Originally published in Historia de las Ideas nº 6 in April 2026

RESUME

This article critically analyzes multipolarism as a false alternative to contemporary imperialism. Against those who present the decline of the United States and the Euro-Atlantic bloc as an automatic opportunity for the liberation of peoples, it argues that the emergence of new capitalist poles does not overcome imperialism, but may reorganize it under multi-imperialist forms. Through a critique of Alexander Dugin, SOVINTERN and the International Manifesto Group, the article shows how different formulations of multipolarism replace class analysis with geopolitical alignment, workers’ power with the abstract sovereignty of blocs, and proletarian internationalism with support for powers rivaling Washington. National sovereignty only has revolutionary content when it is linked to workingclass power, socialist planning, productive independence, and rupture with all imperialist blocs and with global monopoly capitalism in present-day Spain.

Key words: multipolarism; imperialism; national sovereignty; pluripolarity; socialism.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, a response to postmodernism and liberalism has begun to emerge from revolutionary and communist circles. Classical communism, characterized by revolutionary patriotism and class struggle, is beginning to re-emerge, with greater strength in some countries than in others. However, in their opposition to postmodernism, numerous groups have embraced revisionist figures and adopted incorrect positions due to the absence of a firm ideological line. One such erroneous position within the revolutionary movement is the acceptance of the reactionary theory of multipolarism and support for imperialist blocs simply because they stand in opposition to American imperialism.

These groups fall into the mistaken assumption that the weakening of the United States is synonymous with the advance of the liberation of peoples. It is evident that the Euro-Atlantic order has, for decades, functioned as an imperialist structure promoting the destruction of national sovereignty. However, the fact that this order is entering into crisis does not mean that the emerging capitalist powers challenging its hegemony represent a socialist alternative. The shift of power from Washington to Moscow, Beijing, or other centers does not abolish capitalist exploitation or imperialist domination. It merely replaces one with another and intensifies the competition and confrontation between rival bourgeoisies, each eager to secure global dominance for its own benefit.

For communists, imperialism is a historical stage of monopoly capitalism characterized by the concentration of capital, the dominance of finance capital, and the struggle among different imperialist powers for markets and raw materials [1]. Consequently, a consistent position cannot consist of criticizing only one actor within this system while supporting the rise of new imperialist powers. The issue is not which country holds dominance, but which class and which social relations reproduce that domination.

The term "multipolarity" functions today as an ambiguous concept. On the one hand, it describes the distribution of international power among several centers; on the other, it serves to justify the formation of new blocs under the control of the bourgeoisie of the major powers. In this way, it becomes a supposedly anti-imperialist rhetoric that presents Russia, China, or their allies as the driving forces behind a progressive transformation of the world. This replaces class analysis with alignment to a geopolitical bloc, an alignment that is often motivated more by nostalgia or political folklore than by any genuine material or ideological basis.

The aim of this article is to expose this ideological operation, which is being actively promoted by the blocs challenging the hegemony of the United States. This is not to deny the decline of the Western bloc or to downplay the criminal nature of American imperialism. On the contrary, a critique of multipolarism can only begin from a firm opposition to NATO and to the subordination of the European nations to the European Union and Washington. However, that opposition loses all its revolutionary content when it is transformed into uncritical support for the capitalist rivals of the United States. The enemy of our enemy is not automatically our ally; in this case, they are simply another group of exploitative bourgeois interests pursuing their own objectives.

In the case of Spain, our country occupies a subordinate position within the Euro-Atlantic bloc. The solution cannot lie in seeking accommodation within another imperialist bloc, but in rebuilding a country with popular and socialist national sovereignty. National independence has revolutionary content only when it is linked to the political power of the working class, economic planning, the nationalization of strategic sectors, and the rupture with every form of external dependence.

DUGIN AND MULTIPOLARISM

Alexander Dugin's theory of the multipolar world is neither communist nor revolutionary. His critique of American dominance may appear anti-imperialist on the surface, but its ideological core is profoundly reactionary. It is not grounded in class struggle, but in the defense of vast civilizational spaces, geopolitical blocs, and centers of power capable of contesting global hegemony. In other words, it does not replace imperialism with socialism, but the dominance of one power with competition among several powers.

Dugin defines multipolarity as an alternative to the American unipolar world, but he makes it clear that it is not based on the sovereign equality of all states. On the contrary:

«The multipolar world differs from the classical Westphalian system in that it does not recognize the independent, legally and formally sovereign nation-state as possessing the status of a fully-fledged pole. This means that the number of poles in a multipolar world should be substantially smaller than the number of recognized (and, consequently, unrecognized) nation-states» [2].

Accepting this framework would mean renouncing national sovereignty from the outset and accepting that our future should be determined within vast civilizational or geopolitical blocs. It is the same logic of dependence imposed by NATO, only under a different banner.

Nor is his critique of the West a socialist one. Dugin does not oppose the West because it is capitalist, imperialist, and exploitative, but because, in his view, it embodies liberalism and modern universalism [3]. His enemy is not the bourgeoisie as a class, but liberal modernity. For this reason, his thought bears far greater affinity to fascism, reactionary traditionalism, and imperial nationalism than to communism.

The decisive point lies in his rejection of Marxism. Dugin acknowledges that Marxism criticizes capitalist hegemony, yet dismisses it for sharing modern concepts such as progress, equality, and development [4]. His alternative is not greater working-class power or more socialist planning, but a geopolitical restoration of civilizational identities. He does not seek to abolish global capitalism; rather, he seeks to reorganize it around different cultural and strategic poles.

THE SOVINTERN FARCE

Marx was clearly right when he argued that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce [5]. The case of the new "Soviet International" is enough to confirm it. Following the experience of the Communist International and its collision with the national question [6] , it was already demonstrated that an international organization cannot act against national sovereignty if it is to achieve communist objectives. The SOVINTERN, however, has no communist objectives.

This political maneuver by the Kremlin, known as the SOVINTERN, presents itself as an international socialist network, but its real function is to cloak Russia's foreign policy in communist symbolism. The organization was announced by the A Just Russia party, a political formation aligned with Putin and represented in the Russian Parliament [7]. Moreover, the initiative has the approval of the Russian president [8].

Its documents contain legitimate denunciations of Western imperialism, such as criticism of the sanctions regime, the blockade against Cuba, the plunder of Africa, and the aggressions carried out by the United States and Israel. However, they remain silent in the face of the imperialist aggressions of Russia and its allies.

The SOVINTERN speaks of a “multipolar world” as though the existence of several capitalist poles represented progress towards emancipation. In its declaration on Africa, it presents the continent as one of the centers of the “emerging multipolar world” and argues that African nations should cease to depend on Western imperialism [9]. It is legitimate to seek the expulsion of French or American capital, but the SOVINTERN’s alternative is to open the door to Chinese or Russian capital, so that Africa becomes dependent on other imperialist blocs.

The case of Ukraine clearly reveals the SOVINTERN's true character. Its declaration adopts the official Russian terminology: “special military operation”, “demilitarization and denazification”, Russia's legitimate self-defense, the protection of “Russian values” and the “Russian world”, and concludes by expressing its support and solidarity with the Russian Federation [10]. Denouncing NATO's eastward expansion, the Kyiv regime, and the use of Ukraine as a pawn of Washington is necessary, but this does not oblige anyone to support the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian working class should not die for NATO; nor should the Russian working class die for its own bourgeoisie.

It is striking that a supposedly “Soviet” organization, instead of speaking about the working class, social ownership, or revolution, concerns itself solely with spheres of influence, historical territory, and the security of an imperialist power. Accepting this framework means abandoning the class struggle and entering the realm of defending imperialism.

The same logic is evident when the SOVINTERN celebrates alliances that are useful to Moscow. In its declaration on North Korea, rather than condemning a regime that has nothing to do with communism, it merely highlights the positive role of North Korea's military support for Russia through a strategic partnership agreement [11].

The same applies to Iran [12], Cuba [13] , and Venezuela [14]American and Israeli aggression against Iran must be condemned, the blockade against Cuba must be denounced, and any American interference in Venezuela or any other country must be rejected. However, defending the sovereignty of an attacked people does not mean offering uncritical support to the bourgeoisies of every government opposed to Washington—still less when dealing with banana republic dictatorships or Islamist regimes in which communists are actively persecuted [15].

The SOVINTERN speaks of peoples, but thinks in terms of vassals. Its horizon is not a Communist International based on workers organized against their own bourgeoisies, but a network of ideological support for the imperialist interests of Russia and the multipolar reconfiguration of global capitalism. The SOVINTERN calls multipolarity socialism, Russian camp-following internationalism, and the foreign policy of a capitalist bloc anti-imperialism.

THE "PLURIPOLARITY" OF THE INTERNATIONAL MANIFESTO GROUP

On the other hand, the International Manifesto Group attempts to present “pluripolarity” as a path towards socialism, but in reality it merely offers a sanitized, academic—and ostensibly Marxist—version of the same reactionary multipolarism that appears in a more overt form in Dugin.

The text begins by invoking Marx, Engels, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, and the historic struggle of the workers' movement. This introduction serves to present itself as a continuation of classical communism, but it quickly shifts the focus of the analysis. The working class ceases to be the principal subject, replaced instead by states, poles, blocs, emerging economies, and international institutions. The result is a characteristically campist operation: using the prestige of Marxism to justify a conclusion that arises not from the class struggle, but from the most imperialist form of geopolitics.

The clearest example is China. The Manifesto goes so far as to present it as the nation that best represents the economic and social progress of the working class, and even as an indispensable nation in the global struggle for socialism [16]. This claim reveals a complete abandonment of the Marxist criterion. Socialism is not measured by a state's capacity to grow, export commodities, build infrastructure, or compete technologically with the United States. It is measured by the actual position of the working class, by the character of property relations, and by the control and planning of production—areas in which China stands on the same footing as any other capitalist country.

The term “pluripolarity” serves here as a form of cosmetic rebranding. It sounds less blunt than “multipolarity” and appears more closely associated with the diversity of peoples, but in practice it serves to present the existence of multiple centers of capitalist accumulation as though it were an alternative to imperialism. The Manifesto itself defines pluripolarity as a multiplicity of poles of power and a diversity of national capitalisms and “socialisms”. Leaving aside the fact that no socialist country currently exists, if both capitalisms and socialisms can be placed within the same category, then the decisive question ceases to be which class holds power and instead becomes each state's position within the global order. Socialism is thereby reduced to a national variant within a balance between empires.

This approach is particularly dangerous because it does not openly reject Marxism; rather, it hollows it out from within. The Manifesto Group speaks of imperialism, capitalism, and socialism, but when the decisive moment arrives, it does not advocate the political independence of the working class, but rather places its trust in the international reordering of power. Revolution is replaced by geopolitical equilibrium, and national sovereignty by the control exercised by each bloc. It is the same error as that of the SOVINTERN, but expressed in less crude language.

The Manifesto celebrates China's and Russia's leadership of Eurasian integration processes, linking China's economic growth, the Belt and Road Initiative [17] , and Russia's military resurgence to the construction of a pole capable of challenging Western dominance. Yet neither a trade corridor nor a new alternative international bank constitutes socialism.

The Manifesto also seeks to support its thesis by comparing the failure of Western neoliberalism with China's effectiveness during the pandemic. But this comparison does not demonstrate China's socialist character; rather, it shows the superior capacity of a strong state to manage a crisis compared with disintegrating neoliberal states. A state can be interventionist, disciplined, and efficient without being socialist. Administrative efficiency is not equivalent to workers' power. The ability to mobilize resources is not equivalent to the socialization of production. To confuse the two is to fall into a form of state technocratism that has nothing to do with communism.

The final part of the Manifesto contains demands which, taken in isolation, may appear entirely reasonable: public healthcare, nationalization, ecological planning, the regulation of monopolies, and the decommodification of essential sectors. Yet these measures are weakened by the broader framework in which they are embedded. If the agent of change is not the working class organized within each nation, but rather a favorable international balance between imperialist poles, then the socialist agenda is reduced to a list of reforms within a rebalanced capitalist world.

For this reason, the Manifesto Group's “pluripolarity” is not a revolutionary alternative, but an ideological alibi. It serves to encourage sections of the left to regard the rise of capitalist blocs rival to the United States as progressive. It serves to turn anti-Americanism into a false anti-imperialism. It serves to present China as a socialist beacon and Russia as a liberating counterweight, when in reality both states act according to their own national interests and those of their respective ruling classes. The decisive question is not whether these poles weaken Washington, but whether they strengthen the power of the working class—and they do not.

CONCLUSIONS

Multipolarism is not an alternative to imperialism, but a form of reorganization of global capitalism into several centers of power. These theories arise within a specific historical context marked by the political, economic, and moral decline of the Western bloc and the rise of new capitalist powers. Indeed, the most accurate term to describe these theories would, if anything, be multi-imperialism. Their appeal lies in the fact that they have emerged at a time of evident decline in the Western bloc, when the United States, NATO, and the European Union have lost legitimacy through the destruction of the national sovereignty of the countries under their influence. In this sense, multipolarism begins from a genuine and necessary critique of American dominance and of the unipolar order that emerged following the collapse of the USSR. It rightly exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called international order, denounces Western interventionism, and expresses the legitimate desire of many peoples to break free from subordination to Washington.

However, the retreat of American imperialism does not automatically mean the advance of the liberation of peoples, still less the advance of the prospects for a socialist revolution. It simply means that other capitalist blocs occupy the space it leaves behind in order to impose their own interests and continue the capitalist competition between imperialist bourgeoisies, while also drawing the workers of different nations into competition with one another according to the needs of capital.

Confronting Washington does not make Moscow or Beijing allies of the working class. Opposing NATO does not transform Russia into a socialist state. Competing with the dollar does not turn the yuan into an instrument of emancipation. The struggle between currencies, banks, trade corridors, energy markets, and military alliances does not place power in the hands of the workers; rather, it produces an even greater intensification of exploitation through the ruthless competition between rival bourgeois interests. The existence of several capitalist poles may temporarily limit the domination of a single power, but it does not abolish imperialist relations; it merely redistributes them.

We are not dealing with a political theory of national or class liberation, but with an ideology that serves the interests of imperialist blocs, whether in decline or on the rise. Russia needs to cloak its strategic interests in Soviet memory, anti-fascism, and anti-NATO rhetoric. China needs to present its economic and technological expansion as peaceful cooperation and “altruistic development”. Both narratives seek to win sympathy among sections of the left who, out of nostalgia, confusion, legitimate opposition to the West, or economic interests, end up supporting imperialist projects. The problem is not recognizing the contradictions between the great powers, nor making tactical use of them when doing so may benefit the peoples, but turning those contradictions into a strategy of political subordination to a foreign bourgeoisie.

Dugin offers the reactionary and openly conservative version of this theory. His multipolarity does not defend the genuine sovereignty of nations, but their subordination to vast civilizational spaces led by superior powers. The SOVINTERN offers the Russian propaganda version, with socialist symbols placed at the service of the Kremlin's foreign policy. The Manifesto Group offers the more self-conscious and sanitized version, employing a pseudo-Marxist rhetoric that presents “pluripolarity” as a path to socialism. Yet in all three cases, the underlying structure is the same: replacing the class struggle with geopolitics, and workers' power with the power of whichever empire happens to be ascendant.

Multipolarity does not break with imperialism; it reorganizes and strengthens it. A world with several centers of capitalist accumulation remains a capitalist world. If the working class does not control production and resources remain in the hands of national or foreign bourgeoisies, then there is no socialism. The decisive question is not how many poles exist within the world system, but which social class holds power in each of them.

Our homeland has already been subordinated by NATO, the European Union, international finance capital, and foreign military bases, but the solution does not lie in seeking protection from another imperialist bloc. Spain has nothing to gain from changing blocs; it does, however, have much to gain from winning its sovereignty and independence from all foreign control. Anti-imperialism can only be universal. It must oppose Washington, Brussels, Moscow, Beijing, and any power that seeks to turn peoples into pieces on the chessboard of its capitalist interests.

Against the false dilemma between Western unipolarity and capitalist multipolarity, we must advance a different form of international reorganization based on cooperation among sovereign peoples, founded upon national independence, workers' power, economic planning, international solidarity, and a break with all imperialist blocs. The homeland is not liberated by changing masters, but by confronting the capitalists, restoring productive sovereignty, and placing power in the hands of those who work.

REFERENCES

[1] Vladímir Ilich Lenin, El imperialismo, fase superior del capitalismo (Madrid: Taurus, 2012)

[2] Alexander Dugin, The Theory of a Multipolar World, 3-11, https://dokumen.pub/the-theory-of-a-multipolar-world-9781914208188-9781914208164-9781914208171.html

[3] Alexander Dugin, The Theory of a Multipolar World, 11-13, https://dokumen.pub/the-theory-of-a-multipolar-world-9781914208188-9781914208164-9781914208171.htm

[4] Alexander Dugin, The Theory of a Multipolar World, 18-19, https://dokumen.pub/the-theory-of-a-multipolar-world-9781914208188-9781914208164-9781914208171.html

[5] Carlos Marx, El dieciocho brumario de Luis Bonaparte (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2009)

[6] Roberto Vaquero Arribas, "La Internacional Comunista", Historia de las Ideas, no. 4 (September 21, 2025): 7-18, https://historiadelasideas.es/revista/article/view/46/violencia_politica_comunista

[7] Comunistas Cuba, "Putin crea una internacional socialchovinista", Comunistas Cuba, April 15, 2026, https://www.comunistascuba.org/2026/04/putin-crea-una-internacional.html.

[8] Prensa Latina, "Capital rusa acogerá foro socialista Sovintern", Prensa Latina, April 24, 2026, https://www.prensa-latina.cu/2026/04/24/capital-rusa-acogera-foro-socialista-sovintern/.

[9] SOVINTERN, "África: Compensación por el legado del colonialismo y el neocolonialismo" (Moscow, April 27, 2026).

[10] SOVINTERN, "Sobre la solución de la crisis en torno a Ucrania mediante la eliminación de sus causas profundas, respetando al mismo tiempo los propósitos y principios de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas en su totalidad e interrelación" (Moscow, April 27, 2026).

[11] SOVINTERN, "Sobre el apoyo a la República Popular Democrática de Corea" (Moscow, April 27, 2026).

[12] SOVINTERN, "Condena de la agresión contra Irán" (Moscow, April 27, 2026).

[13] SOVINTERN, "Sobre la necesidad de poner fin al bloqueo económico, comercial y financiero impuesto por Estados Unidos contra Cuba" (Moscow, April 27, 2026).

[14] SOVINTERN, "Sobre la necesidad de la liberación inmediata del legítimo presidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, y su esposa, Cilia Flores, y condena de su captura organizada por Estados Unidos" (Moscow, April 27, 2026).

[15] Trinidad Deiros Bronte, "La oposición a la República Islámica de Irán: entre la horca, la cárcel y el exilio", El País, May 17, 2026, accessed June 28, 2026, https://elpais.com/internacional/2026-05-17/la-oposicion-a-la-republica-islamica-de-iran-entre-la-horca-la-carcel-y-el-exilio.html.

[16] International Manifesto Group, A través de la pluripolaridad al socialismo: Un manifiesto (september 2021)

[17] This refers to the infrastructure development project launched by the People’s Republic of China in 2013.