Institutions like IMF and World Bank are central to enforcing modern imperialism. Founded in 1946 at Bretton Woods in the USA, the IMF and World Bank initially focused on rebuilding Western Europe and Japan after World War 2. They were a key component of the USA’s attempts to create a dollar- centered international monetary system. Then, from around 1971, the focus of IMF and World Bank shifted to the Third World, and especially to Africa. Despite IMF and World Bank’s rosy views of themselves as neutral, purely echnical aid agencies their role in these regions has been objectively imperialistic.
This is clear in both political and economic spheres. Although most States in the world are members of the IMF and World Bank, and pay into the central coffers of these institutions, the imperialist countries of the First World dominate their decision-making processes. Rather than a “one country, one vote” system, as can be found in United Nations organizations, a percentage of votes is granted according to the conomic size and contribution of a given country, a system which favors the First World states: the USA has 19. % of the total vote; the United Kingdom 6. 9%; and the USA, Western Europe, and Canada combined have 53% of the vote.
Firstly, an anti-imperialist struggle cannot succeed if it is isolated in one country. There can be no “anti-imperialism in one country” as hostile imperialism will either (a) subvert the autonomy of that struggle through subjecting it to the logic of the international State/capitalist system, or b) intervene against and/or destroy regimes its considers too renegade (in the case of a socialist revolution, armed intervention is a certainty).
Thus a successful struggle against imperialism requires maximum international support and solidarity, both within the First World and across the Third World. The revolution needs to spread into nearby territories dominated by imperialism as well as into the imperialist countries themselves. In other words, it requires an assault on the whole edifice of world capitalism and the world State system.
Secondly, imperialism cannot be defeated without simultaneously defeating capitalism and the State. In other words, the struggle against imperialism can only succeed if it is simultaneously a struggle against capitalism and the State. Since capitalism and the State can only be defeated by class struggle, and since the Third World ruling classes are objectively pro-imperialist, imperialism can only be defeated by means of a class struggle against all rulers and bosses, local and imperial.
