Contribution of Communist Revolutionary Party of France

The war in Ukraine has been going on for two years now. Regardless of the pretexts used by the protagonists, this war is the result of the sharpening of competition between the two imperialist camps, mainly focused on spheres of influence, market shares, raw materials, energy plans and transport routes.

It's confirmation that war is the continuation of the same policy with different means. This is proof that imperialist war, and the death and destruction it provokes, are the inevitable consequence of capitalist competition and its mode of production. It's worth remembering that under socialism, the Russian and Ukrainian peoples lived in friendship and prospered in peace. Imperialism is not defined as a policy of aggression or annexation, colonialism or conquest, as petty bourgeois or even revisionist communist formations vulgarly do. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism.

The outbreak of the imperialist war in Ukraine has accentuated the contradictions in the ranks of the international communist movement around serious ideological-political questions, which have been tormenting it for years and express the opportunist influence within its ranks in the continuity of the unfavorable balance of power of the world counter-revolution. In the foreground, of course, were the questions of attitude towards the imperialist character of the war between the USA, NATO and the EU with Russia on the territory of the Ukraine, the attitude towards the bourgeoisie and its political representatives, such as social democracy, problematic analyses of the imperialist system and the position of China and Russia, as well as others, more deeply linked to the question of the erroneous strategy of anti-neoliberal or national steps towards socialism, support for and participation in bourgeois governments. In France, however, the workers' movement, with the Paris Commune, provided the first proof and a living lesson that you can't make the bourgeois state machine work for you, but that you have to break it in order to build your own proletarian state.

It was in these circumstances that the "World Anti-Imperialist Platform" was born. The question of war is one of the most complex to analyze in a historical materialist and dialectical way. From a Marxist point of view, it is the political meaning of each war that must be defined, in each particular case. The war in Ukraine is an inter-imperialist confrontation. The organizations that make up the World Anti-Imperialist Platform theorize about a multipolar world in which two camps confront each other, the Russian-Chinese camp against the USA-NATO axis, or even the EU. From this, they deduce, in the manner of the 3-worlds theory, that we must support the side fighting against the "stronger" main imperialism, and therefore side with Russia. They take the example of the USSR and its Western allies against Nazism. But today's imperialist Russia is not the USSR, and the war in Ukraine does nothing to benefit workers.

In France, the military industry is booming. The government is talking more and more openly about the war economy, amid growing military budgets, and France's defense sector is large, with groups such as Dassault, Safran, Thales, Naval Group, MBDA, Nexter, etc., in addition to small and medium-sized defense companies and start-ups that subcontract for these major monopolies. In all, the sector represents almost 200,000 jobs in France. And with the multiplication of conflicts and the war in Ukraine, these companies are in great demand. The war in Ukraine has multiplied orders, as have conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. France is now the world's second-largest arms exporter, behind the United States and ahead of Russia. French factories are running at full speed, thanks to new work organization rules. A Caesar cannon is now produced twice as fast, and a Rafale aircraft three times as fast!

The defense budget has almost doubled under Emmanuel Macron's two terms in office. Of the 413 billion euros allocated to the armed forces in the military programming law, almost half actually goes to industry, to arms and equipment orders. Macron is developing the idea of creating a €100 billion fund for European defense. 

Following Macron's recent visit to Stockholm, France and Sweden intend to increase their military cooperation, particularly in air defense. The two countries are to sign a declaration of intent on air defense and air surveillance systems. The Swedish manufacturer Saab (aircraft, automobile and now defense and security) and the French arms company MBDA are also expected to sign a contract to develop an anti-tank missile. In Ukraine, France has shifted from a logic of equipment sales to one of manufacturing contracts with French manufacturers, possibly thanks to state subsidies, as well as a new cooperative policy of setting up arms factories on Ukrainian soil.

The inter-imperialist union formed by the EU finds in the Ukrainian situation an opportunity to strengthen its banditry. The strategic question of the integration of imperialist armies on EU territory arises. While the question of a European army has been an extremely common leitmotif in French European policy in recent years, it has to be said that France has been isolated on this front for years. Initiatives to integrate EU armies have been bogged down by the contradictions of member states. These contradictions are particularly visible in the differences between the French position, which as Europe's leading military power and the only nuclear power in the EU, could claim a privileged place in hypothetical European military forces, and the German position, which is geared towards a military alliance with the USA within NATO, as it is temporarily lagging behind the French military leadership. Contradictions are always the result of competition and agreements between monopolies.

The various imperialist poles in the world are pitting their weapons against each other, and workers everywhere will be the cannon fodder and civilian victims of the debacle looming on the horizon. If it is in the interest of capitalist monopolies and their states to wage war, it is in the interest of peoples to oppose their plans and demand peace through their struggle.

This military conflict could lead to a confrontation of unpredictable dimensions, all the more so as it is linked to a general confrontation (between the USA, EU countries, China, Russia, etc.) for supremacy in the imperialist system.

The workers of Russia and Ukraine must be able to decide their own destiny in favor of peace, through their own struggles and far from all bourgeois and imperialist plans. We must fight against chauvinism and nationalism, against the pitfalls of a confrontation based on ethnicity that masks the real causes of the conflict. As such, we call on the workers of France to fight against the imperialist plans of organizations like NATO and the EU, and above all, against our own French imperialism and its militarist ambitions in Europe and the world, in opposition to the popular needs to be met. The struggle for peace is inseparable from the general struggle for socialism-communism.