Advance the Class Struggle Against Imperialist War!

As the crisis of world economy deepens, the imperialist powers bring new wars on the agenda to re-divide the markets and spheres of influence; the imperialist system goes more rabid. The capitalist system is, more than ever, a threat to the humankind. In the local wars since 1990, millions of people have died and been maimed. Israel threatens the Palestinian people, bombs blow up in Afghanistan, there is talk of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan and the USA is preparing for a new Gulf War. Here again we are faced with an imperialist war of division.

The USA is seeking to re-strengthen and consolidate its hegemony. Having launched a new period of wars with the war in Afghanistan, US imperialism has Iraq and the Middle East in its sights. To the fairy tales of "war on terrorism", "globalisation", "eternal capitalism" a new one is added: "destroying the weapons of mass destruction".

US imperialism, which produces the most lethal weapons of mass destruction, is now seeking to topple the Saddam regime on the pretext that Iraq has got such weapons. Yet it was these imperialist powers at the time, above all the USA, who gave Saddam's regime these weapons and the technology to produce them. Then, the "civilised" USA and Europe were turning a blind eye for the sake of the "sacred aim" of preserving the stability when thousands of Kurds were massacred in Halabja with these weapons.

That the USA and Britain are talking about the threat of biological and chemical weapons is a blatant hypocrisy as they use them when it suits themselves. Were hundreds of thousands of people not massacred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs? Did US imperialism not drop napalm and chemical substances over innocent Vietnamese people in the 60s and 70s?

"But" they say, "there is a difference between democratic regimes having these weapons and dictatorships having them." They will supposedly bring democracy to Iraq! If there is one thing that the USA cannot export, it is democracy! US imperialism backed all bloodthirsty dictatorships from the Shah in Iran through Marcos in the Philippines, Zia ul Haq in Pakistan, the September 12 junta in Turkey, the dictatorship of Saddam, which it now declares as the enemy, the reactionary Arab regimes which are its close friends, Pinochet in Chile to the recent failed coup of the generals in Venezuela. Now she pretends to be the saviour of democracy!

But the US is not alone, Britain is running after her for war. Also Israel and Turkey want to have a place in the table which will decide the new restructuring of the Middle East. The US intends to intervene in Iraq together with the Turkish army. The Turkish bourgeoisie has delusions of receiving, at the cost of the blood of thousands of young workers, the dollar aids, which she sees as a means to soothe the economic crisis she is in, and also of getting Mosul and Kirkuk. The reason why the ruling powers in Turkey are symphatetic to war is not only the enforcement of the USA or Turkey's dependence on her. The Turkish bourgeoisie wants to be an influential power in the region as well, i.e. it seeks to be one of the members of the imperialist family, though a small one.

The European Union pretends to oppose the war to the extent that it goes against its interests. In reality the fight for division in the region is a race for hegemony among the imperialist powers and the EU is one of the components of this. But, not feeling strong enough to confront the US in a straight way, the European imperialists resort to tactics of playing for time. What really lies beneath the attempts to give a more "humane" façade to the pursuit of imperialist division by introducing the United Nations, is the attempt to prevent the US from becoming the sole deciding power. Once the time of war comes, and especially as things develop in favour of the US, then, no doubt, they will show their true imperialist faces in order to get their slice from the cake as well. Just as in Afghanistan. If you can't stop them, join them! That is their approach.

Iraq, which is facing the threat of war, is not a colonial country, but has been an independent nation-state for decades. Saddam's regime is nothing but a despotic dictatorship which represents the interests of the Iraqi bourgeoisie. This regime has been reigning over both the Iraqi working class and the Iraqi Kurds over years. The fact that Saddam's regime, which was the favourite of the US in the past, now appears to be her enemy, should not mislead us about the nature of the Iraqi regime. The fact that a bourgeois dictatorship is clashing with a big imperialist power on the basis of its conflicting interests does not at all mean that it is taking a stance against the imperialist system. This can at most mean a struggle of competition and division between a big capitalist and a small capitalist.

Yes the Iraqi people has to overthrow Saddam's regime. But the working class and the toiling masses have to overthrow their bourgeois rulers in all other countries as well. Only the working class can overthrow Saddam as well as the other bourgeois regimes. The overthrow of Saddam is not the business of any imperialist power, but only of the Iraqi working class. Today the Iraqi working class is faced with the most difficult two-fold task of both resisting the imperialist aggression and overthrowing the Saddam regime. The only way out for the Iraqi people to avoid being the victim of such conflicts of division is the taking of power by the Iraqi workers and toilers.

But the biggest task regarding the threat of imperialist war is in fact down to the working class of the aggressor imperialist countries. Today the only force that can stop a super military power like America is the American working class itself. The American working class should be mobilised to prevent this assault of the USA and should take an attitude in favour of the defeat of its own country. The British and Turkish workers who are going to be used as cannon fodder are faced with the same task, as well as the working class of the whole world. The only possible attitude for the working class is to aim to defeat the imperialist aggression in its own home.

It is clear that this is a very difficult task. But all hardships can be easily overcome to the extent the working class gets organised and moves with a revolutionary class consciousness.

Today it is Iraq, tomorrow will be elsewhere… It is clear that war stems from the anarchic nature of the imperialist system and takes place again and again. Thus the fact that the petty bourgeois "peace-lovers" say "no to war" unfortunately does not prevent war from being a reality that could eliminate humankind. Since imperialist wars flow from the fact that imperialist powers re-divide the world, the way to stop or prevent them is also clear: to turn the imperialist war into a war against the bourgeois order! The working class must take power into its own hands!

Our task is not to limit ourselves to the slogan of "no to war" but to advance the class war against the imperialist war. Without eliminating the capitalist system wars will never stop. The world working class has to set out to wage the struggle to emancipate humankind. The whole culture and legacy of humankind, and the productive forces that prepare the way for the future classless and exploitation-free society cannot be left at the mercy of the illogical, insane, anarchic nature of the imperialist system. The heavy burden of responsibility of human emancipation rests on the shoulders of the world working class and the world communists. Forward with the class struggle against the madness of imperialist war!

- Join the class war, not the imperialist war!
- Without capitalism being overthrown wars will never end!
- Down with the collaborationist reactionary capitalist dictatorships!
- Self-determination to Kurdish and Palestinian people!
- Freedom will come to Iraq only through workers struggle!
- Stop foreign military aggression!
- We will not shed our blood for the interests of the imperialists!
- Long live the soviet federation of the workers and toilers of the Middle East!
- Long live the world socialist revolution!