The women’s movement has often been divided over the question of
confronting imperialism. There are sectors within the women’s movement that
advocate for sanctions not war and others that claim to support women’s rights
in places targeted by imperialism, advocating for one imperialist policy or
another. Both of these positions, however, ignore the connection between
imperialism and feminism. This issue of Breaking the Chains polemicizes
against those ideas. We establish a popular argument grounded in Marxist theory
for why the women’s movement and feminists must stand in solidarity with the
people of the world who are confronting imperialism. Our approach is based on
our analysis of the balance of forces in the class struggle that wages daily
across the globe; it addresses many of the facets of imperialist war and
policies within this framework. In this issue, we investigated the
environmental impacts of war and domination through the experiences of women in
Vietnam and Puerto Rico. We dug up history on a battle fought by the Vietnamese
resistance against the French at Dien Bien Phu that holds lessons for today’s
struggle. We address the difference between capitalism and socialism in terms
of foreign policy.
This issue also includes: