This document is the first draft of the World Perspectives for the upcoming Congress 2025 of The Struggle (طبقاتی جدوجہد), the section of the International Socialist League (ISL) in Pakistan. It was completed on 16 March 2025 and published on the Asian Marxist Review website on 18 March 2025.
We are publishing Part II of the document; Part I cab be read here.
You can download the PDF version here, read the Spanish version here, and access the Urdu version here.
China, India, and BRICS
(161) In recent years, with the decline of Western imperialism and the rise of China, the perception has grown that alliances like BRICS could become an alternative to the Bretton Woods and Washington Consensus-based world order (NATO, IMF, World Bank, EU, etc.) in the coming days.
(162) This narrative has several forms, including the idea that China is progressive compared to Western imperialism. In Pakistan, people like Mushahid Hussain are actively lobbying for this. Similarly, there is talk of a new anti-imperialist “Eastern Bloc” comprising China, Russia, Iran, and various Third World countries. Some believe this bloc is already a reality, while others express such desires. Obviously, everyone is free to dream, and stupidity knows no bounds.
(163) In contrast, there are people that do not consider China a progressive force but exaggerate its capabilities and influence. In other words, they see it as equal to or even more influential than the US. In their view, the sun has already set on American imperialism.
(164) Another overly simplistic approach is to label China’s economy as merely “capitalist,” and to forcibly apply the dynamics and principles of market economies—as well as the analyses of imperialist economists—to the Chinese state and economy, while ignoring its distinctive, exceptional, or peculiar characteristics.
(165) It is true that over the past three decades, China has emerged as a major economic power in the world. It is now a nation with relatively modern and extensive military capabilities that continue to expand. Meanwhile, Western imperialism, including the US, is experiencing historical weakness, decline, and fragmentation. However, this is still an ongoing process, fraught with contradictions, and its final outcome is not so easily predictable.
(166) In this regard, let us first examine China’s rise. In a few decades, it has become the world’s second-largest economy. If we consider population size, this is the largest economic growth in human history, where a country of 1 to 1.5 billion people has achieved continuous economic expansion for several decades without major declines.
(167) In 1949, at the time of the revolution, China was an extremely backward country mired in poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, slavery, and barbarism. Today, it is a civilized, urban, industrial, literate, and healthy society. In terms of living standards, culture, and development, it is at a level where comparison with countries like Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh is not even valid. It is worth remembering that in 1947 or 1949, all these countries were roughly at the same economic level.
(168) Since 1978, household consumption has increased by 1800%. The literacy rate, which was only 20% in 1949, is now 98%. The average life expectancy of Chinese citizens is higher than that of Americans. In the coming days, according to World Bank standards, China will achieve the status of a “high-income” economy.
(169) China’s share in the global economy was just over 2% in 1982. But just thirty years later, in 2012, it had reached nearly 15%. In 2010, China overtook Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. There are strong indications that by 2028, it will surpass the United States to become the world’s largest economy. It is already the world’s largest economy when GDP is measured in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), having surpassed the United States in this metric around 2014.
(170) In the two decades before 2022, China’s share in global GDP increased from 8% to 18%, while the US share declined from nearly 20% to 15%. According to 2024 figures, China’s share has reached around 20%. The panic among Western imperialists is not without reason—the numbers speak for themselves!
(171) Between 2011 and 2013, in just two years, China used 6.6 gigatons of concrete—two gigatons more than what the US used throughout the entire 20th century! Currently, China is rapidly advancing through heavy investment in cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, high-speed rail, space research, and robotics, in many cases surpassing the US. The real objective of the trade restrictions imposed by the US is not merely to correct its trade balance but to prevent China from advancing in these modern technological sectors, which are considered the monopoly of American or Western imperialism.
(172) From the late 1970s to 2018, the Chinese economy grew at an average annual rate of 9.5%, while the global economy’s average growth rate was only 2.8%. This means that during these 40 years, the Chinese economy doubled in size every eight years!
(173) After Mao’s death and Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power, China’s shift toward market policies in 1978 became a major economic and ideological support for Western capitalism. It provided them with extremely cheap labor. But this labor was not only cheap—it was also highly skilled, disciplined, healthy, civilized, and educated. This is a very important point.
(174) Western imperialism believed that the process of capitalist restoration would gradually mold China into a liberal or neoliberal economic and political system and eventually turn it into a subordinate and compliant state. They had similar dreams about Russia at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse. But, as we see, in both cases, these dreams have turned into nightmares for them.
(175) Why did this happen? It is necessary to consider some fundamental reasons, the most important of which is the different historical evolution of these two nations compared to other backward or colonized regions. In Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 eliminated both feudal remnants and capitalism, paving the way—albeit in a Stalinist or bureaucratic form—for a planned economy. After the revolution in 1949, China largely copied the Soviet economic model. These historical developments distinguish the two countries from the crisis-ridden, capitalist South Asian, African, and Latin American regions.
(176) The question is: If cheap labor and a market economy alone were responsible for China’s progress after 1978, then why haven’t we seen similar development in other Third World countries—except for a few insignificant or exceptional cases? For example, which of these two elements is lacking in Pakistan?
(177) The worldview of capital is either unable or unwilling to answer these questions. The key point is that despite the inefficiencies and mismanagement associated with bureaucratic control, the economic and social development achieved under state ownership and a planned economy—through land reforms, relative modernization of agriculture, large-scale industrialization, and technological advancement—were tasks capitalism has failed to accomplish in countries like Pakistan. All of China’s post-1978 economic growth is based on the foundations laid during Mao’s rule after 1949. This includes the skilled, educated, and healthy labor force mentioned earlier. Additionally, in those decades, a massive economic and social infrastructure was built, which is a basic requirement for further development and growth.
(178) We will discuss the political economy of post-revolution China and its current economic model separately in the coming days. But the basic fact is that the early five-year plans after 1953, through the construction of thousands of factories and plants, made China largely self-sufficient in the production of steel, electricity, trucks, tractors, jet planes, heavy machinery, etc. Even in the 1980s, in terms of income and consumption, China was a backward country, but its social indicators—literacy, life expectancy, child mortality rate, etc.—were far better than those of 2025’s Pakistan and India.
(179) Leaving aside the last two decades, Russia’s development during the Soviet era was even greater than China’s.
(180) In this historical context, it becomes clear that despite all the damage from full or partial capitalist restoration, Russia and China had the economic foundations that allowed them to adopt a relatively independent and autonomous policy toward the West.
(181) However, it is also necessary to consider the significant divergence in the paths of both countries after the 1980s, caused by the differing forms and intensities of capitalist restoration. The collapse of the Soviet Union destroyed the Stalinist state, and under the “shock therapy” doctrine, state assets were sold off in an unprecedented looting spree. As a result, an extremely corrupt, ruthless, and mafia-style bourgeoisie emerged, composed of former bureaucrats and upstart elites, along with a similarly styled state.
(182) Just consider Putin, whose personal wealth is estimated at over $200 billion. Thus, a deeply nepotistic form of crony capitalism emerged in Russia, which cannot function without authoritarian rule and harbors imperialist ambitions reminiscent of the old Tsarist regime. This is no accident—the state emblem of Putin’s Russia is the same two-headed eagle with a royal crown and cross as used during the Tsarist era. In such states, those in power treat national assets as their personal property.
(183) On a deeper level, Russia has still not recovered from the trauma of the Soviet Union’s collapse and “shock therapy.” While there was some economic recovery in Putin’s early years, the economy has been stagnant for a long time and remains heavily dependent on oil and gas revenue. Economies based on natural resource exploitation may accumulate wealth, but they are often hollow and lack solid foundations—a phenomenon known as the “Dutch Disease.” Also, culturally and socially, Russia is a crisis-ridden society.
(184) In China, the nature of capitalist restoration was quite different. The most important factor is that the Stalinist state not only survived but retained significant control over the economy. The last major privatization in China occurred in the late 1990s, involving the sale or closure of small, unprofitable, or non-essential industries. However, key sectors like banking, finance, and major industries remained state-owned, and they were modernized and integrated as pillars of the national economy. Even today, China is the only major economy where five-year plans are still in effect. State ownership, control, and planning have played a fundamental role in the country’s development over the past decades. This aspect of the “Chinese model” is rarely highlighted in countries like Pakistan.
(185) But this is only one side of the picture—presented by apologists of the Chinese bureaucracy as an “all is good” narrative. The truth is that since the 1990s, the private sector has expanded rapidly in China and now controls more than 50% of the economy. A new bourgeoisie has emerged, including over 800 billionaires and countless millionaires. Corruption, class exploitation, competition, prostitution, crime, and economic inequality have surged. The Chinese Communist Party has transformed from an ideological organization into a colossal business enterprise whose task is to manage and control this monster of “state capitalism.”
(186) It is true that key levers of the economy remain under state control, but this contradictory economic setup is by no means a stable arrangement. The recent crises in China’s stock market and real estate sectors, Xi Jinping’s rhetoric about “common prosperity,” bureaucratic shake-ups, crackdowns on corruption—sometimes even targeting major capitalists and bureaucrats who defy party-state’s directives—along with severe censorship and repression, all indicate that this setup harbors significant contradictions and problems, which may surface more evidently in the future.
(187) Moreover, in terms of average per capita income, it is also clear that despite all the growth and development, China still lags far behind Western imperialist economies. Compared to America’s $80,000 per capita GDP, China’s is only $13,000 (even on a PPP basis, it’s less than one-third of the US). This is a massive gap. In trying to bridge it, Chinese bureaucracy is expanding its influence and economic outreach globally, because moving forward is impossible without large-scale access to external resources. Some researchers even argue that the resources needed for China to reach America’s economic level simply do not exist on the planet!
(188) Modi’s so-called “Shining India” is a hollow and grotesque parody in the face of China’s advancements. The statistics underpinning this alleged progress are highly exaggerated, and its benefits for the broader working masses are negligible. This is a form of growth even worse than what was witnessed in Pakistan under Musharraf’s rule. It has pushed inequality in India to levels worse than during the British colonial era. On one hand, there are 7 million affluent or upper-middle-class Indians who rank among the world’s wealthiest. On the other, there are 700 million destitute individuals whose conditions are worse than the impoverished people of African nations. According to recent research by Indian venture capital firm Blume, one billion Indians cannot even contemplate spending on anything beyond very basic and immediate necessities.
(189) The share of the top 10% richest Indians in national income has increased from 34% in 1990 to over 57% today, while the share of the bottom 50% has decreased from 22.5% to just 15%. Can such a society be kept under control without continuously fanning religious hysteria, hatred, and superstition?
(190) Regarding BRICS, the original alliance comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Now Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE, and Indonesia have joined as well. However, unlike Western imperialist institutions or alliances, BRICS does not consist of homogeneous or harmonious economies. China’s share in the global economy is around 20%, compared to India’s 7%, and Russia, Brazil, and South Africa’s shares stand at merely 3%, 2.4%, and 0.6%, respectively.
(191) Moreover, most member states do not have cordial relations with each other. India has historical tensions with China; contradictions exist between Russia and Brazil; and Iran maintains ancient disputes with Arab nations.
(192) One must also consider that Western imperialism still dominates the world not only financially but militarily. The US dollar remains the dominant global currency, involved in 90% of all foreign exchange transactions and 50% of global trade, while 60% of foreign exchange reserves are held in dollars. The Chinese yuan’s role has increased in recent years, but it only accounts for 7% of foreign exchange dealings and 3% of global reserves.
(193) Behind this dominance of the dollar lies formidable military power. The US has 750 military bases in 80 countries, while China has only four, with only the base in Djibouti being of any significance—though China intends to establish more in the future. American weaponry remains the most advanced globally, and the US spends at least three times more than China on military affairs.
(194) While China is swiftly modernizing its military, both in quantity and quality its capabilities remain inferior to those of the United States. Russia lags even further behind, which is why both nations avoid extensive military expansion and try to concentrate their military strength within their borders or regions.
(195) Russia has 21 significant military installations worldwide, mostly in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, besides Syria. Recently, reports have emerged of Russian bases in African nations such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
(196) It is worth noting that these African countries were until recently under intense French imperialist domination, including a French military presence. However, military coups driven by profound anger against imperialism have forced French troops out.
(197) Nonetheless, these new military regimes do not possess any revolutionary programs or plans to abolish imperialist capitalism. Like Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela, they have tilted toward China and Russia as alternatives to Western imperialism. Russia is also deploying its notorious Wagner Group in these regions.
(198) This is essentially a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Yet, campist left-wing tendencies present this alignment as proof of Russia and China’s “anti-imperialist” stance—a delusion at best.
(199) In the past, the Stalinist bureaucracies of the Soviet Union and China ruthlessly used anti-imperialist movements as tools of their foreign policy and as bargaining chips in dealings with imperialist powers. Today’s reality may be even worse. China and Russia may provide relatively cheap loans or aid to expand their influence, but this does not mean they are free of imperialist ambitions. As the saying goes, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
(200) The same applies to the BRICS Development Bank, which in comparison to the IMF or World Bank holds little significance. Capitalist states, which meticulously track every penny when allocating “development funds” or loans, should not be confused with charitable organizations.
(201) Therefore, given their internal contradictions and the current crisis of global capitalism, alliances like BRICS are not capable of paving the way for a new global financial order like the Bretton Woods system.
(202) The global economy is being crushed under a massive debt burden. Global debt now approaches 300% of world GDP, a dangerously high level. In the few years following COVID, debt has increased by 43%—an unsustainable trend.
(203) Moreover, rising interest rates post-COVID have worsened the debt crisis in most Third World countries. Pakistan has experienced this for years, and the case of Sri Lanka is well known. According to the United Nations, 52 developing nations face debt crises, 40% of which are at risk of default. These countries are spending more on interest payments than on health or education.
(204) If global trade wars intensify, both inflation and interest rates will increase, potentially causing Sri Lanka- or Bangladesh-like crises in many more countries.
(205) Capitalism in every sense now seeks to destroy the human race. The decline of old imperialism and the rise of new imperialist powers have created total disarray. Such is the extent of uncertainty that even policymakers have no idea what tomorrow holds. Old formations are melting in the furnace of current events, but no new form has yet emerged. These are testing times for revolutionaries.
We shall fight, We shall win!
(206) Among Stalinism’s many grotesque distortions was the theoretical crime of presenting historical materialism not as a method but as a preordained schema of history—a methodology borrowed from the Mensheviks.
(207) History is familiar with all kinds of transformations and can take extremely unexpected turns—some that may bring salvation closer, others that may drive it further away.
(208-I) No phase of human history has ever progressed automatically—nor will the transition from capitalism occur on its own. As Trotsky pointed out long ago, if an obsolete system is not consciously overthrown to propel the wheel of history forward, entire societies risk disappearing altogether—a fate that has befallen many civilizations throughout history.
(208-II) The central premise of historical materialism is that it is ultimately human beings who shape history, and it is the working class that can liberate all oppressed humanity from the quagmire of capital.
(209) Skeptics, pessimists and defeatists can say whatever they wish, but the reality is that the ideas and perspectives of Marxist teachers have become even more relevant and reasonable today than during their own times. With the growth of productive forces, technology, and communications, the working class today possesses unprecedented numerical strength, power, and revolutionary potential. The number of youth in today’s world is also unparalleled. Never before have the conditions for building an abundance-based, classless, and exploitation-free society been so ripe.
(210) The working class not only exists, but for the past 15 years has been displaying an unconscious yearning and striving to change society. The wave of uprisings, strikes, protests, and revolutionary movements since 2008 has played a key role in shaping a new global landscape.
(211) In region after region, youth have accomplished what was once deemed unimaginable. Consider the recent movements in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Kenya—in each case, people have set ablaze palaces and corridors of power, long regarded as symbols of absolute state authority and terror. These are no ordinary events.
(212) Though in Sri Lanka a so-called leftist government was brought in to impose a neoliberal agenda in a “people-friendly” manner, and in Bangladesh the movement is being diverted into the maze of electoral politics, no fundamental problem has been solved. These movements can erupt again.
(213) The formation of a new party by leading students in Bangladesh’s recent movement is a significant development. It is a relatively sound measure under current conditions, though its outlook remains petty-bourgeois and centrist. Over time, diverse ideological tendencies may emerge from within.
(214) The popular rebellion in Pakistan-administered Jammu & Kashmir, which shook the foundations of the imperialist state, must be seen as part of the same global trend.
(215) It is true that the movements in the US, Arab World, and Europe in 2011 suffered setbacks, some with catastrophic consequences. But every struggle leaves behind lessons that subtly shape future tactics and strategies. Without Egypt’s lessons, we might be seeing a similar military dictatorship in Bangladesh today.
(216) A revolutionary organization, however, systematically draws conclusions from past events and applies them to future struggles—it works as the collective memory of the working class.
(217) Neoliberalism’s onslaught and the collapse of the Soviet Union dealt a severe ideological blow to the working class, inducing paralysis, despair, and defeatism. Recovery from such trauma takes time. Yet, today, capitalism struggles to justify its very existence. We are entering a new epoch—a new era.
(218) After temporary setbacks and stagnation, the workers of the Western countries are mobilizing again. In the US, after decades of stagnation, the labor movement is reawakening. The United Auto Workers’ successful strike by hundreds of thousands, and Boeing’s 33,000 workers winning wage hikes after a 7-week strike, testify to this. Workers at Amazon, Starbucks, and McDonald’s continue to engage in simmering strike actions. Similar labor unrest is building in Canada and other Western nations. Even in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, workers in transport and other sectors are increasingly mobilized.
(219) Signs of the beginning of a new phase of class struggle are emerging in Greece. On the occasion of the second anniversary of the train accident caused by government negligence and downsizing—in which 57 people died—hundreds of thousands have participated in protest demonstrations. Calls for such protests are being made for the coming days as well, which are expected to address pressing issues such as austerity, unemployment, and privatization. These demonstrations have the potential to evolve into a major movement capable of shaking the entire Europe.
(220) It is true that, along with the crisis of the labor movement, trade unions around the world have faced fragmentation, and today the number of organized workers in unions is quite low even in many developed countries. However, this has also reduced the ability of the ruling classes to control movements through the ‘buffer’ of union bureaucracy. The point is that whether unions exist or not, the class itself exists. It cannot be expected to endure deprivation and misery indefinitely merely due to the absence of unions. Therefore, future struggles will give rise to new forms of solidarity and organization among workers.
(221) While the working class in the West has experienced significant atomization, China has seen a remarkable emergence of proletariat, now numbering 770 million workers. If anyone wishes to witness “Marx’s classical proletariat,” they need only visit China—and there they will see it in full force. When the colossal proletariat of modern China awakens, even the pivotal events of 1949 may pale in comparison.
(222) Abraham Lincoln once said that you can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time. Same goes for Trump’s antics. The kind of offensive he is mounting may momentarily sway people or force them into silence. But America is neither India nor Russia. His actions could unleash the deep-seated unrest simmering within American society in highly unexpected ways. The entire scenario could change overnight. We saw a glimpse of this recently in the student protests and sit-ins across American universities, where youth stood in solidarity with Palestinians.
(223) Across the rest of the world as well, he is only deepening the crisis. In underdeveloped regions, living conditions are already extremely harsh—life has become an endless sentence. Even a minor rise in inflation or a seemingly insignificant event can ignite massive upheavals. Since 2011, we have seen this pattern repeat itself time and again.
(224) In such times, revolutionaries must neither cling to false optimism nor sink into despair and inaction. Our task remains unchanged—to carry forward the duty that Marx and Engels embraced nearly two centuries ago with the publication of The Communist Manifesto. It is a protracted and unyielding struggle—yet within it lies the true joy of life and the hope of humanity’s emancipation.
Executive Committee
The Struggle
Pakistan Section of the International Socialist League (ISL)
Lahore, Pakistan
March 16, 2025
Appendix 1
AI going Deep Seek
First published on Michael Roberts Blog on January 28, 2025.
Most readers will know the news by now. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, released an AI model called R1 that is comparable in ability to the best models from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, but was trained at a radically lower cost and using less than state-of-the art GPU chips. DeepSeek also made public enough of the details of the model that others can run it on their own computers without charge.
DeepSeek is a torpedo that has hit the Magnificent Seven US hi-tech companies below the water line. DeepSeek did not use the latest and best Nvidia’s chips and software; it did not require huge spending on training its AI model unlike its American rivals; and it offers just as many useful applications.
DeepSeek built its R1 with Nvidia’s older, slower chips, which US sanctions had allowed to be exported to China. The US government and the tech titans thought they had a monopoly in AI development because of the huge costs involved in making better chips and AI models. But now DeepSeek’s R1 suggests that companies with less money can soon operate competitive AI models. R1 can be used on a shoestring budget and with much less computing power. Moreover, R1 is just as good as rivals at ‘inference’, the AI jargon for when users question the model and get answers. And it runs on servers for all sorts of companies so that they need not ‘rent’ at huge prices from the likes of OpenAI.
Most important, DeepSeek’s R1 is ‘open source’, namely that is coding and training methods are open to all to copy and develop. This is a real blow to the ‘proprietary’ secrets that OpenAI or Google’s Gemini lock away in a ‘black box’ in order to maximize profits. The analogy here is with branded and generic pharmaceuticals.
The big issue for the US AI companies and their investors is that it appears that building huge data centers to house multiples of expensive chips may not be necessary in order to achieve sufficiently successful outcomes. Up to now, the US companies have been ratcheting up huge spending plans and trying to raise mega amounts of funding to do so. Indeed, on the very Monday that DeepSeek’s R1 hit the news, Meta announced another $65 billion of investment, and only days earlier President Trump announced government subsidies of $500 billion to the tech giants as part of the so-called Stargate project. Ironically, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he was investing because “We want the US to set the global AI standard, not China.” Oh dear.
Now investors are concerned that this spending is unnecessary and, more to the point, that it will hit the profitability of the American companies if DeepSeek can deliver AI applications at a tenth of the cost. Five of the biggest technology stocks geared to AI—chipmaker Nvidia and so-called ‘hyperscalers’ Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta Platforms—collectively shed almost $750 billion of their stock market value in one day. And DeepSeek does threaten the profits of the data center companies and the water and power operators which expect to benefit from the huge ‘scaling up’ by the Magnificent Seven. The US stock market boom is heavily concentrated in the ‘Magnificent Seven’.
So has DeepSeek punctured the massive stock market bubble in US tech stocks? Billionaire investor Ray Dalio thinks so. He told the Financial Times that “pricing has got to levels which are high at the same time as there’s an interest rate risk, and that combination could prick the bubble … Where we are in the cycle right now is very similar to where we were between 1998 or 1999,” Dalio said. “In other words, there’s a major new technology that certainly will change the world and be successful. But some people are confusing that with the investments being successful.”
But that may not be the case, at least not just yet. The AI chip company Nvidia’s stock price may have dived this week, but its ‘proprietary’ coding language, Cuda, is still the US industry standard. While its shares dropped nearly 17%, that only brings it back to the (very, very high) level of September.
Much will depend on other factors like the US Fed keeping interest rates high because of a reversal in the fall in inflation and on whether Trump proceeds big time with his tariff and immigration threats that will only fuel inflation.
What must enrage the tech oligarchs sucking up to Trump is that US sanctions on Chinese companies and bans on chip exports have not stopped China making yet more advances in the tech and chip war with the US. China is managing to make technological leaps in AI despite export controls introduced by the Biden administration intended to deprive it of both the most powerful chips and the advanced tools needed to make them.
Chinese tech champion Huawei has emerged as Nvidia’s primary competitor in China for ‘inference’ chips. And it has been working with AI companies, including DeepSeek, to adapt models trained on Nvidia GPUs to run inference on its Ascend chips. “Huawei is getting better. They have an opening as the government is telling the big tech companies that they need to buy their chips and use them for inference,” said one semiconductor investor in Beijing.
This is a further demonstration that state-led planned investment into technology and tech skills by China works so much better than relying on huge private tech giants led by moguls. As Ray Dallo said: “In our system, by and large, we are moving to a more industrial-complex- type of policy in which there is going to be government-mandated and government-influenced activity, because it is so important…Capitalism alone—the profit motive alone—cannot win this battle.”
Nevertheless, the AI titans are not yet the titanic. They are going ahead with ‘scaling up’ by ploughing yet more and more billions into data centers and more advanced chips. This is eating up computer power exponentially.
And of course, there is no consideration of what mainstream economists politely like to call ‘externalities’. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity as a Google search query. Researcher Jesse Dodge did some back-of-the-napkin math on the amount of energy AI chatbots use. “One query to ChatGPT uses approximately as much electricity as could light one light bulb for about 20 minutes,” he says. “So, you can imagine with millions of people using something like that every day, that adds up to a really large amount of electricity.” More electricity consumption means more energy production and in particular more fossil-fueled greenhouse gas emissions.
Google has the goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2030. Since 2007, the company has said its company operations were carbon neutral because of the carbon offsets it buys to match its emissions. But, starting in 2023, Google wrote in its sustainability report that it was no longer “maintaining operational carbon neutrality.” The company says it’s still pushing for its net-zero goal in 2030. “Google’s real motivation here is to build the best AI systems that they can,” Dodge says. “And they’re willing to pour a ton of resources into that, including things like training AI systems on bigger and bigger data centers all the way up to supercomputers, which incurs a tremendous amount of electricity consumption and therefore CO2 emissions.”
Then there’s water. As the US faces droughts and wildfires, the AI companies are sucking up deep water to ‘cool’ their mega data centers to protect the chips. More than that, Silicon Valley companies are increasingly taking control of water supply infrastructure to meet their needs. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 liters of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities.
Training AI models consumes 6,000 times more energy than a European city. Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security.
Sam Altman, the previous non-profit hero of Open AI, but now out to maximize profits for Microsoft, argues that yes, unfortunately there are ‘trade-offs’ in the short term, but they’re necessary to reach so-called AGI; and AGI will then help us solve all these problems so the tradeoff of ‘externalities’ is worth it.
AGI? What’s this? Artificial generalized intelligence (AGI) is the holy grail of AI developers. It means that AI models would become ‘super intelligent’ way above human intelligence. When that is achieved, Altman promises, its AI won’t just be able to do a single worker’s job, it will be able to do all of their jobs: “AI can do the work of an organization.” This would be the ultimate in maximizing profitability by doing away with workers in companies (even AI companies?) as AI machines take over operating, developing and marketing everything. This is the apocalyptic dream for capital (but a nightmare for labor: no job, no income).
That’s why Altman and the other AI moguls will not stop expanding their data centers and developing yet more advanced chips just because DeepSeek has undercut their current models. Research firm Rosenblatt forecast the response of the tech giants: “In general, we expect the bias to be on improved capability, sprinting faster towards artificial general intelligence, more than reduced spending.” Nothing must stop the objective of super-intelligent AI.
Some see the race to achieving AGI as a threat to humanity itself. Stuart Russell, professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, said “Even the CEOs who are engaging in the race have stated that whoever wins has a significant probability of causing human extinction in the process, because we have no idea how to control systems more intelligent than ourselves,” he said. “In other words, the AGI race is a race towards the edge of a cliff.”
Maybe, but I continue to doubt that human ‘intelligence’ can be replaced by machine intelligence, mainly because they are different. Machines cannot think of potential and qualitative changes. New knowledge comes from such transformations (human), not from the extension of existing knowledge (machines). Only human intelligence is social and can see the potential for change, in particular social change, that leads to a better life for humanity and nature.
What DeepSeek’s emergence has shown is that AI can be developed to a level that can help humanity and its social needs. It’s free and open and available to the smallest user and developer. It has not been developed at a profit or to make a profit. As one commentator put it: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.” Managers are introducing AI to “make management problems easier at the cost of the stuff that many people don’t think AI should be used for, like creative work… If AI is going to work, it needs to come from the bottom-up, or AI is going to be useless for the vast majority of people in the workplace”.
Rather than develop AI to make profits, reduce jobs and the livelihoods of humans, AI under common ownership and planning could reduce the hours of human labor for all and free humans from toil to concentrate on creative work that only human intelligence can deliver. Remember the ‘holy grail’ was a Victorian fiction and later a Dan Brown one as well.
Appendix 2
Syria: One bloody dictator less and an uncertain future
First published as a resolution by ISL on December 12, 2024.
In a Middle East already severely devastated by the Palestinian genocide and the Zionist State of Israel’s attack on Lebanon, Bashar al-Assad’s draconian dictatorship fell in Syria a few days ago and was replaced in power by an Islamist sector in command of a heterogeneous rebel coalition. A new era full of uncertainties has begun in the country and the region.
A transcendental development
For the Syrian people and other Arab peoples of the region, this change marks a very significant development. It ends 54 years of dictatorial rule by the Assad clan through the Baath party: 24 years under the recently deposed Bashar and the 30 previous years under his father Hafez. The regime, of a populist Arab nationalist nature, turned increasingly to the right, negotiated with different imperialisms, and, particularly in recent decades, never supported the Palestinian resistance to Zionist settler colonialism and genocide in any meaningful way. Instead, it practically confined itself to paying lip service to the Palestinian cause and using it for internal oppression. That is one of the reasons why many Palestinians, including Hamas, welcomed the fall of al-Assad.
It must be noted that the rule of the Baath Party in Syria started in the mid-1960s as a somewhat revolutionary, anti-imperialist project under leaders like Saleh Jaded. However, owing to the lack of a Marxist leadership, ideological confusions, zigzags and intraparty disputes, it ended up as a very corrupt crony capitalism, requiring unprecedented and endless state repression of the vast majority of the Syrian population. The degeneration of the regime accelerated after the 1990s with the adoption of pro-market, neoliberal economic policies, resulting in the loss of the popular support it once enjoyed. The desertions in the Syrian Arab Army and the rebel victory in just ten days confirm that the regime was in decay and had no social support. No democratic way forward could be made with the corrupt tyranny serving the interests of the Assad family and its cronies in power. That is why, after the fall of the regime, crowds took to the streets to celebrate, both in Syria and in several other countries. Currently, of Syria’s total population of 24 million, 5 million refugees, who fled the civil war and the repression of 2011, are living abroad and have now begun to return.
Russia and Iran weakened
For both countries, which have also been under dictatorial regimes for decades, the fall of al-Assad implies a significant weakening of their influence in the region. Both the Putin government and that of the Iranian mullahs were the fundamental political and military support of the Assad regime for years. The secret services of Russia, an emerging imperialism busy with its invasion and war against Ukraine, did not foresee the rebel offensive in Syria. The same can be said of a much-weakened Hezbollah and, above all, of Iran’s theocratic dictatorship, which, instead of leading the anti-Zionist “axis of resistance” like it had promised, in practice betrayed the Palestinian struggle. In any case, both Iran and its proxy groups, as well as Russia, were in no position to support a hollowed-out regime that crumbled like a house of cards with just a slight push. In turn, Israel took advantage of the power vacuum generated these days to send troops into the demilitarized zone between the Golan Heights—which it has illegally occupied since 1967—and Syria.
The diverse rebel alliance
It is diverse, encompassing four sectors, at times in conflict with each other:
- Levant Liberation Committee (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS): A Sunni Islamist group that, in recent years, has tried to portray itself as a mainstream, “moderate.” Its political wing is the Syrian Salvation Government, and its main leader is al-Chara (alias al-Jolani).
- Syrian National Army (SNA): Supported by Turkey, it was joined by the National Liberation Front and seeks to create a buffer zone on the Turkish border to prevent the advance of the Kurdish struggle.
- Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF): Kurdish militias led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG). With support from the US, they control the Rojava region and suffer attacks from the SNA.
- Free Men of Syria (Ahrar al-Sham): Emerged in 2011 from the merger of several ultra-Islamist groups, influenced by the Afghan Taliban.
ISIS (Islamic State/Daesh) is not part of this alliance because it is a rival of HTS, but it still exists and could regain its presence in the current crisis.
No to external interference
In 2011, as part of the Arab Spring, there was a popular rebellion against the Assad dictatorship in Syria. Al-Assad harshly repressed it, igniting a civil war that killed 600,000—including more than 100,000 civilians—and displaced ten million, half internally and half abroad. Among the rebel political and religious sectors—which were initially more independent—the influence of the US and Turkey has grown, and they will seek to maintain or expand it. Also, the support of other reactionary states, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and the UAE, for various factions cannot be ignored. Such is the complexity of the situation that these imperialist powers can be in alliance in one part of the country while confronting each other in another. These days, the HTS is negotiating with UN envoy Geir Pedersen, former Assadist Prime Minister al-Jalali and representatives of other countries regarding the Resolution 2254 of the United Nations Security Council, which proposes an 18-month “civil transition”, a new constitution and fresh elections. However, the possibility of bloody infighting among the rebel groups during the process cannot be ruled out.
What is the way out?
The joy expressed by large sectors of the Syrian people at the dictator’s fall cannot hide the risks that exist. As we mentioned, the situation is influenced by imperialist forces, the expansionist Turkish and Islamist sects, including HTS, whose strategy is a theocratic state that does not guarantee the long-postponed democratic, economic and social rights. A truly democratic solution should include the convening of a free and sovereign Constituent Assembly, in which returning refugees could also participate, in order to reorganize the country along a path of national and social liberation, in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, and in a secular state for the peaceful coexistence among peoples and religions. The ISL is committed to developing a revolutionary, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist alternative that fights for a socialist Syria within the framework of a socialist federation of the Middle East. We emphasize that this is only possible through the revolutionary organization of the toiling masses and oppressed people of Syria, in alliance with the oppressed and exploited of the Middle East and beyond.
- Down with all kinds of imperialist meddling and in Syria
- Down with theocracy and religious fundamentalism
- No illusions in the proxy forces and facilitators of imperialism
- Democratic aspirations of the Syrian masses must be respected
- Solidarity and support for the Syrian people for a democratic, secular and socialist Syria
Appendix 3
Key aspects of Marxist analysis and policy on the Ukraine War
First published as a resolution by ISL on March 14, 2023.
Shortly after World War II, the two allies in the war – the USSR and the United States – carved up parts of the world into their respective “spheres of influence.” The United States dominated Western Europe and Latin America (among other countries), while the USSR dominated Eastern Europe, parts of Africa, and Southeast Asia. They had a Cold War, which included many proxy wars.
The military power of both superpowers was more or less comparable. However, the USSR gradually lost the arms race until it fell significantly behind the United States; and the same happened with its economy.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became an independent state through a referendum held in 1991.
The land of Ukraine and its people were under the rule of Tsarist Russia for many centuries, during which the Russian state oppressed and exploited Ukraine economically, culturally and politically, as any imperialist state would. After the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin and Trotsky took an internationalist Marxist position towards the oppressed peoples and the revolutionary state allowed them the full right to self-determination, including the right to secede. The goal was to create a voluntary socialist federation in the region and, ultimately, throughout the world. However, a few years later, under Stalin’s government, Lenin’s Marxist position on the national question was canceled and replaced by a chauvinistic and repressive policy.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was instigated not only by discontent within Russia (fueled by the crisis of the bureaucratically planned economy, censorship, state repressions, etc.), but also, in part, by the sentiments of national deprivation of the peoples of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, seeking to free themselves from the chokehold of Russian dominance and control (commonly known as “Russification”), which the counter-revolutionary Soviet bureaucracy adopted as a policy after the death of Lenin and the forced exile of Trotsky from the USSR.
In this context, the sentiments of national deprivation and oppression have always been present in the working masses of Ukraine; and the Russian state (“Russia”) has always been perceived as an oppressor and imperialist force.
After the collapse of the USSR, Russia degenerated into a capitalist country under an authoritarian regime of a “gangster/mafioso” character. Over the years, Putin became an authoritarian representative of the reactionary and corrupt class of Russian capitalists who first, as part of the Stalinist bureaucracy, looted and destroyed the Soviet Union and then became billionaires through the theft and plunder of public assets during the privatizations.
It is true that even in the midst of its crisis, US imperialism is still currently the most powerful imperialism on the planet and that is why we confront and denounce all its policies and actions internationally. However, in much of Eastern Europe and Central Asia it is still Russia that plays an oppressive role over other peoples and its objective is to try to extend its rule as much as possible.
Therefore, regardless of how any of us considers the former Soviet Union (“a degenerated workers state” or “state capitalism”), there is no doubt that in 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it displayed the actions of a capitalist state of an imperialist nature whose objective is to try to strengthen its influence throughout the region and in the world. Its military and economic power is unmatched by Ukraine.
Imperialist rulers never acknowledge their true motives for invading other countries. The United States and its allies claimed they were trying to “defeat fascism” in World War II, though in reality it was a conflict between imperialists for world dominance. Similarly, the invasion of Iraq was justified with the claim that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction.” Such lame excuses can be found throughout the history of imperialist invasions.
Russia claims its invasion of Ukraine is aimed at “denazifying” the country and stopping “genocide.” But the results of parliamentary elections in Ukraine clearly show that only 2% of the Ukrainian population supports far-right nationalists, which is lower than in France, Germany, Italy and most other European countries.
Putin also claims that NATO expansion forced Russia to invade Ukraine to protect itself from Western imperialism. But Russia is itself an imperialist power, with the largest army in Europe and the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In terms of per capita income, Russia surpasses Ukraine’s economic capacity by at least four times. In terms of this indicator, it is in a similar proportion to Pakistan and Afghanistan. In addition, the population of Russia is 140 million, while in Ukraine it is only 35.
Lenin’s analyzes of wars between nations always began and ended with the analysis of which path would strengthen or weaken the international working class movement. It is very important to note that Lenin clearly differentiated between “oppressor nations” and “oppressed nations.” He understood that when workers in oppressive countries side with their own ruling class against the peoples they conquer or otherwise oppress, it weakens the international working class movement. This is simply because it divides workers from different countries from each other when their class interests are common. Imperialist invasions are only beneficial to the ruling class of the oppressor countries. Therefore, when the workers of the oppressor countries support an imperialist invasion, they are going against their own class interests for two reasons: 1) they help to strengthen their own class enemy at home; 2) they sow mistrust and division among their class brothers and sisters in the invaded country.
The right of oppressed nations to self-determination must include their right to resist imperialist invasion in whatever way they choose. In fact, it has been this strong resistance that has been making Putin’s military plans in Ukraine very difficult. Again, it is about the working class. Supporting the right of ordinary Ukrainians to resist the Russian invasion does not mean political support for the Ukrainian ruling class against the Russian ruling class.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has only strengthened the weakening position of NATO on the global scale and has given it justification of further expansion. It has also given Zelensky’s regime a bright chance of implementing all kinds of anti-working class, anti-democratic policies which must be resisted and fought against with full force of class solidarity and socialist program.
The policy of revolutionary defeatism is not appropriate here, as it only applies to wars between imperialists, especially when they are fought on a global scale. In this case, Ukraine is not an imperialist power.
Furthermore, despite all the military and financial support of Western imperialism for the Ukrainian state, NATO has not yet entered the war directly. They have thus far not wanted to take concrete steps in this direction, and neither has China. So this is not yet a global and inter-imperialist war. But if such a situation were to arise (which would be extremely catastrophic and terrible), revolutionaries would certainly have to rearrange our politics, by responding, in the first place and as a central element, to an inter-imperialist war and our rejection of it, and from that point continue to support the right of the oppressed people to defend their nation and decide their destiny. If this qualitative change in the inter-imperialist dispute ever occurs, the ISL leadership will respond based on its socialist program and strategy.
Regarding the current situation of the war in Ukraine, we find it necessary to refer here to the strategy of Marxist teachers in similar situations. In the context of the imperialist invasion by Japan of semi-colonial China, Trotsky had proposed the policy of fighting against the Japanese invaders for the Chinese working masses, without abandoning their political program and organizational class independence. Western imperialist forces were fully involved in this conflict and at different times provided financial, military, political and diplomatic aid to the Chinese nationalists against Japan. Among them were the United States, Great Britain and Australia.
During the Russian Revolution, in the period of Kornilov’s possible advance towards Petrograd, the Bolsheviks decided to carry out a political struggle against the Kerensky government and a military struggle against Kornilov’s forces within the same strategy. A similar policy was proposed by Trotsky during the Spanish Civil War, which involved a political struggle against the Stalinists and Social Democrats, on the one hand, and a military struggle against Franco’s forces, on the other. In any similar situation it is important to take into account the balance of forces and analyze it from the interests of our class.
Obviously, the self-proclaimed anti-imperialist leftists who directly or indirectly support and justify Putin’s attack are making a very serious mistake. In the same way, the application of the policy of revolutionary defeatism in these circumstances is tantamount to strengthening Russian aggression. Many of these groups are so mistaken that they refuse to recognize Russia not only as an imperialist power, but also as a capitalist state. Such ideologically unsustainable and opportunistic tendencies are doomed to fail.
On the other hand, supporting or being apologetic toward NATO or supporting the bourgeois government of Zelensky in Ukraine is in equal measure a grave ideological and political mistake. We support the resistance of the Ukrainian people from an independent position, in opposition to the government and in favor of the global interests of the working class. This is what we have been doing by denouncing, in the midst of the war, the measures of the Ukrainian government that affect the social, union and democratic rights of workers and denouncing all pro-IMF or pro-European Union economic policies.
In the current circumstances, calling on Ukrainian workers to ignore Russian aggression and take up arms against the Ukrainian state is tantamount to supporting Russian imperialist aggression. But if subjective and objective conditions similar to those in Russia in 1917 were to emerge, in which Ukrainian workers are able to defeat the Russian aggression and overthrow the Zelensky government and capitalism in the Ukraine, then there must not be a moment’s hesitation in realizing this historical task.
The task of overthrowing the Zelensky’s government in Ukraine is a revolutionary one and belongs only to the Ukrainian working mass. No foreign power has the right to decide for the Ukrainian working class.
Right now, the campaign to end the war and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine must be carried out with a broader anti-capitalist program, starting with class support for ordinary Ukrainians resisting the Russian invasion. The Russian aggression must be condemned and the immediate withdrawal of its troops must be demanded; because a victory of the Ukrainian people will weaken the Putin regime and open a new situation favorable to the very important Russian working class and to all the peoples of Eastern Europe, and, at the same time, intensify the struggle of our class against all the governments that try to apply anti-worker and anti-popular plans. On the basis of our defense of the right of the Ukrainian people to be a free country, we also say that in the areas of the Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimean territories, we stand for the right to self-determination of their population, without the presence of Russian troops so that it be a truly democratic decision.
At the same time, we not only demand the withdrawal of NATO from all of Eastern Europe, but also the complete dissolution of NATO and the annulment of all its pacts and military plans that exist in the service of its expansionist policy. We also express our rejection of all the warmongering policies of Western imperialism and the increases of the military budgets in their countries. In addition, we reject the economic sanctions that affect the lives of the Russian population and working families. And, of course, we demand the freedom of those inside Russia who fight against the war. We also present a program of revolutionary expropriation of all the wealth and assets of the Russian and Ukrainian ruling classes.
The historical position of Lenin and Trotsky on the national question must be reaffirmed, and, as a fundamental solution, a voluntary socialist confederation of all the peoples of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia must be presented, without any resurgence of imperial influence and without inequality between peoples. And to develop our policy against the war, we continue to strive to strengthen a revolutionary organization within Ukraine as we have been doing with the Ukrainian Socialist League, as well as in the rest of Eastern Europe through other ISL comrades who make an effort there to spread our internationalist and socialist positions.
Based on this characterization and this policy, the ISL must continue promoting and participating in mobilizations and other united actions of solidarity in all countries of the world where possible and maintain the international campaign of support for our Ukrainian comrades.
