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	International Communist Workers Party
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South Africa: as the class struggle heats up, ICWP grows among industrial workers

Our Party must clearly explain the main contradiction in the world and how this contradiction affects everything. Today that contradiction is the rivalry among the imperialists for control of the world’s markets, resources and workers’ labor power.
There is inter-imperialist rivalry of many kinds but the dramatic decline of US imperialism and the astonishing growth of Chinese imperialism is the main contradiction that is primarily shaping events in every corner of the world today. It is leading to World War III.

It’s our task to mobilize the masses for communism to change the main contradiction into a class war for communism.
After World War II, the US occupied Western Europe and Japan. The rich oil fields of the Middle East came under its domination. Latin America was ruthlessly controlled by pro-US governments.  As colonialism crumbled, the US expanded its influence in Africa and Asia.  At its peak, the US had 55% of all world trade by volume.
After WWII, the devastation of Europe and Japan attracted US capital in search of cheap labor. Over decades, Japan and Germany emerged as formidable competitors of US imperialism.  However, military occupation, as well as the financial institutions imposed by US imperialism after WWII, prevented Germany and Japan from fully developing as hostile competitors. The oil war in Iraq and military intervention in Kosovo were attempts by US imperialism to swat down rising competitor Russia and regional powers like Iran and Venezuela.
The growth of US and western capital, with its increasing mechanization, inevitably resulted in a decline in the rate of profit. Then, in the 1980’s, China implemented a policy of free market capitalism.  Western capital flooded China to shore up its rate of profit by super-exploiting millions of Chinese workers who made 10% of the wages of workers in Europe and US. 
This enabled the Chinese capitalists to amass enormous wealth. Over three decades they have replaced the US and Europe in many parts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia as the leading trade partner.  Today, the US’ share has declined to 16% of world trade. US decline has also enabled Germany, Russia, India, and Brazil to expand their imperialist growth.

US-China Rivalry Will Lead to World War
Now China is the leading economy in the world.  The Chinese have over $3 trillion to invest.  However, China cannot invest in key industries in the US and Europe. China invested heavily in Egypt, Libya, and Sudan, and the last two have been militarily attacked by the US. 
However, Chinese investments in other countries are very small compared to US investments. Chinese capital faces obstacles to its expansion due to the rules and controls imposed on the world financial system by US imperialism.
US imperialists are trying to restrict the growth of Chinese capital by direct military intervention as in Libya or by financial control like the recent rejection of the Chinese take-over of Canadian oil fields. The US/China contradiction will inevitably lead to world war to destroy the world order that gave the US supremacy.
Before WWII, Great Britain was the leading imperialist power in the world and controlled world trade backed by its superior navy.  The US ranked 6th in world trade and had a very small air force when WWII started. While it took the bombing of Pearl Harbor to start military production, the secret preparations for war started soon after the great depression of 1929. Seeing Japan as a rival for control of East Asia, the US ruling class provoked Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor as a pretext for entering the war.  Within weeks the bosses massively converted auto plants to make tanks and airplanes. Boeing became the leading manufacturer of military airplanes.
Today China has enormous productive capacity just as the US did before WWII.  As China finds it more and more difficult to grow, wider wars can quickly develop.  The growth and expansion of capital is essential to the capitalists.  If capital cannot grow, it becomes a destructive force, pushing the capitalists eventually to global war.

Capitalist Crisis Intensifies Class Struggle
Every area in the world is affected by the contradiction of China’s growth and the US need to reverse its decline as well as prevent China and other imperialists from dominating the world. Capitalist crisis creates unstable and unpredictable outcomes.  We should clearly show how this contradiction unfolds in specific events like the Ebola epidemic, Ukraine, Syria as well as in areas where we have industrial concentrations. 
Each crisis of overproduction and the falling rate of profit means the further immiseration of the working class. Each such crisis, like the current one, creates violent conflicts among the capitalists-imperialists, but it also intensifies the class struggle and gives us the opportunity and necessity to mobilize the masses for communism.
In such crises, as the capitalist-imperialist system is preparing for war, the bosses can lose their ideological grip on the masses, like in South Africa today where the class struggle is intensifying and  Red Flag and ICWP are growing. This is the material basis for change. As we explain this connection more clearly, we will avoid reformist traps and revolutionize our practice of mobilizing the masses for communism.

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