On Recent Events in Yemen and Sudan

A number of developments have taken place in the “Middle East” and surrounding areas. Specifically, American and Chinese imperialism have been involved in their geopolitics, but Russian, British, and other imperialists have also attempted to intervene in various ways there. We will be focusing on two countries for now: Yemen and Sudan. Both of these countries have been subjects of news, with the former having its conflict almost ending and the latter having a new one starting. However, most capitalist-imperialist media has ignored the role that capitalists of the imperial core are playing in these wars; we will explain what is going on in some detail from a principled, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist position.

Yemen

Yemen has been in a civil war since 2014, with the current government fighting rebels known as Ansar Allah. This is basic information that any bourgeois media could tell you, but what said bourgeois media refuses to reveal is the class composition of this civil war and, more importantly, the role of imperialists in murdering Yemenis in this proxy war of theirs. We will give the background and basic ideas of the war, and then we will explain why imperialist “peace deals”—especially those that China plans—should not be supported.

Yemen’s government is a comprador-bourgeois regime that represents American imperialist interests; it is also subject to dominance from Saudi Arabia, another comprador-bourgeois regime for the US. For many years, this regime survived simply because of the gratuitous support of the US imperialists and their Saudi running dogs; however, in 2011, Yemen faced economic difficulties and political repression as the comprador dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, attempted to hold onto power. Unable to tolerate this, the Yemeni people rightfully protested, but during their protest movement, the vast majority of the people followed national-bourgeois leaders like Ansar Allah or feudal ones like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); we can say this because the organizations they supported had bourgeois-nationalist outlooks and because they had domestic capitalists backing them. In the face of this popular resistance, Saleh resigned and handed power to his vice president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi; in that transfer of power, the same class—Yemen’s comprador bourgeoisie—held onto power, simply switching the figurehead it chose to represent itself. While most of the peaceful protests quieted down until 2014, Ansar Allah and AQAP maintained armed control of certain regions in Yemen.

By 2014, the masses were dissatisfied with the new government, for it displayed its class stand when it cut subsidies on fuel, inflating prices and ruining the lives of workers and peasants. Ansar Allah was able to use the situation to seize power in the capital (Sana’a), forcing Hadi into house arrest and de facto dissolving the comprador parliament; they imposed their bourgeois-nationalist government in its place, and they worked to seize areas of former North Yemen (a country that existed before Yemen’s unification in 1990). After Hadi’s fall, Saleh, the previous comprador leader, declared support for the national bourgeois movement in Yemen in an opportunist scheme meant to win popular support. Further complicating the situation, AQAP seized control of various cities near Ansar Allah’s territory, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—a group that split from al Qaeda after disagreements with its leadership—launched terror attacks against Ansar Allah. As Hadi’s troops lost control of large parts of the country, many of the foreign backers of the old regime joined together in a Saudi-led coalition to invade Yemen and help their puppet regain control of the nation; it was at this time that US imperialism increased involvement in Yemen by supplying their puppet coalition with necessary weaponry and supplies. Responding to that, Iran and Hezbollah have supported Ansar Allah. (Like with any national-bourgeois movement, if Ansar Allah takes full control of Yemen, it will almost certainly become comprador-bourgeois and submit to rival imperialists and expansionists, such as Russia or its puppet, Iran.)

In their attempt to destroy Ansar Allah, the Saudi-led coalition used and still uses brutal tactics against the Yemeni people in the region. It blockaded Yemen, causing famine across the whole nation, especially in the region controlled by Ansar Allah. It bombed Yemen, and in its eight years of bombing attacks, it has murdered thousands of civilians. Its troops murdered ordinary civilians on the ground, and they slaughtered refugees. Saudi Arabia, well known for its connections with Islamists such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda, has even made peace deals with AQAP and other allied Jihadists in order to focus its attacks on Ansar Allah! Despite these horrendous crimes, American and other western imperialists maintain their support for the Yemeni comprador regime and the puppet coalition invading the land, and they supply the bombs used to hurt Yemeni people’s lives.

On top of that, Saleh and his militias betrayed Ansar Allah and attempted to align themselves with Hadi’s forces; this led to Saleh’s assassination by an Ansar Allah militant, but it also led to the loss of manpower for Ansar Allah. This proved to the Yemeni people that they could not trust any comprador-bourgeois person posing as a supporter of the national-bourgeois movement. In addition, the Southern Movement—which seeks to recreate South Yemen, a country that claimed to be socialist that fell after the revisionist USSR stopped supporting it in 1990—split from Hadi’s forces and waged its own attacks against Ansar Allah; while the Southern Movement continues to get support from the UAE (a member of the coalition supporting Hadi!), the rest of the Saudi-backed coalition ended its support for them. The Southern Movement has a comprador-bourgeois leadership, for the UAE props it up as it controls key ports in Yemen and as it principally fights the national-bourgeois Ansar Allah movement; in late 2020, the Yemeni government and the Southern Transitional Council (the government of the Southern Movement) attempted to come together to fight Ansar Allah, but their scheme failed, and they resumed fighting each other, albeit to a lesser degree.

All of this shows one thing: American, and more broadly Western, imperialism is responsible for the ongoing Yemeni crisis. American imperialists and their compradors have propped up the unpopular dictators, Saleh and Hadi, for far too long, causing the Yemeni people to look for resistance groups; this brought many to the national-bourgeois Ansar Allah, feudal Islamist groups like AQAP and ISIL, and the rival comprador Southern Movement. In order to profit from the crisis while defeating its primary enemy (Ansar Allah), Western finance capital and its regional puppets have supported all three of the four sides attacking that enemy, profitably selling weapons to them all, facilitating deals between each of them, and letting their rank-and-file proletarian and peasant soldiers fight and kill each other. In the meantime, American and British capitalists sell the bombs and drones used by Saudi Arabia to attack and repress Yemeni civilians, and they maintain and defend the cruel blockade placed on the region. With these external pressures and without a proletarian-led movement that can defeat all imperialists and their puppets, the Yemeni civil war cannot end. When the Yemeni people take matters into their own hands, defeat the compradors, and subject the national bourgeoisie to their leadership, then and only then can they end the brutality and have decent development and life.

This does not leave other imperialists off the hook. China and Russia are still imperialists that profit from this war, and they will redivide the Middle Eastern semi-colonies as they need to extract profits. Now, China has brokered some deals between both sides of the Yemeni civil war, or rather the two main countries involved in it, namely Saudi Arabia and Iran. China has been Saudi Arabia’s biggest trading partner, and it cooperates with Iran and Russia in joint military drills. It has also sold drones to Saudi Arabia, the same drones that regime uses against the Yemeni people. Right now, China’s imperialists simply want to take Saudi Arabia and make it a semi-colony strictly for themselves and their fellow imperialists in Russia; they do not care for peace, and they will start up or maintain wars as they need to since American imperialism is weakening:

This is a victory for Chinese social-imperialism, which in recent years has increased its position of influence over Iran with collaboration in different areas: diplomatic cooperation on the nuclear race issue; joint military naval maneuvers together with Russia; and especially increasing oil imports from 2022 onwards. Chinese investments are of great importance for the whole region: China has made huge investments in terms of oil imports, construction of huge infrastructures linked to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project, and increasing investments also in the reconstruction of Syria and Iraq. Regarding the economic relations with Saudi Arabia, they are particularly important in terms of trade in oil products, since China is the main importer of Saudi oil, and Saudi Arabia recently joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security and economic forum that follows the designs of Chinese social-imperialism, as a partner. …

The agreements and the approach of countries like Saudi Arabia to China is linked to it’s foreign policy, because Chinese social-imperialism appears to be more peaceful. Regarding this, some experts talk about this: ‘’Beijing’s foreign policy of balancing between rivals and increasing multilateralism has enabled China to deepen its ties with the Middle East. While engaging with the region, China has focused on shared interests, which are largely economic, and has emphasized South-South cooperation. Beijing has maintained a position far from the immediate vulnerabilities of protracted conflicts, but now new challenges are expected as the security arrangement and balance of power in the region will likely change depending on several factors, especially the future of nuclear talks with Iran.’’ This is the way how China are approaching to the Middle East countries, after decades of continuous war with the Yankee military attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan or the instability of the Arab Spring, or it’s support to the actions of the State of Israel, that are becoming more aggressive. China promises stability and economical prosperity, while the US imperialism has shown the opposite through the years and wants to keep the region in a permanent state of war. It should be obvious that China’s promises of peace and stability, mean just a phase of preparation of new wars, following the logic of imperialism.

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We are not against peace deals, however. Even if war is inevitable unless the proletariat leads the people to seize power and destroy imperialism, it is best for the Yemeni people to have peace so that they can be organized for revolution; the Yemeni masses are suffering while Western and Chinese imperialists profit by selling the weapons used to blockade, bombard, shoot at, and murder the Yemeni workers and peasants, so China’s willingness to end the war to pursue a “peaceful” way of exploiting Yemen is relatively positive.

Nevertheless, we principally support the Yemeni people and their attempts to have progressive, revolutionary, and communist leadership in their anti-imperialist struggle. The Yemeni masses must have a New-Democratic revolution with a protracted people’s war if they want to withstand imperialist attacks! Let the Yemeni people be victorious!

Sudan

Like Yemen, Sudan has a comprador-bourgeois government, as it has had since the Ottoman Empire and then the British Empire took control of it. Even after Sudan achieved legal independence, it remained a semi-colony of Britain; the revisionist USSR attempted to make it a Soviet semi-colony during its first civil war, but it never really became one, instead remaining under American and western domination. The entire history of modern Sudan is full of comprador capitalist dictators overthrowing and competing for power with each other, and the details of them are not too important; what is important to know is that imperialists of the entire world have meddled in Sudan’s affairs to extract its resources, exploit its people, and keep them submissive, and the brutality that these imperialists—especially American ones—were and are willing to use against the Sudanese people must be known as well. (President Bill Clinton bombed Sudan’s only pharmaceutical factory in 1997, and the country has still not been able to recover from that act of terror.)

Of the many imperialist powers existing today, the two main ones competing for influence over Sudan have been the US and Russia. Sudan’s comprador bourgeoisie, like that of other countries, has pretty frequently flip-flopped between selling their country to American and then Russian imperialists. Whenever Sudan’s rulers started moving under one of the camps, the other responded by punishing the regime with instability, sanctions, etc., and that is why American imperialists co-opted South Sudan’s independence movement. Sudan’s masses, like those of Yemen, wanted democracy because of the Arab Spring, but they lacked proletarian leadership; this gave power to bourgeois movements that served American imperialist interests, dooming it to failure. The Sudanese state did not change so much until 2019, when the leader (Omar al-Bashir) fell from power and got replaced by clearly pro-US compradors (as opposed to Bashir’s vacillating sector of the comprador bourgeoisie); those compradors failed to bring bourgeois-democratic revolution, and they did not solve the economic problems the masses faced.

Russian imperialists wanted to build a military base in the country to assert dominance in the region, but they could not do so with the pro-US government in power. In late-2021, Sudan had a military coup that replaced the pro-US compradors with pro-Russia ones, and America condemned it and explicitly claimed that Russia backed the coup. While Russia may not have directly backed it, it certainly benefited from access to Sudanese gold and other resources, and it also got the chance to build its military base in Sudan. To maintain its grip in the country, it propped up the military junta and sent its main Private Military Company, the Wagner Group, to the country.

The military junta that ruled Sudan had internal contradictions which intensified enough to implode in the ongoing civil war. The two lines within the ruling elite are divided over how their government is to be run, but they are really in agreement that the comprador capitalists must remain in power and must keep the progressive masses out. Regardless, as they fought over aid from Russia, their disputes devolved into armed conflict by this year. The conflict going on today is between two bodies of Sudan’s state: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary body created in 2013 to suppress rebellions from the Sudanese masses. Both sides of this war received Russian imperialist support, and they used the conditions that American imperialists created to seize power. Just like Chinese imperialists negotiated between Iran and Saudi Arabia to profit from both sides of the conflicts in the Middle East, American imperialists have organized attempted negotiations that are almost certainly designed make America profit from this whole ordeal.

Due to the described circumstances, especially the interference of the Yankees on the planed Russian Red Sea Naval Base and the presence of Wagner mercenaries, it seems most probable that Russian imperialism wanted to set the record straight and install their most loyal lackey as the unquestioned head of state. The US Center for Strategic & International Studies alleged Russia to “shape a political future conducive to their own interests”.

But the Yankees are not completely off-side and are trying to gain ground. The Yankee think tank “foreign policy” most open declared: “Hemeti’s Rise in Sudan Is a Threat to Regional Stability. Countries that prefer peace to chaos should hope for a quick army victory over the RSF.” With no immediate successes on any side the USA were able to maneuver, resulting in an agreement of a ceasefire on April 24, officially announced by Anthony Blinken. The three-day ceasefire brought about a lull in fighting, without completely halting it. In charge of pushing forward the negotiations is now the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an organisation of several African countries. It stated there should be a truce at least until April 30 and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Wednesday invited the rivaling generals. South Sudan shows all signs of being a semi-colony mainly of Yankee imperialism, the IGAD is directly paid by the Yankee’s USAID. From 2016 to 2021 the USA transferred more than 5 million US dollar to the IGAD. Al-Burhan, had given initial approval to a plan to extend the truce for another 72 hours. A statement said, “Burhan thanked the IGAD and expressed an initial approval”. Antony Blinken and Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Chairman of the African Union Commission discussed the issue likewise. It seems that the Yankees are either trying to win some time by these negotiations and/or preparing an intervention by their loyal proxies in Africa.

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Thus, all of finance capital, not just that of one country, is responsible for the suffering of the Sudanese masses; unlike in Yemen, though, it is not necessarily very clear which side is the principal enemy of the Sudanese people and the main bringer of their suffering. Perhaps we can say Russian imperialism is the main actor in the region, but like its actions in Ukraine, this is currently only in response to US imperialist meddling; that is not a justification of its actions, but it helps us understand them and put them in context.

What we clearly see is that the Sudanese proletariat needs to reconstitute its communist party; its existing communist party is almost exclusively focused on legal work, so we critically support it against Sudan’s fascitic repression, but we recognize that it must become revolutionary and proletarian. When the proletariat leads a people’s war for New Democracy in Sudan, they can truly have democratic rights and be free from imperialism’s tentacles. The Sudanese working-class and peasant soldiers in both forces of the war are killing each other, but they must unite against their puppet overlords; they can only do that with a genuinely revolutionary communist party agitating, educating, leading, and organizing them!

Conclusions for Comrades in Western Imperialist States

As communists in the US, we recognize that our principal enemy is American imperialism and its allies. Our task is to weaken their involvement in these conflicts, for it never resolves them sustainably. We need an anti-imperialist movement, especially one under the leadership of a revolutionary communist party. The American working people have nothing to gain from America’s schemes. The money America spends to fund their puppet groups in Sudan and Yemen could be used to improve the infrastructure of this nation, increase employment, raise the minimum wage, guarantee healthcare access, and more, but none of that is possible if the proletariat remains unagitated, uneducated, unorganized, immobilized, and unconscious; furthermore, we cannot secure our victories against American capitalist-imperialism without the smashing of the state and the establishment of proletarian dictatorship in this land. Once America turns socialist, it can end its imperialist domination across the world, and that will free the masses and let their communist parties lead them to state power; while Russian, Chinese, etc. imperialism are still concerns for these people, we do not focus on them because they are weaker than American imperialism and because our closest enemies are the American imperialists.

The Yemeni and Sudanese masses need a revolutionary communist party to lead them, a people’s army that can fight off the imperialists and their puppets, and a united front of their organizations to free themselves and destroy the shackles oppressing them. We do not know all of their conditions in full detail, so we will not give detailed plans for how they can go about this; what we can say is we strongly support their struggles, and we will work to educate the masses here to oppose American imperialist meddling in their lands.

Non-American Western imperialists also need to be stopped; many social-democrats from those regimes pride themselves for living under capitalists that give them petty concessions like healthcare, education, etc., and a good chunk of those countries’ proletarians are indoctrinated into supporting their imperialist campaigns while feeling superior to American imperialists for being “less brutal”; that is why we urge European comrades to continue their work in agitating their countries’ workers and opposing their capitalists’ imperialist actions. It may be that these “junior imperialists” are somewhat forced to cooperate with US imperialism, but it would be foolish to think they do not want to subjugate the third world. The proletariat in those countries needs revolutionary communist leaders that can guide them to victory and destroy capitalist-imperialism!

Let the Sudanese and Yemeni proletarians and their alies seize state power from their comprador oppressors! Kick the imperialists out of these regions and from the entire third world! Only on the path of socialism and communism can the people of the world surely be victorious!