Declaration of the International Communist Seminar
Brussels, 4 May 2003 – 4 May 2004
The war of aggression on Iraq, which was launched on 20 March 2003 by the US
and British imperialists, will mark history. This aggression was the continuation
of the first US war against Iraq in 1991, followed by a twelve years’ embargo
that made one and a half million victims.
These two aggressions against Iraq happened in the aftermath of the counter-revolutionary
events that took place in the Soviet Union, under Gorbachev, in 1989-91. This
counter-revolution has indeed changed the world balance of powers to the advantage
of imperialism and mainly of US imperialism.
With the aggression against Iraq in 2003, US imperialism blatantly violated
the system the entire international legal system established after the victory
of the world coalition against German, Italian and Japanese fascism. The current
Charter of the United Nations is to a large part the product of the victory
of the Soviet Union over the bulk of the fascist troops. Thanks to this victory,
the USSR was able to make include in the UN Charter the principles of respect
for the national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all
member countries.
Now that the great Soviet Union has been completely destroyed, the savagery
inherent in the imperialist system is being imposed again on the whole world.
Washington first tore up the UN Charter and international legality with its
flagrant war of aggression against Yugoslavia. With its war of aggression on
Iraq in 2003, flouting international law, the US has exposed itself at the start
of the 21st century as the real outlaw state, the real rogue state.
Hitler left the League of Nations in 1934 in order to get his hands free
for his wars of conquest… and Richard Perle, Bush’s ideologist, said during
the aggression on Iraq that he would like to see the demise of the UN.
The attack of September 11, 2001 served as a pretext for the extreme Right
in the US to apply militarist plans on a world scale, that had been elaborated
for years already. On September 20, 2001, Bush said: "Americans should not
expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. (…)
Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with
us, or you are with the terrorists."
Bush demands the submission of all countries in the world, with only
two options: being on the side of US hegemonism and submit to it, or defending
the UN Charter and international law riks to be classified as terrorist or as
a sympathiser of terrorism.
The wars of aggression against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq can be
considered as the first salvos of the third world war for which the United States
is preparing itself. Fidel Castro, speaking on May Day 2003, declared that Bush
has developed "a global military dictatorship imposed through brutal force,
without international laws or institutions of any kind. ( …) The world is coming
under the rule of Nazi concepts and methods. "
The aggression against Iraq has indeed worldwide consequences. The US wages
this war for the purpose of establishing a US monopoly over the Iraqi oil, obtaining
a key position in the OPEC so as to be able to determine the price of oil, and
to exercise control over their European and Japanese allies.
The preceding US wars of aggression against Yugoslavia and Afghanistan
had the objective of enabling the US to get its hands on the enormous Caspian
and Central Asian oil and mineral reserves. These two wars clearly announced
the hostile intentions of the US vis-à-vis Russia.
The war against Iraq, as indeed that against Afghanistan, was equally
aimed at denying China access to the oil of the Middle East and of Central Asia.
It are already preparations for a US war against the People’s Republic of China.
From the counter-revolution to a new upsurge of revolutionary struggles
Since the counter-revolution of 1989-90, the world has greatly changed.
The elimination of socialism in the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern
Europe has enabled the imperialist powers and in particular US imperialism to
set off a wave of violent reaction throughout the world: the first Iraq war,
the war against Somalia, the various reactionary wars in the countries of the
former Soviet Union, the division of Yugoslavia by violence and the wars among
the resulting states, the war against Afghanistan and the military occupation
of that country and the second terrorist war against Iraq, unleashed in 2003.Then
the US announced its determination to never tolerate the emergence of a power
that would be able to become a US rival.
But today, there is a new upsurge of anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces.
On May 1st, 2003, Bush celebrated his complete victory over
what he called "the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein". He already saw
his armed forces operate against Syria and Iran.
But on May 1st, 2004, the spectre of Vietnam is haunting the
US. In Iraq, the United States is faced with a genuine people’s war of the heroic
Iraqi masses that are shedding their blood for independence and democracy.
Iraq joins the heroic combat of the Palestinian people, as the vanguard
of the struggle of the Third World’s peoples against US hegemonism. In Afghanistan,
Nato controls a few cities, but the rest of the country is controlled of the
anti-US resistance.
An unprecedented wave of hate against US imperialism is raging in the
entire Middle East. Never has the US been met with such hostility from the part
of the peoples of the entire world.
The anti-war movement is not weakening in the US, Spain, Italy or South
Korea.
In occupied Iraq, the US-led coalition gets shattered at the pace that allied soldiers are falling. US military analysts affirm that "combat-ready troops count 400,000 men in active service and 500,000 reservists. A four to five years’ occupation of Iraq would mobilise 260,000 regular troops and 315,000 reservists. Which means 65% of our Army." Foreign Affairs writes: "Iraq is beyond our possibilities, we have reached our limits."
In 2003, US imperialism uttered immediate threats against the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea and the Republic of Cuba. In 2004, the US has learned that
it will be impossible to execute their threats in the near future.
It would be difficult for the US to extend its wars of aggression to
other continents without having firmly established its control over Latin America
first. State Secretary Colin Powell has declared: "Through ALCA, we
search to obtain that US enterprises establish their control from the North
Pole to Antarctica." The US also wants to impose the Plan
Colombia and similar regional plans in order to establish military bases and
constitute a multinational army submitted to the US, with the aim of combatting
the Colombian guerilla. Its first phase is already being implemented.But things
don’t develop the way the US wanted to. To the contrary. The Plan Colombia is
being met with generalized resistance in Latin America.
The CIA and the pro-US forces have not been able to overthrow the elected
nationalist president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The April 2002 CIA-instigated
coup attempt was foiled by a popular mobilization, as was the sabotage undertaken
by the bosses of the oil industry. The revolutionary popular movement has taken
on an ever broader character and is preparing itself for armed defense against
new conspiracies. The people of Venezuela want genuine people’s power and a
State of a new type.
In October 2003, the pro-US president of Bolivar, Gonzalo Sanchez, had
to hastily flee his country after prolonged demonstrations. Several South American
countries have chosen democratic and nationalist presidents, like Luis Ignacio
da Silva (Lula) in Brazil, Nicanor Duarte in Paraguay, Nestor Kirschen in Argentina.
And all these countries have strengthened their ties with Cuba…
From economic crisis to the danger of a new world war
The last twenty years we have witnessed gigantic waves of capital concentration
on a world scale. Currently, a dozen of multinationals control the most sectors
of the world economy. Everywhere they intensify exploitation and reduce the
number of workers, while drastically increasing productivity and their profits.
Overproduction has become a generalised phenomenon.
The world’s two hundred main multinationals represent 25% of the world’s
manufacturing value. A few thousands of multinationals own the major part of
the means of production of the capitalist world and make them work for the only
purpose of realising a maximum of profits for the shareholders. The vast majority
of the world population is kept outside of modern industrial production and
survives in misery, while the workers are overexploited and underpaid. All these
express the fundamental and insoluble contradiction of the capitalist system:
the contradiction between the apparently limitless productivity on one hand,
and stagnating markets, chronic under-production (or over-capacity) and unemployment
on the other; the contradiction between the social character of the productive
forces and the private ownership of the means of production.
This contradiction unavoidably leads to crises, which shake the foundations
of the imperialist system and to ever more destructive wars. This contradiction
places a tiny minority, which owns and controls gigantic means of production,
in an irreconcilable opposition with the overwhelming majority of the more than
six billion people living on this planet.
In spite of all its "gains", achieved thanks to neoliberal globalisation,
the United States is confronted with the biggest crisis of its entire history.
It has a global debt (internal and external) of 35,000 billion dollar, more
than three times its Gross Domestic Product. Their shares in the stock exchange
remain over-valued, and new crashes are inevitable. The ratio between the average
profit and the average price of a share (the so-called earnings price ratio)
was 2.95% in 2001, compared with 13.46% in 1979. The US economy is virtually
bankrupt.
The US has to continuously and increasingly spend foreign capital to
finance its deficit. The foreign debt of the US is as high as 3,200 billion
dollar, or 30% of its Gross National Product. It is still on the rise. While
this necessitates an ever-larger injection with foreign capital, the contrary
is taking place. The foreign direct investments (FDI) declined from 300 billion
dollar in 2000 to less than 50 billion dollar in 2003.
The downward slide of the value of the dollar compared to the Euro can
only discourage more foreign investments in the US. How long will the foreign
investors still accept to finance the US deficit? If they would massively withdraw
their stocks, an unprecedented crisis would hit the US.
The Euro is challenging the position of the US dollar as the only international
reserve currency. A transfer to the Euro of a significant part of the current
world reserves held in dollars would provoke an economic earthquake. The same
holds true if a major part of the US currency used in the oil trade would shift
to the Euro.
By 2010, the 10 ASEAN member states (South East Asia) plus China, Japan
and South Korea (ASEAN + 3) are bound to become the biggest common market on
the planet. This would constitute a hard blow on the US economy.
The laws inherent to monopoly capitalism inexorably push the United States
towards war on a world scale. In twenty years of neoliberal globalisation, almost
all the short-term cures to the crisis have run out. The Third World is groaning
under the burden of 2,500 billion dollar in debts. Privatisation has allowed
multinationals to take over most of the wealth and enterprises of the Third
World and of the other dominated countries. They have also taken over most of
the world’s markets, thanks to economic liberalisation. The globalisation of
the economic dominance of the multinationals has led to a global gridlock.
The Bush team came to power without being elected in a regular way, thanks
to a "coup" instigated by the war multinationals, namely those in
the oil, armaments and aeronautical industries. These three monopoly blocs are
intent on a policy of global war.
The US superpower now places its bets mainly on the "military globalisation",
on its overwhelming military superiority, in order to save its multinationals
from an imminent global crisis, and this at the expense of the entire world.
The US multinationals today take the only way left to capitalism when
confronted with an insoluble economic crisis: the road to world war, boosting
the economy through massive arms production, and with the purpose of crushing
their rivals and grabbing sources of raw materials and markets…
Let us fight US preparations for a new world war
With Bush Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Armitage, the most reactionary,
repressive, expansionist and bellicose section of the US bourgeoisie has taken
power. The US has resumed its march on the road of fascism and aggression on
a world scale, as it did in 1948-53.
The German bourgeoisie resorted to fascism in order to smash the powerful
communist and revolutionary movement, to conquer the Soviet Union and to fight
stronger imperialist rivals like Great Britain, France and the United States.
Today, the US is the sole hegemonic power, with armed presence all over the
world. Bush is committed to an international policy of a fascist type in order
to reinforce his already established world hegemony and to militarily fight
any potential rival on any continent.
In the field of domestic policy, Bush is attacking all democratic rights
that could hamper his world-scale war policy. In the United States, for the
first time in history, a special ministry centralises all aspects of "internal
defence", that is to say the entire apparatus of repression. The Homeland
Security Office will have 170,000 employees and a budget of 37 billion dollar.
Its employees won’t have any trade union rights.
An American analyst wrote: "Since the Bush Administration came
to power it has (…) been heading towards a Presidential dictatorship, whereby
the waging of war abroad is accompanied by internal repression and attacks on
democratic and civil rights at home. We have seen nothing like these new laws
since Nazi Germany. (…) The Homeland Security Bill gives the President complete
dictatorial powers: he is able to make any decision he wishes without judicial
or legislative restraint. The executive branch can now carry on its meetings
in secret, without scrutiny from the press or the people."
Non-Americans, who are "suspected" of being terrorists
or even just of supporting terrorists, can be judged before secret military
courts. Their judgement can not be reviewed by other tribunals.
The Patriot Act justifies the use of torture against any person suspected
of having knowledge of terrorist activities! The United States has publicly
acknowledged torturing suspects it has transferred from Afghanistan to the occupied
Cuban territory of Guantanamo.
To save US capitalism from the grave crisis it is going through, Bush has resolutely
opted for a policy of US domination over the entire planet and for preparations
for war on a world scale. Paul Wolfowitz, currently Assistant Secretary of Defence,
wrote already in 1992, right after the counter-revolution in Soviet Union:
"The United States will use its unrivalled military power to manage the global
order, if necessary unilaterally and pre-emptively. (…) Our first objective
is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration
underlying the new regional defence strategy and requires that we endeavour
to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would,
under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions
include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union
and Southwest Asia."
In other words: the European Union, Russia, China, India and Japan
are potential enemies, which may suffer "pre-emptive wars" from the
US. The US is very concerned about the fact that Russia is selling advanced
weaponry to China, and that Russia is developing its relations with the countries
in Asia, such as China, India, Japan and the ASEAN countries.
The US want to introduce, in one way or another, its armed forces in about
a hundred countries, under the pretext of "fighting terrorism", but
in reality to make the necessary preparations for the third world war. Bush
declared on June 1, 2002 at the military academy of West Point: "Our
security will require a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's
notice in any dark corner of the world. And our security will require all Americans
to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for pre-emptive action when
necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives… We must uncover terror
cells in 60 or more countries."
The wars against Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan had as objective,
among others, to create a network of military bases. Acquiring bases is one
of the essential features in the preparation of a world war. Bush declared in
December 2002, in "The National Security Strategy": "The United
States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and
Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance
deployment of U.S. forces. Before the war in Afghanistan, that area was low
on the list of major planning contingencies. We must prepare for more such deployments".
Asia, with two powers having the potential to stand firm against
US hegemonism, namely China and India, is the privileged target of US imperialism.
Serious difficulties stand in the way of the US in waging major wars of aggression
there: the large distances, the lack of a sufficient number of US military bases
and of infrastructure in the region. For this reason, US imperialists are doing
their utmost to get back their military bases in the Philippines, which they
had to abandon in the past. This explains why US imperialism categorises the
Communist Party of the Philippines, which is struggling for the genuine independence
of the country, as a ‘terrorist entity’.
In order to block the US war preparations and to preserve world peace,
the people of the world demand the withdrawal of the US occupation troops from
the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, the dissolution of NATO and the dismantling
of all US military bases abroad.
To fight the preparations of a world war, all communist, revolutionary and
democratic forces must commit themselves to the defence of the two countries
that are among the most threatened: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
and the Republic of Cuba.
Since the end of the war in 1953, Korea lives under an armistice regime.
There has never been a peace agreement. The overwhelming majority of the Korean
people, in the South as well as in the North, demand the conclusion of a peace
agreement and of a non-aggression pact, the closure of the US bases, the denuclearisation
of the whole peninsula and the peaceful reunification of Korea. Preventing the
aggression against the DPRK is essential to save world peace: if Korea were
to be occupied, US hegemonism would start its war preparations against China.
Cuba, that has reduced the infant mortality rate from 60 for every 1,000
live births to 6 per 1,000, and that has increased life expectancy with 15 years
on average, has been qualified by Bush as one of the countries sponsoring "terrorism"!
However, since 1960, it is Cuba that suffered 700 terrorist attacks from US
imperialism, attacks that caused 3,478 deaths and disabled 2,099 more people.
When Cuba takes measures of legitimate defence against the plans of aggression
the hegemonic power is so clearly showing, the latter undertakes a new operation
of political war, accusing Cuba of violating "human rights". This
way, "human rights" has become yet another psychological weapon of
the United States to prepare its wars of aggression.
To defend Cuba is to defend the flame of independence, anti-imperialism
and socialism, which Cuba represents for the whole Latin-American continent
and for the entire world. To defend Cuba is to defend the principle of self-determination.
It is opposing US intervention in Venezuela. Venezuela proposes to put up a
Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which is diametrically opposed
to the project of economic recolonisation of Latin America by the US, that goes
by the name of Free Trade Area of the Americas or ALCA.
In the framework of its preparations for a third world war, US imperialism
is waging offensives to take over the huge mineral resources of Africa. The
war of aggression against the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which the US
has engaged its Rwandan and Ugandan subcontractors, has cost more than 4,000,000
lives. At stake is the fabulous wealth of the Congoles subsoil: the cobalt,
coltan, copper, diamond, gold, uranium, etc. but als the immense hydro-electrical
potential, the inexhaustible reserves of water and the petroleum reserves of
this huge country.
The United States wants to control the petroleum of West and Central
Africa, and it intends to build a large military basis on the island of Sao
Tome. In ten years’ time, 25% of US oil will come from West Africa, thus becoming
its first source of petroleum. The fight for the complete independence of Africa
is at the same time a fight for peace and against the US policy of world domination
and world war.
We affirm our solidarity with the popular masses in the United States,
who are themselves victims of monopoly capitalist exploitation, social backwardness
and repression. We affirm our solidarity with all the democratic and anti-imperialist
forces in the United States, and particularly with all anti-war forces of all
communities who denounce and fight the politics of world domination of the Bush
administration.
US hegemonism and European imperialism: sharpening of the contradictions
The contradictions between the United States and the European Union have intensified
over the past few years. The European Union (EU) now constitutes an imperialist
bloc which can compete with the United States in the economic and financial
fields. In 2001, the GDP of the EU amounted to 8,000 billion dollar, compared
with the US’ GDP of 10,000 billion dollar.
The contradictions between the EU and the US are developing in all fields.
In the field of the economy, with various protectionist measures, such as the
steel quota. But also in other fields, from the US refusal to sign the Kyoto
Treaty to limit CO2 emission, over its refusal to accept the treaty prohibiting
biological weapons or the treaty against landmines, to its refusal to adhere
to the International Court of Justice.
Also in the military field, the opposition between US hegemonism and European
imperialism is more and more accentuated.
The US is conscious of its strategic weakness when it comes to sending
large numbers of trooops to the battlefields, and it needs political and military
assistance from Europe to impose its order on the whole world.
The Bush Administration has invented the new geographical notion of the
Greater Middle East. At the NATO summit held in Prague on October 19, 2003,
Nicholas Burns, the US permanent representative at the NATO Council, declared:
"We in the Bush administration are of the opinion that it is on the
Greater Middle East that NATO should concentrate its efforts."
This Greater Middle East encompassing the entire region that
stretches from Central and South Asia to North Africa, including the entire
Arab world. The whole of this region would contain threats of "terrorism"
and "weapons of mass destruction" for the entire planet, and
particularly for Europe. This "threat" replaces the supposed
threat that constituted the Soviet Union and that has allowed the US to incorporate
Western Europe for forty years.
The notion of the Greater Middle East has been invented to serve the
US policy of world domination and war. The US wars of aggression in Afghanistan
and Iraq already had the objective of forcing NATO outside of its original framework,
Europe.
By broadening NATO’s theatre of operations to Asia and Africa, US hegemonism
wants to draw Europe as an auxiliary force into the realisation of its plans
of world dominance. Let us also note that in this Greater Middle East,
the US wants to establish military bases there with a view to future attacks
on China, Russia and possibly India.
But Germany, France and other European powers are ever less inclined to be
at the service of US domination. They want to realise their own imperialist
agenda, independent from the US.
During the Lisbon Summit of June 2000, the European Union decided to
transform its economy by 2010 into the most competitive economy in the world.
Today, the European Union has almost caught up with the US in terms of the economy,
and has in certain aspects already overtaken the US. Its unified currency, the
Euro, has revalued 46% to the dollar over the past two years. In order no longer
to run behind the US in the field of politics, imperialist Europe has to equip
itself with its own armed forces and its own military industry.
The Nice Summit of December 2001 approved the project elaborated to this
effect on November 21st by the Council of European Defence Ministers.
The Rapid Reaction Force of 60,000 troops will be equipped with 400 fighter
planes and 100 fighting ships, all to be mobilised within 60 days. It will dispose
of its own global positioning system Galileo and of its own electronic
intelligence system. A powerful European military-industrial complex is developing,
with two giants: BAe Systems of Great Britain and EADS, resulting from the merger
of DASA (Germany), Casa (Spain) and Aérospatiale (France).
The US denounces this Euro Army as a direct threat to NATO and uses all
means to hinder its creation.
On the other hand, the US has allowed eight formerly socialist countries to
join NATO, after having assured their submission to US interests, among others
through bilateral agreements. Rumsfeld has called these countries "the
new Europe", of which he hopes it will consolidate US leadership in the
Alliance.
But these countries have also become member of the European Union – or
are slated to do so. Their bourgeoisies won’t be able to fully benefit from
the advantages of an imperialist Europe, if they don’t also fully support the
European Security and Defence Policy. The agreements that currently link them
to US imperialism will probably not stand when faced with the economic advantages
that the European Union can offer their ruling classes.
The European Union is also courting Russia. If Russia cannot become a member,
at least in the short run, Germany and France are proposing Russia to sign one
or the other privileged agreement of co-operation. They even invoke the possibility
of having Russia join NATO.
The US is entirely opposed to these two initiatives. Indeed, Russia could
in one sweep provide the European defence with the only nuclear force capable
of confronting the one of the US. And Russia can bring into Europe its immense
territory rich with all imaginable natural resources, from oil and natural gas
to the most rare minerals. In the same sweep, the European Union’s internal
market would grow with 150 million consumers.
Like in the United States, the European Union is broadening and systematizing
its repressive legislation and instruments. All EU countries have adopted similar
laws and lists of so-called anti-terrorist organizations, with as main purpose
to repress and criminalize the revolutionary and anti-capitalist opposition.
Those measures also aim at establishing a generalized control over the population,
destroying its fundamental rights.
In the prisons of imperialism, from Abu Ghraib to Guantánamo,
passing by Turkey, the barbarism against prisoners intensifies, and the number
of political prisoners increases.
Let us mobilise against the US threat of launching a nuclear war!
The US superpower is able to destroy the entire world at least twenty times
over with its nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons. We have seen this
gigantic military force attack Iraq, a small Third World country of 22 million
inhabitants, that it has banned from acquiring or having any or the smallest
"weapon of mass destruction". Even Hitler himself was never able to
demand and obtain the disarming of Austria, of Czechoslovakia, of Yugoslavia
– small countries he intended to attack.
For the first time since 1953, US imperialism has dared to claim publicly,
as it prepared to attack Iraq, that it was considering all options, including
resorting to nuclear weapons! And this against a country that had been completely
disarmed. At the same time, Israel had acquired some 300 nuclear warheads with
the collaboration of the United States!
The Bush administration has been pursuing the fascist theory of "pre-emptive"
nuclear attacks, explicitly mentioning Iraq, North Korea, China, Russia and
some other countries as possible targets.
In March 2003, US and South Korean troops carried out two large-scale
joint exercises, mobilising 200,000 US and South Korean soldiers. Six Stealth
F-115 warplanes and a squad of F-15’s made 220 sorties for spying and for training
to attack well defined targets in the DPRK. The Bush administration has elaborated
detailed plans to bomb the nuclear installations of the DPRK in Yongbyon.
The threat of a nuclear world war has never been so serious!
On August 6, 1950 the Gathering for Peace, which took place in Hiroshima, launched a world campaign against the production, possession and use of nuclear weapons, and for their prohibition. A gigantic movement for peace and against nuclear weapons, by the socialist countries, the people of the Third World who were struggling for their independence, and a large peace movement in the capitalist world, prevented the US from resorting to the nuclear weapon during its wars of aggression.
The counter-revolution in the Soviet Union has demobilised the peace movement:
it was the famous "end of history" myth, the whole world was anticipating
to get "peace dividends". But today, the people discover that it is
the US, the only superpower, which is threatening the whole planet with nuclear
destruction.
No sensible human being can accept the current situation where US imperialism,
with its stockpile of some 10,000 nuclear warheads, can threaten small countries
such as North Korea or Iran, upon suspicion of aiming to produce a few nuclear
weapons. Where in the UN Charter does it say that a single superpower can do
anything it pleases, while prohibiting everything to all others?
The US determination to use nuclear weapons is also expressed in its
plans to produce "mini-nukes", nuclear weapons for so-called "tactical"
use.
Before US imperialism dares to use the nuclear bomb, the world movement
for nuclear disarmament must be launched anew. The nuclear powers must commit
themselves never to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries. They
must commit themselves never to be the first to use a nuclear weapon. Complete
nuclear disarmament must be organised, under the control of the UN General Assembly,
starting with the country that possesses the most nuclear weapons, to arrive
at the complete and simultaneous nuclear disarmament of all nuclear countries.
Workers and peoples of the world, let us unite against US hegemonism!
We are still in the era of imperialism, and socialist revolution is still the
only way to eliminate capitalism, exploitation and domination once and for all
in the whole world.
Today, US imperialism wants to impose its hegemony on the entire world
by military means. It has taken the road of war on a world scale and has become
the number one enemy of all the peoples of the world.
Upon the rise to power of Hitler, the fascist axis led by Nazi Germany
constituted the main enemy of the peoples. The Soviet Union proposed to Great
Britain and France to form an alliance of collective security against the fascist
and bellicose axis. In 1936, Palme Dutt noted that France and Great Britain
had not taken an orientation towards major wars of aggression, while "it
is in the countries where the full Fascist dictatorship has been established
(…) that the most complete organisation of the entire State for war has been
realised. It is against this most menacing war offensive of the present moment
that the main fight needs to be directed at the present stage. (…) This situation
gives certain possibilities to the forces fighting for peace to utilise these
contradictions in the imperialist camp in order to place obstacles in the way
of the advance to war. (...) The working class must utilise, as Lenin repeatedly
pointed out, every factor and every differentiation, however small, in the camp
of the bourgeoisie in order to further its aims in a given tactical situation."
But while London and Paris tried, in 1939, to "divert"
the fascist monster to the USSR, Stalin concluded the German-Soviet Pact, allowing
the Soviet Union to intensify its defence preparations for twenty months and
to create the conditions for a genuine world anti-fascist alliance.
The victory of 1944-1945 against the main enemy of the peoples opened
the way for great advances in the struggle for independence and socialism.
But immediately upon the defeat of the fascist powers, US and British
imperialism became the main enemy of the peoples, as they took over the project
of Hitlerite Germany to destroy the socialist countries and to dominate the
world.
Today, all imperialist powers are arming themselves for foreign interventions.
European and Japanese imperialism also follow a policy of militarisation, elimination
of democratic rights and war preparation. But it is only the United States that
disposes of a military budget for a world war, amounting to 400 billion dollar.
Compare this to Russia’s 65 billion (16.3% of the US military budget), China’s
47 billion (11.8% of the US), Japan’s 40 billion (10%), Great Britain’s 35 billion
(8.8%), France’s 33 billion (8.3%) and the Germany’s 27 billion dollar (6.8%).
It is only the US that is extending its military interventions on all continents,
is preparing wars of aggression in the whole world and is ready to use nuclear
weapons in the coming world war.
Communists are the staunchest defenders of the fundamental interests
of humanity. They have to be at the vanguard to mobilise the popular masses
and all peace-loving people against the main danger that is threatening them.
The Communist Party and the Front against imperialism and against the danger of a new world war
Today, the communists in every country and on a global scale are called upon to intensify their work in the working class, which must take up its leading role in the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle. They also have the duty to lead the popular masses and the broad united front against the threat of a new world war emanating from US imperialism. The threat of a new world war is real, but the plans to prepare for this war can be put in jeopardy by the peoples’ struggles and by the fight of the international working class.
Currently, faced with the grave threats that weigh upon the world, our first
task is to work for the unity of all genuine communists, on the scale of each
country, region and continent and on an international scale. The issue of the
unity of the communists has become urgent. A communist movement divided cannot
adequately lead the struggle against the US aggressions and against the preparations
for a world war by US hegemonism. In order to achieve this unity, Lenin teaches
us that a principled struggle must be waged against revisionism and Right opportunism,
against unity outside of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. Lenin also
teaches us that a principled struggle must be waged against Left opportunism
and sectarianism, against the maintenance of divisions between communist groups
in the absence of fundamental antagonisms.
Differences, even serious ones, can exist inside the unified communist
party of a given country. Communists dispose of weapons to resolve differences
and that have been tried and tested, such as democratic centralism, communist
discipline, criticism and self-criticism, the mass line and the summing up of
experiences.
Our second task is to establish the broadest possible alliance between the
communist forces and all anti-war and anti-imperialist forces, in each country
and internationally.
Since the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, all imperialist powers
have proven what they are capable of. They have brought about the continuous
deterioration of unemployment, high cost of living, social retrogression, racism,
police terror, low salaries, aggressions such as against Somalia, Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and Iraq, genocides such as in Rwanda and the Congo,…
The tens of millions of militants against globalisation are essentially
opposed to the dominance of the imperialist powers and to the wars of aggression
they are organising.
In order to develop in a healthy way, communist parties must take up
their responsibility in the just mass struggles that mark their era. Genuine
communists integrate the Marxist-Leninist ideas with the popular masses’ protest
movements against the established order. However confused and contradictory
those movements may be, it is up to the communists to bring them the light of
Marxism-Leninism, in an appropriate way.
Our third task is to reinforce and orient the large global united front against
the number one enemy of the peoples, US imperialism.
An anti-war and anti-hegemonist movement unparalleled in history is growing
against Bush’s fascism and his delirious plans for a world war to establish
a 1000-year American Reich. It is crucial to strengthen and broaden the
unity of the popular forces in their struggle for peace, in all countries. All
calculations for peace based on confidence in the action of imperialist governments
are bound to fail.
In order to build the front against US hegemonism and its preparations
for a third world war, the communists and the oppressed peoples must exploit
the contradictions between the imperialists. They must distinguish the main
enemy from the secondary enemies and concentrate their fire on the former. They
must win over the largest possible forces for every battle.
The conflicts between US hegemonism and the other imperialist powers
may be used to strengthen and broaden the popular mobilisation against the main
danger that is threatening the world: the global war policy of US hegemonism.
This mobilisation will also allow for the awakening of the popular consciousness
to the entirety of the problems posed by imperialism.
It is stage upon stage that the communists of the entire world will advance
with the undertaking started in 1848 by Karl Marx, until the victory of socialism
in the whole world.
Addendum
1945: when the US took over the fight from Hitler’s Germany
To understand properly the significance of the US aggression against Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and Iraq, it is necessary to put them into a historic perspective.
Washington took over Hitler’s dream of world domination immediately after
the defeat of the fascist powers in 1945. It prepared for a world war against
Korea, China and the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1953 in a bid to establish
its hegemony. But at that time, the power of the socialist camp was able to
defeat the US war plans. The political and ideological degeneration of the Soviet
Union since 1953 led to the complete counter-revolution in 1990. Ever since,
US hegemonism has returned to its orientation towards world domination, as conceived
in 1945.
Robert Murphy, adviser to the US military governor of Germany, wrote
in 1945: "General Patton wanted to re-arm two divisions of the Waffen
SS and incorporate them in the 3rd US Army in order to direct them
against the Reds. He said to me ‘we can push back the Red Army in Russia. With
my Germans we would be able to do it.’ Patton said he would be able to reach
Moscow in 30 days."
From 1944 onward, several thousands of former Nazi’s were welcomed
into the USA to be used against the Soviet Union. Thousands of Japanese military
officers and scientists, who specialised in biological, chemical and bacteriological
warfare, were hired by the US army. General McArthur used them in the US war
of aggression against Korea in 1950-1953.
From 1945 onward, the US also replaced Hitlerite Germany as the most aggressive
and war-mongering imperialist power. 1 It used the atom bomb on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki without any military reason: the Soviet army had already crushed
the Japanese army in China. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were essentially a ruthless
crime committed for the purpose of nuclear blackmail against the Soviet Union.
The English Field Marshall Alan Brooke has given evidence that "Churchill
considered himself already capable of eliminating the Soviet Union’s industrial
centres". That is how the ‘Cold War’ started.
The USSR responded to the war preparations by intensifying research in
nuclear energy and rocket technology, which allowed it to break the US monopoly
on nuclear weapons. Simultaneously, it marshalled many forces and resources
to develop jet planes, the famous MIG’s.2
The victory of the Great Chinese Revolution on October 1, 1949 shifted the
battlefront to East Asia. 3 The US war of aggression against Korea
started on June 26, 1950. The US imperialists succeeded in getting the United
Nations to declare the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as the aggressor.
The United States sent to Korea troops under the command of General McArthur.
On October 23, he took Pyongyang.
But the Korean resistance was strong and shook the aggressors. On November
30, president Truman declared: "We can always consider to use the nuclear
weapon". However, this was met with strong resistance from his allies.
On December 24, 1950, McArthur drew up a list of targets in China and
in the DPRK, for which 26 atomic bombs would be needed. On March 24, 1951, McArthur
once more asked permission to use the atom bomb, but the only thing he got was
his dismissal as commander-in-chief of the UN troops. On May 19, 1953, US officers
once more recommended the use of the atom bomb, and the National Security Council
supported this recommendation.
The US aggression killed 3,000,000 Koreans according to certain estimates,
but the resistance led by the Workers’ Party of Korea and Comrade Kim Il Sung
triumphed – a resistance supported by socialist China and by the Soviet Union.
Under the leadership of the World Peace Council, the largest peace movement
that the world has ever known developed against the US aggression in Korea.
500 million people signed the Stockholm Appeal, demanding among other things,
the banning of nuclear weapons and general disarmament.
The US aggressors failed to defeat the Korean and Chinese armies. They
had to abandon their plan of a world war to eliminate socialism in Korea, in
China and finally in the Soviet Union. It was a victory of internationalism,
a victory of the unity of all communists, of all anti-imperialist forces and
of all peace-loving people of the entire world.
At the time of the US aggression against Korea, the Soviet Union issued
a declaration that takes on new significance for us today, 53 years later: "If
the imperialists start a third world war, this war will be the grave, not only
of separate capitalist states, but of world capitalism as a whole".
1 The Nazi General Gehlen was during the war in charge of Nazi espionage in the Soviet Union. In May 1945 he surrendered to the Americans. According to the agreements between the allies, the US should have handed Gehlen over to the USSR because he featured on their list of major war criminals wanted in the USSR. Secretly, however, the US transferred him to the US where he negotiated with the head of the US secret service, Allan Dulles himself. An agreement was reached: Gehlen would transfer all his files on the Soviet Union to the US and would reactivate his network of former Nazis in the Soviet Union under the orders of the United States. Gehlen, having shortly afterwards become the head of the Federal Republic of Germany's ministry of information, simply continued on behalf of the United States the anticommunist war that he had been conducting under Hitler.
The books Blowback of Christopher Simpson and The Belarus secrets of John Loftus, although anti-communist, show that thousands of fascist war criminals were hired during the years 1944-1953 by the US for the fight against the Soviet Union. These former German, Ukrainian, Latvian, Russian and other Nazis played a crucial role in the Cold War. They included some of the biggest criminals, such as Klaus Barbie, Alois Brunner (responsible for the death of 130,000 people) and Otto von Bolshwig, Eichman's aide.
2 The US was in fact preparing for war against the socialist power, which had just defeated fascism… US National Security Council Resolution 20/1, dated 8 August 1948, declared: "The objectives of the US vis-à-vis Russia … amount in essence to … reducing to a minimum Moscow's power and influence." The US elaborated the plan 'Fleetwood', adopted on September 1, 1948, to launch a war against the USSR before April 1, 1949. Subsequently, the US administration adopted the plan 'Trojan', which provided for a series of military actions starting January 1, 1950, and for the use of 300 atom bombs on 100 Soviet towns.
3 In Korea, the nationalist and communist forces defeated the Japanese occupation army, with the help of the Soviet Union and the armies of Mao Zedong. The US military forces landed in the southern part of Korea and released imprisoned collaborators of the Japanese fascists to create a South Korean Republic led by US puppet officials.