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La política exterior es siempre la continuación de la política interior
The PSOE-UP coalition Government has made clear what its principles are regarding conflicts between the great powers. Turning its back on the struggle that millions of workers and young people in the Spanish State have waged against all kinds of imperialist wars, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), seconded at all times by the statements of Yolanda Díaz (UP), does nothing more than reproduce the cynical lies of the US imperialism, the EU and NATO, shaking off any responsibility for the war in Ukraine.
"There is no precedent for an aggression of this magnitude in Europe since the Second World War!", "we defend freedom and the rule of law against Putin's totalitarianism", "we are more united than ever to protect democracy"... The campaign of servile lies that for months has been activated to create the maximum of confusion and, above all, to justify the policy of national unity with the capitalists and the NATO imperialists, dictates the government's foreign policy.
Putin's military intervention in Ukraine is far from progressive and responds to the imperialist ambitions of the capitalist oligarchy that rules the Kremlin. But it would be absurd to close one's eyes to an obvious fact: the policy carried out by Washington since the collapse of the USSR is the fundamental factor that has triggered this war scenario.
Its determination to extend NATO to the Russian borders, decisively altering its defensive capacity and surrounding the country with a belt of hostile states in which they have planted military bases and deployed state-of-the-art weapons; the use of Ukraine as a platform for its aggressive maneuvers, financing and arming the neo-Nazi formations that are now embedded in the state apparatus and the army, and its insistence that the Ukrainian puppet government enter NATO, despite the repeated requests by Russia not to carry it out and to create instead a demilitarized space… proves that neither US imperialism nor its international allies are innocent. Quite the contrary.
As Marxists, as revolutionary communists, we say without any ambiguity that the war is reactionary on both sides, and its consequences will be paid heavily by the Ukrainian people, the Russian people and the workers and youth of the whole world. That is why it is essential to not be fooled by lies and propaganda.
The “most progressive Government in history” with US militarism
In line with European social democracy, according to Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, the EU, the US and NATO are honorably waging a battle for "the values of peace, respect for international legality, solidarity and also humanitarian cooperation with the affected peoples”.
These magnificent values that Sánchez and his ministers tell us about did not prevent NATO, an exclusively military alliance of which the Spanish State is part of, from ruthlessly crushing Serbian people for 78 straight days and nights, massively bombing Serbian territory, destroying hospitals, schools, houses and causing thousands of deaths with the excuse of “protecting” Kosovo. Once this war, that NATO and its Secretary General at the time, Javier Solana, fully supported, and that did not have any "UN approval", was finally over, Kosovo declared its independence and the US installed the Bondsteel military base on its territory, currently the second largest in Europe.
NATO has aggressively and unceremoniously expanded its presence in Eastern Europe. Between 1999 and 2004, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania joined. What peace, what diplomacy and what values are Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE talking about?
It is the same NATO that looks the other way when the Palestinian people are mercilessly attacked by the Zionist State of Israel, and sanctions are never approved to contain their rampages against the civilian population. It is the same military organization that has perpetrated war crimes in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Grenada, Panama, Vietnam… reducing cities and civilian infrastructure to rubble, that supported bloody military dictatorships in Latin America that murdered dozens of thousands of left-wing activists. Only in Afghanistan, where the Spanish army participated in the NATO deployment for 19 years, Western occupation forces killed nearly 100,000 civilians. In Iraq non-military casualties are close to 400,000. And so we could continue endlessly giving the data of the horror sown by North American and European imperialism throughout the world.
We are going to ask a basic question that has not yet been answered. Would the Government of Pedro Sánchez agree with China or Russia establishing military alliances with Canada or Mexico, deploying nuclear weapons on the North American border? Or is it that the extension of NATO and the militarization of Ukraine help to consolidate peace and democracy? Only by answering these questions is it clear that PSOE's “pacifism” is mere talk to justify its aggressive warmongering in favor of Western imperialism.
Behind the talk about the defense of European values and democracy, hides the stark struggle of the imperialist powers for world domination, to expand their areas of influence and for control of natural resources and raw materials. And all for the benefit of their respective oligarchies, of a handful of capitalists who continue to grow rich themselves at the expense of the war, the pandemic, and the misery of millions of workers and oppressed. This is the reality that the PSOE-UP Government tries to hide from us in order to justify its position with North American imperialism and its policy of “national unity” with the exploiters.
The furious warmongering statements of the "socialist" Borrell, encouraging us to prepare for war and the resolutions of the European Parliament in favor of militarization and to get involved militarily in Ukraine to fight Russia, are quite clear. They beat the drums of war and the most hysterical anti-Russian Western chauvinism, to cover up their imperialist crimes and the social devastation caused by their capitalist policies. And now on top of that they want to move us with their help to the Ukrainian "refugees", that Borrell don’t like to “be called migrants”. We assume that this is to differentiate them from the refugees who tried to cross the Polish border a few months ago, and which were described by Borrell as "invaders", and from those who live crowded in subhuman conditions on Lesbos, or from those who try to jump the blades on top of the wall in Ceuta and Melilla, while they are repressed and expelled "on-hot" (immediately) by the Spanish police. What disgusting cynicism!
'Unidas Podemos' for peace… but supporting a pro-NATO president
The leadership of UP has been divided on this issue, apparently. Vice President Yolanda Díaz and Minister Alberto Garzón have closed ranks with the PSOE and NATO, and enthusiastically support sending weapons to Ukraine —for the “resistance” they say—.
On the other hand, Ione Belarra, Irene Montero, and the UP spokesperson in Congress, Pablo Echenique, have expressed their reluctance, including their opposition to sending war material. But they continue in the Government, they do not break with the NATOist policies of the PSOE —endorsed in practice the strategy of the Spanish bourgeoisie—, and they are very careful not to call for social mobilization against the war.
Both UP and the parliamentary left (Catalan ERC, Basque EH Bildu, and Valencian Compromis), in their joint statement, demand "a military and tension de-escalation on all sides, to not abandon the work of diplomacy and in favor of peace" and to seek a solution "under the Charter of the United Nations”. But hasn't this war already been the inevitable result of diplomacy?
Western imperialism has been appealing to "diplomatic action" for months, but has not lifted a single finger to seriously negotiate the Russian proposal for Ukraine to not join NATO and its territory to be demilitarized. And UN? This organization has never prevented any major military conflict, ever, and we've had quite a few in recent decades. UN is nothing more than a fig leaf under which the different gangs of imperialist thieves hide, and which only serves to approve hypocritical appeals with no effect at all.
But things have gotten even worse. After the parliamentary debate in which Pedro Sánchez announced the shipment of weapons to the Zelensky regime, and under pressure from bourgeois public opinion, a majority of the parliamentary left (with the exception of the CUP and the BNG) has registered a proposal not of law in Congress on the war in Ukraine together with… the PP, Cs and Vox!! It is a complete political and ideological bankruptcy, which takes us back to the moments when the European social democrats voted with their national bourgeoisies for war credits in August 1914. The result was clear: that the workers were killed in the trenches, and that their blood will irrigate the benefits of the imperialists.
The main enemy is at home. Down with the imperialist war!
The task of the combative left, of thousands of activists who obviously watch with horror what is happening in Ukraine and who categorically reject the military intervention of Putin - a qualified representative of Great Russian chauvinism and the most corrupt, anti-communist and repressive oligarchy — is not letting ourselves be fooled by the propaganda of the bourgeoisie, in the first place of the bourgeoisie of our country, fighting against it and unmasking its reactionary goals.
To confront the capitulation of the social democracy, and of the rest of the formations that are shamefully subordinate to it, to confront the Sacred Union with the imperialists and the exploiters, the revolutionaries must defend a policy of class independence, to deny any kind of support to our own bourgeoisie, to understand, as Karl Liebknecht said, that 'The main enemy is at home!', and defend a clear and determined program: NATO and Russian troops out of Ukraine, down with the imperialist war, for the overthrow of the capitalist governments that have pushed us into this situation, for the internationalist mobilization of the working class and socialism.
The fight against war and militarism is only viable by breaking with capitalist logic, not accepting the policies of the "lesser evil". We demand from the PSOE-UP Government the immediate withdrawal of all the Spanish troops that are participating under the umbrella of NATO in Eastern Europe and in any other part of the world, the immediate withdrawal of the Spanish State from the Atlantic Alliance, and that not a single euro, bullet, or soldier is dedicated to this or other imperialist wars. In addition, it must be clearly stated that the enormous resources that are being used in this war will come from the suffering of the world working class, which will be subjected to new attacks on its rights and further degradation of its living conditions.
War is the most obvious symptom of the putrefaction suffered by world capitalism, and this war, which has sent a bombshell to Washington's shaky world order, will not be the last. There are no possible third ways, there is no diplomacy that can resolve this contradiction. If we want peace we have to fight for socialism!
[1]Crisis en la frontera de Polonia y Bielorrusia. La UE declara la guerra a los refugiados una vez más
