Following the all but universal principle that "action and reaction tend to be equal and opposite," subjugated, occupied peoples revolt against "foreign" occupation and exploitation. Again western civilization is no exception, as the movements for independence and self-determination that followed the 1946 post-war collapse of the European empires clearly showed.
Reaction against western civilization went beyond revolt to include the rejection of the obsolete concepts, forms and practices inherent in civilization. Rejection has been accompanied and followed by proposals for replacing civilization by concepts, forms and practices more in keeping with the social relations and situations resulting from the current world revolution.
Most reforms of civilization have been attempted during the life of western civilization because during that era both the structure and functioning of civilization have been called into question. In no civilization (Egypt, Rome or the modern West) have the essential principles of civilization been seriously modified. Again and again, during the times of trouble that marked the breakdown of successive civilizations, particular institutions were rejected but civilization as a way of life has been accepted and re-established in the course of each new cycle.
During previous cycles the breakdown of a civilization had been followed by a period of rest and recuperation before the beginning of the next experiment. The breakdown of western civilization, a negative reaction, has been accompanied by a planet-wide drive to replace the concepts, forms and practices of civilization by the concepts, forms and practices of socialism-communism.
Socialism-communism as a way of life for nations and continents is a new experiment on the planet earth. Heretofore there have been small groups--families, tribes and sects--that have adopted and followed cooperation as a way of life, but widespread planned cooperation on a national or continental scale is a novelty.
As a result of these changes, conflict-torn and fragmenting western civilization found itself divided into three factional groups:
I. Corporate business organized domestically and internationally to preserve and extend its wealth and power. Big business interests, their dependents and backers were concentrated chiefly in West Europe and North America. Their network of interests and controls was planet-wide. Literally they were the backbone of western civilization.