СВІТ-СИСТЕМА І КОНТРСИСТЕМА: ІСТОРІЯ ПРОТИСТОЯННЯ

Abstract

The main points of the article are that the capitalist world-system emerged in the ear- ly 16th century. In turn, the counter-system began to form in the early 19th century after the French Revolution, but finally took shape as a coherent ideology with the emergence of Marxism in the mid-19th century. Marxism became the basis for the cre- ation of anti-system political structures, such as the First and Second Internationals.However, the world-system was able to assimilate the «oppositional» European social democracy. The response to this was the radicalization of counter-system consciousness and counter-system actions. The first real breakthrough of the counter-system on the world stage occurred in the Russian Empire with the emergence of Bolshevism, which began the complete destruction of the old world order with the help of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and the “world revolution”. After the October Revolution of 1917, a significant part of the planet’s territory fell out of the world-system. Somewhat later, in the first third of the 20th century, in addition to the Marxist doctrinal (Bolshevik) counter-system, there also appeared “situational” (quasi-doctrinal) counter-systems: Italian fascism, German national socialism, and Japanese militarism. They sought not to completely destroy the world-system, but to reformat it “for themselves.” Stalin’s doctrine of “building socialism in one separate country” was a trick; the real strategy was to prepare for a world war as an instrument for destroying the old world-system and creating a new one. In turn, the world-system began to maneuver, setting situational counter-systems against the doctrinal one. Subsequently, it united with the doctrinal counter-system to defeat the situational ones. After World War II, an unstable world order was established, based on the confrontation between the capitalist world-system and the socialist counter-system. This was the meaning of the global “cold war”, which ended in 1991 with the partial collapse of the socialist counter-system (the collapse of the USSR). However, the author argues that the struggle between the two systems did not end in the 1990s. The center of activity of the counter-system shifted even further east.China became the new “hegemon” of the revived counter-system. The CPC leadership did not abandon the Marxist doctrine of building socialism (with Chinese characteristics). It retained the model of total dominance of the Communist Party and the idea of global “revolutionary” messianism. The modern CPC has analyzed the mistakes of the USSR and Mao, modernized the doctrine of revolutionary transformation of the world, using more veiled but decisive approaches (for example, the doctrine of a “community of common destiny” instead of “world revolution”. The world-system (American-centric) is also modernizing, militarizing and “authoritarianizing”, moving away from classical liberal principles. They are waging an exhausting duel, using various means, and the outcome of this struggle is unclear.