On February 24, 2 days after the interruption of the NorthStream 2 pipeline project, the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine, the final element of an inter-imperialist confrontation that has been going on since 1991 in fact (the fall of the USSR) and had already peaked in 2014 during the Euromaidan Coup supported and driven by the US, through the neo-conservative Victoria Nuland, former ambassador to NATO and then assistant secretary of state for Europe. Inter-imperialist confrontation had already escalated last January, when there was an attempt to redefine the spheres of influence and control of market shares in Kazakhstan, again against the people and the working class in revolt against corrupt power. Anti-fascist rhetoric people blindly refuse to analyse the current war as an inter-imperialist war, misleading the direction of the workers’ struggle. Not surprisingly, the unified secretariat of the Fourth International (Trotskyites) sees only Russian imperialism and denies any responsibility of the Euro-Atlantic bloc in the current war, transforming itself de facto into a defender of this imperialism, allegedly in the name of the defence of the Ukrainian people, effectively a victim caught between two fires. The Belgian section is pushing for the massive sending of arms to Ukraine, a real warmonger with many contradictions. The other hand, some on the left only see one imperialism, the other one, that of the United States, refusing to recognise the imperialist character of the present Russia. The declarations of so-called denazification (which cannot be carried out without a real anti-capitalist struggle) justifying the invasion of Ukraine poorly hide Putin’s anti-communism and Great Russian nationalist objectives as well as the repression of the workers’ and communists’ movement in Russia, the recent destruction of Soviet monuments in Ukraine and the attempts by Western imperialisms to associate capitalist Russia with the heritage of the USSR. is necessary here to take up Lenin’s theses on imperialism, which cannot be summed up in war alone, but rather in the monopolist phase of capital, the fusion of the industrial banking sectors, the export of capital, the conquest of new markets and, in the end, the redefinition of the world and a new division of it between imperialist forces. tragic events force us to keep a cool head and analyse the situation in class terms and not to sink into petty bourgeois emotion as a result of the gigantic war propaganda deployed by the imperialist forces and their henchmen, Whether it’s the socialist war minister (PS), the war-mongering MEP (ALDE) and former Belgian prime minister Verhofstadt who wants more sanctions against Russia, or the ecologists and their absurd morality (let’s sacrifice ourselves and stop heating to save Ukraine). all peoples have to lose in this war: Russian, Ukrainian, but also in Europe as we have seen in the Port of Antwerp where workers have found themselves out of work following the sanctions against their Russian company, or in Liége where the hypothesis of Liberty Steel being taken over by NLMK, a Russian company, is also impossible. there is indeed an imperialist pyramid at the top of which is US imperialism, we have nothing to gain by choosing between one or the other imperialism, Russian, Belgian, European, Euro-Atlantic, any more than we have to gain between a hegemonic imperialism or a multipolar world which remains the expression of capitalist barbarism. The Russian attack/aggression will have allowed the Euro-Atlantic bloc to consolidate and reunify.
However, this does not mean that this bloc is united. The different national imperialisms (France, Belgium, Germany…) that make up the European Union defend their own strategic interests. Initially, the Atlanticist SPD of Chancellor Scholz defended the North Stream II project, while France and Total Energies did not directly participate in the sanctions and Belgium tried to consolidate its place and influence within the European Union through Alexander de Croo and Charles Michel. It should be noted that the Belgian government, which was so quick to find sanctions against Russia, is still slow to find sanctions against its ally, the Zionist colonial and apartheid state. the “fall of the wall” came the emergence of a capitalist/imperialist power, the Russian Federation, which was competitive with the US, the EU, in terms of markets, raw materials, spheres of influence, capital exports…US and the EU expanded their sphere of influence by strengthening their alliance with NATO The Russian Federation has tried to counter this competition by expanding its own sphere of influence, by injecting Russian capital, for example into the Donbass, Kazakhstan, Africa, South America. Ukraine, until 2014, the bourgeoisie and big business were divided over which imperialist camp Ukraine should join. In 2014, the balance of power will favour the part of the bourgeoisie and big business that opts for the US, EU and NATO. Western monopolies are moving into Ukraine. Military power allied to NATO is also quietly moving in. There is talk of installing a “missile shield”, allegedly directed against Iran…24 US biological laboratories are being set up mainly in eastern Ukraine. other part of the bourgeoisie and the big companies that feel more connected to the Russian Federation organized a “revolt”, against the rapprochement with the European Union. The workers led an armed insurrection in Donbass on the objective basis of a full-scale attack on the rights of Russian speakers (ban on the Russian language etc. ). The Donbass workers’ leaders were liquidated by the pro-Russian oligarchs who effectively took over the so-called Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. the Maïdan coup, the Ukrainian state power, now in the hands of the part of the bourgeoisie and big business that has chosen the US, EU and NATO, is organizing military attacks against the so-called insurgents. has been an armed conflict since 2014, despite the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, never respected by the Ukrainian fascist power, as well as a massive armed preparation by Ukraine to carry out ethnic cleansing in Donbass and regain control of Crimea, which was used as a justification for Russia to invade Ukraine while for 8 years Russia did not care about the people of Donbass. both sides, there is a nationalist and antipeople and anti-communist propaganda and policy which has been concretized by the repression and banning of the KPU in 2015, the Odessa massacre at the house of trade unions in 2014 or the arrest of the Kononovich brothers while the Communist Workers’ Party of Russia is often repressed, banned from demonstrations and from participating in elections. invasion of Ukraine by capitalist Russia on 24 February has brought this escalation to light, including in Belgium with a war-mongering government (10 billion euro increase in the military budget, 78 million euros worth of arms sent to Ukraine, alignment with NATO to defend the interests of the Belgian bourgeoisie and monopolies, huge daily war propaganda in the press…).
War is indeed the solution of capitalism to overcome the crisis by reviving the economy through military production and by playing on the energy supply at the expense of the people. A fight to the death is being waged over energy. For example, the US government is trying to sell its extremely polluting shale gas to Europe, which has blocked Russian gas, with the full consent of the environmentalists who are demonstrating their hypocrisy. The consequence: energy prices already on the rise continue to rise as do the prices of basic necessities and misery. On 17 April 2022, Russia and Saudi Arabia stated that OPEC will not be able to make up for reduced or blocked Russian production. Covid pandemic has masked but also amplified the crisis of overproduction of the capitalist system of which the ongoing inter-imperialist conflict in Ukraine and the military escalation is only the latest stage. be noted and welcomed is the courageous act of solidarity of the Italian workers, affiliated to the Unione Sindacale di Base, at Pisa airport on 15 March, but also of the Greek workers and the KKE (Greek Communist Party) at the port of Thessaloniki on 6 April, violently repressed by the police for having blocked the loading of arms destined for the Ukraine. the Communist Party of Belgium PCB-CPB, it is not only a question of calling for a halt to the expansion of NATO, but for the withdrawal of Belgium from this criminal organisation.
We must fight first and foremost against our own imperialism.
We must spread the socialist alternative, which is the only guarantee of lasting peace in our countries. are some figures on military expenditure. Michel, former prime minister of Belgium, current president of the European Council since 1 December ᵉʳ 2019, had promised NATO in 2016: a military spending trajectory of 1. 3% of GDP in 2030, an investment of 2 billion in, among others, F-35s. Military spending would then be 8. 3 billion by 2030. war in Ukraine gives an alibi…the Government announced on 28 January 2022 a trajectory of military spending at 1. 54% of GDP in 2030, an investment envelope increased to 10. 2 billion. Military spending in 2018 was thus increased from 4. 25 billion, in 2019 from 4. 75 billion, in 2020 from 5. 33 billion. According to the GDP forecasts of the PLAN office, with the government’s plan of 28 January 2022, military expenditure will reach 10 billion by 2030. With the De Croo plan, which follows the NATO guidelines (2% of GDP in 2035), the annual military expenditure would rise to 15 billion in 2035. Outrageous military expenditure to organize plundering, massacre in the interest of the monopolies when so many needs are not met in our own country.
Capitalism carries war like the cloud carries the storm!
The present situation in Korea, we wish to welcome the efforts and struggle of the PDP for the reunification of the Korean peninsula, their struggle against historical revisionism which tends to erase or diminish Japanese colonialism, but also their struggle to organize the workers in trade unions, especially those affiliated to the WFTU, under particularly difficult conditions.
We wish to continue and deepen our relations with the PDP and continue our exchanges. is the current situation in Belgium in relations with the organization of the State? Bourgeois forces, from fascists to social democrats, are organizing the division of the working class and workers on regionalist and/or nationalist grounds.
We are fighting against the division of the country and regionalization and we are fighting for the construction of a socialist republic in Belgium without pronouncing ourselves on the structures that will have to be defined by the people and the workers themselves in power according to their needs. you, Long live friendship between peoples, live proletarian internationalism, live socialism!
Министры иностранных дел Донецкой и Луга нской народных республик Наталья Никонорова и Владислав Дейнего встретились с послом КНДР в Москве товарищем Син Хон Чхолем. Встреча прошла в тёплой и дружественной обстановке. По её итогам обе стороны догов орились продолжать рабочие контакты. Моральная поддержка Страны Утренней свежести показала, что она по прежнему противостоит мировому империализму и верна идеалам борьбы свободных народов за подлинную независимость.
Данная встреча не случайна и является продолжением стратегического курса товарища Ким Чен Ына, который в поздравлении по случаю 9 мая выразилтвердую солидарность с делом российского народа для того, чтобы искоренить военно-политические угрозы и шантаж враждебных сил и защитить достоинство, мир и безопасность страны, наследуя бессмертные традиции победы”.
