In Ukraine, as in the entire world, in the face of imperialist war the proletarian slogan must be once again: revolutionary defeatism against all bourgeoisies!

Between partisans and loyalists, nationalists and mercenaries, all supplied by arms from imperialist instigators, the programmed assassination of proletarians is being planned, according to the same old script

As communists and internationalists, we know from memory and from the science of history that in the age of imperialism class rule and oppression become more widespread and more intense. The economic crisis strews growing poverty and a trail of death amongst proletarians all over the world. War is the natural habitat of capitalism: indeed imperialism means more intense international competition, harsh trade wars and exportation of capitals which inevitably come into conflict with one another, control of the sources of raw materials and their transport routes and thus the attempt to exclude competitors, right up to the uncontrolled explosion of conflicts that are at first local and later, in perspective and in the presence of the necessary, favourable material conditions, worldwide.

This is what has been happening for decades from the Balkan strip, through the Middle East (Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Syria) as far as Afghanistan, the crossroads of commerce, vital trade corridors, pipelines for oil and gas, oilfields and sources of water. Now comes the turn of the Russian-Ukrainian territory, where the appetites of the huge imperialist giants (the USA, Germany, Russia, China) collide, thus intensifying the preconditions for a coming world conflict. The international mandates, the peace assemblies, the meetings of the UN Security Council are the useless fig leaves of pacifism and thus of mystification: they are the bourgeois diktats which over all these years have led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian, Slav, Iraqi, Afghani, Libyan, Syrian, and soon Russian and Ukrainian proletarians. Faced with the jungle of nationalisms, invented, reborn or only temporarily placated, the proletariat’s slogan everywhere can be none other than revolutionary defeatism: the distinct and total refusal to side with one front or another, to support one bourgeoisie or another and, first and foremost, its “own”. There is no “homeland in danger”, no “violation of democracy”, no “invading enemy”, no “liberating army”: the proletariat must no longer fall into these mortal traps!

But what is the meaning of revolutionary defeatism against the bourgeoisies of all nations, large and small, already organized in a state or still subordinate, attacked or attackers? What should the action of the proletariat be, faced with these wars, as with future ones, far more widespread and devastating – a third world bloodbath?

1. The refusal to accept economic and social sacrifices in the name of the “national economy”

2. The organization of battles in defence of the living and working conditions of all proletarians, even when a war effort is invoked and there is a call to “national unity”

3. An open break with any negotiation and social peace, a decided return to the methods and objectives of class war – methods and objectives that for now represent the only real internationalist solidarity of the proletariat in the imperialist strongholds towards the masses of oppressed proletarians

4. Refusal of any partisanship (nationalist, patriotic, mercenary, humanitarian, pacifist) in favour of one “front” or another.

Only on the basis of these fundamental premises, which imply independent action by the proletariat, will it be possible to organize open revolutionary defeatism, placing it at the centre of the class strategy and allowing the war front to be broken, causing it to crumble. In this commitment to the struggle our allies are exclusively proletarians all over the world and in particular those in countries massacred by imperialist wars. They are not and never will be one bourgeois faction or another, however armed or “resistant”, in whatever guise, lay or religious, reformist or – worse still – pseudo-socialist. The profound economic crisis and the armed interventions that have followed one upon the other in the last few decades demonstrate that the capitalist mode of production is now on its deathbed: its long agony is pure destruction and it is therefore necessary to deal the final blow, in order to achieve at last the violent seizing of power and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat directed by the communist party, a classless society, communism.

In this perspective the rebirth, extension and establishment of roots of the world communist partybecomes increasingly urgent.

International Communist Party

(il programma comunista – cahiers internationalistes – internationalist papers – the internationalist)