OKDE’s greeting to the 58th Antiwar Assembly in Japan

OKDE – Greeting to the 58th Antiwar Assembly

 Comrades,

OKDE (Organization of Communists Internationalists, Greece) greets the 58th Antiwar Assembly in Japan.

The present situation of deep capitalist crisis, has made steps forward to a scale of global depression unprecedented in the history of capitalism. There were signs and results for a next episode of depression since late 2018, but as all capitalist economic tools ware failing to prevent a new eruption of the crisis at the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic exploded all the contradiction of the imperialist / capitalist system. There is not even a single economy that is not affected and nearly all of the imperialist and capitalist elites respond similarity, both in panic but also stepping up repression against the masses and building up the authoritative, emergency state. Side by side with a huge amount of “money drooping” capital, aimed to prevent the collapse of the production, there is an escalation of state repression, limitation of democratic rights, nationalism and militarism. The health crisis is magnifying also the crisis of the political system and the ruling elites, their inability to show up us protecting the society. The rivalries between the old imperialist powers and the emergent capitalistic economies become more and more furious. In many open conflicts, regional powers intervene not only for their regional interest, but also as “representatives” of one or another global imperialist power. The danger of an expanded or even generalized imperialist war, even of nuclear wars, approaches.

The USA, which declines economically and technologically without stop in comparison with the emerging economies (of whom the great protagonist is China), is trying and will try everything to halt this decline and to regain its dominant position as the world leading capitalist economy. The pandemic is used just as another opportunity for the Trump administration, to extend its aggressive offensive against China. Despite the US military supremacy (challenged regionally in many cases in the last decade, but still undoubtedly existing globally), the political leadership of the imperialist system and the dominance of the US Dollar on the global economy, are not any more a de facto situation that nobody expects to change. Already, the US economy has lost its leadership in technological advancements and is falling behind in new technologies’ introduction (including robots and other automation). USA has openly declared an imperialist war against its competitors (both their old western allies, EU, UK, Japan and the emerging new imperialist powers like China, Russia or the regional ‘big players’ or even sub-imperialist powers like Turkey or Iran). It’s still an economic and technology war (including also the r&d, patents and the production of vaccines or treatments for the coronavirus). But as reserves of gold, currency reserves, even the purschaing power is being amassed in China, the former dominant capitalistic economies are left with nothing but deficits, debts, de-industrialization, unemployment and the parasitic vultures of the stock exchange system.

 The world is being threatened by a generalization of this war, a new world war, between alliances, whose the central axes will be the USA on one side and on the other China, along with (as it seems) Russia. The war in Middle East, the tragedy of the people of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Libya etc. show what may follow for the whole world. Despite the health crisis and the pandemic, imperialist intervention is not reducing pace, on the contrary, it’s accelerating, with troops, ships, planes and ‘specialists’ openly acting in many theaters of war. Alongside, all regional powers of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are not just choosing sides. Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Iran are actively competing or allying, threatening or supporting each other, not only on existing conflicts but also on many fields including the control off the sea, sea borders, gas reserves etc. Despite the economic depression and the bankruptcy of their economies, the regional elites are investing on nationalism and state oppression against their internal enemy (the working class), militarism and new weapon orders for their troops, racism and religious fundamentalism.

The escalation of tension at many other key points for imperialist domination and expansion is happening daily. From Crimea to the Sea of China and the North Pole passages, warships and nuclear submarines are ‘acting’ more aggressively. At the Persian Gulf and its important passages (Hormuz etc.), USA and its regional allies (mainly Israel and Saudi Arabia) are opening a new chapter on the aggression against Iran, that they pursue to climax to an open conflict.

USA and Russia, by far the biggest nuclear powers, are threatening each other with a nuclear apocalypse, on the shoulders of the global population, the planet, the human civilization. All the treaties to control nuclear arm expansion have been abandoned by both these 2 main nuclear powers (USA and Russia), on top of the renewed global arms race (in which the US spends by far the most huge amounts and remains the no 1 lethal imperialist power). The workers, the young and the old, the oppressed, the humanity is in a great danger.

 

In our country, Greece, which is a member of NATO (with one of the biggest percentage of military spending globally with regards to the GDP, despite the chronic economic crisis and ‘internal devaluation’ against the workers and the poor!), the Greek capitalist class has formed a reactionary alliance in the East Mediterranean Sea, with the reactionary, bloody–shed states and governments of Israel and Egypt. It participates actively in the spreading of nationalism and war, for the shake of profits of the big imperialist monopolies and some of their Greek capitalist collaborators. With the new aggressively right government of ND (New Democracy) elected last year, we have even more steps in the pro-imperialist policies of the previous government (of SYRIZA), in full coordination and ‘strategic dialogue’ –as they name it– with the aims of the US, NATO and European Union imperialist policy in the area.

The people of the whole region of the Balkans and the South East Mediterranean Sea are severely threatened by the growing capitalist/imperialist competition over the newly located energy resources. Both Greek and Turkish elites are acting more aggressive to expand claims on natural resources based on the force of arms power and their international alliances. It’s the same in the Balkans, which the USA is trying to convert to a huge military base and buffer against Russia.

We are trying to develop an antiwar movement, which will withdraw Greece from NATO and the warmongering European Union, which will call back all the Greek soldiers from mission abroad, which will reduce the spending for war armaments – and of course that will shut down the many and dangerous military bases. Finally, we are trying to develop the consciousness that these wars to come are not our wars, they are not working class wars, that the ‘defense of the homeland’ is a bourgeois trap – and to develop concrete links and actions of workers’ and people’s internationalism, antiwar and anti–imperialist struggle in our region.

The global rise of mobilizations against state oppression, racism and police brutality, the international solidarity and coordination of the global social movements gives us hope that the working clash can not be ‘broken down’ as easily as the global capitalist and imperialist elites hope. We will wage this fight with full consciousness of the difficulties ahead, of the need for a broad and deep reconstruction–recomposition of the workers’ movement, of the building up of rooted, effective new revolutionary leadeships, that will help surpass the dead–end of amassed wrong and opportunist choices internationally, that have led to a certain crisis in the ranks of the workers’ movement and the revolutionary left themselves. We will not be once again meat for the cannons of the capitalists and imperialists. The way to build a really massive and effective antiwar movement is based on class independence and proletarian internationalism. For Greek revolutionary marxists, our ‘closest’ enemy is our local bourgeoisie elite and their imperialist allies (that is, the western old imperialist powers, who, as they decline, become more and more aggressive and opportunistic, irrational and catastrophically dangerous). We are not choosing sides on the imperialist competition, there is no progressive, or ‘good’ imperialism or emerging power.

For us, the way out of the horror of war stands in the international cooperation of the working class movements, the development of common international struggles, in the development of an anti–war and anti-imperialist movement and finally in the socialist revolution.

 We hope for every success of the 58th Antiwar Assembly!

 With antiwar and antiimperialist, internationalist and revolutionary greetings!

OKDE, 28.7.2020