Skip to main content

OPEN LETTER FOR MAY DAY




On May Day, the international day of solidarity of the workers of the world, the following groups and individuals proclaim our united opposition to the greatest threat to the global working class: imperialist war. We declare our refusal to accommodate ourselves to the war drive of world imperialism against Russia. We hoist on our banners today the following:

• Down with NATO’s proxy imperialist war in Ukraine!

• for the right of Russia to defend itself against imperialist encroachment!

Those on the Left who seek to emulate the propaganda of the ruling class by reducing this global conflict to a national struggle for Ukrainian “self-determination” ignore the following:

Although Russia has been a capitalist state since 1991 it is not an imperialist power in its own right. Imperialism is more than when one state employs military force against another. Imperialism is a stage of capitalism represented by the dominance of finance capital. Russia is not part of the “imperialist club” but a relatively backward, dependent capitalist economy.

The military operation of Russia in Ukraine is a desperate effort to stop it from being used as a spearhead in the long held plans of western imperialism to turn Russia into a semi-colony to loot its vast internal resources. Ukraine’s integration into the NATO war machine was well advanced before Russia launched its defensive military operation. Russia faced the prospect of its entire western border becoming part of the NATO alliance and a staging ground for the deployment of advanced weaponry, including nuclear weapons, missile defence systems and troops aimed squarely at Russia.

The 2014 Maidan Coup led by fascist shock troops on the ground and guided by US imperialism, installed an effective puppet government in Kiev. Since the coup this government has not only been a direct tool of US imperialism, but has violently suppressed all Leftists, ethnic Russians, and other minorities. The repression provoked a bloody civil war in Ukraine as residents of the Donbass established the Peoples Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk to defend themselves from the violently Russophobic Kiev regime and its fascist attack dogs.

This is why we reject the policy of “revolutionary defeatism” being advocated by many centrist Marxist tendencies. It is not enough to just oppose NATO intervention in Ukraine. Opposition to imperialism means extending support to those in it directly in its cross hairs. This means offering support to both the Peoples Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and to the Russian state. Russia has the right to defend its sovereignty by militarily force against imperialism’s proxy war.

We are also committed to the genuine independence of Ukraine. However this cannot be achieved under the aegis of an imperialist war alliance that is using Ukraine as pawn.

We oppose the proxy war in Ukraine because it is part of imperialism’s drive to World War 3. The efforts to subordinate Russia through sanctions, war and regime change, are part of US imperialism’s ever more reckless efforts to maintain its global hegemony and reverse its economic decline against both its imperialist rivals in Europe and rising China. The rivalries are fuelled by the ongoing capitalist economic crisis deepened by the Covid19 pandemic. A NATO victory in Ukraine would not lead to peace but only advance imperialism’s war plans against China.

A war between NATO and its allies against either Russia or China risks wiping out billions of lives in a nuclear war and unleashing horrors that would dwarf the worst infernos of the 20th century.

On May Day we recommit ourselves not only to resistance to imperialism but to building an independent movement of the working class internationally to overthrow capitalism through world socialist revolution. The signing and sharing of this statement on May Day is aimed at starting to rebuild concrete links between the genuinely anti-imperialist Marxist forces as part of this process.

The struggle against imperialism must be forged into a struggle against the capitalist system and all the capitalist ruling classes! War will only truly end when there are no more nation states or classes!

Workers of the world unite!

Groups that have already signed include:

  • Anti-Imperialist Aotearoa (Aotearoa/New Zealand)
  • Bolshevik Group – (South Korea)
  • Classconscious.org (Australia/USA)
  • Communist Party of the Brazilian People.
  • Communist League (Brazil)
  • Consistent Democrats (Great Britain)
  • Fração Trotskista – Vanguarda Proletária (Brazil)
  • Frontiera Vermelha (Brazil)
  • Militant Trend Bolshevik (Argentina)
  • New Communist Party of Britain
  • David Ajetunmobi (Nigeria Automobile Technicians Association, NATA)
  • Planning Beyond Capitalism (US)
  • Revolutionary Communist Action (Greece)
  • Socialist Fight (Great Britain)
  • Socialist Party of America (US)
  • Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido (US)
  • Socialist Workers League (US)
  • Young People’s Socialist League (US)
  • US Friends of the Soviet People

Individuals


Mark Andresen – Great Britain

Marcelo Bastos – Brazil

Irene Bolger—Australia

Joana Marisa Borges Boaventura – Brazil

Anthony Hubert Codjoe, Ghana

Issac Cohen – Great Britain

Andy Coombes (UNITE member) – Great Britain

JM Considine  – Switzerland

Botagoz Datkhabaeva – Kazakhstan

Moises Delgado  – US

Alex Jordan Dillard – US

Will Eberrle—Switzerland

Jane Elliott – Great Britain

Mike Gimbel – Retired Executive Board member, Locak 375,  AFSME, AFL-CIO, US

Angie Graham – Great Britain

Jim Greenhow – Great Britain

James Hall – Great Britain

Karen Harris

Louise Hart – Great Britain

Clive Healiss – Great Britain

Mahanama Heller – Australia

Elizabeth Hoskings – Great Britain

Paul Humphries – Great Britain

Candice McKenzie – Australia

Márcia do Amaral Miranda – Brazil

Kevin O’Connor – Great Britain

Greg Rosen – US

Mohammad Basir Ul Haq Sinha, – Bangladesh

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ukrainians flee to avoid conscription

by Alex Miller Today most Ukrainians have lost their patriotic zeal. Guided by a common instinct of self-preservation and fear of serious injury or unwanted death they are not ready to sacrifice themselves. The new Ukrainian law on military mobilisation further aggravates the situation with conscription into the army. Numerous attempts of government to straighten out the mobilisation process have generally failed. Territorial Recruiting Centres (known as TCK) cannot meet the government’s recruitment needs. Large-scale military defeats, a high number of losses, an acute shortage of weapons, the complete absence of social benefits from the state, -- all these creates conditions when the majority of Ukrainian men prefer to flee to Europe and other countries.  According to the Belgian newspaper, Politico, during this time more than 650,000 Ukrainian men fit for service fled from the country. However, the actual statistical figures are much higher. The London Guardian on 29th June 2024...
Post a Comment
Read more

NATO in deep crisis as the dangers to Zelensky grow

  by Theo Russell The current direction of the war in Ukraine has created an acute crisis in Western capitals, above all in Washington, and the position of Vladimir Zelensky, the president elected on a promise to end the war in Eastern Ukraine, now hangs by a thread. We must make clear here that this is not a war between Ukraine and Russia; this is a war forced on Russia by the NATO alliance. Ukraine is merely a proxy for NATO and is paying a horrific price for this war. The weaknesses of the once mighty NATO alliance have been exposed: after decades of relocating factories to developing countries they have now discovered that they are no longer able to produce sufficient weapons for a major sustained war. In contrast Russia, which Western experts love to claim has a GDP the size of Italy, has proved to be a manufacturing superpower with a highly skilled workforce and mighty technological and scientific resources. Russia has not only increased arms production, from bullets to hyper...
Post a Comment
Read more

Britain joins the war in Ukraine

by K Hill While the US has brought about regime change in Ukraine with the Maidan coup in 2014, installing a thinly disguised neo-Nazi government of Banderites and corrupt politicians to loot its resources, sell its land and saddle it with massive debts thanks to dodgy IMF loans, the UK has been heavily involved in the training of their military – now the second largest European army (after Turkey) in NATO.  The UK involvement has involved everything from bringing Ukrainian commanders for "special training" in the UK, Nazi tattoos on show much to the embarrassment of the British media, to the existence of special advisors, in reality SAS and SBS units, to supervise "on the ground" the attacks on Snake Island and Kerch Bridge.  This is the real reason our British press has been so obsessed with these two "targets" over the past two years, despite their lack of strategic importance, because they are great PR and distract the British public from the grim real...
Post a Comment
Read more