Contribution of Communist Front (Italy)

Dear comrades,
First of all, allow me to convey to all of you, on behalf of the Communist Front of Italy, a fraternal greeting and sincerely thank the comrades of the TKP who are hosting this meeting.

The topic we are discussing on this occasion is of extreme relevance for communists and their struggle, given the intensification of international competition among capitalist countries that leads to the proliferation of military conflicts as the result of the sharpening of the intrinsic and irreconcilable contradictions of capitalism, a mode of production in general crisis that has exhausted its historical function and generates poverty, barbarism, environmental destruction, and war for vast masses of people. 

The EU, as a customs, financial, and commercial alliance, is the result of the development and expansion of the early forms of integration among European capitalist states, conceived and promoted by the United States after the end of World War II. The need for U.S. capital to absorb wartime overproduction through the creation of a vast export market in Europe coincided with the interest of European capitalists to accelerate the process of internationalization, overcoming the limitations of individual national markets through the creation of an area for the free circulation of capital. The unequal, yet close, economic interdependence between the two shores of the Atlantic that was established back then is, therefore, a far cry from the neo-colonial relationship that sovereigntists fantasize about. Compared to its origins, the economic balance of power within the Euro-Atlantic bloc has certainly changed. The EU and its member
states have turned from an export market for overseas commodities into net exporters of goods and capital to the United States, configuring themselves as competitors on the commercial level and, following the adoption of the euro, on the currency level as well.

The strong export of capital—both in the form of direct and portfolio investments—from Europe to the US, and thus the magnitude of European capital interests in the US, is one of the reasons, perhaps the primary one, for European alignment with American foreign policy. However, the more strictly political reasons that have led to this strong bond with the US must not be forgotten. First of all, the European security architecture, agreed upon by the victorious powers of World War II during the two sessions of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, which—by the will of the US, Great Britain, and France, and against the position of the USSR—was based on the division of Germany and the establishment of so-called spheres of influence. Furthermore, the political and military strength of the communist parties, fresh from the armed resistance against Nazi-fascism, the power of the Soviet Union, and the prestige it enjoyed among the popular masses of Europe as the victor of the war, along with the formation of the people's democracies in Eastern Europe, fueled the fear among the West European bourgeoisie that, in the wake of all this, revolutionary upheavals might occur with the support of the USSR. Hence the joining of the Atlantic Pact and NATO, and the resulting voluntary handing over by the West European bourgeoisie to the US of matters related to the defense of their own territories and political rule. European capitalism unconditionally entrusted the US with the creation of that 'umbrella'—not only a nuclear one—which only a revisionist like Berlinguer could consider 'protective,' and which was characterized by its overtly anti- communist and anti-Soviet function.

Built around the strategic interests and the anti-Soviet foreign policy of the US, under the pretext of the collective defense of the 'free West' from a Soviet invasion that the bourgeois propaganda of the time peddled as imminent, NATO did not carry out missions abroad until the dissolution of the USSR, but operated almost exclusively within the borders of member states for the containment of the communist and labor movement through clandestine 'Stand-Behind' structures, such as Gladio in Italy. In the name of anti-communism, the 'defenders of Western democracy' had no scruples about reinstating Nazi and fascist criminals to high-ranking positions in the repressive and administrative apparatus of the state and within NATO structures. The deployment of NATO in operations of destabilization, subversion, aggression, and invasion of sovereign states is more recent and is a direct consequence of the counter-revolution in the USSR and the dissolution of the socialist bloc. It is indisputable that the liquidation of socialism, with the end of the so-called 'Cold War,' did not bring the peace and prosperity promised by the apologists of capitalism, but rather the impoverishment of vast masses of people, environmental destruction, widespread 'hot wars,' and the resulting humanitarian catastrophes."

The general crisis of capitalism is bringing about the end of the imperialist world order that emerged after the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union. Today, the United States finds itself facing its economic and political decline as the world hegemonic power. The attempt to avert the unavoidable end of the world order based on its supremacy and the primacy of the dollar only increases its aggressiveness, arrogance, and unreliability. This is an attempt that manifests itself not only in the intensification of competition with China for primacy within the global imperialist system, but also in the revision of the decades-long terms of its relationship with its European allies in NATO and the EU—who are likewise bogged down in a lasting crisis that is driving their increasingly evident decay.

The destabilization and subversion plot in Ukraine, carried out by the United States with the imbecilic complicity of the EU leadership—culminating in the fascist coup of 2014 (under Democrat President Barack Obama, so beloved by the Italian bourgeois left) and the subsequent war (fostered by his successor, Democrat Joe Biden)—was conceived by the US and shared by the EU as an attempt to defeat Russia so as to easily plunder its natural resources, much like what happened in the early 1990s. The war in Ukraine has had a devastating impact on the economies of the EU countries. Thanks to this war, the US managed for the first time in history to supplant Russia in the European energy market, resulting in a massive increase in the cost of supplies that has seriously compromised GDP growth, industrial production, and employment levels in the EU member states. Germany, the leading European economy, has been in outright recession for the fourth consecutive year, and the economies of other EU countries are rapidly following suit. The self-defeating sanctions—especially the self-imposed halt to the purchase of Russian gas and oil—hit the economies of the EU countries hard, while proving ineffective against that of Russia. Having realized the impossibility of defeating Russia on the battlefield, the current US administration has reduced its direct involvement in supporting the fascist regime in Kiev, but has intensified unilateral sanctions against Russia and continues to supply weapons and intelligence data to Ukraine—at the expense of NATO and the EU, however. In doing so, it has transformed the war into an immediate source of profit for American military-industrial monopolies, thanks to the blind
warmongering fury of the criminals in Brussels and the demented commitments to purchase American weaponry they undertook as part of the European rearmament plan.

The enormity of the resources burned in support of the fascist and corrupt regime of Ukraine in a war manifestly lost on the battlefield, and the stubborn insistence on prolonging the bloodshed and the agony of Ukraine, might lead one to doubt the sanity of the 'defenders of democracy' in Brussels and become a subject of study for psychiatric science, were it not for the legitimate suspicion that the leadership of NATO and the EU are involved in a lucrative two-way corruption scheme together with their Ukrainian cronies.

recedents are not lacking: from the so-called Qatargate and Moroccogate, to Pfizergate—which involved the heroic 'fighter for democracy at the expense of other people's lives' von der Leyen (though not convicted)—to the European Diplomatic Academy case, to name just a few scandals that have prompted the intervention of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) for crimes of conflict of
interest, corruption, procurement fraud, etc.

In this scenario, the victims are the workers, slaughtered by their exploiters physically on the battlefields and socially through the surge in prices, rates, and utility bills caused by war and the war economy, against a backdrop of wages that were already inadequate to the cost of living before all this. Since the necessary funds do not actually exist, the EU's 800-billion-euro rearmament plan, the commitment to raise contributions to NATO up to 5% of each member state's GDP, and the other increases in military spending independently decided by the individual states belonging to these two alliances will be funded by increasing tax burden and public debt, as well as by further cutting essential services and social spending, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In other words, generalized rearmament—which will benefit the monopolies of the war industry—will be carried out at the expense of the vital and dramatically urgent needs of the working masses. Furthermore, the warmongering gangsters of Brussels are already plotting how to get their hands on the private savings of European households, estimated at around 10 trillion euros, judging by what Von der Leyen hinted at on August 27 during her meeting with French industrialists. Since there is simultaneous talk of converting crisis-hit industrial sectors, such as the automotive industry, to military production, it is clear that these resources—drawn off from savings through mechanisms yet to be clarified—will end up in the vaults of the arms monopolies. 

It is the duty of us communists to oppose with all our might the implementation of the imperialist plans of the Euro-Atlantic bloc to which our countries belong. In an imperialist war scenario, in which NATO and the EU are overtly involved, communists must do everything possible, as Lenin taught us, for the defeat of their own bourgeoisie on the battlefield in order to bring about its internal political collapse, without thereby supporting any of the warring imperialist camps. The working class undoubtedly has the strength
to counter imperialist warmongering plans, as dockworkers have recently demonstrated. If we communists are able to properly organize and motivate it, the working class will have the power to prevent the implementation of the European rearmament program—the prerequisite for our countries' further involvement in the imperialist war, with all the risks stemming from a possible escalation toward
the use of nuclear weapons. We will face a frenzied, fear-mongering propaganda campaign regarding the alleged 'Russian threat,' which, by the way, only a few idiots believe anymore, but above all, we will face the blackmail directed at the working class: 'either arms production or unemployment.' This is a false ultimatum! What depends on military production is not employment, but the profits of the monopolies tied to it, considering also the indisputable fact that these are capital-intensive sectors. This blackmail must be answered immediately with the demand for the conversion of the military industry from weapons production to the production of goods and services for civilian use, to meet the growing and urgent material and spiritual needs of the popular masses, for their well-being, and for land remediation and the protection of the environment. We will also face the public lynching and persecution of those who oppose
rearmament and war, in a veritable witch hunt—by the way, already underway against those who dare to express opinions on the imperialist war that differ from those of official bourgeois propaganda. The bourgeois state will also transform the struggle for peace, against imperialist war, into a crime, within the general context of intensified repression and the criminalization of the class struggle (that of the working class, not the bourgeoisie's one, obviously!) and of dissent, in order to impose capitalist restructuring and the war economy.

With the liquidation of the socialist system and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, political-military alliances, rather than disappearing, have multiplied—almost always on the initiative of the United States —as a result of the increase in international tensions and pretexts for conflict produced by the intrinsic antagonistic and competitive character of capitalism in its imperialist stage, no longer held back by the power of the USSR and the socialist bloc. To name only the main ones, omitting economic-trade alliances for the sake of brevity, alongside NATO we now count the CSTO (ODKB in Russian), AUKUS, ANZUS, NORAD, the FIVE EYES (an intelligence alliance), and the CSDP within the EU.

To this already substantial list has recently been added the so-called Mecca Agreement—namely, the military alliance between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey, with an invitation to join extended to Egypt and Iran. While it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about this new political-military alliance, it can already be said that it seems to reflect a newborn distrust in the United States' ability to
guarantee the security of its allies in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region, following the flawed American performance in the aggression against Iran. What is certain is that the Mecca Agreement is destined to diminish the presence, weight, and authority of the United States in the region. It remains to be seen what stance the alliance will adopt toward Israel and the Palestinian issue.

The rhetorical question with which today's meeting was introduced can only have one unequivocal answer. The EU and NATO were created by the monopoly bourgeoisie to pursue their goals of profit and plunder within a framework of capitalist relations of production that have long since entered the imperialist stage. Anti-Sovietism and anticommunism are their ideological foundation. By their origin, class nature, and ideological substrate, they are structures hostile to the proletariat and the peoples, instruments for their oppression and exploitation. As Lenin masterfully explained, the function and justification for existence of any imperialist alliance consists in ensuring the bourgeoisie's domination over the rest of society and supremacy—by hook or by crook—over international competitors, securing maximum profit and the dominant position of their own monopolies. Given the non-solidaristic and aggressive nature of imperialism, even when displayed as alliances 'for cooperation' or 'for defense,' actually they are always organizations not 'for,' but 'against' everything that the capitalists perceive as dangerous to their profits, namely the class adversary and competitors. The proliferation of political- military and economic alliances is multipolarity in action, which under conditions of imperialism increases competition and the likelihood of clashes between imperialist poles, rather than reducing them.

NATO and the EU have already dragged our countries into several wars of aggression in the past: in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Afghanistan. Today, they are accomplices to the genocide of the Palestinian people, the aggression by the murderous state of Israel against the Syrian, Lebanese, and Iranian peoples, and the criminal, genocide-like blockade imposed by the United States against socialist Cuba. They are pushing to involve our countries in the war in Ukraine even more than they already are and are preparing
similar scenarios in Moldova, Transnistria, Georgia, and Armenia, while trying to incite Azerbaijan against both Russia and Iran and identifying the Arctic region as a new terrain of conflict with Russia.

The Italian government is completely in line with this insane policy: we produce the drones for Ukraine with which civilian targets in Russia are attacked, and, as if that weren't enough, we got a corrupt Ukrainian war criminal newly hired by Minister Crosetto as an overpaid advisor to the Ministry of Defense. The production in Europe on behalf of Ukraine of weaponry meant to strike deep into Russia, and the presence on our territories of NATO and US bases providing support for attacks against other sovereign states, make our countries legitimate targets for retaliatory strikes. As the Iranian response to the aggression by the US and Israel has clearly demonstrated, belonging to imperialist alliances and hosting foreign military bases on a country's territory is not a guarantee of security, but a major risk factor for retaliation. It is truly time to make a clean break with the EU and NATO, the military arm of Euro-
Atlantic capital!

In conclusion: imperialist alliances cannot be reformed or democratized, any more than any other institutions of bourgeois power. Nor is it serious to think they can 'dissolve' on their own. The opportunists who claim otherwise, whether in good faith or bad, are accomplices of imperialism and create dangerous illusions. Instead, we must develop the struggle for our countries' unilateral withdrawal from the EU, NATO, and any other imperialist organization, within the broader framework of a revolutionary change of the class in power. It will be a significant step forward toward socialism-communism.

GET OUR COUNTRIES OUT OF THE EU AND NATO!
GET THE EU AND NATO OUT OF OUR COUNTRIES!