The war that formally began three years ago with the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, shedding the blood of two peoples who lived, fought and prospered together under the USSR and who are now suffering under capitalism, after the prevalence of the counter-revolution.
These developments confirm the positions of European Communist Action on the imperialist character of the war, which broke out amid the sharpening of the competition and contradictions between the two warring capitalist camps.
It is now clearer than it was three years ago that this is not just a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but an extended conflict between the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, the USA, the EU and NATO on the one side and the Russian bourgeoisie and its allies on the other.
There is a strong tendency towards the internationalization and spread of the conflict, with the generalization of economic and commercial warfare, the use of ever more advanced and powerful weapons systems, the threat of nuclear weapons, the direct and indirect involvement of a growing number of states on the side of the warring parties, and the merging with other hotbeds of war where the same powers are clashing, such as in the Middle East, the Pacific, the Arctic, Africa, and so on. The confrontation between the USA and China occupies a decisive position in the international competition.
NATO’s aggression is increasing, while new countries have joined it during these three years of war (Sweden and Finland). Its presence in the Baltic Sea is being strengthened, military exercises in the Balkans are multiplying and bases are being built on the borders with Russia and in the eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, the increase in military spending by NATO members is expected to be much higher than 2%. In fact, there is talk of at least 3% and even 5% of each country’s GDP.
The militarization of the EU is intensifying. The Draghi report marks the acceleration of the transition to a war economy, while the Niinistö report predicts that in the next 7 years the EU will have to spend almost 20% of its budget on war preparations. There is open talk of sending troops to Ukraine, either on the war fronts or as “security guarantees”, while the EU has already overtaken the USA in arms supplies to Ukraine.
On the other hand, Russia’s military spending will reach 6.3% of GDP in 2025 and it plans to spend 40% of its state budget on “defence and security needs” in 2025.
Both sides in the war are deploying new and more destructive weapons systems, while the threat of using nuclear weapons in the conflict has increased.
Moreover, as NATO Secretary General M. Rutte and the bourgeois governments are provocatively declaring, the peoples are being asked to pay a heavier price through severe cuts in the already inadequate state spending on health, social security, education and other social sectors, in order to finance the war, which is being waged only for the interests and profits of the capitalists. At the same time, they face growing anti-communism, repression, and the curtailment of democratic and trade union rights and freedoms.
Any negotiation process for a supposedly “peaceful” settlement of the imperialist war in Ukraine between the USA and Russia, such as the recent telephone conversation between Trump and Putin or those that will follow, are against the interests of the peoples because these are bound to leave the real causes of the war untouched. Besides, both military and political–diplomatic moves, plans and discussions on “the day after” and the growing competition for the role that each imperialist power will play in them confirm that, regardless of the pretexts used by the bourgeois classes to mislead the peoples, the root cause of the conflict lies in the competition among monopoly groups and capitalist states for the control of natural resources, transport routes, geo-strategic footholds and market shares.
No political–diplomatic initiative will put an effective end to such a war. Any compromise between the rival bourgeois camps, even if it is reached, will be fragile and temporary, like the previous ones, because the causes that give rise to it, i.e. capitalist exploitation, the pursuit of profit and the competition between the monopolies, will remain intact.
Our Parties lead the struggle against the imperialist war, the bourgeois classes, their aspirations and the involvement of their governments in it. The peoples must not wait for a “solution” coming from the negotiating tables of the imperialists or believe that there can be a “peaceful” capitalism. Their “peace” will always prepare for new wars and bloodshed. The way out of the imperialist war in their own interest can only be given by the peoples through the decisive strengthening of their struggle, against foreign bases and the deployment of military units and military equipment outside the borders, as well as against war spending for the interests of capital, against capitalism that goes hand in hand with war. We call for a struggle against NATO, the EU and all other imperialist unions and capitalist alliances.
We mobilize the working class and the popular strata to demand their rights and the satisfaction of their needs, against the anti-people policies of the bourgeois governments, whose aims are served by war with other, violent means.
We fight against chauvinism, nationalism and fascism that the capitalist system gives rise to. We promote solidarity and friendship among the peoples. We fight so that our peoples do not choose one side of the war against the other, but to vigorously join the struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist system, which is the cause of the imperialist wars, for a society without exploitation of man by man, which can guarantee true peace, security and prosperity of the peoples, for socialism.
