Against the Aggression of US-European
Imperialism Towards Yugoslavia
Hands Off The Balkans!
For the Defeat of the Aggressors!
Revolutionary Marxist Association/Proposta
of Italy
With the aggravation of the aggression and the possible passage to a
ground invasion of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it becomes more and more
evident that the true reasons for the war do not concern the legitimate rights
of the Kosovan people to self-determination. The American and European
governments are in competition to earn the role of protagonist in the
aggression and in the division of the spoils of war that they will achieve.
The objective truth of the imperialist bombs is that of opening the
road to the control of the process, already under way for years, of the break-up
of Yugoslavia and of the completion of the reintroduction of the capitalist
"free market" after the collapse of
Stalinism.
Far from the being subordinates of the USA, the social
democratic-led European governments
[scramble?--sgomitano] to occupy the centre-stage in this new massacre. The
lives of millions of people have been sacrificed once more on the altar of the
profits of the big bourgeoisie.
An internationalist mobilization is necessary of the workers of the
aggressor countries (USA, Europe) to the side of the proletariat of the
attacked country, the Yugoslavia Republic. A mobilization to contribute to the
defeat of the aggressor armies and to a victory of Serbia. It is necessary for the workers to take into
their hands, arming themselves, the organization of the defence against
imperialist aggression, not delegating it to the butcher Milosevic who has been
for years allied to imperialism and its agent in the process of the restoration
of capitalism, and of the cancellation
of the--even deformed--revolutionary conquests
The defeat of the governments of USA, Italy, France, etc. would
strengthen the struggle of the working class of these countries against their
own bourgeoisies; it would allow the workers to overthrow Milosevic; it would allow the Kosovan people
and other people doubly oppressed (by
imperialism and by its vassals) to achieve self-determination. A victory
for the attacked Yugoslavia could open the road to the only solution of the
conflict in the Balkans: a socialist federation in which a peaceful
cohabitation of all the people of the region would be possible, respecting of
the law of self-determination of each.
The defeat of Western troops would be transformed into a victory for
the working class and could also give, in Italy, a new impulse to the
construction of an autonomous class pole, counterposed to the two alternative
poles of the bourgeoisie today united in support of the imperialist interests
of the Italian bourgeoisie; this victory of the international working class would
allow us to make a step forward in the construction of the communist project of
the overthrow of capitalism, which is the only true solution to put an end once
and for all to wars.
It is necessary to continue the mobilization, building in each place of
work and of study united committees, organizing demonstrations and strikes in
each city, building a general strike against the war and against the government
of D'Alema. Because, as Karl Liebnecht wrote in 1914, in a famous flier to the
troops in war:
The principal enemy of the workers is in their own country!
False and True Reasons for The War
The official version of imperialism, pronounced by Clinton and argued
by the social-traitors like D'Alema and Veltroni, would wish the NATO force to
engage in a bombardment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (RFJ) to
"protect" the Kosovans of Albanian ethnicity from Serb purges. After
Iraq these bombs become intelligent and humanitarian. It is sufficient to
mention the news reported on CNN to sweep away these falsehoods: not only have
the bombs struck the outskirts and popular districts of Belgrade and of the
principal cities of the RFJ, but among the victims there are obviously also the
same Kosovan fugitives that are supposed to be the beneficiaries of this intervention.
In reality the barbaric aggression against the RFJ is functional to the
elimination or reorganisation of the last remaining element that is not fully
controllable by imperialism in the Balkan area.
The refusal of Milosevic to accept the imperialist "peace" of
Rambouillet that foresaw in fact the installation of a NATO protectorate in
Kosovo, has constituted contemporaneously an unacceptable challenge and a
pretext for a strengthening of the imperialist presence in the zone. The only
purpose of the bombardments, and of what could follow from them, is this: not
the rights of the ethnic minorities but imperialist control of the heart of the
RFJ and therefore of the Balkans. Everything is inserted in a scenario that
sees the diverse imperialist powers in competition (peaceful for the moment)
for world supremacy: with the three imperialist poles - USA, Europe, Japan- in
competition for the sceptre after the disappearance of the "Soviet"
antagonist.
The Break-Up of Yugoslavia as the Product
of Capitalist Restoration
The circumstances of these days cannot be understood if we do not note
the context in which the break-up of Yugoslavia has happened. For a deeper
analysis we refer you to the dossier published in Proposta 10, October '95:
"Ex-Yugoslavia: imperialist barbarity in the form of 'ethnic war'"
(which can be obtained from the editors). We confine ourselves here to recall
some elements.
The break-up of Yugoslavia and the ten year conflict between the
regions that composed the Titoist state are the product of a combination of
interdependent causes: the collapse of Stalinism "to the right," that
is in the absence of a re-conquest on the part of the proletariat, through a
political revolution, of the power usurped by the bureaucracy; the absence of a
revolutionary leadership that leads to this end: a product in turn also of the
physical liquidation, since the 1930s, of whole leading groups and of all the
cadres of the anti-Stalinist communist left
(continuing in the following years under the control of Tito); the
resurgence of inter-ethnic tensions,
used by Stalinism since the 1930 to oppose every anti-bureaucratic struggle,
fed then by the occupying nazi-fascists as a tool of division and domination of
the country and recovered finally by the ex-generals of Tito employed after the
collapse of the USSR, as agents of capitalist restoration, to divide
Yugoslavia, each in alliance with a sector of imperialism.
In Yugoslavia, as in the other countries of so-called "actually
existing socialism", what has happened is what Trotsky and the Bolshevik
opposition to Stalinism had foreseen since the 1930s: "Either the working
class will crush the bureaucracy and will open a road toward socialism, or the
bureaucracy, becoming ever more the
organ of the bourgeoisie in the workers' state will destroy the new forms of
ownership and will propel the country towards capitalism."
The state, born from the antifascist resistance, was born already
deformed. Titoism did not ever constitute in fact a communist alternative to
Stalinism; even when the regime of Tito broke with the USSR, it did it within a
nationalist framework, of acceptance of "socialism in one country."
Despite this, and with the evident limits of a bureaucratised worker state, the
regime endeavoured in that phase to calm the inter-ethnic conflicts (which, however, it had fomented previously)
to guarantee its own stable domination. In this framework the Yugoslav
constitution of 1945 guaranteed the rights of
minorities, including therein those of Kosovo, which had recognized the
right to schools in the Albanian language and a relative cultural autonomy;
from 1974 Kosovo was finally recognized an autonomy even if limited by the
bureaucratic Titoist regime . This status had been definitely revoked by
Milosevic in the 1989.
Subsequently, in the context of the war between the fragments of
ex-Yugoslavia, the ethnic conflict has been a fire in which many have burned
(including therein the ex-Albanian regime of Berisha: which has fed the idea of
a "Greater Albania" in counterposition to the "Greater
Serbia" of Milosevic).
Finally the Dayton Accords of 1995 that have imposed the imperialist
peace in the area have simply removed the matter of Kosovo, that is of a
territory 90% of which is populated by inhabitants of ethnic Albanians and by
10% from a Serbian minority, but by now
subject to the institutions of the new federative Republic (that is Serbia and
Montenegro).
The Betrayal on the Part of Leading
Kosovan Groups
in the Battle for Self-Determination
From 1997-98 the Democratic League of Ibrahim Rugova, which demanded a
limited autonomy for the region, has been "[eclipsed?--scavalcata]"
by the more radical and armed leaders of the KLA (army of liberation) which
advocated the conquest of independence. The KLA is a petit bourgeois formation:
the greater part of the leadership has been leaders of the Democratic League
and the majority of them are tied up to ex-Albanian president Berisha (but
there is also a neo-Stalinist fraction with nostalgia for Enver Hoxha). The USA
had at first preferred a relationship with Rugova, defining the KLA as
"terrorist" and allowing even for Milosevic to instigate, last
summer, a bloody offensive against of them. Subsequently it has seen in the KLA
(which by now had become a mass movement at the expense of the League of
Rugova) the privileged interlocutor: in the moment in which, however, it
accepted the substantial renunciation of
the programme of independence,
setting its signature on the American text of Rambouillet that foresees a
semi-autonomy for Kosovo under the control of the imperialist troops.
This change of attitude of the USA toward the KLA explains the fact
that Washington has never wanted the separation of Kosovo from Serbia since it would constitute an element of instability,
it would set in movement the Albanian minority in Macedonia, it would open the
road to a clash between Greece and Turkey. The objective is rather that of
preparing a stronghold from which to monitor in the whole region the process of
integration of the Balkans into the capitalist market, avoiding the repetition
of insurrections like the Albanian one of the 1997. In this sense the USA has
always chosen as its allies the Albanian leaders that refrained from fighting
for independence. Its ally of today is the KLA which not only has renounced the
independence of Kosovo but has made calls for NATO bombardments on Serbia.
It appears evident therefore that today, more that ever, the struggle
of the Kosovan people for self-determination passes to the construction of
another leadership.
European and Italian Imperialism and the
Role of Social Democracy
Contrary to the attempt of the majority of the leading group of the PRC
to give credence to a version that would see the EU and the Italian government
as "subordinates" and "incapable of an autonomous role"
from the USA, all the governments of the "centre-left" and the
European "left" have taken sides decidedly in favour of aggression,
participating directly or indirectly. The partial distinctions from the USA do
not concern possible pacifist scruples of Europe, but are the visible product
of the underground conflict that contrasts the different imperialist poles in
struggle among and within themselves to gain a primary role in this
"war" and in the equilibrium that emerges from it. Thus also the most
advanced European government (according to Bertinotti), that of Jospin, has
declared its own "full adhesion" to the conflict under way. And in
Italy the calls on the part of polished bourgeois commentators (one thinks of
Lucio Caracciolo in "La Repubblica") for a "better role for
diplomacy" do not constitute objections to the indiscriminate use of the
bombardments, but solicitations to the D'Alema government to occupy
centre-stage in the massacre without delays, to guarantee the Italian
bourgeoisie a further strengthening on the international chessboard.
The inter-imperialist competition occurs therefore between the USA
which wants to strengthen its presence in the Balkans, limiting the European
one; Italy which wants to strengthen its own role, that has seen a season of
renewed protagonism with the Prodi government already, and with the suffocation
of the Albanian revolution in the 1997 and the installation of an Italian
protectorate in Albania; Germany, which has assimilated Croatia already, and
wants now to definitely eliminate the Serbian obstacle to its own expansion in
the area; France, which has armed Milosevic for years, and now intends to
participate in his destruction in order to divide the spoils of war with the
others.
The role of European Social Democracy in the construction of a European
imperialist pole in competition with USA and Japan is therefore confirmed: and
each demand of the PRC appears so much more grotesque because "Europe
makes its voice felt ." The so-called voice of Europe is in the choir of
the butchers and knows how to sing only the hiss of the bombs.
The same "left" wings of the governments, from its
ministerial patrol of Cossutta, to the Manconi varieties (who speak about
"knowing how to do politics in time of war") confine themselves to
turning their heads from the other parts and to looking for any pretext which
allows them to contemporaneously save their souls and their ministerial
easy-chairs. It signifies the attitude of "duplicity" of the PCF of
Hue that while it participates in the demonstrations in the square against the
war it finds new motives "for a renewed support to the Jospin
government."
The Inconsistent Pacifism of the Majority
Leaders of The PRC
If it is recognized that the PRC as a whole has the capacity for an
immediate mobilization against the war, it is necessary to underline that once
more this happens with heavy limits which invalidate the whole position: limits
determined by the position of the majority of the leading group to the
continuous search for that European neo-Keynesian model (as with Jospin) that
should constitute the alternative to liberalism. Here, as in the various
interventions of comrade Bertinotti and in the position taken by the national
secretariat, is an attempt to make a distinction between good and bad
imperialism, charging all guilt to the "US policeman" while Europe
would be somehow involved "[obtorto?] neck" (even for the guilt of
the bad wing of social democracy: that
of Blair). It speaks about the "servility of Europe" towards the
"war of the Americans," of "Europe in the hands of General
Clark" etc.: trying to give credence to the analysis of an unwanted war,
suffered by the European governments, the victims (and therefore amendable and
as always liable to make a "turn" capable of restoring "an
autonomous role to Europe").
The reality of the fact is very different. It is anything but European
subordination: it would be enough to read the newspapers to know that last
December in St Malo in a meeting between Blair and the leaders of the
"advanced" wing (according to Bertinotti) of social democracy,
Jospin, the need to make rapid steps toward the construction of European
military structures has been posed, independent of the USA, and the need to try
to build "a greater European military state" to contest the supremacy the USA, even on
the military ground, has also been mentioned. It is not a case in fact of
whether the first to speak about intervention with ground troops has been the
advisers of Jospin. Why then does the party not extend to the PCF the invitation that it has
addressed to Cossutta of removing support to the governments which make the
war? Perhaps because the Jospin government remains however a model of
reference? And it has not been able to find a way out as Paul Ferrero has done
of the national secretariat. (in "Liberazione") speaking about a
"victory of the Blair line against that of Jospin": the strategic
alternative of Blair and Jospin has never existed (except in the heads of some
comrades of the leading group of the party). The war is "the continuation
of politics by other means": the governments of the centre-left or of the "left" which carry forward in
the respective countries anti-working class programmes, are today the
administrators of the interests of their bourgeoisies abroad. The plans to
remodel the Italian armed forces, started with the Prodi government and
continued with D'Alema, have exactly the finality of endowing Italian
imperialism with flexible tools of intervention to protect their own affairs
outside national confinements.
To a wrong analysis a vague perspective is accompanied. The solution
pointed out for the Balkan circumstance consists of the call to the UN. As
always the absence of a class analysis of phenomena and of institutions leads
to ignoring the role of that "lair of imperialist brigands" (Lenin)
that it is the UN. Heir of that League of Nations born in the 1919, it did not
prevent any conflict ever (including during the Second world War) and it
shielded instead the imperialist invasions of Mussolini in North Africa. An
organization to which the Russia of Lenin never adhered (it was the USSR, by
now in the hands of Stalin, that adhered with a view to a dialogue with
"democratic" imperialism). The U.N. that according to Bertinotti
would remain today "in silence":
(when instead the secretary general Kofi Annan has spoken with clarity
of a "legitimate attack, for the peace") it is the organization that
carries the primary responsibility for the embargo of Iraq that has provoked a
million and half already dead or that has perpetrated--with its blue
helmets--the rape of Bosnia and Somalia. An organization from which moreover
today, the USSR has vanished, imperialism does not have any more need, it is able
to permit itself to show its face directly without making recourse to cover of
acronyms or to calls to a non-existent "international
legality."
But the majority of the leading group of the party seems to ignore
these evident elements and prefers to put every hope more in bourgeois
diplomacy than in the international class mobilization. Until it indicates as a
solution an "international conference for the integration (sic) of the
Balkan area into a common and democratic Europe."
For a Revolutionary Position on
Self-Determination of Nations
and on Perspectives for the Balkans
Paradoxically today almost nobody (neither the false imperialist
friends, nor those who from left oppose the war) recognizes the rights of the
Kosovan people to self-determination (and therefore also to independence):
often rather it is preferred to speak only of "autonomy" because
" otherwise it would be chaos." Yet the classical position, the ABC
of communism, departs exactly from the
opposite reasoning. It is enough to quote this passage of Lenin (from
"Results of the Discussion on Self-Determination," 1916): "The dialectic of history is such that
the function of nationality and of
oppressed people, impotent as factors of independence in the struggle against
imperialism, is that of ferment, of a bacillus that, together with
other ferments and bacilli will contribute to making an entry on to the scene
of the true strength which could fight against imperialism, namely the
socialist proletariat." And again (in the "Socialist Revolution and
the Right of Nations to
Self-Determination", 1916):
"Obviously not only the right of nations to self-determination, but
all the essential claims of political democracy are 'realisable'" in the
imperialist epoch only in an incomplete way, deformed (...). But from this it
cannot be derived at all that social democracy should renounce the immediate
and definite struggle for all these claims (...) attracting the masses to active struggle, widening and rekindling the
struggle for each fundamental democratic demand until the direct activation of
the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, that is until the socialist revolution
that dispossesses the bourgeoisie."
These positions remain, we believe, those from which begins the task
today of refounding a communist praxis. And this today implies recognising for
the Kosovans, as with the other Yugoslav peoples, the right to
self-determination: not contrasting in a sterile fashion national claims to
those of class, but developing dialectically the one in the other. That means
saying clearly that the national or ethnic rights will only be able to find
satisfaction without any interference from imperialism, in finding again the
unity of the proletariat of the different Balkan states beyond the different
ethnic groups, against their own dominant classes and against imperialism, in
the struggle for the only possible solution to the conflicts in the whole area:
a Socialist Federation of the Balkans