〈제국주의는전쟁을몰고온다〉
줄리엔 한노테 모라이스 Julien Hannotte Morais | 벨기에CP대표
… <장벽의붕괴(사회주의붕괴)>와 함께 시장·원자재·영향권·자본수출등의 측면에서 미·유럽과 경쟁하는 자본주의이자 제국주의세력인 러시아연방이 등장했다. 미국과 EU(유럽연합)는 나토와의 동맹을 강화함으로써 그들의 세력권을 확장했다. 러시아연방은 돈바스·카자흐스탄·아프리카·남아메리카와 같은 곳들에 러시아자본을 침투시켜 그들의 세력권을 확대함으로써 경쟁에 대응하기 위해 노력해왔다.
우크라이나에서는 2014까지 우크라이나가 어느 제국주의진영에 가입해야하는지에 대해 부르주아와 대기업의 의견이 나뉘었다. 2014 힘의 균형이 미·EU·나토를 선택한 부르주아·대기업들을 선호했다. 서방의 독점기업들은 우크라이나로 이동하고있다. 나토동맹군도 은밀하게 움직이고있다. 이란을 방어하는것으로 추정되는 <미사일방패>를 구축하는것에 대한 얘기가 있다. 24개의 미생물학연구소(바이오랩)는 주로 우크라이나동부에 설치돼있다.
… (2014)마이단쿠데타이후 현재 미국·유럽·나토를 선택한 일부 부르주아와 대기업의 손아귀에 있는 우크라이나의 국가권력은 소위 반란군에 맞서 군사공세를 조직하고있다.
민스크협정Ⅰ·Ⅱ가 있었지만 협정은 우크라이나파쇼권력에게 한번도 존중된적이 없고 2014부터 우크라이나는 돈바스지역에서 인종청소를 자행하고 크림반도의 통치권을 되찾기 위해 대규모무장을 준비해왔고 무장충돌도 있었다. 이는 러시아가 8년간 돈바스주민들을 신경쓰지않았음에도 우크라이나를 침공할수 있었던 명분으로 활용됐다. 양측 모두에 국수주의적이고 반민중적이며 반공동주의적인 선전과 정책이 있다.
… 전쟁은 확실히 민중의 희생을 감수하며 군수물자생산과 에너지공급을 통해 경제를 되살려 위기를 극복하려는 자본주의의 해결책이다. 에너지를 놓고 사활을 건 싸움이 벌어지고있다. 예를 들어 미정부는 위선을 발휘하고있는 환경주의자들의 전폭적인 동의속에, 러시아가스를 차단하고있는 유럽에 극도로 오염을 일으키는 셰일가스를 팔려하고있다. 그결과 이미 상승중이던 에너지가격은 계속 오르게 됐고 생필품의 가격도 오르고 빈곤 역시 심화되고있다.
… 코비드19팬데믹은 자본주의체제의 과잉생산위기를 은폐시키며 동시에 증폭시켰고 우크라이나에서 진행중인 제국주의간 갈등과 군사적긴장고조는 이마지막단계일뿐이다.
… 우크라이나전은 (벨기에정부가 군사비지출을 늘리는데) 구실을 제공한다. 정부는 2022.1.28 2030 군사비가 GDP의 1.54%를 찍을것이고 투자금은 102억까지 오를것이라 발표했다. 2018 42.5억유로였던 군사비는 2019 47.5억유로, 2020 53.3억유로로 증가했다. 정부의 2022.1.28 계획과 더불어 기획처의 GDP예측에 따르면 2030 군사비지출은 100억유로에 이를것이다. 나토의 가이드라인(2035 GDP의 2%)을 따르는 더크로(벨기에총리)계획으로 연간군사비지출은 2035 150억유로까지 증가할것이다. 이는 독점기업들의 탐욕이 자국내에서 충족되지않을때, 그들을 위해 약탈과 학살을 벌이기 위한 터무니없는 군사비지출이다. 구름이 태풍을 몰고 오듯 자본주의는 전쟁을 몰고 온다!
… 우리는 국가의 분열과 지역화에 맞서 싸우고있고 민중과 노동자들 자신들의 요구에 따라 규정돼야만 하는 (국가)구조에 대해 우리 스스로 선언하지않고 벨기에사회주의공화국의 건설을 위해 싸우고있다.
“The Ukrainian War is the final stage of the conflict between imperialism”
Julien Hannotte Morais | Communist Party of Belgium
On February 24, 2 days after the interruption of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine, the final element of an inter-imperialist confrontation that has been going on since 1991 in fact (the fall of the USSR) and had already peaked in 2014 during the Euromaidan Coup supported and driven by the US, through the neo-conservative Victoria Nuland, former ambassador to NATO and then assistant secretary of state for Europe.
The inter-imperialist confrontation had already escalated last January, when there was an attempt to redefine the spheres of influence and control of market shares in Kazakhstan, again against the people and the working class in revolt against corrupt power.
Beyond anti-fascist rhetoric
Some people blindly refuse to analyse the current war as an inter-imperialist war, misleading the direction of the workers’ struggle. Not surprisingly, the unified secretariat of the Fourth International (Trotskyites) sees only Russian imperialism and denies any responsibility of the Euro-Atlantic bloc in the current war, transforming itself de facto into a defender of this imperialism, allegedly in the name of the defence of the Ukrainian people, effectively a victim caught between two fires. The Belgian section is pushing for the massive sending of arms to Ukraine, a real war monger with many contradictions.
On the other hand, some on the left only see one imperialism, the other one, that of the United States, refusing to recognise the imperialist character of the present Russia. The declarations of so-called denazification (which cannot be carried out without a real anti-capitalist struggle) justifying the invasion of Ukraine poorly hide Putin’s anti-communism and Great Russian nationalist objectives as well as the repression of the workers’ and communists’ movement in Russia, the recent destruction of Soviet monuments in Ukraine and the attempts by Western imperialisms to associate capitalist Russia with the heritage of the USSR.
It is necessary here to take up Lenin’s theses on imperialism, which cannot be summed up in war alone, but rather in the monopolist phase of capital, the fusion of the industrial banking sectors, the export of capital, the conquest of new markets and, in the end, the redefinition of the world and a new division of it between imperialist forces.
These tragic events force us to keep a cool head and analyse the situation in class terms and not to sink into petty bourgeois emotion as a result of the gigantic war propaganda deployed by the imperialist forces and their henchmen, Whether it’s the socialist war minister (PS), the war-mongering MEP (ALDE) and former Belgian prime minister Verhofstadt who wants more sanctions against Russia, or the ecologists and their absurd morality (let’s sacrifice ourselves and stop heating to save Ukraine).
Thus, all peoples have to lose in this war: Russian, Ukrainian, but also in Europe as we have seen in the Port of Antwerp where workers have found themselves out of work following the sanctions against their Russian company, or in Liège where the hypothesis of Liberty Steel being taken over by NLMK, a Russian company, is also impossible.
If there is indeed an imperialist pyramid at the top of which is US imperialism, we have nothing to gain by choosing between one or the other imperialism, Russian, Belgian, European, Euro-Atlantic, any more than we have to gain between a hegemonic imperialism or a multipolar world which remains the expression of capitalist barbarism. The Russian attack/aggression will have allowed the Euro-Atlantic bloc to consolidate and reunify. However, this does not mean that this bloc is united. The different national imperialisms (France, Belgium, Germany …) that make up the European Union defend their own strategic interests. Initially, the Atlanticist SPD of Chancellor Scholz defended the Nord Stream 2 project, while France and Total Energies did not directly participate in the sanctions and Belgium tried to consolidate its place and influence within the European Union through Alexander de Croo and Charles Michel. It should be noted that the Belgian government, which was so quick to find sanctions against Russia, is still slow to find sanctions against its ally, the Zionist colonial and apartheid state.
With the “fall of the wall” came the emergence of a capitalist/imperialist power, the Russian Federation, which was competitive with the US, the EU, in terms of markets, raw materials, spheres of influence, capital exports …
The US and the EU expanded their sphere of influence by strengthening their alliance with NATO. The Russian Federation has tried to counter this competition by expanding its own sphere of influence, by injecting Russian capital, for example into the Donbass, Kazakhstan, Africa, South America.
In Ukraine, until 2014, the bourgeoisie and big business were divided over which imperialist camp Ukraine should join. In 2014, the balance of power will favour the part of the bourgeoisie and big business that opts for the US, EU and NATO. Western monopolies are moving into Ukraine. Military power allied to NATO is also quietly moving in. There is talk of installing a “missile shield”, allegedly directed against Iran … 24 US biological laboratories are being set up mainly in eastern Ukraine.
The other part of the bourgeoisie and the big companies that feel more connected to the Russian Federation organised a “revolt”, against the rapprochement with the European Union. The workers led an armed insurrection in Donbass on the objective basis of a full-scale attack on the rights of Russian speakers (ban on the Russian language etc.). The Donbass workers’ leaders were liquidated by the pro-Russian oligarchs who effectively took over the so-called Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics.
After the Maidan coup, the Ukrainian state power, now in the hands of the part of the bourgeoisie and big business that has chosen the US, EU and NATO, is organising military attacks against the so called insurgents.
There has been an armed conflict since 2014, despite the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, never respected by the Ukrainian fascist power, as well as a massive armed preparation by Ukraine to carry out ethnic cleansing in Donbass and regain control of Crimea, which was used as a justification for Russia to invade Ukraine while for 8 years Russia did not care about the people of Donbass.
On both sides, there is a nationalist and antipeople and anti-communist propaganda and policy which has been concretised by the repression and banning of the KPU in 2015, the Odessa massacre at the house of trade unions in 2014 or the arrest of the Kononovich brothers while the Communist Workers’ Party of Russia is often repressed, banned from demonstrations and from participating in elections.
The invasion of Ukraine by capitalist Russia on 24 February has brought this escalation to light, including in Belgium with a war-mongering government (10 billion euro increase in the military budget, 78 million euros worth of arms sent to Ukraine, alignment with NATO to defend the interests of the Belgian bourgeoisie and monopolies, huge daily war propaganda in the press …). War is indeed the solution of capitalism to overcome the crisis by reviving the economy through military production and by playing on the energy supply at the expense of the peoples. A fight to the death is being waged over energy. For example, the US government is trying to sell its extremely polluting shale gas to Europe, which has blocked Russian gas, with the full consent of the environmentalists who are demonstrating their hypocrisy. The consequence: energy prices already on the rise continue to rise as do the prices of basic necessities and misery. On 17 April 2022, Russia and Saudi Arabia stated that OPEC will not be able to make up for reduced or blocked Russian production.
The COVID-19 pandemic has masked but also amplified the crisis of overproduction of the capitalist system of which the ongoing inter-imperialist conflict in Ukraine and the military escalation is only the latest stage.
To be noted and welcomed is the courageous act of solidarity of the Italian workers, affiliated to the Unione Sindacale di Base, at Pisa airport on 15 March, but also of the Greek workers and the KKE (Greek Communist Party) at the port of Thessaloniki on 6 April, violently repressed by the police for having blocked the loading of arms destined for the Ukraine.
For the Communist Party of Belgium PCB-CPB, it is not only a question of calling for a halt to the expansion of NATO, but for the withdrawal of Belgium from this criminal organisation. We must fight first and foremost against our own imperialism. We must spread the socialist alternative, which is the only guarantee of lasting peace in our countries.
Here are some figures on military expenditure.
Charles Michel, former prime minister of Belgium, current president of the European Council since 1st December 2019, had promised NATO in 2016: a military spending trajectory of 1.3% of GDP in 2030, an investment of 2 billion in, among others, F-35s. Military spending would then be 8.3 billion by 2030.
The war in Ukraine gives an alibi. the Government announced on 28 January 2022 a trajectory of military spending at 1.54% of GDP in 2030, an investment envelope increased to 10.2 billion. Military spending in 2018 was thus increased from 4.25 billion, in 2019 from 4.75 billion, in 2020 from 5.33 billion. According to the GDP forecasts of the PLAN office, with the government’s plan of 28 January 2022, military expenditure will reach 10 billion by 2030. With the De Croo plan, which follows the NATO guidelines (2% of GDP in 2035), the annual military expenditure would rise to 15 billion in 2035. Outrageous military expenditure to organise plundering, massacre in the interest of the monopolies when so many needs are not met in our own country. Capitalism carries war like the cloud carries the storm!
Concerning the present situation in Korea, we wish to welcome the efforts and struggle of the PDP for the reunification of the Korean peninsula, their struggle against historical revisionism which tends to erase or diminish Japanese colonialism, but also their struggle to organise the workers in trade unions, especially those affiliated to the WFTU, under particularly difficult conditions. We wish to continue and deepen our relations with the PDP and continue our exchanges.
What is the current situation in Belgium in relations with the organisation of the State? Bourgeois forces, from fascists to social democrats, are organising the division of the working class and workers on regionalist and/or nationalist grounds. We are fighting against the division of the country and regionalisation and we are fighting for the construction of a socialist republic in Belgium without pronouncing ourselves on the structures that will have to be defined by the people and the workers themselves in power according to their needs.
Thank you, Long live friendship between peoples,
Long live proletarian internationalism,
Long live socialism!
