Exclusive Interview with Massimiliano Ay on Multipolarism, Central Asia, and Global Left Cooperation

Dialogue and international cooperation are the antidote to the current times. It is certainly important to seek proposals and solutions also outside the mainstream debate. On this occasion, Cronos.Asia turn to an outstanding observer of international politics, Massimiliano Ay: secretary general of the Communist Party (Switzerland), member of Parliament of the Republic and Canton of Ticino (Swiss Confederation) since 2015, current member of the Parliamentary Commission for Education and Culture of the Republic and Canton of Ticino, chairman of the Commission for Urban Planning, Environment, and Energy of the City of Bellinzona for the current year.

"My party is ready to support all forms of mutual cooperation based on a win-win approach between Switzerland and the nations of Central Asia. Tourism is an area in which we have experience, but we also have expertise in technology, academia, and governance…"

– Dear Secretary… in the spring of this year, the two summits "Europe-Central Asia" and "Italy-Central Asia," held in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan respectively, were followed for several days by the European media as important and potentially strategic events. Since then, there has been almost no mention of Central Asia and the individual countries in the region. How closely do the Swiss media follow Central Asia and/or the five countries that make it up? From your point of view, which aspects arouse the most interest?

– The Swiss mainstream media are not too different from their Western counterparts and must convey an Atlanticist interpretation of events, in which emerging nations, particularly those in Eurasia, must constantly be belittled or, if the conditions are not right for ignoring the news, must be delegitimized.

The Uzbekistan summit in particular was used by Swiss public radio and television to make people believe that China, Turkey, and Russia were at loggerheads, highlighting and emphasizing alleged "differences" between Moscow and Beijing and, of course, demonizing Russia in a completely unilateral manner, as has been the case since 2022.

We are not dealing with analyses of geopolitical and geoeconomic transformations, but exclusively with narratives designed to reassure Western public opinion that – as was explicitly stated in a news report – "there is no common anti-NATO front."
Every single sentence in the news reports is designed to politically orient the population against emerging nations and against Swiss neutrality, given that Switzerland will soon vote on whether to remain neutral or proceed with the ill-fated process of integration into NATO.

In this sense, the nations of Central Asia are virtually non-existent in the Swiss and, more generally, Western media, which overlook their centuries-old cultural heritage and their economic and strategic role in the new global context.

– Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan promote a policy of Central Asian integration at the "internal" level and a multi-vector policy at the "external" level. On the other hand, the region has been and continues to be the subject of strong interest from many countries, particularly the United States, Russia, China, and Turkey. Based on Switzerland's experience, how do you think Central Asia will be able to maintain its real independence from the various and contradictory "external pressures," and what could happen if the "Central Asian system" fails to maintain balance with respect to these dynamics?

– It is difficult to talk about the Swiss experience when, in recent years, our government has been doing everything it can to scrap our neutrality and implement the directives of the EU, the US, and NATO in a shamefully subservient manner. Nevertheless, the Swiss experience that the Communist Party supports is, alongside neutrality (i.e., not joining military alliances such as NATO), the diversification of economic and trading partners, so as not to depend exclusively on a single market.

However, this is true given our unique geopolitical location in the center of Europe, surrounded by NATO and with our main market in the EU: it cannot simply be copied elsewhere.

The multi-vector policy for Central Asia must not become a tool for weakening Eurasian integration and allowing Atlantic capital to infiltrate the region. Where Atlantic imperialism enters with its multinationals, it must be understood that there will be forms of ideological control, especially over young people, and the dismantling of national institutions, leading to so-called "color revolutions" that serve NATO's interests.

Central Asian countries must promote greater cooperation between states by strengthening the rule of law and regulatory predictability. In this sense, the Chinese Communist Party's experience in governance and leadership selection is extremely rich and much more suited to the Asian reality than the now declining European experience.

It must be made clear that a divided Central Asia inevitably becomes dependent on Atlantic neo-colonialism: communist and patriotic forces must therefore be able to coordinate and unite, and governments must understand that the anti-communist policies that still remain are obsolete and constitute a brake on multipolarism.

The cultural wealth that comes from centuries of history and economic wealth, dictated mainly by the presence of energy raw materials, especially in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, should also lead to an increasingly unified and coordinated role for the nations of Central Asia in the international context.

– From your perspective, looking ahead, what are the chances that communist ideas will remain strong and relevant in the world? Or is it perhaps inevitable that ideas will change under the influence of time, globalization, and new technologies?

– Marxism-Leninism is not a dogma: it inevitably changes and adapts to national culture and the existing balance of power between classes. The Chinese experience, for example, represents a significant modernization of communist ideas that deserves to be studied in other countries as well. Today, more than socialism, there is another immediate priority for communists: to consolidate multipolarism and weaken Atlantic imperialism.

The 25th Congress of the Communist Party of Switzerland approved political theses stating the following: "Multipolarism contains imperialism, but our Party has already produced an ideological innovation by affirming that multipolarism is a reality that goes beyond simple geopolitics, radiating into the cultural and institutional superstructure. In short, multipolarism also leads to the overcoming of the neoliberal model and requires greater public intervention."

If communist parties adhere to Marxism-Leninism, adapting it to the new context of confrontation between Atlantic unipolarism and multipolarism, they will have a voice. But if they remain bound to absurd theories according to which Russia and China are as imperialist as the US, they will be destined for irrelevance because they are out of step with the historical era of great change in which we have entered.

Today, however, new technologies and artificial intelligence are making it possible to revive the principle of economic planning that overcomes the chaos of typically neoliberal savage capitalism. China's fifteenth five-year plan shows that only a planned economic policy, even in a context of free expression of productive forces, can overcome poverty and bring about a general improvement in the living conditions of all citizens.

In the 20th century, Central Asian nations experimented with the Soviet model, which, despite its many merits, revealed a number of significant social and economic limitations that led to its demise. However, knowing how to combine economic growth with the guarantee of wealth redistribution, which improves living conditions and leads to the overcoming of inequalities, is the path that many nations in the 21st century, not only China, are following.

This demonstrates the relevance and non-obsolescence of Marxist thought. Economic well-being within a careful and forward-looking plan guarantees citizens the full realization of their social rights: health, education, work, and culture. It is therefore necessary to be able to interpret the needs of each nation and to address them in a targeted and responsible manner.

– Is there any form of mutual support or even cooperation between the Party you represent and the communist parties or movements in Central Asian countries?

– Our Party has excellent relations with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, but relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are unfortunately very limited or even non-existent at present. This applies both to local communist parties (some of which are still forced to operate underground) and to embassies and national institutions.

This is due both to the weak international coordination between communist parties in the former Soviet Union and Western communist parties, but also to repressive policies against communists in these Central Asian countries, which must be overcome as soon as possible: communists are in fact essential as a patriotic force.

If these countries want to emancipate themselves from Atlantic control, avoid "color revolutions," becoming involved in wars (as NATO intends to do) and thus become fully sovereign, they must overcome anti-communism, guarantee space for communist and workers' parties to operate in order to contain the bourgeois elites who are ready to betray their country for immediate short-term profits in the service of NATO.

Only through social cohesion and the unity of all patriotic and anti-Atlanticist political currents can economically and militarily strong independent nations be built: the inclusion of the socialist People's Party of Kazakhstan in the institutions is, in this light, a smart move.

We remain open to forms of collaboration which, within the framework of strengthening national independence, could see us working with Central Asian nations and with patriotic and Marxist political forces that wish to interact with us.

– What projects (social, media, vocational training, tourism, commercial, etc.) do you think should be promoted between Switzerland and Central Asia (or with one of its countries in particular) at the institutional level or even between the party you represent and similar parties in Central Asia?

– My party is ready to support all forms of mutual cooperation based on a win-win approach between Switzerland and the nations of Central Asia. Tourism is an area in which we have experience, but we also have expertise in technology, academia, and governance. Switzerland has a strong reputation in mediation, the protection of linguistic minorities, federalist governance and legal certainty, which is also useful for supporting investment etc.

These issues are also central to Central Asian stability, but it must also be made clear that the Swiss government has a mission to spread liberal thinking abroad: we must therefore have the ideological antibodies that derive from patriotism but also from the Marxist tradition, because we must be aware that Western liberalism will not be the ideology of the multipolar future, as the emancipation of Central Asia cannot be based on individualistic concepts that are not anchored in community and social cohesion, as in Europe and the US.

We, as the Communist Party of Switzerland, already support academic cooperation with China and could envisage promoting partnerships between Swiss and Central Asian universities with exchanges of teachers, students, and joint research projects.

Автор: Пьетро Фиокки // специально для Cronos.Asia