 October 6 marks the 44th anniversary of the 1976 coup in Thailand. On that day, over 6,000 policemen and members of right-wing groups attacked a group of lefty student protestors who had occupied the Thammasat University in opposition to the return of a military dictator. Around 100 students were killed in the firing that followed and more than 3000 were arrested and tortured. That evening, the constitutional government was overthrown in a military coup by high-ranking officials and a new authoritarian government was appointed by the king. This was followed by the abolition of the constitution and the imposition of martial law. To this day, no one has been held accountable for the Thammasat University massacre. There is no part of the world that is remained immune from coups. Ruling classes everywhere have deployed violent methods to get rid of those who come to power representing the voice of the people, those who enact radical policies. For imperialism, coups have been one of the major ways of extending its hegemony. From Iran, Guatemala and Congo to Indonesia and Burkina Faso, imperialism is pulled on popular leaders who sought to challenge its stranglehold over the world order. Outright coups, assassinations, military invasions, hybrid war, these and many more tactics have been used relentlessly by imperialist powers to further their agenda. According to studies, there were 81 overt and covert known interventions by the United States in foreign elections during the period 1946 to 2000. But even before that, in 1909, the US overthrew Jose Santos Zelaya of Nicaragua who wanted to create a federal republic of Central America, a project of regional unity. In 1915, US forces invaded Haiti and stayed till 1934. The occupation led to the death of 15,000 to 30,000 people, including Charlemagne Masena Peralte, the leader of the people's resistance. In the aftermath of World War II, the United States intensified its plans for global hegemony. In alliance with ruling classes everywhere, it sought to suppress the advance of communism and the struggles for decolonization. Through financial instruments such as the IMF and the World Bank, and through regional groups such as OAS, NATO, Seattle and the Central Treaty Organization, the US sought to confront the forces demanding liberation. Coups were the key weapon in this attempt. In 1953, a CIA-sponsored coup overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran. In 1954, the US aided the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz. This government had expropriated 200,000 acres of unused land owned by United Fruit, a US company. This led to the CIA launching Operation PB Fortune to overthrow Arbenz. In the absence of any popular support for the coup, the US embassy and the CIA directly used financial resources to gather people. These protesters for hire filled the city with anti-Arbenz slogans, even as army officials were told that a US invasion was imminent, forcing them to join the coup. In 1960, the popular Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba was overthrown with the aid of the United States and Belgium as they feared his radical policies and ties to leftist countries. He was assassinated in 1961, his body dissolved in acid so that it would not become a site of pilgrimage. In 1964, the Indonesian army overthrew popular leader Sukarno. The US had provided the Indonesian army with a list of at least 5,000 communist leaders. Their massacres led to the death of anywhere between 500,000 to 1 million people. In 1973, the US backed coup overthrew Chile's democratically elected President Salvador Allende. In 1970, three years before the coup, US President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had authorized US officials to undermine the government of Allende. Nixon wanted to make the economy screen. The CIA started project FUBELT with 10 million dollars as a first installment to destabilize the country. During the time of the coup, CIA director William Colby authorized at least 8 million dollars to rent crowds in Chile. The money was spent on organizing strikes and protests, which gave the army under Augusto Pinochet the pretext to stage the coup. On October 15, 1987, a bloody coup was organized in Burkina Faso, in which the leftist President Thomas Sankara was ousted and killed. Sankara's policies which were focused on anti-imperialism and nationalization of resources were all reversed. He had strong objections towards obtaining funds from the IMF in the World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform. He had also prioritized education for all and promoted public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles. In Latin America, in cooperation with coup and right-wing regimes, the CIA's Operation Condor, which went on for nearly 20 years, led to the death of nearly 100,000 people and the imprisonment of 500,000. The main targets were communists and human rights activists. The United States has treated Latin America as a laboratory to test its predatory skills and countries run by leftist governments have been the main target. This continues even today. It ranges from Operation Gideon, which happened in May 2020 in Venezuela, to the coup in Bolivia in 2019 after Ivo Morales won the election, to the coup in Honduras in 2009 when President Manuel Zelaya had to flee the country and many more. But across the world, the people have opposed these moves of imperialism. The unbending will of the people has proved time and again that collective might and organization alone can defeat imperialism of all sorts and will continue to do so.