In recent days, the confrontation between the USA–NATO–EU and Russia is sharpening. The deployment of large military forces throughout the region from the Baltic to the Black Sea is accompanied by negotiations between these forces.

The KKE and other Communist and Workers’ Parties are following the developments. Our Party was placed with a Statement of its Press Office, published in Rizospastis on 22/1/22, which can be found here: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/On-the-dangerous-escalation-between-the-forces-of-Euro-Atlanticism-and-Russia/.

In the conditions prevailing in the international communist movement, it is not easy to reach a joint position on such issues. In order to achieve such a thing, it is necessary, first of all, to clarify the different approaches that exist, and in this regard, the Open Letter of the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE about the Resolution proposed by the CP of Spain concerning the above developments is helpful.

Comrades,

On 24/1/2022 we received the proposal of the Communist Party of Spain regarding its Resolution, which is open for signature.

This particular text, despite the fact that it appears to promote a “pro-peace line”, is in essence a hypocritical text acquitting imperialism, distorting reality, and fostering illusions to the people. That is because:

1) This text attributes all the recent dangerous developments regarding the US-NATO-EU relations with Russia to the aggressive rhetoric of the USA and NATO, the “Pentagon hawks”, as it states. In this way, it flagrantly ignores the real causes of imperialist competition and wars, which are found in the fierce conflict among monopolies, the bourgeois classes, and their alliances for raw materials, transport routes, and market shares.

2) In this way, this text of the CP of Spain fosters illusions that imperialists can be divided into “haws” and “doves”, into “warmongering” and “pro-peace”, and that ultimately a so-called pro-peace imperialism can exist. However, imperialism is not only aggressive foreign policy but monopoly capitalism itself, with all those characteristics described by Lenin, which are still perfectly valid.

3) The text of the CP of Spain focuses on the responsibility of the USA, which, as noted, “threatens with a severe response” and “has militarized Eastern Europe”. At the same time, it avoids any reference to the EU, as if it does not exist. However, 30 years ago the EEC turned into the EU with the Maastricht Treaty, which, in many cases, did not only have the support of conservative and social democratic political forces but the forces of opportunism as well, as in the case of Greece. The EU participates in imperialist competition as an independent capitalist pole, it promotes the interests of the European monopolies, and organizes military and police interventions in other countries. Despite its serious confrontations with the USA, which manifest themselves from time to time, the EU maintains a strategic cooperation with the USA and NATO, in which most of its countries participate, for the promotion of the interests of the European monopolies. The assessment of the text of the CP of Spain that NATO is simply “an instrument of the USA to keep its domination in Europe”, is deeply erroneous.

4) The text of the CP of Spain conceals the responsibilities of the governments of EU countries, there is no reference to them. However, the conservative ND government in Greece promotes the strategic agreement with the USA, which has turned Greece into a vast military base and a launching pad against other peoples, to promote the interests of the bourgeoisie. The responsibility of the coalition government between the social democracy and the “left” in Spain, which continuously participates in imperialist interventions —for example against Cuba— and in NATO plans, is also concealed. A recent example is the deployment of a warship to the NATO fleet heading to the Black Sea, preparing at the same time the deployment of other military means. It is hypocritical of the CP of Spain to call us to sign a so-called “pro-peace” text while it participates in a government of a NATO member country promoting these imperialist war plans. We have not forgotten that other forces of eurocommunism have acted similarly, participating in governments of NATO member countries in Italy and France while NATO was bombarding the people of Yugoslavia.

5)  The text of the CP of Spain completely ignores that Russia today is not the USSR but a strong capitalist power which has “inherited” a powerful nuclear arsenal, which it modernizes, and is in fierce competition with other imperialist powers for the promotion of the interests of Russian monopoly groups and not of the Russian people. Capitalist Russia actively participates in international competition for the profits of the few and the exploitation of the many; therefore, the Leninist position that “war is a continuation of politics with other, violent means” is of particular importance.

6) The text of the CP of Spain promotes the blur and practically impossible demand for the “dissolution of NATO”. How will this “dissolution” happen if the struggle for disengagement of each country from NATO and every imperialist alliance such as the EU does not strengthen? How can such a disengagement be secured and not be incorporated in bourgeois plans, as in the case of the temporary withdrawal of Greece and France from the military wing of NATO? It is clear that the demand for the “dissolution of NATO” without a struggle for disentanglement from imperialist plans in every country and the disengagement from NATO and all imperialist alliances is nothing but pulling the wool over the people's eyes. Furthermore, only the struggle for workers’–people’s power can secure that the disentanglement from imperialist unions, such as NATO and the EU, can guarantee workers’–people’s rights.

7) The text of the CP of Spain calls for a “new Human Security System which would give a real response to the real problems causing insecurity: poverty, hunger, inequality, unemployment, lack of essential public services, diseases, climate change or the massive destruction weapons arsenal”. As long as the laws of the market and the capitalist mode of production prevail, there can be no such system. The promotion of such utopian views that capitalism can be “humanized” is delusional. The KKE supports the timeliness and necessity for the overthrow of the barbaric exploitative capitalist system. The only alternative solution for the peoples is socialism!

From all the above it is clear why the KKE cannot sign this particular resolution of the CP of Spain, which expounds bourgeois views about “peace” and erroneous opportunist notions.

Our Party, in coordination with other Communist and Workers’ Parties in their respective countries and internationally, will:

• Continue its struggle against the military bases of death that the USA and NATO develop in our country, against Euro-atlantic exercises such as Defender Europe and Atlantic Resolve which encircle Russia.
• Continue struggling against NATO, EU, and bourgeois governments’ imperialist missions and plans.
• Continue struggling against the so-called defence agreements with the USA and France as well as the other “alliances” of the bourgeoisie such as the one with the state of Israel, which kills the Palestinian people.
• Continue voting against military armaments in Parliament and fighting against them, since they are not used for the necessities of “national defence” as falsely claimed by the bourgeois parties but for imperialist plans, interventions, and wars.
• Strengthen its struggle for the return home of all Greek armed forces participating in imperialist missions abroad.
• Struggle for the formation of the preconditions for forging the Social Alliance between the working class and the other popular strata, which will be able to clash with monopolies and imperialist plans. For Greece to exit all imperialist alliances, with the firm guarantee provided by workers’ power.
• Strengthen its internationalist solidarity and proletarian internationalism. It will more decisively contribute to the coordination of the activity and struggle of the peoples of our region, of Europe, and internationally, on all continents, against imperialist interventions and wars, the destructive blockade against Cuba, the capitalist economic crises, poverty and unemployment; for the peace and prosperity of the peoples of the world, the mutually beneficial economic–political–cultural cooperation of the peoples of our countries, the new society of socialism–communism.

27.01.2022