No War In Ukraine-The Main Enemy Is At Home

For Labor Strikes Against The Wars & A Mass Democratic Workers Party

UFCLP Statement (10/15/22)

The growing threat of world war and even nuclear war is part and parcel of the decline of US imperialism.

US orchestrated the 2014 violent coup against the democratically elected, albeit corrupt, government of Ukraine in order to use Ukraine as its instrument for pursuing regime change in Russia. Indeed much of the corruption that’s made Ukraine notorious in the eyes of many flows from US and EU investment for extraction schemes beginning soon after the USSR’s dismemberment beginning in 1992.  Not only did the US back the privatization of Ukrainian sectors such as mining, but it also supported the post-Maidan coup 2014 Ukrainian government enshrining only the Ukrainian language as the official language of government in a nation that had traditionally recognized both Ukrainian and Russian as equal languages of the state and civil society.  Moreover, the US has not opposed Zelensky’s banning of trade unions, opposition political parties or independent and oppositional electronic and print media.

Supporting this privatization has been the role of the AFL-CIO’s “Solidarity Center” which gets $75 million a year from the government funded National Endowment For Democracy.

As the US empire declines, it becomes more adventurous. The surrounding of Russia by NATO and US imperialism is to destroy Russia and indeed the invasion this year by Russia and Russian backed forces was provoked by this imperialist scheme. Putin has also attacked Lenin for supporting the right of the Ukrainians to have self-determination. He represents a corrupt oligarchic class that was in fact put in power by the US as it pushed the economic privatization while backing the installation of its corrupt puppet Boris Yeltsin who became an agent for US imperialism.

 

The Russian working class is also in a struggle against their own capitalist class that profits off their labor and the wealth of Russia. There is no capitalist class or bureaucracy that workers should support in any country of the world. We are also for the abolishment of NATO and all US military alliances and for the shutdown and withdrawal of all 800 US bases around the world.

At the same time the Russian invasion must be opposed by internationalists. The Russian working class is exploited and real unions are under attack by Putin and the oligarchs he represents. Putin, like Xi Jinping and the Chinese CPC bureaucracy do not represent the working class and they continue to believe in the fantastical lie of “peaceful co-existence” with US imperialism. Their hopes are illusory. US imperialism has no intention of allowing “peaceful coexistence.” There is no middle road between the working class taking power and world imperialism. US imperialism is out to destroy not only Russia but weaken Germany and other imperialists competitors in the EU and Japan.

In the US both the Democrats and Republicans have united in support of the massive and growing $60 billion flow of war material going to Ukraine. At the same time they are privatizing Medicare and attacking the railway workers using the anti-labor railway act.

The AFL-CIO leadership supports, and is indeed integrated into Democratic party leadership. They have continued to support US imperialist capitalism including through CIA and State Department fomented coups and insurrections in Indonesia, Chile, Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Vietnam, Korea, Venezuela and even erstwhile allies like Australia in the 1970s. Even in the face of the growth of fascism here at home they censured the Vermont AFL-CIO for calling for a general strike against any attempted coup and insurrection.

The crisis of capitalism and war are leading directly to the rise of fascism and it will not be defeated by the Democrats or bureaucrats who support capitalism and imperialism. Working people need a mass democratic labor party that will oppose imperialist wars and the attacks on workers abroad and at home. The ILWU in the US led the way against the Iraq war in 2008 with a west coast strike. We need similar working class strike actions in the US as like the Italian Si-Cobas, a logistics union which has called for general strike action on December 2. We support global actions to join them as well.

The main enemy is not the Russian, Chinese, or any working class around the world, but US imperialism and the capitalist class which whips up xenophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia as part of a divide and conquer strategy. A labor party would unite all workers on a class basis and support general strikes and mass worker actions against wars, fascism, union busting and racism.

The United Front Committee For A Labor Party UFCLP supports united fronts against privatization, racism, and fascist terror and total solidarity with worker struggles such as the Amazon warehouse and delivery workers and the strategic railway workers who’ve reached a breaking point.

We need a united front for public socialized healthcare and housing for all working people and it is plain to anyone with eyes and just a little experience that we will not get it with the Democratic or their coequal ruling partner Republican party.

At the same time workers need to unite politically and form their own party. We need democratic unions that oppose business unionism and class collaboration which dominates US national unions. The growing working class hatred against this rotten reactionary system is the fuel for building a mass working class party and for the working class to win the struggle to unionize. We need mass workers actions and general strikes to organize millions of workers.

 

United Front Committee For A Labor Party (UFCLP)

UFCLP.org, info@ufclp.org