Russian Communist Workers’ Party | Dmitri Kuzmin
Dear comrades!
The Russian Communist Workers’ Party welcomes the participants to the IARP International Conference in Seoul and wishes the delegates a successful meeting!
We are witnessing how inter-imperialist contradictions and competition for control over natural energy resources, for energy transportation routes and for market domination are intensifying all over the world in the context of the deepening general crisis of capitalism. As Marxist-Leninist theory teaches us and historical practice confirms, these contradictions are resolved either in the interests and in favor of the strongest imperialist predator, resolved not only economically, but also by direct military means, as evidenced by the hostilities in Ukraine since 2014, the growing tension on the Korean peninsula, around Taiwan and in other regions of the world. Alternatively, these contradictions can lead to the emergence of a revolutionary situation in individual countries, to the destruction of the existing world system of imperialism and the emergence of a new configuration in the international arena. The outcome, among other things, will also depend on the degree of influence of the conscious factor on the processes going on in the world, that is, on our correct understanding of the content of the unfolding events and the choice of the right tactics or methods of practical policy in the labor movement and in the protest movement of the popular strata.
Our party regards the situation in Ukraine as a war of US and NATO imperialism against the Russian Federation and its allies at the hands of Zelensky’s fascist regime by pumping it full of arms, financial and political support, and increasing involvement of mercenaries.
At the same time, we do not absolve the Russian bourgeois class of any blame for bringing the country to this conflict. Ultimately, the reason is the counterrevolution that took place in the USSR and the establishment of capitalism in the republics, which had previously brought wars to the former republics of the Union (Sumgait, Karabakh, Transnistria, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Abkhazia, Ossetia, … Donbass). Today the tragedy in Ukraine is being played out. But the ongoing Special Military Operation for Russia and the Donbass is in many ways forced, defensive and just.
We believe it is unequivocally proven by practice that there is real living fascism in Ukraine, supported by the United States and NATO in order to pit it against Russia. These fascists recognize themselves as followers of Hitler’s World War II Nazi associates (Bandera, Shukhevich, etc.) These Nazi collaborators are now elevated by the Kiev authorities to the rank of national heroes, with streets and city squares named after them. On the contrary, everything connected with the Soviet and even pre-revolutionary (tsarist) period of the history of our once united and common country is under the strictest prohibition. Along with monuments to Communist and Soviet prominent figures, monuments to representatives of Russian culture and recognized geniuses of human civilization are demolished. The mass burning by the Nazis of their opponents, supporters of good neighborly relations with Russia, has not yet been disclosed. Recall that this happened in Odessa on Kulikovo Field and in the House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014 (48 people were burned alive and killed with batons and gunshots). The revelations of this year were also the confessions of Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko, Johnson and other leaders of the Western world that they never considered the Minsk agreements as a road to peace, but only used them to gain time to pump up the fascist forces, which once again confirms the necessity of the defensive reaction by Russia. The collective West, instead of solving problems peacefully, which it is loudly advocating, is only adding fuel to the fire! The supply of weapons to Ukraine is growing and growing. The U.S. is literally “twisting the arms” of its allies, including South Korea, demanding more and more participation in the bloodbath.
As materialists, you and I cannot fail to see how, after the counterrevolution and the destruction of the Soviet Union, the imperialists of a handful of major states, led by the USA, began to act much more brazenly, unceremoniously, almost without regard for international law and world public opinion. It was the realization of the interests of this powerful bunch that organized the defeat of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and unleashed the ongoing war in Syria. They assumed the right to determine the rogue nations, claiming their special responsibility for the fate of the world. At the same time, like Hitler’s fascists, they hide behind the name of God.
The Russian Communist Party and its allies, based on Lenin’s understanding of the essence of imperialism, based on the definition of fascism made by the Comintern, came out to describe this phenomenon – fascism in foreign policy, or as we often use in publicity figurative turn – “Fascism for export”. In 2012. The Plenum of the Central Committee defined its position in assessing this phenomenon, and at an international meeting of solidarity parties, we introduced it to the sister parties. At that time, many comrades regarded our position as some kind of inflection, exaggeration of the danger. Some even said it was “bourgeois theory. We think that time has shown that our assessments were correct. Fascism in foreign policy is today an increasingly common practice of the US and its allies. Through foreign expansion, imperialism seeks a way out of internal difficulties and crisis.
Today U.S. imperialism, having pitted the former fraternal peoples of Russia and Ukraine against each other in a war, is solving the problem of strengthening its position in the markets of Europe and the world. The story of the fight against gas supplies from Russia alone, the explosion of gas pipelines on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, explains a lot. U.S. imperialism is the main beneficiary of this situation. They would love to ignite hotbeds of war away from their own continent, including on the Korean Peninsula, around Taiwan, and in other regions.
U.S. and NATO imperialism is bringing the world to a new great war. Today, German tanks with Nazi crosses on their armor are once again crossing Ukrainian soil. There is a real possibility of a wider war, up to and including nuclear conflict. The united imperialist bloc led by the United States has openly declared the goal of the military, economic and political defeat of Russia. Preferably with its dismemberment into several parts. We believe that Russia repeating the fate of Yugoslavia, Iraq or Libya in no way corresponds to the interests of the working class of Russia, Ukraine and the world. We consider the positions of some parties, which place equal responsibility on the warring parties, to be modern opportunism, which diverts public attention from understanding and responsibility of the main aggressor. These errors are caused by a misinterpretation of Lenin’s theory of imperialism and a rejection of the legacy of the Comintern in defining and understanding fascism.
There is no cure for Fascism. There is no cure by persuasion. This abscess is only removed. Fascism must be fought here and now with all forces and allies. Fascism can only be finally eliminated by ending its cause – capitalism. (It is for this reason that the RCPP considers the confrontation of Russia and China with the main danger – fascism generated by American imperialism and NATO – a positive phenomenon, but does not consider the bourgeois RF and today’s PRC as carriers of the idea of the struggle for socialism for the world workers’ movement)
We call on the participants of the MAIP to explain this situation to the workers of their countries, to direct their common efforts not just against the war but to the suppression of living fascism, with the further prospect of the development of the anti-fascist struggle into a struggle for socialism. You and I have the rich experience of the Comintern, its tactics of the United Worker’s Front and the Anti-Fascist Popular Fronts, which are dialectically linked and in the process of struggle pass from one to the other. The task of the anti-imperialist forces is to attract a significant part of the working class to their side. Without the support of the working class, including its trade union organizations, it is not only impossible to crush imperialism, but even to stop the escalation of local and regional conflicts into a third world war.
We propose that the IAIP organizations adopt the Comintern’s tactics in the struggle against fascism and begin to draw the most active part of the working class to their side by establishing ties with trade union organizations and coordinating common joint actions. We propose that the next MAIP conference be held with an enlarged membership, with the participation of activists of trade union and labor movement from different countries, in order to achieve a common understanding of the main danger in the world today coming from US imperialism, which in turn is an inevitable consequence of capitalism. The involvement of trade union and labor movement representatives in the work of the MAIP will broaden our audience and make it easier to carry out a common anti-imperialist agitation in the working class and in the popular strata, using the examples of the present life problems of the workers of each country.
Let’s oppose the onslaught of reaction with progressive revolutionary change!
We are in the same class formation!
Let us not falter on our chosen path!
