In 1990, as party delegates of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) met to discuss their groundbreaking resolution “U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War,” events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union rapidly overtook the deliberations. One after another, Stalinist regimes that had governed workers and farmers under bureaucratic dictatorship began to crumble. Berliners tore down the wall separating East and West. Warsaw Pact armies withdrew. Communist Party apparatuses lost their hold on power. Across Budapest, Prague, Bucharest, and Moscow, citizens confronted a moment of profound political upheaval.
Even as U.S. policymakers celebrated “the end of history,” Stalin’s bureaucratic regimes were collapsing under popular pressure, revealing deep-seated contradictions in the global capitalist and Stalinist systems alike. In the streets of Leipzig, hundreds of thousands chanted for reform; in Moscow’s Red Square, citizens pressed for political pluralism. The swift disintegration of what had been hailed as a monolithic socialist bloc demonstrated that bureaucratic party apparatuses, once perceived as unbreakable, were in fact vulnerable to mass workers’ action.
Gulf War and Balkan Wars Reveal U.S. Overreach
While the SWP branches debated the global significance of these historic shifts, Washington unleashed its military might on Iraq. In August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, prompting a U.S.-led coalition to launch Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Over six weeks, coalition airpower devastated Iraqi infrastructure; in a 100-hour ground offensive, U.S. tanks and soldiers routed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. The death toll for Iraqi military personnel and civilians reached tens of thousands, perhaps as many as 150,000.
Despite the swift battlefield victory, U.S. rulers failed to secure a lasting protectorate in Baghdad. Sanctions weakened Iraq’s economy, but Saddam remained in power. Instead of cementing uncontested U.S. influence across the Middle East, the Gulf War exposed fissures within the so-called “grand coalition.” France and Germany, still reeling from reunification costs, questioned Washington’s budgetary demands. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies supported air strikes yet did not permit U.S. ground forces to encamp permanently on their soil. Even within the U.S. Senate, opposition arose over reconstruction funding.
Just months later, fragmentation in Europe flared into outright conflict. Yugoslavia, a multiethnic federation cobbled together after World War II, began to unravel. In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence; within weeks, secessionist clashes escalated into full-scale war in Croatia. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, ethnic tensions between Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats ignited a brutal struggle that would last until late 1995. The specter of genocide in Bosnia signaled to Washington that its Cold War victory had not eliminated the potential for armed conflict in Europe.
As European capitals—Paris, London, Bonn—argued over arms shipments and diplomatic recognition, the U.S. stepped in as self-proclaimed “peacemaker.” In November 1994, NATO initiated air strikes against Bosnian Serb positions under Operation Deny Flight, eventually leading to the Dayton Peace Accords in December 1995. By deploying its NATO allies’ airpower, the United States asserted itself as the preeminent military force on the continent.
Washington’s NATO Expansion and Growing Imperialist Strain
The years following the Yugoslav wars underscored how NATO’s enlargement deepened tensions with Russia and further strained relations among Western powers. In 1999, NATO admitted Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic—former Warsaw Pact members—into the alliance. Moscow interpreted this as a direct threat to its security interests. Meanwhile, France and Germany hesitated to commit forces to intervene in the Balkans until U.S. diplomatic pressure made possible the eventual peace agreement.
By 2004, NATO’s eastward expansion included the Baltic states and several Balkan countries, further cementing Washington’s role as Europe’s dominant external power. Germany raised objections to U.S. calls for missile defense installations in Poland, while France under President Jacques Chirac sought to carve out a more “European-centered” defense policy. Italy, increasingly frustrated by U.S. demands to host bases, joined in expressing concerns over U.S. preeminence.
Rather than ushering in a harmonious “new world order,” these developments provoked renewed inter-imperialist rivalries. Germany viewed NATO expansion as both a security guarantee and an opportunity to solidify European Union power; Russia decried it as Western encirclement. Even within NATO, budgetary quarrels raged: U.S. defense spending soared above 3.5 percent of GDP, while most European members hovered near 1.5 percent. Eastern European states, reliant on U.S. subsidies, became battlegrounds for competing missile and radar systems.
U.S. Hegemony Undermined by Interimperialist Conflicts
Barnes and Waters insist that the Gulf War and Balkan interventions exposed U.S. limitations. Despite fielding the most advanced military machine in history, Washington could not impose lasting political control over Iraq or the former Yugoslavia. In the authors’ view, a genuine “victor” of World War II was not the United States, but the working class—especially Soviet workers—whose collective resistance shattered Hitler’s Eastern Front and forged the social-democratic postwar order in Western Europe. The authors argue that U.S. finance capital emerged materially ascendant, but politically weakened by the growing power of organized labor, welfare-state reforms, and labor-led revolutions in far-flung colonies.
The resolution underscores how, in the immediate postwar period, working-class struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America compelled European powers to relinquish colonies and concede national independence, thereby ejecting European imperialism from much of the globe. American corporate interests supplanting British and French domination in former colonies did not translate into an unhindered U.S. hegemony. Rather, it triggered new revolts—Vietnam, Algeria, Angola—that bled U.S. power and forced gradual retrenchment.
Collapse of Stalinist Parties and the Opening for Revolutionary Forces
For decades, Stalinist parties—aligned with the Soviet bureaucracy—operated as “roadblocks” to genuine working-class revolutionary movements. In many countries, Communist parties commanded mass memberships, controlled trade unions, and wielded significant influence over left-leaning intellectual circles. Their rigid, top-down structures often subordinated workers’ demands to Soviet foreign policy.
With the disintegration of Soviet-aligned regimes in 1989–91, the Stalinist parties lost their material base (state sponsorship) and ideological legitimacy. Millions of militants—once drawn by promises of “socialism”—found themselves adrift. According to Barnes and Waters, this opened a шанс for Trotskyist and genuine Marxist organizations to reclaim class struggle from bureaucratic distortions. The authors contend that the demise of Stalinist roadblocks removed illusions that “workers’ states” under bureaucratic rule represented genuine proletarian political power.
They further claim that the “Popular Front” alliances of the 1930s—where Communist parties collaborated with capitalist liberal forces—had long diluted revolutionary momentum in favor of reformist compromises. The post–Cold War era, freed from this bureaucratic juggernaut, could now see the emergence of new revolutionary vanguards anchored firmly in working-class rank-and-file struggle.
Contemporary Implications: Renewed Working-Class Prospects
According to the SWP resolution, the collapse of Stalinism and the unraveling of U.S. “unipolarity” combine to strengthen the objective conditions for international working-class advance. Rampant inequality, repeated financial crises, and recurring imperialist wars have further alienated masses from capitalist institutions. Across Europe and North America, labor strikes—in transportation, healthcare, and education—have surged since the Great Recession of 2008. Bioengineering and gig-economy precariousness have intensified class resentments, fueling protests in Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, and beyond.
Within this context, Barnes and Waters call on SWP branches, Young Socialist Alliance chapters, and allied organizations globally to intensify campaigns against war and austerity. In the United States, they highlight the need to mobilize workers around immediate demands: union rights, affordable housing, immigrant protection, and Medicare expansion. Internationally, they advocate solidarity with anti-imperialist struggles—from Afghanistan to West Papua—contending that these struggles weaken capitalist blocs and encourage cross-border labor cooperation.
The authors caution, however, that the absence of Stalinist party “guidance” does not guarantee a sudden revolution. New bureaucratic impediments have surfaced—non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with ballooning budgets tied to Western funding; reformist “left” coalitions that favor parliamentary accommodation over mass struggle; and social media echo chambers that promote identity politics at the expense of class unity. Addressing these new roadblocks requires political education, rank-and-file unionizing, and a recommitment to Marxism as a science of working-class emancipation rather than a nostalgic memory of 20th-century Soviet states.
Interimperialist Conflicts on the Horizon
The SWP resolution warns that continuing rivalries among U.S., European, Russian, and rising Chinese capitalism presage new proxy wars and contested zones. Just as the 1990s Balkan conflicts unfolded in the vacuum left by the Soviet collapse, the authors foresee Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine as modern battlefields where great-power interests converge. The recent return of Russian troops into Syria (2015), the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and intensifying U.S.–China competition in the South China Sea illustrate how the post–Cold War era is, in reality, an era of ongoing imperialist confrontation.
The authors highlight that any new global conflict is likely to be “interimperialist”—not a simple stand-off between the U.S. and Russia, but a multipolar contest involving NATO, the European Union, China, India, and regional powers. Each side will vie for strategic resources, market access, and military bases, positioning local conflicts as proxies for broader geopolitical ambitions. In these conditions, they assert, it is all the more vital for workers to form international rank-and-file networks—ensuring that foreign policy debates remain rooted in working-class interests rather than national chauvinism.
Historical Lessons and the Path Forward
Barnes and Waters repeatedly emphasize historical perspective. They remind readers that World War II was neither simply a victory for capitalism nor for Stalin’s bureaucracy alone, but a moment when the international working class played a decisive role in defeating fascism. The Soviet Union’s labor collectivizations and military-industrial mobilization were integral, but so were resistance movements in German-occupied France, partisan guerrillas in Yugoslavia, and labor strikes in British factories. These collective efforts laid the groundwork for postwar social-democratic reforms and decolonization.
Looking ahead, the SWP resolution argues that struggling for socialism today must build on this legacy: recognizing that workers can pivot the balance of forces through sustained, global solidarity. They reject illusions that any capitalist power—U.S., China, or EU—will voluntarily cede primacy or address deepening inequality. Instead, they propose building revolutionary party structures across borders, anchored in factory, service-sector, and farm-labor struggles.
Practical Tasks for Revolutionary Organizers
- Anti-War Mobilization: Organize protests and labor coalitions to oppose U.S. interventions in the Middle East, proxy wars in Africa, and sanctions against sanctioned states. Link immediate demands (no bases, no military funding) to broader calls for socialist transformation.
- Trade Union Rank-and-File Committees: Challenge top-down union bureaucracies by forming shop-floor committees that fight for contract enforcement, defend immigrant workers, and oppose austerity measures.
- International Solidarity Networks: Form alliances with workers’ organizations in countries devastated by imperialist conflict—Ukraine, Yemen, Congo—to provide material aid and share organizing strategies.
- Political Education Campaigns: Publish bulletins, hold study groups, and use social media to spread Marxist analyses of interimperialist crises—countering nationalist or identity-based distortions that fracture working-class unity.
- Youth Engagement: At high schools and universities, recruit young activists disillusioned by neoliberalism and climate catastrophe. Offer clear messaging: socialism, grounded in workers’ power, offers the only genuine alternative to militarized capitalism.
Conclusion: Seizing the Opportunity
Nearly thirty-five years after the original resolution, Barnes and Waters insist that the onset of the twenty-first century has only deepened the contradictions that their 1990 text described. Imperialist wars range from Gaza to the Horn of Africa; economic crises stoke mass dissatisfaction; authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, and Brazil menace democratic rights; and global inequality has reached unprecedented extremes. In this environment, many remain convinced that history ended with capitalist globalization.
However, the SWP’s perspective is that workers and farmers around the world still retain the power to shape events—especially now that Stalinist bureaucracies no longer divert them toward false “socialist” loyalties. By reframing the “loss” of the Cold War as an opportunity rather than a defeat, Barnes and Waters argue that an era of intensifying imperialist conflict can also become an era of reinvigorated international working-class struggle.
