The third path against false binary of alternatives

By Shadab Murtaza

In the analysis of contemporary struggles against oppression and exploitation, a recurring pattern emerges particularly on social media spaces in which debates are often artificially reduced to a false binary. On one side is the defense of local ruling elites and bourgeois governments; on the other is the endorsement of imperialist intervention and externally imposed regime change. This framing not only distorts the reality of class struggle but also sidelines the independent agency of the working class, presenting it as if it has no alternative but to choose between two forms of subjugation.

The only viable path lies neither in calling for imperialist intervention nor in defending domestic bourgeois governments, but in the independent struggle of the working class against both.

In the case of Iran, for example, some sections dismiss emerging popular movements as merely an American imperialist conspiracy for regime change or notorious "color revolution" and consequently call for supporting and defending the authoritarian state of the capitalist clerical elite. Others, conversely, call for U.S. intervention and regime change, or at least harbour such sentiment, as a solution to the crisis created by the clerical regime. In both cases, the struggle of the people of Iran is artificially confined to a narrow binary: either defend a capitalist clerical dictatorship, or face the U.S.-imposed regime change.

A similar dynamic appears about Venezuela, where the interests of the working class are again subordinated to competing capitalist alternatives. Either the government led by the United Socialist Party (PSUV) is defended, or the imposition of a new bourgeois government subordinate to U.S. imperialism is presented as salvation. In both scenarios, the class character of the state and the exploitative social relations underpinning it remain intact.

The same pattern was evident during the popular uprising in Bangladesh, when the debate was reduced to defending Sheikh Hasina’s capitalist authoritarian government or supporting a new transitional capitalist arrangement. Both sides ignore the fundamental truth: a capitalist state—whether locally rooted or imposed by imperialist—cannot serve as an instrument of working-class emancipation.

Across these struggles, not only right-wing forces but also segments of the left insist that the working masses face only two options: submission to imperialist intervention, or defense of the local capitalist government and its state apparatus.

The Communist Left categorically rejects this manufactured opposition.

For it, the so-called “third path” is neither a vague moral aspiration nor an abstract slogan. It represents the independent and self-directed class struggle of the working class, waged simultaneously against domestic capitalism and global imperialism. This struggle remains weak and fragmented until it is grounded in a clear revolutionary program, developed class consciousness, and the independent political organization of the working class—in other words, a revolutionary communist party.

The present numerical or organizational weakness of this revolutionary tendency cannot justify capitulation to imperialism or ideological alignment with local capitalist regimes. The correct response is to strengthen the independent, autonomous, and international revolutionary struggle of the working class. Only this path leads to genuine liberation from capitalism, domestic and foreign, and the capitalist state itself.

Shadab Murtaza is a Communist political activist of Marxist-Leninist tradition living in Pakistan. He has been a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan and Pakistan Mazdoor Kissan Party (Workers-Peasants Party). He writes on issues and questions related to national and international Communist politics.