Imperialism, Multipolarity, and the International Communist Movement
Christopher Helali
Abstract
This article examines the central ideological divisions within global communism regarding the present geopolitical order and the nature of imperialism in the twenty-first century. Responding to the framework advanced by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its “imperialist pyramid” theory — which posits that all nations, including socialist and anti-imperialist states, participate in a singular global imperialist hierarchy — the paper argues that this interpretation distorts Lenin’s original theory of imperialism and serves to obscure the principal contradiction in world politics today: that between the declining unipolar U.S.-EU-NATO bloc and the emerging multipolar, anti-imperialist forces led by Russia, China, and their allies. Drawing on Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism and the writings of Marxist economists such as Paul Baran, the author reaffirms a scientific, materialist understanding of imperialism rooted in monopoly finance capital and geopolitical hegemony. The paper contends that multipolarity, while not the final stage of socialist transformation, represents a progressive development that expands political and economic space for global movements resisting Western domination. In conclusion, it calls for unity among anti-imperialist and socialist forces under the banner of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform, asserting that only through coordinated struggle against Euro-Atlantic imperialism can humanity achieve peace and the conditions for socialist construction.
Keywords
imperialism, multipolarity, Marxism–Leninism, anti-imperialism, international communist Movement, Christopher Helali
