YES FOR PEACE IN UKRAINE AND EUROPE
NO TO THE PLAGUE OF IMPERIALISM

War in Ukraine is a proof of a worrying reality : Europe is not safe.

Those, in the wake of liberal theoreticians such as Kojeve or Fukyama, who thought that the fall of the Iron Curtain would toll “the End of the story” with the settlement of « pax americana » and, henceforth, imperialist wars and conflicts would be reducibly waged out of Europe, were wrong. Both NATO’s war in the Balkans in the 1990s and this current war in Ukraine bring us back to reality, far from these weird theories. The causes of these wars lie in reversals of successive international relations since 1991 and the disintegration of the communist bloc in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Since then, NATO frenetically runs for power.

The United States and its European vassal have given free reins to provocative and intrusive tactics. They encouraged ultra–right movements and political parties in this area to surround Russia.

Ukraine is being used as a pawn in US strategy to push back its Russian rival’s influence and narrow its political and economic sphere, as for the energy stakes. Ukraine is not the only pawn in the game, but it is a central part of this highly perilous strategy. In 2008, the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Mr. William J. Burns, wrote: “Ukraine’s entry into NATO is the sharpest “red line” [for Russia]. (. . . ) I have not met a single person who reads this project as anything but a direct challenge to Russian interests”. Last February, before the first Russian military manoeuvres happened at the Ukrainian border, the former
US ambassador to the USSR from 1987 to 1991 wrote: “Trying to free Ukraine from Russian influence was a foolish and dangerous step. »

Of course, there is no justification for war crimes committed in Ukraine. There is no question of any accomodating attitude towards Putin, who distinguished himself by his autocratism, determination to control or censor medias and impose his nationalist propaganda, his  persecution and murders of opponents. He is the one whose dreams are to restore the Great Russia of the Romanovs.

It is a question to underline that war in Ukraine is the result of a confrontation between deleterious imperialisms and to reject the angelic narrative that the United States is the benevolent guardian of Good against Evil. Indeed, this worn–out narrative is nevertheless efficient because of the intense ideological bludgeon carried out by all national medias, with the support of a majority of political and trade union activists, including in the workers‘ movement.

This antagonism between imperialisms, responsible of wars and therefore death of populations, brings to the fore the absolute necessity of the abolition of nuclear weapons and the dismantling of NATO.

The United States is using the Ukrainian crisis to reposition itself as “protector” of Europe: from Biden to Pelosi, the entire Washington’s Areopagus shows off in Kiev with pragmatic hindsights, such as willing to become the favorite energy supplier to European countries.

Now that Putin « Folamour » clearly claims his intention to use nuclear weapons, now that the United States continues to deliver tens of billions of dollars for heavy weapons and assume a permanent tension and pressure tactic, while the toll of Ukrainian civilian casualties is increasing each day from the Boutcha’s mass graves to those of Mariupol and Donbass, it is high time to demand peace in Europe and all over the world.

Warmonger speeches and declarations are irresponsible. This confict’s economic consequences affect people on a global scale. Rising prices for grain, oil and energy are reaching historic levels and are worsening the living conditions of working people all over the world, while capitalists and speculators of all stripes are taking advantages as scavengers.

At that time, we are far from the rise of consciousness of masses marching against war in Iraq. And yet, the mobilization of the populations against war in France and Europe would bring all its weight to stop this warlike conflict. The role of the CGT is fundamental as well as that of the workers‘ movement to get people fully aware of the risks of a global and nuclear conflict.

It is our historical responsibility