratic dictatorship. In China the capitalist or the “new class,” whatever you want to call them, are submitted to the dictates of serving the Party’s developmental plans. It is the opposite of the arrangement present in the capitalist West, where the state (and society as a whole) serves the dictates of and prays in the alter of capital as the most holy. This Chinese model, in my view, is what Cuba is hoping to replicate. There are currently no signs that the leadership of the Communist Party, which is the ultimate organ of the defense of socialism and the people’s democratic dictatorship, will be delegitimized. If signs ever arise, then we can be concerned. But for now, all I see is Cuba making reforms it has been hinting at and preparing for over more than a decade. Therefore, it is taking the path of the Chinese Reform and Opening Up, not the Soviet Perestroika and Glasnost. These reforms can be conveniently painted by the highly unpopular Trump regime as a victory. Even if deep down they know it is only symbolic in character, Trump avoids having to invade the island as he promised, an action that would’ve been incredibly unpopular globally given that basically every country on earth (with the consistent exceptions of the U.S. and Israel) votes at the United Nations yearly against the U.S. blockade on Cuba. For the U.S. regime, and especially for Trump, it is often more important to appear as if you “won” than to actually “win.” All in all, if cards are played correctly, this is a great opportunity for a win-win arrangement. Trump gets out of having to invade, gives a symbolic victory to his people (“we radically changed Cuba, as promised, look at all these markets and private capital flowing in!”), and Cuba uses this difficult time to pass the reforms it’s been preparing for more than a decade. Author Dr. Carlos L. Garrido is a Cuban American Professor of Philosophy who received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He serves as the Secretary of Education for the American Communist Partyand as a Director of the Midwestern Marx Institute, the largest Marxist-Leninist think-tank in the United States. Dr. Garrido has authored a few books, including Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview (2022), The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism (2023), Why We Need American Marxism (2024), and the two forthcoming texts, Domenico Losurdo and the Marxist-Leninist Critique of Western Marxism (2026) and Hegel, Marxism, and Dialectics (2026-7). Dr. Garrido has published over a dozen scholarly articles and over a hundred articles in popular settings across the U.S., Mexico, Cuba, Iran, China, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece, Peru, Canada, etc. His writings have been translated into over a dozen languages. He also writes short form articles for his Substack, @philosophyincrisis, and does regular YouTube programs for the Midwestern Marx Institute channel. He is on Instagram @carlos.l.garrido Archives June 2026  The US has not only threatened the existence of Iran as a nation-state as well as the security of the entire Middle East, but the death and destruction it has caused has already begun to radiate out across the world in terms of disrupted or destroyed energy exports and rapidly unraveling economic stability. The US — being energy independent itself — has forced much of the world into an American energy monopoly, having placed sanctions on Russian energy exports and now either seizing, disrupting, or destroying all other potential competitors. This includes a US invasion of Venezuela just earlier this year, kidnapping the Venezuelan president and holding the remaining government hostage while openly seizing the nation’s natural resources — including oil — for the US itself. The current US war of aggression against Iran is not only targeting Iranian energy production but has also resulted in regional conflict, damaging or destroying energy production across the Persian Gulf altogether. Because the US produces nowhere near the amount of oil and LNG required to make up for disrupted or destroyed energy production and exports from the Middle East, this will result in global energy shortages and subsequent collapses in both industry and consumer demand. The world, which had been collectively rising above and beyond the reach of US primacy, now faces the prospect of being deliberately destabilized and dragged down by the US. The US itself, incapable of competing within the very world order it created following the World Wars, has decided to use its remaining military, economic, financial, and political strength to demolish it in the hope of emerging from the settling debris once again“strongest.” Far from an obscure theory, this is an observation made even by Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who in a recent interview would say that, “the events in Latin America and the Middle East directly stem from the West’s attempts to preserve the remnants of its dominance” and that,“the elites of Western countries continue to invest whatever political and economic resources they have left in their confrontation with our country.” Far from a last-minute plan, the US spent much of the 21st century preparing not only for the now ongoing war with Iran but also its ongoing proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and its growing encirclement of China in the Asia-Pacific region — targeting all of multipolarism’s major pillars and many in between. On the Path to Persia To encircle and weaken Iran, the US invaded Afghanistan to its east and Iraq to its west in 2001 and 2003, respectively, under the Bush Jr. administration. During that same administration, the US began preparing armies of extremists to wage proxy war against Iran and its regional allies, including Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the nation of Syria, and Ansar Allah in Yemen. During the Obama administration, at least as early as 2008, the US began training and equipping opposition groups across the Arab World for the eventual 2011 so-called “Arab Spring.” Together with the armies of extremists prepared under the previous Bush Jr. administration, the US-engineered protests and ready-made violence served as cover to trigger regional chaos, resulting in US wars and proxy wars against Libya, Yemen, and Syria, leading to the collapse of all three as unified nation-states. While the same Obama administration signed on to the so-called “Iran Nuclear Deal” in 2012, US policy papers dating back to as early as 2009 sought to use such diplomacy —not to avoid war but to serve as a pretext for war. One such paper published by the Brookings Institution, titled,“Which Path to Persia?” noted that,“the ideal scenario in this case would be that the United States and the international community present a package of positive inducements so enticing that the Iranian citizenry would support the deal, only to have the regime reject it,” before stating, “Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.” And that is precisely what happened — come 2018, under the first Trump administration, the deal was unilaterally withdrawn from by the US after baselessly accusing Iran of violating its terms before applying “maximum pressure” on Iran in the lead-up to the war the US is now waging against Iran. In 2024, with the collapse of the Syrian government under the Biden administration, Syria’s advanced integrated air defense network was destroyed leading to the creation of open-air corridors to Iran and almost immediately to direct US and Israeli strikes spanning 2024-2025 and, of course, this year. The now ongoing war on Iran is just one piece of a wider global strategy to destabilize and destroy the multipolar world before its otherwise inevitable displacement of American unipolar primacy. Extending Russia Russia, another central pillar of emerging multipolarism, has been besieged by US-led NATO expansion since the end of the Cold War. Throughout the 21st century, the US has systematically destabilized and attempted to politically capture nations along Russia’s periphery, including Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and failed attempts to capture Belarus and Ukraine in 2001 and 2004, respectively. Upon Georgia’s capture in 2003, it was immediately militarized by the US and transformed into a battering ram against neighboring Russia, culminating in war in 2008 the European Union’s own investigation concluded was provoked by US-backed Georgia. By 2014, the US had successfully captured Ukraine as well and immediately began to militarize it on a much greater scale than Georgia from 2003-2008. This included not only the reorganization and training of Ukraine’s military but also the capture and control of Ukraine’s security and intelligence agencies by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). By 2017, under the first Trump administration, the US began openly supplying Ukraine with arms — likely the final red line crossed, forcing Russia to preemptively strike before another Georgia 2008-style war was launched against it — but on a much greater and more dangerous scale. The resulting war occupied tremendous amounts of Russian resources and attention, undermining its ability to sustain Syria’s stability, and is likely a contributing factor to the Syrian government’s collapse in 2024, helping set the stage for the US’ direct war on Iran today. Both the US-provoked proxy war in Ukraine and additional pressure on Syria were laid out in a 2019 RAND Corporation paper titled “Extending Russia”— both scenarios, together with many other options that have since been implemented against Russia, having sought to extend Russia and eventually precipitate a Soviet-style collapse. Throughout the ongoing US proxy war on Russia in Ukraine, the US CIA has coordinated and directed long-range drone strikes on Russian energy production deep inside Russian territory as well as conducted maritime drone strikes on tankers carrying Russian energy exports. Together with the US invasion of Venezuela, its ongoing war on Iran, and the attack on Russian energy production and exports, it reveals a troubling pattern — the seizure, destruction, or degradation of China’s major energy partners around the globe. Blockading China In addition to targeting China’s largest and most important energy partners, the US has also spent years attempting to likewise destabilize, destroy, or deliberately provoke conflict along China’s immediate peripheries and even within Chinese territory itself. This includes years-spanning terrorism targeting China’s Xinjiang region, US-backed riots in Hong Kong as recently as 2019, and the backing and arming of the separatist administration on the Chinese island province of Taiwan. Beyond China’s own territory, since the end of World War 2, the US has spent decades attempting to politically capture and pivot nations into battering rams against China along three fronts; Japan-Korea, India-Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. This includes the Philippines, which has abandoned modern infrastructure deals with China and redirected national resources to an expanding US military presence within the former US colony and an expanding confrontation with China in the South China Sea. Closer to China’s borders in Myanmar and Pakistan, the US has backed terrorists in attacking key components of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including the Myanmar-China pipelines US policy papers, including one from the US Naval War College Review in 2018, had previously proposed bombing during any open conflict with China as part of a wider “maritime oil blockade” on China. Instead of waiting for open conflict with China, US-backed terrorists have repeatedly attacked the pipelines for years, including last year. Earlier this year, an American and several Ukrainians were caught smuggling drones into Myanmar in a bid to assist US-backed opposition groups in overthrowing the China-friendly central government. Taken together, the US has waged wars and proxy wars against China’s key allies as well as waged a dirty war all along China’s own borders and even within them. The most recent war on Iran, targeting the majority of China’s energy imports from abroad, seeks to damage China’s economic development as much as possible before a 5-10 year window of opportunity closes as China reaches energy independence. China Has Prepared China was well aware of US efforts to blockade it for decades and has invested both domestically and internationally in both preparing for it and defending against it. The distant blockade the US Naval Review College paper proposed imposing at the Malacca Strait in 2018 is now likely no longer possible, as China’s military power has drastically expanded since then. Not only does China have a vastly larger and more capable missile force, but it also has a physically larger navy than the United States does and has concentrated its navy in the Asia-Pacific region. This is likely why the US has instead imposed the blockade at the Strait of Hormuz — much further from Chinese military capabilities. However, China appears to have prepared for this as well. China has built up vast strategic crude oil reserves, is rapidly expanding coal-to-liquid fuel production, and has invested in and adopted renewable energy resources on a scale unseen in human history. While the majority of vehicles on Chinese roads are still dependent on refined oil fuel products, over 50% of all new cars, trucks, and motorcycles are electric. China possesses the largest and fastest passenger rail network on Earth and also possesses the most powerful electric freight locomotives ever built. While the United States appears to be making a drastic global lunge at China and its network of partners and allies, China has spent decades preparing for exactly this scenario. What is left to determine is whether the US’ capacity for global death and destruction can outpace China and the multipolar world’s capacity for resilience and economic, technological, and civilizational expansion. Only time will tell for sure. Originally published at New Eastern Outlook. Author Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer. |
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