May Day Statement : The Escalation of the World War Danger and the Need for a New Communist International

Today the imperialist powers and their allies are escalating the siege against the Russian-Chinese bloc. Everything points to the confrontation advancing towards a third world war if the current escalation does not ebb. In this sense, the puppet neo-Nazi regime of Kyiv has already turned the Ukraine into a platform for the war. It has been de facto annexed to NATO. Ukraine has not been a sovereign country since 2014 and is now merely a sacrificial tool of imperialism.

The integration of Finland and Sweden into NATO, the creation of AUKUS (the Asia-Pacific NATO arm created by the United States, Britain and Australia) and the continuous provocations against China over the Taiwan question are all part of the siege by the imperialist powers of the Russian-Chinese pole and its allies. Redoubling the oppression of these countries, with the active participation of the European imperialism, is necessary for US imperialism to ensure that the 21st century is also the “American century”.

This need for oppressed countries, surrounded by imperialism, to resist has built, in practice, a world anti-imperialist front including both oppressed capitalist states and the remaining workers states. Marxists must know how to position themselves within this world anti-imperialist front. There is ongoing debate amongst anti-imperialist Communists in regards to the class character of Cuba, North Korea and China, on whether they are Communist or deformed workers states or indeed whether China remains a workers state. Notwithstanding such disagreements it is obligatory to defend all these states against attempts by pro-imperialist forces to overthrow them either directly from without, or by ‘colour revolutions’ from within. That is why we reject any attempt at “revolutionary” defeatism in both camps, since imperialism and its allies are in one camp and in the other a bloc of countries oppressed by imperialism, and the workers’ states.

Every movement of US imperialism worsens its own crisis. A few weeks ago, several banks in the US and Europe had to be bailed out. This is part of a boomerang effect on the imperialist economies of the failure of their sanctions against Russia. We must make use of every self-inflicted blow by the US imperialists and every division that occurs between the capitalist powers. BRICS and the developing countries are making their own movements of de-dollarization of trade relations, sharing of technologies (for example in semiconductors), and mutual protection against sanctions, speculative attacks, etc. Likewise, the other imperialist powers are unsure about how much to cut their own throats in (they hope!) exchange for future profits. We must recognize at the same time that each blow to them brings the US ruling class closer to a point in which open war seems to be the only “solution” to their problems. The tendency is clear, but the outcome is unpredictable.

We do not want war. The workers are the main victims of the scourge of war, both directly and indirectly, as shown by the destruction of life in Donbass and in Ukraine, dragged by the puppet Zelensky into a nation of rubble, and by the rapid deterioration in the living conditions of workers in Europe. It is always the imperialist nations that take the initiative to unleash war. Russia, led by Putin, oppressed and surrounded on all sides by NATO, belatedly decided to react and defend the people of Donbass with the Special Military Operation. Now, imperialism is making every effort to not return to peace, to profit from a lucrative arms race, and to escalate to war.

We do not want war, but nor are we pacifists. We must break with the politics of pacifism and Russophobia. The organizers and leaders of the March 18th protests in the USA for example tried to isolate and censure the organizations that support a Russian victory over imperialism in the war and instead aimed to pressure the imperialist Democratic Party that is waging the war. Such politics only cowers in the face of public opinion and serves imperialist governance. No progress will be made appealing to either of the vicious imperialist Republican or Democrat wings of the US ruling class.

History demonstrates that wars open fissures in the capitalist world system, breaches through which proletarian revolutionary movements can break though. The great wars of the 19th and 20th Centuries resulted in great revolutions. The Franco-Prussian war resulted in the Paris Commune. The Russo-Japanese War gave birth to the first Russian Revolution of 1905. The First World War gave rise to the Bolshevik Revolution and a huge revolutionary wave in its aftermath. The Second World War produced the Korean, Chinese, Yugoslavian, Vietnamese, Cuban revolutions, involving the expropriation of non-European capitalism. An ongoing war in a more globalized world could unleash a phenomenon even more extensive than after the Second World War. One third of the world’s population lives in countries where capitalism’s means of production have previously been expropriated from private ownership. As the imperialist escalation moves towards the third World War, the communists need to be internationally more aware and organized as the vanguard of the working class.

The tactic of participating in the world anti-imperialist front must be accompanied by the strategy of a consistent fight against imperialism, a fight against the capitalist system as a whole.

Therefore, we defend the right of China and Russia to defend themselves from the imperialist encirclement. As well as all the people oppressed by imperialism – like the population of Donbass itself – just as we are for the victory of all belligerent forces that confront imperialism – like Hamas in Palestine, while we aim to unite the fight against imperialism with the struggle for the proletarian and socialist revolution.

The very character of this war, defensive for Russia and offensive for imperialism, proves once again that the bourgeoisies of oppressed countries are incapable of carrying out the complete liberation of their peoples from imperialism, as they wish to continue exploiting their part of the world working class. Only new socialist revolutions can fully defeat imperialism, complete these tasks and thus emancipate humanity. But, leaving things to spontaneity, it is easier for humanity to continue on the course of increasing barbarism than to socialism. As the war in Ukraine has also shown this barbarism will increasingly take a fascist form. To halt this we need a new international organization of communists that will unify all who agree with the above program to give a conscious, proletarian, socialist and revolutionary alternative to the stalemate and the current war.