Contribution to the webinar of the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist united front on May 15, 2022

Dear Comrades of MLPD and ICOR,

The war in Ukraine has undergone a shift, from a war of invasion of a smaller country by an imperialist country, to an interimperialist war. The U.S. imperialism, backed by its British ally, has seized the invasion as an opportunity to:

1. Wage a war against Russia using Ukrainians as cannon fodder and American weaponry, in order to weaken this competitor that has challenged the American world order;

2. Compel Western European countries, and Germany in the first place, to cut economic and political ties with Russia, in order to avert their penchant to form a continental bloc that could challenge U.S. dominance, and to weaken their economies;

3. Strengthen its influence on its European allies through Nato, and foil any plans for a political and military centralization of Europe, up to the setting up of a European imperialist army.

This is why, after the delivery of huge amounts of weapons to Ukraine the U.S. Congress has budgeted additional $ 40 billions for the war. Not for Ukraine’s freedom (they want to make it captive of Western capital), but to consolidate U.S. dominance in Europe in view of their reckoning with its rising contender, China.

However, the war in Ukraine has also set off the rearmament of European imperialist powers, with all governments following Germany’s start. Whether it is carried out inside the Nato framework, or to assert their diverging national interests, or to set up a European imperialist army, this rearmament prepares future, more deadly wars (even if the present war is unlikely to escalate in a world war as Russia alone has not the power to confront a tenfold-strong alliance, while China is unwilling to enter the fray).

For these reasons, while we stand for the right of self-determination of the Ukrainian people (including the Donbass people), in a Western imperialist country like Italy, we follow Karl Liebknecht’s motto “The main enemy is at home” and denounce our government’s rearmament plans and its direct participation in the war with the delivery of weapons to Ukraine’s government and sanctions against Russia, which hit the living conditions of Russian and Italian workers through the increase in the cost of living and job losses.

At the same time that we oppose the warmongering and russophobic campaign that Italian media are running, we support all people who oppose the war in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, defying harsh repression, and comrades who in Ukraine have not given up their struggle against capitalism and its government, while they are engaged in assisting and organising people struck by the war, or in resisting the invasion.

We have organised May Day demonstrations against the war in Milan, Turin and Naples, and will organise a general strike on May 20, together with other alternative unions, with slogans against our government’s war policy and its war economy, for wage increases to face the rise in the cost of living.

We are calling for the formation of a broader internationalist network in Italy against the war, along the above standpoints. It is also important to work for an international network on a working-class internationalist basis.

My best wishes to your efforts in the same direction.