The developments in NATO and its strategy and the strategy of the KKE in the struggle against NATO

Dear comrades,

We thank the TKP for organizing this very important activity, here in Istanbul, so that we can discuss our activity against NATO, at a moment when this imperialist organization is preparing itself for the “open phase” of the new imperialist war in Syria.

Comrades,

We cannot chart our strategy against NATO and its activity, if it does not become clear, first of all what is the nature of NATO and how its strategy today is formed.

Our party assesses that NATO is a predatory alliance of the bourgeois classes of the countries that comprise it. And from this standpoint it does not agree with those approaches of the opportunist forces of Europe, which are rallied in the so-called European Left Party (ELP), which presents NATO basically as the “prison” constructed by the USA for the countries of Europe and it calls on us to strengthen the EU, politically and militarily, so that it can allegedly become the “counterweight” to NATO. Such an approach constitutes a complete reversal of reality both regarding NATO and the EU and demonstrates the wisdom of the Leninist position that there can be no struggle against imperialism, without the sharpening of the struggle against opportunism, which injects the poison of bourgeois ideology in the labour movement, as it does in this specific instance.

The truth is that the EU, 90% of its members are also member-states of NATO, cannot have a different nature from NATO! It is an inter-state mechanism in the hands of the monopolies from its foundation, and expresses their imperialist aggressiveness both inside its countries, as well as in relation to other rival powers. At the same time the EU, forming its own police and military forces, maintains an excellent cooperation with NATO, which of course is not at all a “prison” for the European monopolies and their representatives. It is a political-military inter-state imperialist mechanism, where the bourgeois class of each country participates based on its strength (economic, political, military). Indeed, today, in the framework of NATO the USA has the “place of honour”, as relations of unequal interdependence are formed inside the imperialist system and its organizations. So, intense competition may develop between the USA and the EU (or countries which are members of it), as well as disagreements, conflicts. But the USA and the EU always find and will find a “common denominator”, when they must strike against the peoples, the labour and people’s movement, while their “infighting” is over the “division of the loot”. The EU under no circumstances can be a counter-weight to the USA and NATO, as the USSR and the Warsaw Pact were in the past, because it is built from the same “cement” as NATO, and this cement is nothing other than the profitability of capital and the desire for it to increase.

In the past NATO was the spearhead of capitalism against the socialist world and the labour movement. After the overthrow of socialism in the USSR, its repressive role remains and is reinforced regarding the buttressing of bourgeois power in its member states. With the “new strategic concept of NATO 2020”, which was finalized in Lisbon, NATO seeks to legitimise the intervention against the people in the instance of a domestic threat to the bourgeois power in a NATO member-state. In addition, its activity has been extended to new countries. Thus, in the last two decades we can see that it acts to form state mechanisms (police and army) in occupied countries (Iraq, Afghanistan), or countries which are protectorates (like Kosovo), so that they will be smoothly assimilated into the imperialist NATO plans.

In addition, we see that NATO is strengthening its imperialist military operations, beyond its borders and indeed as an activity legitimised by the UN and OSCE (it has signed cooperation agreements with them).

It coordinates with similar powers which form the EU and utilizes the so-called “Partnership for Peace”, in which it is trying to integrate all the countries that seek to be connected to NATO.

It seeks to extend the control of the markets, in cooperation with other imperialist powers outside of NATO, presenting this goal as dealing with alleged “new threats” (cyber-attacks, piracy, distribution of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, danger of energy shortages, “energy security”, climate change, immigration, water).

It wants to strengthen the capability of achieving a “first nuclear strike”, eradicating or limiting the potential for reprisals, something which is an additional reason for the confrontation with the Russian bourgeois class.

We assess that in recent years, in the framework of the global capitalist economy, the strength of the USA and the EU is being reduced, while emerging powers are gaining ground (China, Russia, India, Brazil), which are seeking to coordinate their activity. But the so-called “multi-polar” world is the expression of the competition among the old and new imperialist “centres” and powers, which is sharpening and causing, amongst other things, imperialist military interventions and wars.

A basic aim of the US and European monopolies, which concerns our region, is the utilization of NATO in military interventions in a major “arc” of countries, stretching from North and Central Africa to the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, Persian Gulf and embraces the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Caspian sea, undertaking a more active role in the plans for the control of strategically important reserves of oil and natural gas and their transport pipelines.

Comrades,

When we take into account the aforementioned, we must and can on our part chart the strategy, defining goals, which will make the implementation of NATO’s plans difficult, which will raise obstacles, as well as in the final phase liberating the peoples of our countries from the vicious circle of the imperialist wars-interventions and the imperialist “peace”.

The KKE, which has consistently from the time of Greece’s accession to NATO in 1952 struggled for Greece’s exit from it, has charted precisely such a strategy.

We can say briefly that it has two axes, closely linked to each other: The one axis is related to the ideological-political basis of our struggle against NATO, and the other are specific actions and initiatives which we develop as a party, together with other militants against the imperialist organization of NATO.

As regards the ideological-political basis of our struggle, we have to come into conflict with many bourgeois and opportunist arguments, which foster the distorted reality inside the workers’-people’s consciousness, that allegedly the stay of our country in NATO is in the interests of the working people. For example, such arguments that present NATO as an alleged “guarantor of the security and territorial integrity” of Greece. The alleged “certainty” that Greece will not be involved in a generalized war, e.g. with Turkey or another country in the region, as long as it is in NATO, that allegedly participation in NATO is a “bargaining chip in the nation’s hands”, for the defence of the so-called “national interests” or that the struggle for the disengagement from NATO is not necessary, as NATO at some point will dissolve itself.

Our party carries out a serious, systematic ideological intervention, so that it can reveal to the workers the falseness and hypocrisy of all these arguments, as well as a plethora of other arguments, which are fostered by the bourgeois and opportunist forces in our country. The communists are called on to reveal to the peoples that the “new” NATO will not become better, nor will it “promote security” all over the world, as bourgeois propaganda claims. The KKE also comes into conflict with ideological constructs which constitute a retreat from the Leninist view regarding imperialism and the stance against the imperialist unions and inter-state organizations. Which detach politics from the economy, underestimate the role of the bourgeois class of the country, and promote the issue of the “dependency”, the separation of the bourgeois class into “national” and “subservient to foreigners”, “productive” and “comprador” etc, sowing illusions about corresponding alliances with sections of the bourgeois class and pro-people solutions in the framework of the system, inside NATO and the EU.

At the same time, it plays the leading role in the second axis of initiatives for activity both through its independent activity, and also through the activity of the communists in the trade unions, above all in the All-workers Militant front (PAME) and in the mass organizations such as the Greek Committee for International Detente and Peace (EEDYE), against NATO and the imperialist interventions and wars.

The communists struggle:

• So that the country’s armed forces are not used in the imperialist plans.
• So that airspace, sea and territory of the country are not used as a launching pad for imperialist wars, and especially in this period against Syria and Iran.
• So that the NATO and US bases are not used and finally closed, especially the base in Suda and so that the nuclear weapons are removed from the country.
• So that the so-called “anti-missile” shield of the USA-NATO is not installed in Europe.
• Against the so-called defence spending, i.e. the purchase of new military equipment for the needs of NATO.
• For the cancellation of the military exercises and all the agreements of military cooperation with Israel.

In these conditions, the demand for the disentanglement from the imperialist plans and the disengagement of our country, and every country from NATO, can acquire a new dynamism in connection with the struggle for power. We are struggling against the hypocritical stance of SYRIZA, which avoids the demand for disengagement-withdrawal of Greece from NATO with the general demand for the “dissolution of NATO”. It is a distraction aimed at making the people give up on the struggle for disengagement. The weakening of NATO requires the weakening of this alliance through the disengagement of our countries from NATO, as a product of the struggle of the peoples, which can be effectively guaranteed only by the working class people’s power.

In any case, the stance against NATO is a criterion for every party, for its position and reliability in relation to the people. The consistent struggle for disengagement and the wide exposure to the people of the role of NATO and the immediate dangers of the people being entangled in imperialist adventures, in the imperialist war, and the coordination of this struggle must be on our agenda.