million. Chinese civilisation was also comparable with European civilisation
in terms of its lustre, organisation and depth of philosophy. During this
period the great discoveries of Siberia and Africa were made. At the end of
the 15[th] century the conquest of America began. Arab caravans
reached the interior of Africa. Like the First Civilisation, the Third
Civilisation also arose from diverse and different roots. The difference is
that after the 15[th] century and in particular during the
18[th] and 19[th] centuries, the process of
integration had become universal in nature. Nations and cultures discovered
each other. The more developed began to impose their domination and culture
with violence. At the same time, a gradual process of mutual influence and
enrichment began to develop between the various cultures.
A typical feature of the Third Civilisation has been the significance
of the world integrity. Moreover, in ancient Greece, Theucidides, Aristotle
and Plato[5] searched for the common dimensions of life and
common rules for state administration amongst familiar nations. The Stoics
advocated the idea of moral and political unity of the human race. Some of
the thinkers of ancient Rome (Cicero and others) saw the world as a city
with the dimensions of the entire human race embracing all other nations and
cultures. The Renaissance enrichened this tradition. If the thinkers of the
First Civilisation were occupied mainly with the chronicles of warlords and
their victories, and the Second Civilisation with the defence of their
religious identity, the thinkers of the Third Civilisation undoubtedly
rediscovered man and his essence. Religion was of great importance to the
process of integration. K.Kautski referring to statistics states that in 98
A.D. there were 42 centres of population containing Christian communities,
by 180 this number had grown to 87 and by 352 - there were more than
500[6]. Ten centuries later the majority of the civilised world
was united by Christianity. Buddhism and Islam had a similar influence. Over
a period of about 1000 years, the major religions united the greater part of
humanity within large spiritual communities. The zenith of this process was
undoubtedly during the Third Civilisation. The unification of different
nations on the basis of value systems and spirituality was of was of great
historical significance. This lead to the building of bridges between the
different parts of the world at a time when manufacturing and commercial
links and communications were unsustainable.
By this time the majority of the great geographical discoveries had
been made. Transport and communications had made great progress and medieval
means of production had been succeeded by the first factories. Commerce was
no longer a haphazard accompaniment to life, but an indivisible part of
civilisation. Amsterdam had become a large scale cultural and commercial
centre. Venice and Genoa had become the major cities of the Mediterranean.
Peter the First and his followers had built Saint Petersburg and a number of
European cities had populations of more than 100,000 people. The First
Civilisation was a time of the great empires. The Second of the fall of
empire and unstable states and city states. The Third Civilisation was a
period a nation states. The gravitational centres of progress during the
First Civilisation were empires, during the Middle Ages city states and
during the Third - nation states. Nation states are one of the features of
the modern age distinguishing it from the Middle Ages and from what we can
now observe at the end of the 20[th] century. They did not
develop suddenly but as a consequence of a series of conflicts over many
centuries. Certain historians believe that this is one of the reasons for
the success of Europe, that it was these conflicts and the liberated spirit
of the Renaissance which guaranteed its domination. It is indeed possible.
In any event between the 15[th] and 17[th] centuries
France, Spain, England and Sweden and a little later Russia, began to
increase their power and might to guarantee their strategic advantage for a
number of centuries in the future.
According to P.Kennedy, between 1470 and 1650, the armies of the major
European powers expanded: Spain from 20,000 to 100,000; France from 40,000
to 100,00; England from 25,000 to 70,000 and Sweden from a couple of hundred
to 70,000[7]. These figures show not only the rise of the
economic power of the emergent major European powers, but also their desire
for the re-distribution of the newly discovered territories and the
domination of some states by others. The entire history of the period
between the 15[th] and the 18[th] centuries is a
history of war, battles for inheritance, colonies and riches. Armies and
Navies were expanded, military alliances were formed. As a result of wars,
trade and new conquests the whole world entered into a new phase of
integration. The Third Civilisation developed greater mass phenomenons in
all areas of life - transport, manufacturing, international trade and ideas,
the spiritual world and the world of ideas and religions. There is one other
important criterion which distinguishes the three civilisations - the forms
of production. The First was the age of agriculture and animal husbandry,
the Second saw the advent of manufacturing and crafts while the Third is the
age of industry and industrial giants. I accept A.Toffler's belief that
technological revolutions stimulated the progressionfrom onea ge into
another, but I do not believe that this is an exhaustive or adequate
criterion. There also another difference between us in terms of the
periodisation of history: A.Toffler divides history into two eras:
agricultural and industrial, while I have looked for the differences in a
wider and more civilisational spectrum. Technological changes are a
synthetic expression of the changes in forms of ownership. Typical features
of the three forms of civilisation were slave ownership, feudalism and
capitalism and it would be wrong to ignore them.
At the same time I believe that the transition between the various
civilisations was not abrupt and cannot be defined on the basis of one event
or another. New civilisations develop within a country and grow organically
as a number of trends. This usually takes place as a result of a change in
the instruments of labour and technology but at the same time as a result of
changes in social relations and means of government. This is the case with
the Third Civilisation and the period of its greatest prosperity during the
industrial revolution of the 19[th] century. Moreover, at the end
of the 19[th] century and especially during the 20[th]
century, there were a number of processes in world development which bore
innovations of the modern age and which were entirely different from the
first three civilisations. The most important characteristics of the Third
Civilisation - industry, nations, nation states began to change intensively.
In practice this meant the beginning of a process of the collapse of the
modern age and the Third Civilisation.
2. THE BIRTH OF THE GLOBAL WORLD
The industrial revolution in Europe at the beginning of the 19thcentury
brought with it a rapid process of economic and political
internationalisation. The borders of the nation states - the most
distinguishing feature of the Third Civilisation become too limiting for the
new manufacturing forces.
T
here is no doubt that the 19th century was a time of exceptional
technological revolution. In the 1850's and 1860's Great Britain, France,
Italy, Germany and Austria demonstrated significant increases in the growth
of their industrial output. The invention of the steam engine in 1769 by
James Watt and the locomotive by George Stephenson were of revolutionary
significance for world economic development and accelerated integration. At
the end of the 19th century the first experimental flights with an aeroplane
were carried out by Langley (1896). Enormous progress was made between 1885
and 1897 in the development of autmobile construction. In 1837 Morse
invented his communications code and in 1864 Edison improved methods of
electronic transmission. In 1876 Bell gave the world its first telephones.
The second half of the 19th century was a time of important discoveries
in the areas of transport and weapons systems. Revolutionary developments
were made in coal mining, mettalurgy and energy production resulting in the
increase of iron and steel production between 1890 and 1913: in the USA from
9.3 million tons to 31.8 million, in Germany from 4.1 to 17.6, in France
from 1.9 to 4.6 and in Russia from 0.95 to 4.6 million tons. Energy
consumption for the same period rose: in the USA from 147 million tons of
coal equivalent to 541 million tons, in Great Britain from 145 million tons
to 195 million, in Germany from 71 to 187 million tons, in Germany from 71
to 187 million tons, in France from 36 to 62.5 million tons and in Russia
from 10.9 to 54 million tons.[8] Energy and metal became the
major factors in the rapid development of railways and armies,
predetermining the development of entirely new branches of industry and
science.
A common feature of this process is that the industrial revolution of
the 19th century interlinked the interests of the developing nations in a
completely new manner. If until the 19th century, conflicts between nations
were of a purely localised nature and on mainly religious or territorial
grounds or for reasons of inheritance, after the developments of the
industrial revolution the main factors in the emergence of conflicts were
disputes for continental or world domination, cheap raw materials and
colonies.
These facts are perhaps sufficient to support the contention that the
Global World was born at the end of the 19th century. I interpret the term
"Global World" as meaning the level of development at which the majority of
countries and peoples become dependent on each other and, notwithstanding
their own national governments, form a common essence. If this is the case,
then the end of the 19th century was just the beginning of world
globalisation within the framework of the nation states of the Third
Civilisation. During the same period the world began an intensive period of
establishing common economic (export of capital), technological (transport,
communications, science) and cultural links. At some time towards the end of
the 19th century the great world powers were already unable to resolve their
own conlicts in isolation. Conflicts could no longer be limited to their own
borders but to the economic and political divisions already existing in the
world. A new world trend began to emerge, that of imperialism.
The trend towards imperialism was the first manifestation of the
globalisation of the world, a qualitative new level of world integration. I
consider imperialism to be a result of the intermingling of two intersecting
phenomena: the strong feelings of nationalism which existed everywhere at
the end of the 19th century and the objective trend towards integration as a
result of the export of capital and aspirations towards the economic
division of the world. In the 19th century, globalisation existed only as a
direct initiative of the nation state. However, during the second half of
the 19th century economic development began to transcend national borders in
the form of ambitions and aspirations towards national dominance. Such
belligerent nationalism within the conditions of internationalisation gave
rise to what J.Hobson, R.Hilferging and V.Lenin defined as
imperialism.[9]
Looking at the way in which humanity greeted the advent of the
twentieth century, one is suprised by their equanimity of spirit. Upon a
cursory examination of the major newspapers of France, Germany and Bulgaria
published on the 1st of January 1900, I observe a remarkable similarity.
Almost everywhere countries greeted the new century with fervent and
malcontent nationalism. The new century was seen as a century during which
individual states would satisfy their ambitions for new territory and
conquer and punish their opponents. The dominant atmosphere was of
nationalism and imperial aspirations and against this background, the
emergence of socialist ideas. National borders had become too limiting for
the expansion of industry. The Germans and the Bulgarians wanted to unite to
castigate their neighbours. The British rejoiced in their colonial dominions
and dreamed of an even greater Britain. The French reminded the Germans that
they would not stand for any more humiliation like that suffered in 1870.
Not one of the European nations or the USA are an exception. They were all
overcome by some level of imperialist amnbition. This was like a contagious
disease brought on by a need for raw materials and control over the railways
and the sea routes but it also penetrated political, journalistic and social
thought.
During this period, Fichte developed his idea of the exclusive role of
the Prussian state in the progress of humanity. Fichte was the greatest
proponent of the way in which nationalism and the need for
internationalisation becomes transformed into imperialism. But France was no
different. During the decades after the destruction of the French army in
1870, French nationalism reached unseen heights. Charles Morras defined
nationalism as the absolute criterion for every political action. In general
at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th European
nationalism flourished. In the USA at the end of the 19th century, economic
and demographic growth, albeit slower than in Europe also gave rise to a
similar explosion of self-confidence and aspirations for a new role for
America in the world. The idea of an international society, a common feature
of American political thought during this period, was also frequently
proclaimed as a right to domination and even war.
It could also be said that at the beginning of the 20th century
humanity was obsessed by the political paradigm typical of all world
empires: nationalism combined with imperial ambitions. In other words,
internationalisation and globalisation stem from the ambitions of isolated
nationalism and nation states. This was also reflected in the structure of
manufacturing, politics and life in general. Over a thirty-year period,
between 1880 and 1910 the standing armies of the world powers increased
significantly. The Russian army increased from 791,000 to 1,285,000 persons.
The French army increased from 543,000 to 769,000. The Germany army
increased from 426,000 to 694,000 and the British army from 246,000 to
531,000. The army of the Austro-Hungarian empire increased from 246,000 to
425,000. The Japanese army increased from 71,000 to 271,000 and the army of
the United States grew from 34,000 to 127,000[10]. Stockpiles of
weapons and huge amounts of human resources were ammassed in the event of
war, which was soon to break out.
The First World War was the first manifestation of an integrated world,
the first major demonstration of world globalisation. It was proof of the
growing interdependence of countries which did not allow them, apart from
rare exceptions, to stay out of the conflict. Practically the entire world
was sucked into the conflicts of the First World War. From this moment on
the world began to manifest itself as a mutually dependent system developing
within a common cycle. I consider this argument to be of particular
significance and I would like to develop it further.
The First World War linked the majority of the countries within a
common conflict but also formed the beginning of a common economic cycle in
the development of the industrial nations. What other explanation can be
given for the fact that in the 1920's all the major powers witnessed, to a
greater or lesser extent, advances in industrial progress? Taking 1913 as a
basis (100%) the indices of industrial output growth between 1921 and 1928
were as follows: in the USA from 98 to 154.5%; Germany - from 74.7% to
118.3; Great Britain from 55.1 to 95.1%; France - from 61.4 to 134.4; Japan
from 167 - 300%; Italy from 98.4 to 175.2 and the Soviet Union from 23.3 to
143.5[11]. All the developed nations, as though bound by some
common umbilical cord, suffered economic collapse at the beginning of the
1930's. Only those nations such as the USSR who had isolated themselves from
the world economy escaped the crisis. In 1937 Germany succumbed. This common
feature of world economic development also manifested itself after the
Second World War in countries with an open market economy.
Despite certain divergence in terms of the stages of development, it is
clear that after the 1920's the most industrialised nations of the world
began to develop in a more mutually dependent manner. Today at the end of
the century, this mutual dependence has attained unseen levels as expressed
in the indices of the world stock exchanges and in the unconditional mutual
interdependence of exchange rates. During the period between the two world
wars a new global essence began to develop entirely independently of
national governments. This began with the increasing in the level of mutual
interdependence between countries and gradually gained strength from the
growth in new technology, commerce and finance, transport and
communications, culture and science and armaments etc.
Nevertheless, the 20th century witnessed only the birth of the global
world. The global revolution still only exists as a possibility. It will
take many decades to achieve the gradual and problematic development of
global structures within the model of the individual nation states.
Globalisation is a level of international integration at which
interdependence between nations and cultures exists at a planetary level.
Such mutual interdependence is not a matter for one or two or a group of
nations but between each individual state and the world as a whole, between
individual regions of the world, between all nations and cultures
simultaneously.
If upon the emergence of human civilisation, the processes of
integration affected only a number of individual tribes and was localised
and during the Middle Ages it took on regional proportions, then since the
beginning of the 20th century, it has existed within the framework of
mankind as a whole. All countries and peoples are involved in a common
system which is governed in a particular way and on the basis of certain
principles. This system arose spontaneously, via struggles for domination,
wars and violence. One should take into account the difficulties people
encounter in attempting to overcome the boundaries of their own environment,
religion and nation. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the
20th century people were little occupied by thoughts of the world as a whole
or the priorities of universal human interests. Of course, there were a
number of writers and businessmen, Henry Ford was a prime example, who were
exceptions to this rule. However, this was not the case for the large mass
of the active inhabitants of our planet, politicians and the influential
owners of large amounts of wealth.
The culture of the Third Civilisation is above all a culture of
national thought and behaviour and the 20th century will remain entirely
within its dominion notwithstanding the accelerated processes of world
integration. Its militant nationalism and militiary blocs created the first
models of the global world based on violence and conflicts and on the
familiar struggle for national domination which existed in previous
civilisations.
3. THE SEARCH FOR A MODEL FOR THE GLOBAL WORLD
The first model of the global world was the colonial system. It was a
product of the combination of 19th century nationalism and the acceleration
of globalisation. In the middle of the 20thcentury and as a consequence of
the two world wars this modelcollapsed to give way to a two-bloc political
and economic model.
T
he first model of the global world was colonialism. During the second
half of the 19th century the larger nation states, motivated by desires for
empire began gradually to conquer andto divide the world. Geo-politically
the world became integrated through the colonial system for the first time
into a single unity. By achieving pre-eminence in the seas and oceans and
possessing the largest fleet in the world, Great Britain after 1815 turned
its attention to the rapid conquest of territories from Africa to India and
Hong Kong. Over a period of between 50 and 70 years the British managed to
create the greatest colonial empire in the world. From 1815-1865, a further
100,000 square miles was added to the territory of the British Empire.
During this period France was the only other country to attempt to
compete with Great Britain. It was later to be followed by Germany, Belgium,
Italy, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, the USA, Russia and Japan. Starting from
the basis of the nation state and moving towards globalisation, the great
powers of the time began a process of the domination and re-division of the
entire world into a unified world system linked through imperial centres.
As can be seen from table 1, during the last quarter of the 19th
century, the largest colonial powers expanded their territories by almost
200 million head of population and 2.32 million square kilometres of
territory. Between 1900 and the beginning of the First World War this rate
decreased as a result of the satiation of the "colonial market"
Table 1
Size and population of the colonies
(1875-1914)
State
1875
1900
1914
sq.km.
pop.
sq.km.
pop.
sq.km.
pop.
Great Britain
France
Holland
Belgium
Germany
USA
22.5
1.0
2.0
2.3
-
1.5
250
6
25
15
-
[*]
32.7
11.0
2.0
2.3
2.6
1.9
370
50
38
15
12
9
32.7
11.0
2.0
2.4
2.9
1.0
350
54
45
12
13
10
All the most prestigious, accessible and wealthy colonies have been
conquered by the beginning of the twentieth century, resulting in the
establishment of the first model of the emergent global world - the colonial
world.
The colonial system itself gave rise to the second momentous event in
the globalisation of the world. Hardly had the system become firmly
established when it began to give rise to a series of almost irresolvable
world conflicts: the irreconcilable struggle for the re-division of the
world and the First World War in which millions lost their lives. The
resulting radicalisation of public opinion in Russia, Germany and to a large
extent in other parts of the world stimulated the growth in anti-imperialist
attitudes and provided an opportunity for the growth of the radical ideas of
socialist revolution.
These events in themselves gave rise to the second model of the
emergent global world - the model of the two systems which began with the
October revolution in 1917 and continued until 1989-91. Almost the entire
period of the twentieth century passed within conditions of the two opposing
systems and the existence of the bi-polar global model. During this period
the existence of the two systems was explained basically as the opposition
of two ideologies, the ideologies of the rich and the poor, socialism and
capitalism. This was also the view of Marxism-Leninism. After the collapse
of the Eastern European political regimes the existence of the communist
world was presented as an historical mistake, as the consequence of the
profound delusions of huge masses of people and the tyranny of dictatorship
etc.. This was of the view put forward by Z.Bzezinski[12], but I
find these ideas be simplistic and far too easy. In actual fact the
processes were much more complex and contradictory.
During the period of its mutually dependent development, the world
began to subordinate itself to a greater extent to the principle of
equilibrium, a principle which is based on the laws of nature. The lack of
social equilibrium leads sooner or later to serious conflicts and delayed
development. In the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th within the
process of accelerating industrialisation and rising imperialism two global
imbalances formed: the first - between the rich metropolitan countries and
the second - between the rich, ruling classes of the imperialist bourgeoisie
and the enormous masses of the poor proletariate. These large imbalances
were particularly developed in the poorer countries and the countries who
found themselves on the losing side in the First World War. In general
terms, in the 19th century and the first 50-60 years of the twentieth
century, class differences became much more marked and the ensuing class
struggle was a direct consequence.
It was these class conflicts and international disproportions which
gave rise to the radical revolutions in Russia, Germany and Hungary and a
series of other countries between 1917 and 1923. This also goes some way to
explaining the development of dominant political doctrines such as in the
USSR, Italy, Germany and a number of other countries. To take the example of
the USSR, the guiding aim of the Soviet economy in the 1920's and in
particular the 1930's was to overcome its backwardness and to undertake a
programme of rapid, accelerated industrialisation and to create a stable
armaments industry. Its initial ambition to achieve a balance with the rest
of the capitalist world and subsequently to overtake it was the dominant
strategy of Stalin in the 1930's and 1940's. This economic policy, while
defensible, can in no way justify the violence and historical absurdity of
totalitarianism. I am merely attempting to explain its roots. All my
academic research and my direct observations of the Soviet totalitarian
system show that millions of people were aware of the violence of the system
but that they accepted it as something inevitable, as a lesser evil than
poverty and misery. The illusions and the crimes perpetrated during the
regimes of Stalin, Hitler and Mao and the other violent regimes of the 20th
century are indisputable. These crimes were stimulated by the vicissitudes
of history, by the ambition to create an alternative model of social
progress. Are Robespierre or Danton or the British colonisers, or the
Russian conquerors of Central Asia any less culpable?
The deeply rooted reasons for these crimes need to be explained before
they can be resolved. There is no doubt that at the root of Stalin's
violence initially against the rural population and subsequently against the
whole of Soviet society after 1929 lay his ambition to achieve rapid
industrialisation. The strategy of rapid industrialisation and anti-colonial
conflicts in a number of less-developed countries should be viewed as a
reaction against emergent global imbalances. That which was considered by
many to be the struggle of the repressed nations for the freedom of the
proletariate was actually a struggle against economic backwardness, against
imperialism and the monopolies of most developed nations and the struggle
for national supremacy. In the 20th century, the poorer nations had no other
option to defend themselves against colonialism other than to concentrate
their force and might through powerful state structures. Slogans such as the
"welfare of the proletariate", "care for people" were always associated with
the power of the state. Poverty always generates Utopias. Communism was one
of them.
During the first half of the twentieth century the world had continued
to develop on the basis of liberal market doctrines and it persisted in
being a world of rich and poor peoples, metropolises and colonies and
profound class differences. When markets are free but imbalanced, the strong
easily swallow up the weak. Such imbalanced historical development allows
those countries with more rapid development to become dominant. Sooner or
later this was bound to lead to social revolutions. This, I feel, is the
explanation for the division of the world into two opposing blocs as an
alternative to the existing colonial model. After the two world wars and the
economic crisis of 1929-33, the liberal idea underwent a crisis and opened
the way for the radicalisation of the world and its division.
By 1925, two countries had yielded to "state socialism" - the USSR and
Mongolia - with a total population of over 150 million. 25 years later this
political system had spread into more than 20 countries and accounted for
more than half the population of the world. After the victory over Germany
in 1945 the power and the authority of the USSR grew immensely. Under the
auspices of its power the national patriotic forces of a number of countries
threw off the colonial domination of Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal,
Holland and other countries. At the beginning of the 1960's, with certain
exceptions the colonial model ceased to exist and was replaced by the
two-polar model. At the end of the 1950's the two world systems embraced
populations of about 1-1.5 billion people and possessed military parity.
Without achieving full economic parity or high levels of productivity, the
USSR managed to undermine the monopoly of the USA in strategic military
areas. Two basic centres of power became established in the world - Moscow
and Washington accompanied by other satellites with varying degrees of
power.
Since the Second World War the world has witnessed a number of local
conflicts. There have been armed struggles in the Near East, North and
Equatorial Africa, Indo-China, India and Pakistan, Chile, Bolivia, Cuba and
tens of other regions and countries. All these countries were directly or
indirectly linked with the two superpowers and their opposition. On the
other hand the achievement of nuclear parity between the USSR and the USA in
the 1950's brought an end to the trend towards
ultra-imperialism[13] and the possibility of the world becoming
subordinated to a single world power centre. Beneath the nuclear umbrellas
of the two super powers and carefully balanced between them, the countries
of Western Europe, Japan and a number of other Asian and Latin American
countries achieved great success.
I believe the achievement of nuclear parity to be a phenomenon with key
significance for world development. Napoleon with his ambitions for an
empire from "Paris to India" , Hitler with his "World Order" and Stalin with
his aspirations for the "victory of world communism" all longed for a
unified world empire. This was also the view of a number of other
politicians and thinkers who seeing a trend towards world integration and
the expansion of manufacturing came to the conclusion that a future world
would be a world of monopolistic unity, a unified manufactory for workers
and peasants (Lenin), ultra-imperialism (Kautski), permanent revolution
(Trotski) and so on. To this extent the bi-polar model is a higher level of
development than the model of colonial empires. On the other hand, the
bi-polar model is only a stage in the formation of the global world and the
actual peak of the crisis of the Third Civilisation. I defend the thesis
that the two bloc system has to be seen as a transitional stage from the
point of view of the development of the global world and the transition
between the Third and the Fourth Civilisation.
Until the end of the 19th century, researchers analysed world changes
through the prism of national thinking and the nation state. After 1917 and
especially after the Second World War, the main object of research was the
two world systems - socialism (communism) and capitalism, their competition
and the struggle for domination. This was a reflection of the realities in a
world which had overpowered the minds of billions of people. Henceforth,
however, any analysis of the structural changes within the world cannot be
based on the confrontational bi-polar model. Only the global, civilisation
approach is capable of providing the correct response to questions and to
reveal the common and, consequently, the local trends of human development.
4. THE COMMON CRISIS AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD CIVILISATION
The 1970's saw the Suez crisis, the increase in the price of oil
(1973-5) and the end of the Brent Woods system[14]. Everyone
began to speak of the crisis of world capitalism. At the end of the 1980's
everyone began to speak of the crisis of world communism. In actual fact,
the entire world had been overcome by a profound crisis.
T
he ideologues and politicians of the two superpowers always maintained
that the system of their opponents was in crisis. In the communist countries
students attended lectures about the "common crisis of capitalism" while in
the West Kremlinologists talked of the "crisis of world communism". In
1960-2 Nikita Krushchev frequently was heard to say that the "collapse of
the colonial system is an historical victory over imperialism". In 1989-90
the victory of world capitalims over communism was declared. Was this really
the case? I have come to a different conclusion. I believe that the problem
cannot be reduced merely to the collapse of one system and the victory of
another. In actual fact during the second half of the twentieth century, it
was not only the communist system which was in a state of crisis but the
whole of the two bloc political system in the world, the entire structure of
the Third Civilisation. Industrial technologies, nation states and their
alliances, the culture of violence against the individual and nature
suffered serious repercussions.
What was the world like before the 1980's? There were two giant groups
of nations within which 99% of the weapons of mass destruction and 80% of
manufacturing industry were concentrated. Each group was closely connected
with military, political and economic alliances (NATO and the EU, the Warsaw
Pact and COMECON) with common military and economic infrastructures, with
joint institutions and education of personnel. All other countries and
peoples were dependent in some way or another on these groups. It is no
accident that hundreds of local conflicts during this period were waged with
the weapons of one or other of the military blocs and regarded as the
continuation of their undeclared war. On the other hand, the two bloc system
existed in the conditions of continuing integration and the growing
dependence of countries on each other. This was the main reason for the
general trends of world development to enter into contradiction with its
existing structures. The extent of these contradictions was so great that
there are justifiable grounds to speak of the common crisis of the two bloc
system and, in broader terms, the crisis of the entire modern age.
The first cause which lead to this crisis was the character and
structure of world economic growth.
After the Second World War, the global economic product of the Earth
increased four-fold. The total manufactured output of the period between
1950 and 1990 is equal to the growth of production from the beginning of
civilisation to the present day. There had never been such a turbulent
period in the development of the manufacturing powers of humankind.
Humankind had never witnessed such a period of dynamic processes reliant on
mutual cooperation, discoveries, the multiplication of discoveries and their
by-products. The other side of the coin was that such economic growth gave
rise to enormous deformations. The competition between the two super powers
and their allies assisted in the acceleration of progress but also lead to
previously unknown levels of unbalanced growth. In the 1980's the average
national product per head of population in the industrialised countries was
more than 11,000 dollars. In the majority of African countries this figure
was between 250-300 dollars.
While in the most developed countries of the world post-war development
had lead to an enormous abundance of goods and the domination of
consumerism, in the Third World more than 1.9 billion people were suffering
from malnutrition and disease. The level of consumerism in the developed
industrial countries rose to a level 40 to 100 times greater than in the
developing countries. This process of world development gave rise to the
most unexpected paradoxes. The money spent by today by the French on pet
food would be sufficient to feed the starving children of Ethiopia and
Somalia.
The iniquities in world development have increased during the last
couple of decades. Under colonialism, capital was re-directed towards the
poorer countries. After the war, however, it began to move in the opposite
direction. Large investments began to be made in the USA, Western Europe and
Japan. In the 1980's alone, direct investments in the developing countries
fell by about one hundred percent - from 25 billion USD in 1982 to 13
billion in 1987. As a result of this the poorer nations began to rely on
large amounts of credit in order to be able to feed their people, resulting
in the crippling debt burden which exists today. At present the countries of
Latin America owe international creditor banks and a number of governments
more than 400 billion dollars. Over 100 billion are owed by the Eastern
European countries. These statistics are proof not only of enormous
deformations but of the profound crisis which is affecting the foundations
of the world financial system. While the processes of international
integration do not permit the development of a monocentric world, the seven
richest nations of the world and the 300-400 wealthiest banks control the
lives of the majority of humanity via debt management.
On the other hand, the disproportionate economic development resulting
from the mad rush to purchase armaments and conflicts led to the economic
overloading of the two superpowers. As a direct result of the exisiting
two-bloc geo-political structure the USA managed (or some say was obliged)
to amass huge internal debts of more than 4 trillion dollars. In the 1970's
and 1980's the debts of the USSR increase enormously and delayed the rates
of its development.
A second characteristic problem of the two-bloc model of develoment was
the increase in environmental problems. For the entire period of post-war
development, as a result of uncontrolled industrialisation and the blind
faith in political and ideological ambitions the world lost practically one
fifth of its cultivable land, one fifth of its tropical forests and tens of
thousands of species of animal and plant life. During this same period the
level of carbon-monoxide in the atmosphere increased more than ten-fold. The
level of ozone in the stratoshpere has diminished and humanity is faced with
the threat of global warming. Talk is now of a global ecological tragedy.
Even today despite the growth in ecological awareness and "green" movements,
the world environmental crisis is seen as something of secondary
significance as something less important than the struggle for economic
growth, military strategic stability or national domination. Global warming
as a result of the industrial boom has already had serious, possibly
catastrophic, consequences. The reduction of irrigated agricultural land,
the increase in the levels of the oceans, the dessication of entire regions
which produce the majority of the world's grain - these are just a small
part of the possible consequences.
Despite the potential serious consequences for the world the leaders of
the two systems did not want, nor were they able to take any decisive
measures to allocate more funds for the conservation of the environment and
to reduce military expenditure or to pass common legislation to guarantee
the priorities of human needs.
The third and no less important cause of the crisis of the two-bloc
system was the fact that in the 1950's mankind surpassed all logical
extremes of military growth. The cold war and the opposition of the two
world systems lead the two super powers into a ceaseless race for
domination. This contest reached such a level that in the mid 1980's the
USSR and the USA possessed enough nuclear and strategic warheads to destroy
life on earth several times over. The eight most economically powerful
nations on the earth - the USA, USSR, China, the UK, France, West Germany,
Italy and Japan continually and deliberately increased their military
budgets during the entire post-war period.
In 1984, world arms export reached record levels of 75 billion dollars,
several times greater than the amount of money necessary to buy food and
medicines for the hungry and sick in the world and for investment in the
poorer countries. As a result of the opposition of the two blocs in the
1980's between 13 and 15 million people were employed in the arms industry.
In 1987, the global military budget of the world was more than 1 trillion US
dollars. This extreme overarmament lead to the overall deformation of entire
world development and distorted the structure of industrial production. It
caused enourmous deficits in the budgets of the industrialised nations and
created serious pre-conditions for the future of world finance. No less
important was the fact that as a result of the constant increase in arms
production and nuclear weapons in particular, the level of nuclear security
fell to very low levels. The danger of a nuclear Third World War loomed
greater than ever. At the end of the 1980's the two super powers - the USSR
and the USA had over 12 thousand units of nuclear arms - which from the view
point of common humanity was beyond the realms of common sense.
Thus, the deformation of economic development, the world environmental
crisis, the wealth of the North and the poverty and disease of the South,
the demographic booms, overarming - all these factors are the clear symptoms
of a profound crisis. It is true that all these critical phenomena have been
frequently discussed before and that some of the problems which I have
mentioned here have been the subjects of international summit meetings and
research groups but it is also true that they have been looking for
explanations to these phenomena in the wrong places.
In my opinion the most profound reason for the crises in the
environment, manufacturing and population growth can be found in the growing
inadequacy of the entire two-bloc structure of the world. On the one hand,
during this period, following the logic of confrontation and the struggle
for domination, the two super powers, their allies and all the remaining
smaller countries established structures oriented towards the development of
the economic and military power of the bloc to which they belonged. On the
other hand, the inter-bloc and inter-state power-struggle created a
manufacturing capacity which lead to the internationalisation of the world
and caused world problems which until then had been unknown.
The contradiction is manifest. Institutions, politics, propaganda, the
training of personnel, the links between manufacture and defence were
directly dependent on the profound ideologisation of thinking, while the
globalisation of humanity lead to the destruction of the confrontational
structures of the two blocs. In the 1970's and 1980's the bi-polar world
could no longer cope with global and world trends. This contradiction still
exists today notwithstanding the collapse of the two world systems. The
reason was the impossibility of bringing a sudden halt to the inertia of the
in terms of its lustre, organisation and depth of philosophy. During this
period the great discoveries of Siberia and Africa were made. At the end of
the 15[th] century the conquest of America began. Arab caravans
reached the interior of Africa. Like the First Civilisation, the Third
Civilisation also arose from diverse and different roots. The difference is
that after the 15[th] century and in particular during the
18[th] and 19[th] centuries, the process of
integration had become universal in nature. Nations and cultures discovered
each other. The more developed began to impose their domination and culture
with violence. At the same time, a gradual process of mutual influence and
enrichment began to develop between the various cultures.
A typical feature of the Third Civilisation has been the significance
of the world integrity. Moreover, in ancient Greece, Theucidides, Aristotle
and Plato[5] searched for the common dimensions of life and
common rules for state administration amongst familiar nations. The Stoics
advocated the idea of moral and political unity of the human race. Some of
the thinkers of ancient Rome (Cicero and others) saw the world as a city
with the dimensions of the entire human race embracing all other nations and
cultures. The Renaissance enrichened this tradition. If the thinkers of the
First Civilisation were occupied mainly with the chronicles of warlords and
their victories, and the Second Civilisation with the defence of their
religious identity, the thinkers of the Third Civilisation undoubtedly
rediscovered man and his essence. Religion was of great importance to the
process of integration. K.Kautski referring to statistics states that in 98
A.D. there were 42 centres of population containing Christian communities,
by 180 this number had grown to 87 and by 352 - there were more than
500[6]. Ten centuries later the majority of the civilised world
was united by Christianity. Buddhism and Islam had a similar influence. Over
a period of about 1000 years, the major religions united the greater part of
humanity within large spiritual communities. The zenith of this process was
undoubtedly during the Third Civilisation. The unification of different
nations on the basis of value systems and spirituality was of was of great
historical significance. This lead to the building of bridges between the
different parts of the world at a time when manufacturing and commercial
links and communications were unsustainable.
By this time the majority of the great geographical discoveries had
been made. Transport and communications had made great progress and medieval
means of production had been succeeded by the first factories. Commerce was
no longer a haphazard accompaniment to life, but an indivisible part of
civilisation. Amsterdam had become a large scale cultural and commercial
centre. Venice and Genoa had become the major cities of the Mediterranean.
Peter the First and his followers had built Saint Petersburg and a number of
European cities had populations of more than 100,000 people. The First
Civilisation was a time of the great empires. The Second of the fall of
empire and unstable states and city states. The Third Civilisation was a
period a nation states. The gravitational centres of progress during the
First Civilisation were empires, during the Middle Ages city states and
during the Third - nation states. Nation states are one of the features of
the modern age distinguishing it from the Middle Ages and from what we can
now observe at the end of the 20[th] century. They did not
develop suddenly but as a consequence of a series of conflicts over many
centuries. Certain historians believe that this is one of the reasons for
the success of Europe, that it was these conflicts and the liberated spirit
of the Renaissance which guaranteed its domination. It is indeed possible.
In any event between the 15[th] and 17[th] centuries
France, Spain, England and Sweden and a little later Russia, began to
increase their power and might to guarantee their strategic advantage for a
number of centuries in the future.
According to P.Kennedy, between 1470 and 1650, the armies of the major
European powers expanded: Spain from 20,000 to 100,000; France from 40,000
to 100,00; England from 25,000 to 70,000 and Sweden from a couple of hundred
to 70,000[7]. These figures show not only the rise of the
economic power of the emergent major European powers, but also their desire
for the re-distribution of the newly discovered territories and the
domination of some states by others. The entire history of the period
between the 15[th] and the 18[th] centuries is a
history of war, battles for inheritance, colonies and riches. Armies and
Navies were expanded, military alliances were formed. As a result of wars,
trade and new conquests the whole world entered into a new phase of
integration. The Third Civilisation developed greater mass phenomenons in
all areas of life - transport, manufacturing, international trade and ideas,
the spiritual world and the world of ideas and religions. There is one other
important criterion which distinguishes the three civilisations - the forms
of production. The First was the age of agriculture and animal husbandry,
the Second saw the advent of manufacturing and crafts while the Third is the
age of industry and industrial giants. I accept A.Toffler's belief that
technological revolutions stimulated the progressionfrom onea ge into
another, but I do not believe that this is an exhaustive or adequate
criterion. There also another difference between us in terms of the
periodisation of history: A.Toffler divides history into two eras:
agricultural and industrial, while I have looked for the differences in a
wider and more civilisational spectrum. Technological changes are a
synthetic expression of the changes in forms of ownership. Typical features
of the three forms of civilisation were slave ownership, feudalism and
capitalism and it would be wrong to ignore them.
At the same time I believe that the transition between the various
civilisations was not abrupt and cannot be defined on the basis of one event
or another. New civilisations develop within a country and grow organically
as a number of trends. This usually takes place as a result of a change in
the instruments of labour and technology but at the same time as a result of
changes in social relations and means of government. This is the case with
the Third Civilisation and the period of its greatest prosperity during the
industrial revolution of the 19[th] century. Moreover, at the end
of the 19[th] century and especially during the 20[th]
century, there were a number of processes in world development which bore
innovations of the modern age and which were entirely different from the
first three civilisations. The most important characteristics of the Third
Civilisation - industry, nations, nation states began to change intensively.
In practice this meant the beginning of a process of the collapse of the
modern age and the Third Civilisation.
2. THE BIRTH OF THE GLOBAL WORLD
The industrial revolution in Europe at the beginning of the 19thcentury
brought with it a rapid process of economic and political
internationalisation. The borders of the nation states - the most
distinguishing feature of the Third Civilisation become too limiting for the
new manufacturing forces.
T
here is no doubt that the 19th century was a time of exceptional
technological revolution. In the 1850's and 1860's Great Britain, France,
Italy, Germany and Austria demonstrated significant increases in the growth
of their industrial output. The invention of the steam engine in 1769 by
James Watt and the locomotive by George Stephenson were of revolutionary
significance for world economic development and accelerated integration. At
the end of the 19th century the first experimental flights with an aeroplane
were carried out by Langley (1896). Enormous progress was made between 1885
and 1897 in the development of autmobile construction. In 1837 Morse
invented his communications code and in 1864 Edison improved methods of
electronic transmission. In 1876 Bell gave the world its first telephones.
The second half of the 19th century was a time of important discoveries
in the areas of transport and weapons systems. Revolutionary developments
were made in coal mining, mettalurgy and energy production resulting in the
increase of iron and steel production between 1890 and 1913: in the USA from
9.3 million tons to 31.8 million, in Germany from 4.1 to 17.6, in France
from 1.9 to 4.6 and in Russia from 0.95 to 4.6 million tons. Energy
consumption for the same period rose: in the USA from 147 million tons of
coal equivalent to 541 million tons, in Great Britain from 145 million tons
to 195 million, in Germany from 71 to 187 million tons, in Germany from 71
to 187 million tons, in France from 36 to 62.5 million tons and in Russia
from 10.9 to 54 million tons.[8] Energy and metal became the
major factors in the rapid development of railways and armies,
predetermining the development of entirely new branches of industry and
science.
A common feature of this process is that the industrial revolution of
the 19th century interlinked the interests of the developing nations in a
completely new manner. If until the 19th century, conflicts between nations
were of a purely localised nature and on mainly religious or territorial
grounds or for reasons of inheritance, after the developments of the
industrial revolution the main factors in the emergence of conflicts were
disputes for continental or world domination, cheap raw materials and
colonies.
These facts are perhaps sufficient to support the contention that the
Global World was born at the end of the 19th century. I interpret the term
"Global World" as meaning the level of development at which the majority of
countries and peoples become dependent on each other and, notwithstanding
their own national governments, form a common essence. If this is the case,
then the end of the 19th century was just the beginning of world
globalisation within the framework of the nation states of the Third
Civilisation. During the same period the world began an intensive period of
establishing common economic (export of capital), technological (transport,
communications, science) and cultural links. At some time towards the end of
the 19th century the great world powers were already unable to resolve their
own conlicts in isolation. Conflicts could no longer be limited to their own
borders but to the economic and political divisions already existing in the
world. A new world trend began to emerge, that of imperialism.
The trend towards imperialism was the first manifestation of the
globalisation of the world, a qualitative new level of world integration. I
consider imperialism to be a result of the intermingling of two intersecting
phenomena: the strong feelings of nationalism which existed everywhere at
the end of the 19th century and the objective trend towards integration as a
result of the export of capital and aspirations towards the economic
division of the world. In the 19th century, globalisation existed only as a
direct initiative of the nation state. However, during the second half of
the 19th century economic development began to transcend national borders in
the form of ambitions and aspirations towards national dominance. Such
belligerent nationalism within the conditions of internationalisation gave
rise to what J.Hobson, R.Hilferging and V.Lenin defined as
imperialism.[9]
Looking at the way in which humanity greeted the advent of the
twentieth century, one is suprised by their equanimity of spirit. Upon a
cursory examination of the major newspapers of France, Germany and Bulgaria
published on the 1st of January 1900, I observe a remarkable similarity.
Almost everywhere countries greeted the new century with fervent and
malcontent nationalism. The new century was seen as a century during which
individual states would satisfy their ambitions for new territory and
conquer and punish their opponents. The dominant atmosphere was of
nationalism and imperial aspirations and against this background, the
emergence of socialist ideas. National borders had become too limiting for
the expansion of industry. The Germans and the Bulgarians wanted to unite to
castigate their neighbours. The British rejoiced in their colonial dominions
and dreamed of an even greater Britain. The French reminded the Germans that
they would not stand for any more humiliation like that suffered in 1870.
Not one of the European nations or the USA are an exception. They were all
overcome by some level of imperialist amnbition. This was like a contagious
disease brought on by a need for raw materials and control over the railways
and the sea routes but it also penetrated political, journalistic and social
thought.
During this period, Fichte developed his idea of the exclusive role of
the Prussian state in the progress of humanity. Fichte was the greatest
proponent of the way in which nationalism and the need for
internationalisation becomes transformed into imperialism. But France was no
different. During the decades after the destruction of the French army in
1870, French nationalism reached unseen heights. Charles Morras defined
nationalism as the absolute criterion for every political action. In general
at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th European
nationalism flourished. In the USA at the end of the 19th century, economic
and demographic growth, albeit slower than in Europe also gave rise to a
similar explosion of self-confidence and aspirations for a new role for
America in the world. The idea of an international society, a common feature
of American political thought during this period, was also frequently
proclaimed as a right to domination and even war.
It could also be said that at the beginning of the 20th century
humanity was obsessed by the political paradigm typical of all world
empires: nationalism combined with imperial ambitions. In other words,
internationalisation and globalisation stem from the ambitions of isolated
nationalism and nation states. This was also reflected in the structure of
manufacturing, politics and life in general. Over a thirty-year period,
between 1880 and 1910 the standing armies of the world powers increased
significantly. The Russian army increased from 791,000 to 1,285,000 persons.
The French army increased from 543,000 to 769,000. The Germany army
increased from 426,000 to 694,000 and the British army from 246,000 to
531,000. The army of the Austro-Hungarian empire increased from 246,000 to
425,000. The Japanese army increased from 71,000 to 271,000 and the army of
the United States grew from 34,000 to 127,000[10]. Stockpiles of
weapons and huge amounts of human resources were ammassed in the event of
war, which was soon to break out.
The First World War was the first manifestation of an integrated world,
the first major demonstration of world globalisation. It was proof of the
growing interdependence of countries which did not allow them, apart from
rare exceptions, to stay out of the conflict. Practically the entire world
was sucked into the conflicts of the First World War. From this moment on
the world began to manifest itself as a mutually dependent system developing
within a common cycle. I consider this argument to be of particular
significance and I would like to develop it further.
The First World War linked the majority of the countries within a
common conflict but also formed the beginning of a common economic cycle in
the development of the industrial nations. What other explanation can be
given for the fact that in the 1920's all the major powers witnessed, to a
greater or lesser extent, advances in industrial progress? Taking 1913 as a
basis (100%) the indices of industrial output growth between 1921 and 1928
were as follows: in the USA from 98 to 154.5%; Germany - from 74.7% to
118.3; Great Britain from 55.1 to 95.1%; France - from 61.4 to 134.4; Japan
from 167 - 300%; Italy from 98.4 to 175.2 and the Soviet Union from 23.3 to
143.5[11]. All the developed nations, as though bound by some
common umbilical cord, suffered economic collapse at the beginning of the
1930's. Only those nations such as the USSR who had isolated themselves from
the world economy escaped the crisis. In 1937 Germany succumbed. This common
feature of world economic development also manifested itself after the
Second World War in countries with an open market economy.
Despite certain divergence in terms of the stages of development, it is
clear that after the 1920's the most industrialised nations of the world
began to develop in a more mutually dependent manner. Today at the end of
the century, this mutual dependence has attained unseen levels as expressed
in the indices of the world stock exchanges and in the unconditional mutual
interdependence of exchange rates. During the period between the two world
wars a new global essence began to develop entirely independently of
national governments. This began with the increasing in the level of mutual
interdependence between countries and gradually gained strength from the
growth in new technology, commerce and finance, transport and
communications, culture and science and armaments etc.
Nevertheless, the 20th century witnessed only the birth of the global
world. The global revolution still only exists as a possibility. It will
take many decades to achieve the gradual and problematic development of
global structures within the model of the individual nation states.
Globalisation is a level of international integration at which
interdependence between nations and cultures exists at a planetary level.
Such mutual interdependence is not a matter for one or two or a group of
nations but between each individual state and the world as a whole, between
individual regions of the world, between all nations and cultures
simultaneously.
If upon the emergence of human civilisation, the processes of
integration affected only a number of individual tribes and was localised
and during the Middle Ages it took on regional proportions, then since the
beginning of the 20th century, it has existed within the framework of
mankind as a whole. All countries and peoples are involved in a common
system which is governed in a particular way and on the basis of certain
principles. This system arose spontaneously, via struggles for domination,
wars and violence. One should take into account the difficulties people
encounter in attempting to overcome the boundaries of their own environment,
religion and nation. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the
20th century people were little occupied by thoughts of the world as a whole
or the priorities of universal human interests. Of course, there were a
number of writers and businessmen, Henry Ford was a prime example, who were
exceptions to this rule. However, this was not the case for the large mass
of the active inhabitants of our planet, politicians and the influential
owners of large amounts of wealth.
The culture of the Third Civilisation is above all a culture of
national thought and behaviour and the 20th century will remain entirely
within its dominion notwithstanding the accelerated processes of world
integration. Its militant nationalism and militiary blocs created the first
models of the global world based on violence and conflicts and on the
familiar struggle for national domination which existed in previous
civilisations.
3. THE SEARCH FOR A MODEL FOR THE GLOBAL WORLD
The first model of the global world was the colonial system. It was a
product of the combination of 19th century nationalism and the acceleration
of globalisation. In the middle of the 20thcentury and as a consequence of
the two world wars this modelcollapsed to give way to a two-bloc political
and economic model.
T
he first model of the global world was colonialism. During the second
half of the 19th century the larger nation states, motivated by desires for
empire began gradually to conquer andto divide the world. Geo-politically
the world became integrated through the colonial system for the first time
into a single unity. By achieving pre-eminence in the seas and oceans and
possessing the largest fleet in the world, Great Britain after 1815 turned
its attention to the rapid conquest of territories from Africa to India and
Hong Kong. Over a period of between 50 and 70 years the British managed to
create the greatest colonial empire in the world. From 1815-1865, a further
100,000 square miles was added to the territory of the British Empire.
During this period France was the only other country to attempt to
compete with Great Britain. It was later to be followed by Germany, Belgium,
Italy, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, the USA, Russia and Japan. Starting from
the basis of the nation state and moving towards globalisation, the great
powers of the time began a process of the domination and re-division of the
entire world into a unified world system linked through imperial centres.
As can be seen from table 1, during the last quarter of the 19th
century, the largest colonial powers expanded their territories by almost
200 million head of population and 2.32 million square kilometres of
territory. Between 1900 and the beginning of the First World War this rate
decreased as a result of the satiation of the "colonial market"
Table 1
Size and population of the colonies
(1875-1914)
State
1875
1900
1914
sq.km.
pop.
sq.km.
pop.
sq.km.
pop.
Great Britain
France
Holland
Belgium
Germany
USA
22.5
1.0
2.0
2.3
-
1.5
250
6
25
15
-
[*]
32.7
11.0
2.0
2.3
2.6
1.9
370
50
38
15
12
9
32.7
11.0
2.0
2.4
2.9
1.0
350
54
45
12
13
10
All the most prestigious, accessible and wealthy colonies have been
conquered by the beginning of the twentieth century, resulting in the
establishment of the first model of the emergent global world - the colonial
world.
The colonial system itself gave rise to the second momentous event in
the globalisation of the world. Hardly had the system become firmly
established when it began to give rise to a series of almost irresolvable
world conflicts: the irreconcilable struggle for the re-division of the
world and the First World War in which millions lost their lives. The
resulting radicalisation of public opinion in Russia, Germany and to a large
extent in other parts of the world stimulated the growth in anti-imperialist
attitudes and provided an opportunity for the growth of the radical ideas of
socialist revolution.
These events in themselves gave rise to the second model of the
emergent global world - the model of the two systems which began with the
October revolution in 1917 and continued until 1989-91. Almost the entire
period of the twentieth century passed within conditions of the two opposing
systems and the existence of the bi-polar global model. During this period
the existence of the two systems was explained basically as the opposition
of two ideologies, the ideologies of the rich and the poor, socialism and
capitalism. This was also the view of Marxism-Leninism. After the collapse
of the Eastern European political regimes the existence of the communist
world was presented as an historical mistake, as the consequence of the
profound delusions of huge masses of people and the tyranny of dictatorship
etc.. This was of the view put forward by Z.Bzezinski[12], but I
find these ideas be simplistic and far too easy. In actual fact the
processes were much more complex and contradictory.
During the period of its mutually dependent development, the world
began to subordinate itself to a greater extent to the principle of
equilibrium, a principle which is based on the laws of nature. The lack of
social equilibrium leads sooner or later to serious conflicts and delayed
development. In the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th within the
process of accelerating industrialisation and rising imperialism two global
imbalances formed: the first - between the rich metropolitan countries and
the second - between the rich, ruling classes of the imperialist bourgeoisie
and the enormous masses of the poor proletariate. These large imbalances
were particularly developed in the poorer countries and the countries who
found themselves on the losing side in the First World War. In general
terms, in the 19th century and the first 50-60 years of the twentieth
century, class differences became much more marked and the ensuing class
struggle was a direct consequence.
It was these class conflicts and international disproportions which
gave rise to the radical revolutions in Russia, Germany and Hungary and a
series of other countries between 1917 and 1923. This also goes some way to
explaining the development of dominant political doctrines such as in the
USSR, Italy, Germany and a number of other countries. To take the example of
the USSR, the guiding aim of the Soviet economy in the 1920's and in
particular the 1930's was to overcome its backwardness and to undertake a
programme of rapid, accelerated industrialisation and to create a stable
armaments industry. Its initial ambition to achieve a balance with the rest
of the capitalist world and subsequently to overtake it was the dominant
strategy of Stalin in the 1930's and 1940's. This economic policy, while
defensible, can in no way justify the violence and historical absurdity of
totalitarianism. I am merely attempting to explain its roots. All my
academic research and my direct observations of the Soviet totalitarian
system show that millions of people were aware of the violence of the system
but that they accepted it as something inevitable, as a lesser evil than
poverty and misery. The illusions and the crimes perpetrated during the
regimes of Stalin, Hitler and Mao and the other violent regimes of the 20th
century are indisputable. These crimes were stimulated by the vicissitudes
of history, by the ambition to create an alternative model of social
progress. Are Robespierre or Danton or the British colonisers, or the
Russian conquerors of Central Asia any less culpable?
The deeply rooted reasons for these crimes need to be explained before
they can be resolved. There is no doubt that at the root of Stalin's
violence initially against the rural population and subsequently against the
whole of Soviet society after 1929 lay his ambition to achieve rapid
industrialisation. The strategy of rapid industrialisation and anti-colonial
conflicts in a number of less-developed countries should be viewed as a
reaction against emergent global imbalances. That which was considered by
many to be the struggle of the repressed nations for the freedom of the
proletariate was actually a struggle against economic backwardness, against
imperialism and the monopolies of most developed nations and the struggle
for national supremacy. In the 20th century, the poorer nations had no other
option to defend themselves against colonialism other than to concentrate
their force and might through powerful state structures. Slogans such as the
"welfare of the proletariate", "care for people" were always associated with
the power of the state. Poverty always generates Utopias. Communism was one
of them.
During the first half of the twentieth century the world had continued
to develop on the basis of liberal market doctrines and it persisted in
being a world of rich and poor peoples, metropolises and colonies and
profound class differences. When markets are free but imbalanced, the strong
easily swallow up the weak. Such imbalanced historical development allows
those countries with more rapid development to become dominant. Sooner or
later this was bound to lead to social revolutions. This, I feel, is the
explanation for the division of the world into two opposing blocs as an
alternative to the existing colonial model. After the two world wars and the
economic crisis of 1929-33, the liberal idea underwent a crisis and opened
the way for the radicalisation of the world and its division.
By 1925, two countries had yielded to "state socialism" - the USSR and
Mongolia - with a total population of over 150 million. 25 years later this
political system had spread into more than 20 countries and accounted for
more than half the population of the world. After the victory over Germany
in 1945 the power and the authority of the USSR grew immensely. Under the
auspices of its power the national patriotic forces of a number of countries
threw off the colonial domination of Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal,
Holland and other countries. At the beginning of the 1960's, with certain
exceptions the colonial model ceased to exist and was replaced by the
two-polar model. At the end of the 1950's the two world systems embraced
populations of about 1-1.5 billion people and possessed military parity.
Without achieving full economic parity or high levels of productivity, the
USSR managed to undermine the monopoly of the USA in strategic military
areas. Two basic centres of power became established in the world - Moscow
and Washington accompanied by other satellites with varying degrees of
power.
Since the Second World War the world has witnessed a number of local
conflicts. There have been armed struggles in the Near East, North and
Equatorial Africa, Indo-China, India and Pakistan, Chile, Bolivia, Cuba and
tens of other regions and countries. All these countries were directly or
indirectly linked with the two superpowers and their opposition. On the
other hand the achievement of nuclear parity between the USSR and the USA in
the 1950's brought an end to the trend towards
ultra-imperialism[13] and the possibility of the world becoming
subordinated to a single world power centre. Beneath the nuclear umbrellas
of the two super powers and carefully balanced between them, the countries
of Western Europe, Japan and a number of other Asian and Latin American
countries achieved great success.
I believe the achievement of nuclear parity to be a phenomenon with key
significance for world development. Napoleon with his ambitions for an
empire from "Paris to India" , Hitler with his "World Order" and Stalin with
his aspirations for the "victory of world communism" all longed for a
unified world empire. This was also the view of a number of other
politicians and thinkers who seeing a trend towards world integration and
the expansion of manufacturing came to the conclusion that a future world
would be a world of monopolistic unity, a unified manufactory for workers
and peasants (Lenin), ultra-imperialism (Kautski), permanent revolution
(Trotski) and so on. To this extent the bi-polar model is a higher level of
development than the model of colonial empires. On the other hand, the
bi-polar model is only a stage in the formation of the global world and the
actual peak of the crisis of the Third Civilisation. I defend the thesis
that the two bloc system has to be seen as a transitional stage from the
point of view of the development of the global world and the transition
between the Third and the Fourth Civilisation.
Until the end of the 19th century, researchers analysed world changes
through the prism of national thinking and the nation state. After 1917 and
especially after the Second World War, the main object of research was the
two world systems - socialism (communism) and capitalism, their competition
and the struggle for domination. This was a reflection of the realities in a
world which had overpowered the minds of billions of people. Henceforth,
however, any analysis of the structural changes within the world cannot be
based on the confrontational bi-polar model. Only the global, civilisation
approach is capable of providing the correct response to questions and to
reveal the common and, consequently, the local trends of human development.
4. THE COMMON CRISIS AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD CIVILISATION
The 1970's saw the Suez crisis, the increase in the price of oil
(1973-5) and the end of the Brent Woods system[14]. Everyone
began to speak of the crisis of world capitalism. At the end of the 1980's
everyone began to speak of the crisis of world communism. In actual fact,
the entire world had been overcome by a profound crisis.
T
he ideologues and politicians of the two superpowers always maintained
that the system of their opponents was in crisis. In the communist countries
students attended lectures about the "common crisis of capitalism" while in
the West Kremlinologists talked of the "crisis of world communism". In
1960-2 Nikita Krushchev frequently was heard to say that the "collapse of
the colonial system is an historical victory over imperialism". In 1989-90
the victory of world capitalims over communism was declared. Was this really
the case? I have come to a different conclusion. I believe that the problem
cannot be reduced merely to the collapse of one system and the victory of
another. In actual fact during the second half of the twentieth century, it
was not only the communist system which was in a state of crisis but the
whole of the two bloc political system in the world, the entire structure of
the Third Civilisation. Industrial technologies, nation states and their
alliances, the culture of violence against the individual and nature
suffered serious repercussions.
What was the world like before the 1980's? There were two giant groups
of nations within which 99% of the weapons of mass destruction and 80% of
manufacturing industry were concentrated. Each group was closely connected
with military, political and economic alliances (NATO and the EU, the Warsaw
Pact and COMECON) with common military and economic infrastructures, with
joint institutions and education of personnel. All other countries and
peoples were dependent in some way or another on these groups. It is no
accident that hundreds of local conflicts during this period were waged with
the weapons of one or other of the military blocs and regarded as the
continuation of their undeclared war. On the other hand, the two bloc system
existed in the conditions of continuing integration and the growing
dependence of countries on each other. This was the main reason for the
general trends of world development to enter into contradiction with its
existing structures. The extent of these contradictions was so great that
there are justifiable grounds to speak of the common crisis of the two bloc
system and, in broader terms, the crisis of the entire modern age.
The first cause which lead to this crisis was the character and
structure of world economic growth.
After the Second World War, the global economic product of the Earth
increased four-fold. The total manufactured output of the period between
1950 and 1990 is equal to the growth of production from the beginning of
civilisation to the present day. There had never been such a turbulent
period in the development of the manufacturing powers of humankind.
Humankind had never witnessed such a period of dynamic processes reliant on
mutual cooperation, discoveries, the multiplication of discoveries and their
by-products. The other side of the coin was that such economic growth gave
rise to enormous deformations. The competition between the two super powers
and their allies assisted in the acceleration of progress but also lead to
previously unknown levels of unbalanced growth. In the 1980's the average
national product per head of population in the industrialised countries was
more than 11,000 dollars. In the majority of African countries this figure
was between 250-300 dollars.
While in the most developed countries of the world post-war development
had lead to an enormous abundance of goods and the domination of
consumerism, in the Third World more than 1.9 billion people were suffering
from malnutrition and disease. The level of consumerism in the developed
industrial countries rose to a level 40 to 100 times greater than in the
developing countries. This process of world development gave rise to the
most unexpected paradoxes. The money spent by today by the French on pet
food would be sufficient to feed the starving children of Ethiopia and
Somalia.
The iniquities in world development have increased during the last
couple of decades. Under colonialism, capital was re-directed towards the
poorer countries. After the war, however, it began to move in the opposite
direction. Large investments began to be made in the USA, Western Europe and
Japan. In the 1980's alone, direct investments in the developing countries
fell by about one hundred percent - from 25 billion USD in 1982 to 13
billion in 1987. As a result of this the poorer nations began to rely on
large amounts of credit in order to be able to feed their people, resulting
in the crippling debt burden which exists today. At present the countries of
Latin America owe international creditor banks and a number of governments
more than 400 billion dollars. Over 100 billion are owed by the Eastern
European countries. These statistics are proof not only of enormous
deformations but of the profound crisis which is affecting the foundations
of the world financial system. While the processes of international
integration do not permit the development of a monocentric world, the seven
richest nations of the world and the 300-400 wealthiest banks control the
lives of the majority of humanity via debt management.
On the other hand, the disproportionate economic development resulting
from the mad rush to purchase armaments and conflicts led to the economic
overloading of the two superpowers. As a direct result of the exisiting
two-bloc geo-political structure the USA managed (or some say was obliged)
to amass huge internal debts of more than 4 trillion dollars. In the 1970's
and 1980's the debts of the USSR increase enormously and delayed the rates
of its development.
A second characteristic problem of the two-bloc model of develoment was
the increase in environmental problems. For the entire period of post-war
development, as a result of uncontrolled industrialisation and the blind
faith in political and ideological ambitions the world lost practically one
fifth of its cultivable land, one fifth of its tropical forests and tens of
thousands of species of animal and plant life. During this same period the
level of carbon-monoxide in the atmosphere increased more than ten-fold. The
level of ozone in the stratoshpere has diminished and humanity is faced with
the threat of global warming. Talk is now of a global ecological tragedy.
Even today despite the growth in ecological awareness and "green" movements,
the world environmental crisis is seen as something of secondary
significance as something less important than the struggle for economic
growth, military strategic stability or national domination. Global warming
as a result of the industrial boom has already had serious, possibly
catastrophic, consequences. The reduction of irrigated agricultural land,
the increase in the levels of the oceans, the dessication of entire regions
which produce the majority of the world's grain - these are just a small
part of the possible consequences.
Despite the potential serious consequences for the world the leaders of
the two systems did not want, nor were they able to take any decisive
measures to allocate more funds for the conservation of the environment and
to reduce military expenditure or to pass common legislation to guarantee
the priorities of human needs.
The third and no less important cause of the crisis of the two-bloc
system was the fact that in the 1950's mankind surpassed all logical
extremes of military growth. The cold war and the opposition of the two
world systems lead the two super powers into a ceaseless race for
domination. This contest reached such a level that in the mid 1980's the
USSR and the USA possessed enough nuclear and strategic warheads to destroy
life on earth several times over. The eight most economically powerful
nations on the earth - the USA, USSR, China, the UK, France, West Germany,
Italy and Japan continually and deliberately increased their military
budgets during the entire post-war period.
In 1984, world arms export reached record levels of 75 billion dollars,
several times greater than the amount of money necessary to buy food and
medicines for the hungry and sick in the world and for investment in the
poorer countries. As a result of the opposition of the two blocs in the
1980's between 13 and 15 million people were employed in the arms industry.
In 1987, the global military budget of the world was more than 1 trillion US
dollars. This extreme overarmament lead to the overall deformation of entire
world development and distorted the structure of industrial production. It
caused enourmous deficits in the budgets of the industrialised nations and
created serious pre-conditions for the future of world finance. No less
important was the fact that as a result of the constant increase in arms
production and nuclear weapons in particular, the level of nuclear security
fell to very low levels. The danger of a nuclear Third World War loomed
greater than ever. At the end of the 1980's the two super powers - the USSR
and the USA had over 12 thousand units of nuclear arms - which from the view
point of common humanity was beyond the realms of common sense.
Thus, the deformation of economic development, the world environmental
crisis, the wealth of the North and the poverty and disease of the South,
the demographic booms, overarming - all these factors are the clear symptoms
of a profound crisis. It is true that all these critical phenomena have been
frequently discussed before and that some of the problems which I have
mentioned here have been the subjects of international summit meetings and
research groups but it is also true that they have been looking for
explanations to these phenomena in the wrong places.
In my opinion the most profound reason for the crises in the
environment, manufacturing and population growth can be found in the growing
inadequacy of the entire two-bloc structure of the world. On the one hand,
during this period, following the logic of confrontation and the struggle
for domination, the two super powers, their allies and all the remaining
smaller countries established structures oriented towards the development of
the economic and military power of the bloc to which they belonged. On the
other hand, the inter-bloc and inter-state power-struggle created a
manufacturing capacity which lead to the internationalisation of the world
and caused world problems which until then had been unknown.
The contradiction is manifest. Institutions, politics, propaganda, the
training of personnel, the links between manufacture and defence were
directly dependent on the profound ideologisation of thinking, while the
globalisation of humanity lead to the destruction of the confrontational
structures of the two blocs. In the 1970's and 1980's the bi-polar world
could no longer cope with global and world trends. This contradiction still
exists today notwithstanding the collapse of the two world systems. The
reason was the impossibility of bringing a sudden halt to the inertia of the