English Home The 54th International Antiwar Assembly in Japan August 7th 2016 The Executive Committee for the 54th International Antiwar Assembly composed of All-Japan Federation of Students' Self-Governing Associations [Zengakuren] Antiwar Youth Committee Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction) [JRCL (RMF)] ‘Let us promote an international antiwar struggle! Oppose the nuclear capability race between the US and China/Russia! Smash the neo-fascist revision of the Constitution by the Abe government!’ All the participants renewed their resolve. — On August 7th, the 54th International Antiwar Assembly was held in Japan in solidarity with comrades all over the world. The central meeting in Tokyo was attended by 1,200 workers, students and citizens (See the picture above). Regional meetings were also held on the same day in Sapporo (Hokkaido Region), Kanazawa (Hokuriku Region), Nagoya (Tokai Region), Osaka (Kansai Region), Fukuoka (Kyushu Region) and Naha (Okinawa Prefecture), each attended by several hundred people. In an ardent atmosphere, all the meetings were highly successful. The Executive Committee for the Assembly received 23 messages of solidarity from organizations and individuals over the world (see the list below). They were printed with their Japanese translations attached and distributed to the participants, including those in regional assemblies. All of them were introduced, and greeted by fervent, sympathetic applause from the audience. In the following, the current report is covering the central meeting in Tokyo. (The JRCL web site is reporting on the regional meetings.) The keynote speech was delivered by a comrade on behalf of the Executive Committee. He pointed out that we are faced today with the increasing danger of a world war as confrontation is intensifying between the US/Japan and China/Russia. In order to eradicate this imminent crisis, he said, we must fight resolutely by overcoming the degeneration of the leaderships of official opposition movements. He thus gave a clear direction to antiwar struggles. He also referred to the latest struggle in Okinawa, where workers, students and residents have risen in protest against the construction of US military helipads. At the same time with the new US base construction in Henoko, the Japanese government is forcibly resuming the helipad construction, which is connected with the new base and had to be suspended for people’s strong resistance. (The Okinawa regional meeting focused on this issue. For this, see another report.) The Chairman of Zengakuren reported on the student delegation to Tahiti that he headed. From June 29th to July 5th, Zengakuren students visited Tahiti in response to the invitation from a local organization that initiated events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first nuclear testing that French imperialism conducted in French Polynesia. They took part in demonstrations and fought hand in hand with Maohi people, who had been demanding apology and compensations for nuclear damages from the French government and fighting to end the French colonial rule. ‘We emphasized to Maohi people that the working people must unite across borders to fight against wars, poverty and colonial rule.’ ‘Let us spread our international antiwar struggle over the world!’ The Chairman’s speech evoked excitement and profound emotion among the participants. Then, a worker delivers a speech from the labour front. The public worker spoke about her activities in her trade union branch. Today, both the labour aristocrats in Rengo and the bureaucratic leadership of Zenronren restrain trade unions from actively engage in antiwar struggles. In opposition to such oppression and degeneration of the existing leaderships, she organized various forms of antiwar activities together with her colleagues and fought to strengthen trade union organizations. She gave a vivid report on those efforts. To finalize the meeting, all the participants shouted slogans and sang The International. They pledged themselves to each other to fight more actively in their working places and campuses to liven up antiwar struggles. Comrades all over the world! Let us fight in unity to advance our struggle against wars and poverty imposed by the rulers on the toiling masses all over the world! The Executive Committee received messages of solidarity from organizations andindividuals from abroad, which are cited below. Click to see.   Overseas Appeal for the 54th International Antiwar Assembly in Japan Oppose the nuclear capability race between the US and China/Russia! People all over the world! Unite across borders and rise in an antiwar struggle! 　We call on people all over the world! On August 7th, we are holding the 54th International Antiwar Assemblies in Tokyo and six other cities in Japan. 　At this very moment, innocent people are being killed in air raids in Syria and Iraq. In the East and South China Seas, there have been repeated provocative incidents between US and Chinese warships and warplanes. The intense rivalry between the US and China/Russia is generating wars all over the world. Rivalry between the powers of the east and the west, with each side targeting their nuclear missiles on the other, threatens to plunge the world into a catastrophic nuclear war. 　And now, Britain's referendum vote to leave the European Union is shaking the world financial market. In an attempt to survive the crisis, the ruling class will inevitably unleash attacks on the toiling masses in every country. 　Comrades all over the world! Now is the time for us to unite across national borders and fight against the war and poverty that are forced upon us by our rulers! 　Here in Japan, we are fighting in the forefront of the struggle of the Japanese working people against the strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance, and against the planned revision of Japan's war-renouncing Constitution. Both measures are being promoted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who proclaims himself as a 'right-wing militarist'. We call on you, comrades, to fight together with us! No to the nuclear capability race between the US and China/Russia! Oppose the buildup of the globalized US-Japan alliance for aggressive war! Oppose China's rival military buildup! Denounce the US, France, Britain and Russia for indiscriminately bombing Syria and Iraq! Smash the ruling class agitation for anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant chauvinism! No to the expansion of munitions production and arms export! Definitely no to the revision of the Constitution of Japan! (1) 　Without uttering a single word of apology for the dropping of atomic bombs in 1945, Barack Obama, the first sitting US President to visit Hiroshima, called for the need to 'pursue a world without nuclear weapons' (May 27th), with that black briefcase containing the so-called 'nuclear button' placed beside him. His speech was nothing but hypocrisy. In reality, the Obama administration is developing mini-nuke weapons that are 'usable' in combat situations at the huge cost of a trillion dollars. Obama's so-called 'nuclear free world' is simply a smoke screen, behind which he is steadily building up the nuclear capability to contain China and Russia. 　Japanese Prime Minister Abe, who followed Obama's speech, exultantly emphasized the relationship between the two states, saying, 'enemies that had fought each other ... have become allies bound in deep trust and friendship'. Prior to this event, the two government heads had agreed to expedite the construction work of the new US base at Henoko Cape in Okinawa to make a forward base for attacking China. They thus vowed to each other - by making full use of their visit to Hiroshima - to strengthen the US-Japan new military alliance (which was redefined as an offensive and defensive alliance against China and Russia) in line with the new 'Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation' concluded last year. 　Today, in East Asia, tensions are mounting between Xi Jinping-led China and imperialist America, accompanied by Japan as its 'vassal state'. The former is bent on military buildup with its eyes set on America's decline, while the latter is desperate to confine the former. In the airspace over the South and East China Seas, US and Chinese warplanes are repeatedly engaging in close encounters, intimidating each other almost every day. Most serious of all, China has started to prepare for land reclamation activities at Scarborough Shoal off Luzon Island of the Philippines, after having constructed its military facilities in the Spratly and the Paracel Islands. If China succeeds in constructing a military base at this shoal, it will command of both the sea and the air in that region. With a growing sense of crisis, the Obama administration and the Abe government are frantic to prevent this action by China. US forces are repeatedly making intimidatory acts against Chinese forces on the waters near the Spratly and Paracel Islands, using the pretext of 'Freedom of Navigation'. Japanese troops are also moving in unison with US forces. The confrontation between the US-Japan alliance and China is just about to reach a flash point. (2) 　In Syria and Iraq, the US, French, British and Russian governments are continuing cruel, indiscriminate air raids in the name of 'eradicating the terrorist Islamic State' - it seems as though they are vying with each other. 　Upon Fallujah in central Iraq, which has been an IS bastion, US forces are showering bombs with open hostility against the city, which once was a symbol of Sunnites' resistance against the US occupation. 　In Syria, Kurdish militias, backed by US forces, are approaching from the north to the city of Raqqa, known as the IS 'capital'. From the south, the Bashar al-Assad government forces, backed by Russian forces as well as Hezbollah and other Shiite militias, are making ferocious attacks as if to massacre the whole population. 　The civil war in Syria has entered a new phase, with last December's Paris attacks by an IS-related group as a turning point. Imperialist rulers of the US, France and Britain until recently aided and abetted the anti-Assad forces; they have now tacitly accepted Putin's demand to secure the continuation of the Assad government, in order to concentrate their resources on anti-IS operations. The Putin-led Russian government, on the other hand, is conducting air strikes on anti-government rebels in order to support the Assad government more fiercely than it is attacking IS forces. From the beginning, Putin's primary objective has been to defend the Assad government as Russia's sole ally in the Middle East, thereby maintaining its military base in this region. Thus the Assad government, having been the object of popular resentment, has got its breath back; on the other hand, ruthless carpet bombings are being perpetrated against towns and villages that are regarded as IS footholds. 　The civil war in Syria is entangled with Islamic sectarian antagonisms between Shiites and Sunnis. In connection with this, the major Shiite power of Iran and the Sunni monarchy of Saudi Arabia, as well as the Turkish government led by Erdogan, the suppressor of Kurds, are intervening in the war, each openly claiming its own interests. The three-way or four-way battle between the US, European, Russian states and regional powers, one entwined with another, has now turned into a quagmire. Millions of people are forced to leave their homelands and suffer tribulation as refugees. On top of that, the Zionist government of Israel is continuing its military occupation of Palestine, taking advantage of the intensified conflicts among Muslim forces. 　All the antagonisms between nation-states, ethnic groups, religions and sects are erupting furiously in today's world, twenty-five years after the collapse of the USSR (1991), and under the decline of US imperialism, which has perpetrated every conceivable form of outrage as a 'sole superpower'. The civil war in Syria is the epitome of the contemporary world. (3) 　Today's world has entered a great turbulence of seismic proportions. The imperialist state of America, having failed in the military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and shaken by an economic depression, is showing its historic decline. Against this state, Xi Jinping-led China and Putin-led Russia are now stepping up their challenges. 　The Beijing bureaucracy's challenge is based on their national strategy of building China into a 'superpower of the twenty-first century' by overtaking the US by 2049, the centenary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. They call this strategy the 'dream of the Chinese nation'. Dashing towards this arrogant, sino-centric goal, the Xi government is hell-bent on building up its nuclear capability by making full use of 'cooperation in military technology' with Russia. In Particular, on the basis of the reinforcement of their naval power, the Chinese rulers are about to seize naval supremacy in the East and South China Seas from the US. And, by securing this area as their base, they have the ambition of enabling their warships (equipped with nuclear missiles) to cruise throughout the Western Pacific Ocean, as if to threaten the US by saying, 'The western half of the Pacific is ours!' 　In alliance with China, the Putin government is scheming to 'reinstate Russia as a world power'. By showing off its political and military power in Syria, Putin is pressing European governments to admit Russia's annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Ukraine as faits accomplis. He is bent on repulsing the US-led expansion of NATO as well as the expansion of the EU into the former USSR territories, which he considers as being within Russia's sphere of influence. He repeatedly makes threats, saying, 'Remember, Russia is a nuclear power,' and is indeed building up its nuclear capabilities. In the face of these challenges from the Chinese and Russian rulers, the Obama administration is desperate to hold them back, while making a false show of power by saying, 'The US continues to be the leader of the world.' Despite its political and economic decline, US imperialism still has overwhelming nuclear military capability, which has no parallel in the world and serves as its last prop. The Obama administration is intent on strengthening its nuclear capability behind a deceitful smoke screen, 'a nuclear free world'. At the same time, with the aim of neutralizing China's and Russia's nuclear missiles, this administration is deploying the technologically advanced THAAD system in South Korea, having deployed missile defense systems in Japan. It is also going to deploy a BMD system in Poland, followed by the deployment of one in Romania. 　The Republican candidate for the US presidency Donald Trump is shouting, 'America first', which shows his intention to prioritise the national interests of the US, relegating its role of 'the world's policeman' to second place, since it costs a lot of money. under pressure from this tendency that has arisen in part of the US ruling class, the government of this declining imperialist state is building a multilateral military alliance (known as Asia-Pacific version of NATO), with the US-Japan alliance as its core and supported by Australia, South Korea and others, to militarily contain China. 　And now, the shock wave of 'Brexit' is causing panic in the world. Germany, France, Britain and other states in Europe have so far formed the EU as a relatively independent sphere by distancing themselves from the confronting two major poles, the US and China/Russia; they are now haunted by a nightmare, the collapse of the EU. As a consequence of its expansion, the EU is not only suffering the debt crises of Greece and other 'southern' countries, but also is shaken by the increase of immigrants and the inflow of refugees, and moreover, the rise of far-right nationalists with the banner of 'Leave EU'. 　In the midst of this worldwide turbulence, rulers of the US and China/Russia are confronting with each other, without yielding an inch, and without disguising their nationalism. Workers and people all over the world! Face up to the stark reality that the confrontation of these two parties, each armed with an immense arsenal of nuclear weapons, can trigger off another world war that means a nuclear catastrophe! (4) 　In every country, toiling masses are suffering hardships of life. In order to get through the global depression, imperialist rulers of the US, Europe and Japan have been adopting monetary relaxation policies on a massive scale. These policies have never led to any productive investments; they have only spread money games, or financial speculation, and on a global scale to boot, due to the globalization of the economy. The gap between rich and poor, disparity between the capitalist and working classes, is widening with terrifying speed. Capitalism has come to the end of its rope. 　Brazil and other emerging economies have plummeted to depression due to the end of the US monetary relaxation policies and China's economic downturn. Workers and the toiling masses in the emerging economies and developing countries are now suffering in the depths of poverty after having been plundered by greedy imperialists. 　The working people in advanced capitalist countries are also suffering great hardships of life. European governments are implementing 'austerity measures' including drastic cuts in social security and public services. Besides, they have lifted regulations on dismissals and working hours, and also encouraging employers to take non-regular forms of employment. They are making the working people pay for the economic crisis that they themselves created. 　Discontent is growing among the working people about precarious employment and worsened living standards. Against this background, part of the ruling class is poisoning working people with chauvinistic hatred for immigrants and refugees, especially those of Muslims. The ruling class is deliberately fanning this hatred in order to distract workers' discontent away from the true cause, the evil doings of the government and the ruling class. But it is none other than the rulers of the US, France and Britain, as well as Russia, who are conducting indiscriminate bombings and driving the people of the Middle East and North Africa to leave their homelands! It is precisely the ruling classes and their governments who are responsible for all this misery! 　Rulers of the self-styled 'socialist country' of China, as well as those of Russia, are also throwing their people into dire poverty while investing huge sums of money in building up military capability. Faced with people's protests that are occurring one after another, both rulers are suppressing them by force. 　Amid the economic depression, rulers are trying to find a breakthrough in the munitions industry. At the top of the list is the US, which is hell-bent on exporting F-35 fighter jets. Other major powers, including Russia, France, Germany and China, have also increased their arms exports. One of the reasons why France was in the van of the bombing of Iraq and Syria was to display the performance of new French-made combat planes. The Japanese government led by Shinzo Abe is another one, which is frantic to develop its munitions industry as a main industry and expand the export of arms (as well as nuclear plants). All the rulers of these countries are spreading causes of war across the world. They are serving as the agents of merchants of death! (5) 　Workers and people all over the world! Now is the time to stand up against the rulers imposing war and poverty on us. Crush their incitement of nationalism, and unite across borders! 　Every time North Korea launches a missile, every time China takes a provocative action in the East China Sea, the Japanese government cries out and says, 'Defend the country from the threats of North Korea and China!' This is nothing but state propaganda designed to justify the strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance. We will never allow the Japanese state to level a gun at the Chinese people or to take provocative actions in alliance with the US under the pretext of 'national defense'. 　We at the same time call on workers and people in China to say 'No!' to the provocative actions taken by Chinese rulers. They are pointing their gun at the working people of not only Japan but also Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries. Let us oppose their strengthening of nuclear capabilities at a great cost while plunging people into poverty! We call on Chinese workers and people to fight in solidarity with us, the Japanese working people who are fighting resolutely against the strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance! 　The working people in the US, France, Britain and other imperialist states! The working people in Russia! Stand up against the air strikes conducted by your states on Syria and Iraq in the name of 'eradicating terrorism'! Put an end to the chauvinist agitation against Muslims, immigrants and refugees. Let us fight in solidarity with the workers and people of Syria and Iraq! 　We denounce the IS leadership for killing innocent workers and people in Paris and Brussels, for murdering anyone discontent with their doings in Syria and Iraq. It is a grave mistake to brand these people as 'infidels', as enemies, and kill them without making any distinction between the rulers and the ruled. Their acts are against the struggles of the toiling people. Now is the time for Muslim people in the Middle East to fight in unity - by going beyond IS fallacies, by overcoming sectarian and tribal conflicts - under the banner, 'Against US imperialism, against Zionism'! 　Back in Japan, in Okinawa, 'the island of US bases', a big rally was held on June 19th with the participation of 65,000 workers, students and residents; they vehemently denounced the murder of a young woman by a former US marine and expressed their opposition to the construction of a new US Marine base at Henoko. They also demanded the withdrawal of the US Marine Corps from Okinawa. In solidarity with this rally in Okinawa, a great number of workers, students and citizens gathered on the same day around the Diet Building in Tokyo. We are fighting in the forefront of these anti-base struggles and calling on the participants to aim for the repeal of Ampo [US-Japan Security Treaty], which is the legal base for the new US-Japan military alliance. 　The Abe government is scheming to annul Article 9 of the Constitution (which stipulates the renunciation of war). By capturing the parliamentary seats required to initiate the revision of the Constitution, he is scheming to build Japan into a 'state capable of waging war in any place of the world' together with US forces. This man, Shinzo Abe, is an ultra-nationalist and neo-fascist, who would not even acknowledge the indisputable historical fact that Japanese militarism in the past waged a war of aggression against China, Korea and other Asian countries. We are resolutely fighting against the revision of the Constitution and for the overthrow of the Abe government. 　The Abe government is keeping it secret that radioactive substances from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant are still being discharged into the Pacific Ocean. While covering up this reality, the government has started preparations for resuming the operation of suspended nuclear plants one after another. We are determined to stop it. 　At this crucial moment, labour aristocrats of Japan are playing a criminal role. The leadership of Japan's biggest trade union centre, Rengo [Japanese Trade Union Confederation], has given endorsement to the US-Japan military alliance. The Rengo leadership is controlled by labour aristocrats from the munitions industry who are positively supporting arms exports. They are even putting pressure on Rengo-affiliated unions that are active in antiwar struggles. 　The Japanese Communist Party is, to be sure, against the revision of the Constitution and the new US base construction in Okinawa. But the JCP leadership bureaucratically prohibits its rank-and-file members from raising the banner of 'No to Ampo!' in mass rallies. This is because JCP leaders have made it a goal in itself to form a coalition (for election campaigns) with other non-government parties that approve the strengthening of the US-Japan military alliance. 'Let us fight against the new US-Japan military alliance!' - without pointing this direction of the struggle, it is impossible to qualitatively strengthen the struggle even against constitutional revision. This parliamentarian party however does not do so, and reduces the struggle of the working people to mere cheerleading tools for election campaigns. This is not all. They praise a 'new type of movement by independent citizens' as one different from the 'old-fashioned, trade union-based movement'. They thus openly negate the significance of the effort whereby workers unite in trade unions and fight in unity as the working class on the basis of trade union organizations. 　We are fighting antiwar, anti-Ampo struggles in the forefront of the Japanese working people, overcoming the degeneration of these official leaderships. We are powerfully promoting these struggles, aiming to overthrow the neo-fascist Abe government. 　The leadership of the JCP simply extolled Obama's visit to Hiroshima as a 'historic step forward'; it did not say a word about his hidden intention to build up US nuclear capability and strengthen the new US-Japan military alliance. This stems from the fact that the JCP leadership's policy for a 'peace movement' is only to entreat the existing government to employ 'peace' policies, such as 'arms reduction' and 'international harmony'. But it is nothing but a fallacious illusion to imagine that we can achieve 'peace' by appealing to some 'rationality' on the part of those who rule us. So-called 'peace policies' employed by imperialist rulers, and by the rulers of China and Russia, are merely the other side of their war policies, and nothing but deceptions designed to outmanoeuvre the other party. Such policies can only bring about a false 'peace' that is premised on the mutual intimidation where each side keeps aiming its nuclear missiles at the people of the other. 　Comrades all over the world! The power that can truly eradicate the danger of war in the contemporary world lies only in the unity of the working class across national borders, in the united fight of those who are suppressed, ruled and victimized by the rulers of the East and the West in pursuit of their race to increase thgeir nuclear capability. And the intellectual weapon for their fight must be the thought of Marx, who addressed us with the words, 'Working people of the world, unite!' 　This thought of Marx was branded and buried as a relic of the nineteenth century by Mikhail Gorbachev and co, the Communist Party leadership of the former USSR. They claimed that they would 'break through the stagnation of the USSR', but they never delved into the cause of the 'stagnation'; they never reflected on the ideology that determined the stagnation, i.e. Stalinism. On the contrary, they espoused so-called 'de-ideologization' and bowed down to the modern Western values of 'freedom and democracy', to the 'omnipotence of the market economy', thereby leading the USSR to the final destruction. Exactly here lies the historical origin of all the misery appearing in the contemporary world. 　Comrades all over the world! Let us unite internationally against the storms of chauvinism stirred up by the rulers for dividing the working people by nationality! Now is the time for us to take a step forward by overcoming the degeneration of the official opposition leaderships! Create an international antiwar struggle against the nuclear capability race between the US (allied with Japan) and China/Russia! (June 27th, 2016) Messages of solidarity from overseas - The World Conference against Precarious Labour, War and Exploitation in Mumbai - Russian Communist Workers Party - The International Secretariat of the Fourth International - The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) - Larisa Babienko (Russia) - Tavini Huiraatira no te Ao Maohi (Maohi-Nui, French Polynesia) - Left Radical of Afghanistan - Victor Isaichikov (Russia) - Revolutionary Marxists in Britain - David McReynolds (USA) - Faridabad Workers Newspaper (India) - Lewisham People Before Profit (Britain) - Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK) (Greece) - News and Letters Committees (USA) - Vladimir Pronin (Ukraine) - The Russian Party of Communists - The Commission of Condemned Workers, Relatives and Friends of Las Heras (Argentina) - Russian Communist Workers Party – Tyumen State Committee - Union Pacifiste de France - Fracción Leninista Trotskista Internacional – Colectivo por la IV Internacional - A World to Win (Britain) - ANTARSYA (Greece) - The Organizing Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (OCRFI) ◆ The World Conference against Precarious Labour, War and Exploitation in Mumbai July 12th 2016, Mumbai, India   Dear comrades, We forward to you our greetings to the 54th International Anti-War Assembly. Indeed, it is time for us to unite across borders and fight against war and poverty forced upon us by our rulers. We wish to salute the struggles of the Japanese workers against exploitation and the threats of war, against the build up of a globalized US-Japan alliance for aggressive war. We share your indignation against the hypocrisy of president Obama, the head of the main warmonger State of this planet, who dared, at Hiroshima, speak about a non-nuclear world while his government is spending trillions of dollars to increase American nuclear capacities. You are right to say that after the British vote to leave the European Union, the world financial market is shaken and that “in an attempt to survive the crisis, the ruling class will surely unleash attacks on the toiling masses in every country.” We are convinced that the struggle of the Japanese working class is important for the struggles of the workers and oppressed masses all over the world. The struggle against war and exploitation is an international one. That is why we, activists from all over the world, give our full support to the World Conference against Precarious Labour, War and Exploitation called by Indian trade unionists which have now refused broad support from all the continents, a World Conference which will take place in Mumbai at the end of November 2016. We are joining to this letter all the documents relevant to that conference and its preparation. That appeal to a World Conference against Precarious Labour, War and Exploitation states: “The year 2015 is ending, and war extends its grip throughout the world, in Libya, Iraq, occupied Afghanistan and Syria, while the Palestinian people remain subjugated to occupation and oppression. People in these war torn countries are being forced to leave their homelands in thousands and become refugees in the most terrible conditions in the other countries. Throughout Africa and the world over, wars are dismembering countries. War, now confront imperialist countries themselves, where the civilians are time and again suffering bomb attacks. Il all countries, jobs are ruthlessly being deregulated to deprive the working class of its collective rights. The number of people unemployed is rising ceaselessly.” We strongly hope that it will be possible for a Japanese working class delegation to take part in the Conference of Mumbai and convey to all those present the experiences of your struggle.       ◆Российская Коммунистическая Рабочая Партия в составе Коммунистической Партии Советского Союза 13 июля 2016, Санкт-Петербург, Россия Уважаемые товарищи! Центральный комитет Российской коммунистической рабочей партии приветствует участников 54-й Интернациональной антивоенной ассамблеи и выражает товарищескую классовую солидарность с вашей борьбой за мир во всём мире. Мы хорошо понимаем, что капитализм и империализм неразрывно связаны с войнами за передел рынков сбыта и источников сырья. Пока существует капитализм – войны неизбежны, а все их тяготы и жертвы ложатся на плечи трудового народа. Поэтому мы понимаем, что установить прочный мир на Земле возможно, только ликвидировав капиталистический строй и установив социализм – власть рабочего класса. Для нас борьба за мир неразрывно связана с борьбой за социализм. При этом мы разделяем войны, которые ведут буржуазные правительства за свои интересы, и справедливые войны, которые ведут трудовые народы за своё освобождение от гнёта капитала, в том числе и войны против фашистской угрозы, против агрессии более крупных империалистических хищников, стремящихся ввергнуть народы в управляемый кровопролитный хаос. Мы уверены, что трудовой народ сможет победить и добиться освобождения из-под власти капитала только при условии международной солидарности трудящихся. Поэтому наш лозунг остаётся неизменным со времён Маркса, Энгельса и Ленина: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! От имени ЦК РКРП 1-й секретарь ЦК                  Виктор Тюлькин Секретарь ЦК                       Илья Ферберов ◆SI de la Quatrième Internationale Российская Коммунистическая Рабочая Партия 21 juillet 2016, Paris, France Chers camarades, A un moment où les guerres se répandent à travers le monde avec leur cortège de conséquences amères, la Quatrième internationale salue votre initiatives de tenir des assemblées contre la guerre. Les répercussions de la guerre que l’impérialisme mène en Syrie sont maintenant mondiales. C’est un des principaux outils dans l’arsenal de l’impérialisme pour combattre tous les acquis des classes ouvrières. En conséquence, le combat contre la guerre est révolutionnaire, et nous saluons votre initiative de réunir des assemblées sur cet axe. Salutations révolutionnaires, ◆The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) July 25th 2016, Afghanistan Dear friends, The US invaded Afghanistan 15 years ago under the banner of “war on terror” and “liberating Afghan Women”. From the very beginning, The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) declared that this aggression is not for these purposes, rather it is to further the imperialist aims of the US. You have rightfully pointed this out in your statement as well: the Afghan war (and all other current wars) is actually a power struggle between the US and its biggest rivals, Russia and China, for the ultimate control of world. Unfortunately, Afghan people have fall pray of the US/NATO imperialistic aggression and terrorism for the past 16 years. The US has committed heinous crimes in Afghanistan, killing thousands of people and starting a war that has made millions suffer endlessly. It has committed dozens of massacres through airstrikes, drone strikes, night raids, and continues to kill and torture in black sites inside its city-size military bases. Most importantly, the US has stuck to its decades long policy of fostering Islamic fundamentalism. Today the puppet Afghan government, the Taliban, and ISIS are fed through the same hand to play the power game of the US in the region. All three are criminal fundamentalist entities that thrive on the US’s funding and arms. Do not be deceived by the clean appearances of high-ranking Afghan officials, most are fundamentalist criminals no different from the Taliban in mentality. In this devious game, it is the Afghan people whose lives are made hell. Today Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries of the world, the most corrupt, and the highest producer and consumer of drugs in the world. The economy is essentially mafia-controlled, not one basic infrastructure has been built in the past decade, and the gold rush of Western funds only lines the pockets of mafia and state criminals and fuels corruption. The situation of women is catastrophic with violence, murder, immolation, rape, abduction, honor-killing, underage marriage, and other tradition anti-women practices being on the rise, instead of dropping. When the entire country is in the hands of Islamic hardliners, naturally misogynistic practices and policies will be dominant and our hapless women will continue to be their victims. In the past few years, we have witnessed that the US’s criminal wars are rapidly spreading across Asia and Africa. The US has upheld its policy of nurturing Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq, Libya, and Syria as well, where ISIS and Al Qaeda elements are rebranded as “moderate rebels” and imposed upon the ill-fortunate people of these countries. This has caused the absolute devastation of these countries and its people. The export of terrorism to the West and the current refugee crisis are a blowback of the West’s own policy of nurturing terrorism in the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan. The widespread propaganda that the US will voluntarily withdraw from Afghanistan is rubbish. RAWA announced then, and says it now, that the US will never withdraw from our country voluntarily. The only way the US may leave is through an organized, united struggle by our people to take control of their fate and forever dispose the US and its lackeys in the bin of history. While this is the prime factor, the international solidarity of anti-war bodies and figures is also important to this struggle. At this time, it is a necessity of join hands against the US and its allies’ reckless wars across the world, and end the global threat of terrorism which is consuming innocent people around the world. These gatherings serve this purpose and further strengthen our bond and alliance against war. The people of Japan have a long history of standing against war. The countless mass protests against the Okinawa base, and resisting laws that would allow Japan to engage directly in conflicts and fuel wars across the world, are a few examples of such battles. The peace-loving people of Japan and Afghanistan stand together in this arduous struggle to defeat the imperialist nations’ bloody wars. We need to defeat imperialism and fundamentalism which acts like its foot-soldiers in many countries. World peace will not be a reality without accomplishing this very important and humane task. ◆Лариса Трофимовна БАБИЕНКО Главный редактор газеты «За СССР» 26 июля 2016, Москва, Россия Уважаемые товарищи! В России некоторые представители левой оппозиции говорят, что лимит на революции исчерпан, мол, все перемены должны приходить в жизнь общества только эволюционно. Но вот эволюционно пришел во все страны мира Интернет, и что из-за этого изменилось? Теперь еще и сотовый телефон почти в каждой руке. Богатые после этого поделилась своими доходами с бедными? Семьи рабочих живут в таких же дворцах, как и олигархи? Дети из крестьянских и рабочих семей имеют такой же доступ к хорошему образованию, как и дети нуворишей? Несмотря на приход в жизнь государств неизвестных прежде высоких технологий, бедняков не становится меньше, безработица во всех буржуазных странах растет, а миллионы детей теперь не знают, что это Земля крутится вокруг Солнца, а не наоборот. В России же некоторые студенты даже престижных вузов не могут расшифровать слово СССР, не знают, кто такая Валентина Терешкова и кто написал роман «Война и мир», то ли Пушкин, то ли Толстой? То есть невежества, озлобленности, невозможности жить рядом с соседом другой веры и национальности без опаски быть зарезанным или взорванным после разрушения Советского Союза с каждым днем становится все больше. Как видим, эволюция к беднякам не спешит, она вначале десяток лет покрутится в домах богатых, и лишь когда им порядочно надоест, тогда они позволяют насладиться ее плодами и тем, кто живет, возможно,  рядом, однако не в дворцах, а в хижинах. Так что если лимит на революции будет исчерпан, то никогда не будет исчерпан лимит на рабство, на справедливое устройство общества. Однако революция имеет права быть только социалистической. Это не должно быть абы какое восстание, каких в истории человечества были тысячи, но к справедливому устройству общества они так и не привели. И лишь революция, итогом которой была отмена частной собственности на средства производства, принесла свои плоды: миллионы рабочих и крестьян создали страну с полным отсутствием безработицы. Напротив, рабочих рук даже не хватало. Миллионы рабочих и крестьян создали страну, в которой почти всех бесплатно обеспечили жильем. Всем были доступны медицина и высшее образование. А человека ценили не за деньги в его кармане, а за знания и профессиональные умения. Уважаемые товарищи! В вашем движении мне нравится не только то, что вы, как и прежде — марксисты, хотя почти во всех странах мира среди левых теперь больше оппортунистов, нежели подлинных марксистов. Мне по душе то, что вы — революционные марксисты, то есть, люди, готовые к активным революционным действиям, готовые к переменам. Успехов вам на вашем поприще! Удачи вам — на этом трудном, но очень честном общественном поприще! Будьте хорошими товарищами по отношению друг к другу, любите свои семьи. Ваша солидарность рано или поздно принесет свои добрые плоды и скажется на улучшении положения рабочего класса во всем мире. Всего доброго! С уважением! ◆Tavini Huiraatira no te Ao Maohi 26 juillet 2016, Tahiti Maohi-Nui (French Polynesia) Camarades, L'année 2016 marque le triste 50ème anniversaire du premier essai nucléaire français dans notre Océan, dans nos îles. Ces 50 ans de mensonges, de trahison de la parole donnée, de pollution radioactive issue de 193 essais nucléaires ont bouleversé de manière irréversible notre communauté et notre environnement. De nombreuses voix issues du monde politique et du monde associatif, relayées par RADIO TEFANA se sont élevées contre le colonialisme français et l'impérialisme occidental pour la préservation des intérêts MAOHI. Notre situation dans le plus grand océan du monde fait beaucoup d'envieux parmi les grandes nations qui nous entourent. La France en premier lieu qui sans Maohi-Nui n'existerait pas. La réinscription de Mao'hi Nui sur la liste des pays non autonomes de l'ONU le 17 mai 2013 a intensifié les pressions du gouvernement français pour la préservation des intérêts géo-politiques de la France dans l'Océan Pacifique. L'an dernier, une délégation de Maohi-Nui composée de deux personnes était avec le peuple japonnais sur invitation de Zengakuren. Avec vous, ils ont commémoré le 70ème anniversaire du bombardement des villes de Hiroshima et Nagasaki. Ils ont vu les ravages causés par la catastrophe nucléaire de Fukushima : les villes abandonnées, la radioactivité, les populations déplacées à qui le gouvernement demande de reprendre leurs anciennes vies dans un environnement à jamais pollué. Les membres de notre délégation ont été admiratifs de la mobilisation des membres de Zengakuren dans leur lutte contre l'extension de la base militaire américaine sur l'île d'Okinawa. Leur engagement est une source d'inspiration pour la poursuite de notre combat contre la prolifération du nucléaire et du néo-colonialisme. Cette année, juin 2016, des membres de Zengakuren se sont déplacés à Maohi-Nui. Ils ont partagé avec le peuple de Maohi-Nui leur expérience au travers de réunions publiques, d'une marche, et d'une émission sur RADIO TEFANA, la radio la plus écoutée de Ma'ohi Nui. Notre délégation fut honorée de les avoir accueillis. Notre peuple a ainsi pu mieux comprendre la force qui les anime : ce combat pour la paix au-delà des frontières est aussi le nôtre. Nous retenons de leur déplacement, ces mots forts  : “nous devons faire en sorte que notre océan soit vraiment PACIFIQUE.” Le 2 juillet dernier, le peuple de Maohi-nui a commémoré le 50ème anniversaire du premier tir nucléaire français dans l'Océan Pacifique. L'événement a été organisé par Moruroa e Tatou et l'association 193 auquel s'est joint Zengakuren.. La lutte contre le nucléaire reste l'objectif car la France n'accepte toujours pas les dégâts occasionnés sur l'environnement et les maladies cancérigènes dont le nombre ne cesse d'augmenter. Il est clair que les essais dans le Pacifique, terrain de jeu de l'impérialisme occidental, ont profité à ces pays qui ont ainsi développé leur arme nucléaire et leur énergie nucléaire à l'insu des peuples autochtones. L'occident nous a imposé par le nucléaire leur vision du monde. Un monde nucléaire et catastrophique que nous n'acceptons pas. Aussi notre combat comme le vôtre, contre le nucléaire, doit persister pour le bien-être de nos générations futures. Ensemble nous avons marché, ensemble nous continuerons. Une solidarité sans frontières, comme notre océan ! Pour la délégation de Maohi-nui Guillaume Colombani ◆ Left Radical of Afghanistan   July 27th 2016, Afghanistan Dear comrades and Friends Left Radical of Afghanistan extends its strongest solidarity with you and appreciate your stand against the imperialists, capitalists and their plundering institutions. The capitalist governments for their dirty interests and prolonging their parasitic lives, shed the blood of people and wage the war around the world. The imperialist instead of spending money for the development and prosperity of the people and enhancing the budget for education, health, environment, employment and other social services they escalate the war machinery and mass destruction weapons that is a totally threat to all humanity and the planet. So, this is the responsibility of all workers, youth and progressive organizations and individuals to resist and struggle against war monger policies of their governments and put pressure on them to stop the war and end the occupation and intervention in other countries. US imperialism with its allies including Japan agreed in July 2016 Warsa summit to extend their bloody mission in Afghanistan till 2020. They agreed to continue the occupation of Afghanistan and killing the people of Afghanistan and civilians by bombardment, drone attacks and ground military operations. The recent agreement authorized the US forces to use cruse missile in the fighting which will impose further civilian casualties and destruction of the properties of the people. The July 2016 report of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) disclose the unprecedented record of the civilian casualties during the fighting between the government, US/Nato and the armed opposition in Afghanistan. Based on the report one third of the victims are children. Only in the last six months of 2016, more than 1601 civilian have been killed by the war parties in Afghanistan.   Left Radical of Afghanistan and the people of Afghanistan demand the end of occupation of Afghanistan and call for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan. Let the people of Afghanistan determine their future. Long live solidarity between the people of Afghanistan and Japan! Death to war and imperialism! ◆ Исайчиков Виктор Фёдорович Сопредседатель ОПД «Марксистская платформа» главный редактор газеты «Момент Истины» и журнала «Просвещение» 28 июля 2016, Москва, Россия Общественно-политическое движение «Марксистская платформа», редакция газеты «Момент Истины» и журнала «Просвещение» поддерживают участников 54-ой международной антивоенной ассамблеи в самом главном деле современности – борьбе против планов американского империализма развязать мировую войну и выйти из системного кризиса капитализма за счёт уничтожения большинства населения Земли и своих капиталистических конкурентов. Хищническая, неразумная погоня за прибылями капиталистов породила и порождает ряд мировых, глобальных проблем, решить которые загнивающий капитализм может только временно и на путях регресса, в том числе – возвращением к человеконенавистническим рецептам Мальтуса по «регулированию» населения: войны, терроризм, голод, болезни, геноцид при сокращении численности населения Земли в несколько раз. Не случайно, что вызванные неразумным капиталистическим потреблением климатические изменения убивают людей не только сами по себе, но и в результате социальных последствий; например, реакционная группировка ИГИЛ возникла в районах, подвергшихся небывалой многолетней засухе, превратившей миллионы крестьян в люмпенов, нищих, готовых на всё, чтобы элементарно выжить. В настоящее время главная задача ведущихся империалистами локальных войн – не столько максимальное уничтожение «лишнего» населения, сколько подготовка армий, готовых убивать миллионы людей без каких либо угрызений совести, а также формирование милитаристского и ксенофобского психоза среди населения «своих» стран. Из стран - потенциальных жертв последовательно формируются «образ врага»; так, перед захватом природных богатств Ирака империалистами, применявшими неоднократно химическое и ядерное оружие в ходе мировых и локальных войн, была запущена фальшивка об иракском химическом и ядерном оружии. В настоящее время американские империалисты не могут прямо выступить против своего главного экономического и стратегического противника – КНР, поэтому такими «изгоями» они пытаются сделать другие страны, в том числе КНДР и Россию. При этом США не прекращают экономической и политической войны против своих нынешних «союзников», в первую очередь, ЕС, используя ничему не научившихся потомков Чемберлена и Даладье в качестве «пушечного мяса». Наша задача – создать в противовес агрессивным планам империалистов могучую силу объединённого мирового рабочего класса и найти для него союзников среди других классов, заинтересованных в своем физическом выживании. Миру - мир!  ◆ Revolutionary Marxists in Britain July 29th 2016, London, Britain   We, Revolutionary Marxists in Britain, send our warm and comradely greetings to the 54th International Anti-War Assembly. We support your call to unite across national borders and fight against the war and poverty imposed by the capitalist states. The vote in the referendum for Britain to leave the European Union caused a political crisis in the British bourgeoisie. David Cameron resigned as Prime Minister. Instead of taking advantage of this political crisis, the Labour Party bureaucracy and the majority of Labour Members of Parliament have given priority to attacking Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who was democratically elected by party members and supporters.  The choices in the referendum were not options that were in the interests of the working class. The question, whether capitalist Britain should be in or out of the European Union, arose from divisions and power ambitions in the Conservative Party. The vote to leave the EU has triggered an increase in racial attacks on black and Asian people and on migrants from other parts of Europe.  Jeremy Corbyn’s record as campaigner against war and in defence of welfare and workers’ rights attracted hundreds of thousands of new members to the Labour Party, first to support his leadership campaign and subsequently to support the Labour Party because he is its leader. Corbyn also has the support of most trade union leaders. In fact, Corbyn’s “radical” policies do not challenge the basis of capitalism, although they promise an end to privatisation, measures against tax avoidance, a higher minimum wage and employment rights implemented through a ministry of labour, and public investment in industry, social housing and the National Health Service. The majority of Labour MPs and their capitalist supporters have tried a range of manoeuvres to remove Corbyn as party leader. Shortly after the EU referendum vote, when Cameron had announced that he would resign as Prime Minister, Labour MPs voted by a large majority for a vote of “no confidence” in Corbyn, bringing about a new leadership election. In coordination with the “no confidence” vote, eleven members of the shadow cabinet resigned. There have been attempts to exclude Corbyn supporters from Labour Party membership. Restrictions have been imposed on local Labour Party meetings until after 24 September, the date of the conference that will declare the result of the leadership election. Michael Foster, a millionaire who has donated large sums of money to the Labour Party, attempted unsuccessfully to obtain a court ruling that Corbyn could not stand in the leadership election unless he had the support of 20% of Labour MPs. The candidate selected by the anti-Corbyn Labour MPs is Owen Smith, one of the eleven shadow cabinet members who resigned. The original challenger, Angela Eagle, stood down on the grounds that just one candidate standing against Corbyn would have more chance of defeating him. Smith was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer before becoming an MP. At that time Smith argued for more privatisation of health services. Now he claims that he opposes privatisation, and has adopted Corbyn’s policies as his own. Yet, unlike Corbyn, Smith as an MP voted for the bombing of Syria and failed to vote against the Government’s Welfare Reform Bill, a vicious attack on the poorest sections of the working class. Smith’s claim to share Corbyn’s politics is a cynical deception, which is unlikely to be successful. In the meantime the Conservative Government under the new Prime Minister Theresa May is preparing to make further attacks on the trade unions and workers’ rights and benefits. One consequence of the vote to leave the EU is that the limited protection that EU regulations provide as regards employment rights will cease to exist unless the working class fights to defend these gains. At present, workers’ resistance through the trade unions to welfare cuts and job losses has been spasmodic and lacking in political direction. The union leaders’ support for Corbyn has not always meant support for his policies. While Corbyn has been a consistent opponent of the Trident nuclear system, “left wing” trade union leaders who support Corbyn as Labour Leader such as Len McCluskey, leader of the largest union, Unite, support the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system on the grounds that it provides jobs. McCluskey and other union leaders also support the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station on the same grounds, ignoring the risks posed by nuclear power. These inconsistencies show the lack of a coherent political perspective in the British labour movement. The need is for a leadership based on the clarity of a Marxist perspective. We fully support your call to “unite internationally against the storms of chauvinism”. The need for international workers’ unity against imperialist war and chauvinism is so clear today. We wish the Assembly every success.   ◆ David McReynolds former chair, War Resisters International July 31st 2016, New York, USA Time passes so swiftly and your assembly is nearly here. I do want to send my greetings to all comrades and peace workers in Japan. We may not agree on every point, but we are united in our determination the nuclear weapons must be abolished and that we must strive to have a world free of armaments and war. You are a crucial part of that struggle. May your assembly be a great success. Solidarity,   ◆ Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers Newspaper) August 2nd 2016, Faridabad, India Global wage-workers ( workers who come from many places and are called foreign workers by status quo forces ) in March and April this year in Saudi Arabia ( Riyadh and Mecca ) made "news ". 2. In India in the capital of Karnatak state, Bengaluru, more than one hundred thousand garment workers, most of them women, came out of a thousand factories on 18th and 19th April this year. The government of India was forced to cancel the new rules it had passed in collaboration with the central trade unions (INTUC, BMS, HMS, AITUC, CITU ) to swindle about 130 billion rupees from forty million wage-workers provident fund deposits. These one hundred thousand plus wage-workers did not go to any leader or organisation. They took the steps on their own. And, in September 2015 in the tea plantations in Munnar (Kerala state ), seven thousand women workers quit different unions. In the beginning of October 2015, the women workers stopped production in the tea plantations. Thousands of women workers activities on their own created quite a stir. Leaders of various political parties and unions reached the plantations to "support" but the women workers forced them to leave ----- a union leader who had become a legislator was beaten with slippers. Two week production stoppage forced scrapping of ten per cent bonus management-union agreement and the management had to declare twenty per cent bonus. 3. In the November 2015 issue of Faridabad Majdoor Samachar, we have a worker's report from a capacitor manufacturing factory. Workers of the third floor did not hold a meeting, did not discuss amongst themselves, no one told anyone to do this or that, and more than a hundred workers subverted the production in charge's diktat by what seems to be morphic resonance. In the Bata shoe factory in Faridabad there was a management-union agreement in 1983 to install automatic lines in place of semiautomatic lines, which 1500 workers subverted by what again seems to be morphic resonance ------- the automatic lines were dismantled in 1985 and  semiautomatic lines reinstalled. And, historian Tim Mason tells about intelligence and security agencies having no clue to industrial production in Germany during the war years (1939-45) falling by 35 per cent, which seems to be factory workers opposition to the war in the morphic resonance form. 4. Companies are in two categories : a) Very weak companies; b). Extremely weak companies. All the time in factories in the national capital region here we see workers loosening the control of companies and the government. At times this loosening reaches a stage where workers de-occupy factories. The response of companies is mass dismissals and the state uses police force and prisons. The number of factory workers who are political prisoners is in hundreds. On 18 July 2012 thousands of workers in the Maruti Suzuki Manesar car factory attacked two symbols of the wages system : managers and factory buildings. The state put 147 workers in prison and of them 35 are still in prison. But exemplary punishment to terrorize and maintain the status quo has become bankrupt. In December 2015 eight workers of Pricol factory in Tamil Nadu state were given double life imprisonment for the death of a manager in the factory. And, in January 2016 in the Lucas TVS factory in Tamil Nadu, 2400 young workers stopped work for a week without any fear. In February 2015 in Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon in Haryana state managers and directors ran away from factories and 2500 police force had to be called before 20,000 women and men workers left the area. In the Prithala-Baghola industrial area in Palwal in Haryana state in January 2014 workers in hundreds went from one factory to another closing down the whole industrial area -------- association of companies complained to the state government about the inaction of the police. in February 2013 women and men workers in their thousands came out of factories and shut down all factories in Okhla Industrial Area Phase-1 and Phase-2 in Delhi state. Be it the democratic state (said to be the best form for wage labour based commodity production ) and its institutions or be they undemocratic forms of the state and their institutions, it is wage-workers very being that destabilises them and continuously engenders radical ruptures. Today we are in exciting times where all state apparatuses throughout the world are increasingly dysfunctional. You will be glad to know that we are now distributing 15-16-17 thousand copies of Faridabad Majdoor Samachar each month amongst factory workers. Our best wishes for the 54th International Antiwar Assembly. With love Sher Singh ◆ Lewisham People Before Profit August 2nd 2016, London, Britain   To Friends and Executive Committee of Antiwar, We in Lewisham People Before Profit admire your stand against the tyranny of capitalism and war-mongers. Your continued opposition to the government of Mr Abe and its allies in the US is an inspiration to us all and we wish that we could be with you at this time. The brotherhood we experience is not weakened by the distance between our nations and our resolve to support you remains as strong as ever.  Fraternally as ever, ◆ EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party)  August 2nd 2016, Athens, Greece Dear Comrades of the Anti-War Assembly in Japan,   Now, more than ever before, to pay tribute to the victims of the imperialist nuclear holocaust in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not solely an indispensable moral and internationalist duty but also a warning for all humanity. The world capitalist crisis, now in its 9th year, is propelling imperialism to militarism, wars , occupation and devastation producing among others the biggest migrant Exodus in history. The last events confirm the urgency for an intenrnational and internationalist anti-war struggle: a. the last Summit of NATO in Warshaw, Poland escaalating the standoff with Russia b. the tensions in South China Sea, c. the militarization and pro-war constitutional changes in Japan under Abe, d. the chaos in the MIddle East, Northern Africa and Central Asia and last but not least e. the pro-NATO military coup in Turkey and the counter-coup by the Erdogan despotic regime . This recent dramatic development will have international implications going far beyond the Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean regions The imperialist international order established by the Sykes-Picot agreement , a hundred years ago, during the 1st World War and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, has collapsed( Syria, Iraq, Libya etc do not exist any more as sovereign states) and with the 'Syrianization" of Turkey, the chaos spread by imperilaism in the region merges with the process of disntegration in a post-Brexit European Union.  Greece, socialy and economically ruined after 6 years of the most unhuman austerity, is situated precisely at the point where these two processes of disintegration are meeting. The working class is betrayed by the reformist Syriza government but not yet defeated. Our duty is to open the alternative revolutionary road out from social catastrophe. The mobilizations of the French worrking class last spring is the prelude of a new phase of explosive class struggles in Europe.   Internationalism in practice, not just words, is not just an option but the only solution!  Long live the world socialist revolution! with warmest communist greetings on behalf of the Central Committee of the EEK of Greec Savas Michael-Matsas, General Secretary ◆ News and Letters Committees August 3rd 2016, Chicago, USA Dear Comrades: The members of News and Letters Committees send you revolutionary greetings and hope for success at the 2016 antiwar assembly to be held on August 7. Like you, we look with grave concern at Prime Minister Abe’s ambition to revise the existent Japanese Constitution that renounced war. We support your determination to stop this dangerous development. You are quite correct that U.S. President Obama's rhetoric for a "nuclear-free world" does not match his actions, as he continues to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal and do nothing to achieve disarmament. More broadly, whatever his wishes may have been with regard to withdrawing from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the reality is that he continues to serve the inherently violent and militaristic capitalist system, as the leader of its foremost imperialist power. That is why we stressed in this year's Marxist-Humanist Perspectives Thesis, titled "The need for new beginnings in thought and in action" (http://newsandletters.org/the-need-for-new-beginnings-in-thought-and-in-action/): "Recent announcements of a halt to troop withdrawals in Afghanistan and an expected increase of troops in Iraq, along with the failure to close the Guantanamo detention center, show how little [Obama] has moved away from those wars. "He has, in addition, continued and in some cases greatly expanded lower-profile forms of military intervention, including the use of drones, special operations forces, mercenaries and other private contractors, and proxies under the aegis of other countries. This is combined with the continuing militarization of domestic police forces—pausing recently only due to the Black Lives Matter movement—and ever more pervasive surveillance at home and abroad. The way surveillance and the forces of violent repression—nationally coordinated with involvement of the Department of Homeland Security—were used to smash the Occupy movement show the fear of revolution on the part of the rulers, who recognized the dangers to them of the worldwide wave of revolt that opened up in 2010-11. "But revolt cannot be forever stifled where its objective bases persist. Today struggles abound, from workers demanding a living wage to Transgender people opposing violence and discrimination, from women squaring off against anti-abortion fanatics to prisoners bringing attention to systematic human rights abuses they face." At the same time, the chauvinism you mention—prominently the anti-immigrant chauvinism whipped up by the rulers, which currently pervades the political atmosphere here in the U.S.—is a serious threat to all workers who fight for liberation. So we stressed in our Perspectives: "Support for a candidate like Donald Trump, whose whole career has proved his drive to dominate and exploit, shows the need for the working class in the world’s richest economy to 'pave a new road of world solidarity between themselves and all the "immigrants" of the world. The first step in that direction is the recognition of the fact that many of them have been repeating the reactionary ideas of their own exploiters.' (See 'Racism, workers and freedom ideas,' p. 4, March-April 2016 N&L, http://newsandletters.org/from-the-writings-of-raya-dunayevskaya-racism-workers-and-freedom-ideas/.) "White workers in the U.S. live in the same world as Black and Latina/Latino workers, as undocumented immigrant workers, as workers in Chinese and Indian sweatshops, as miners in South Africa and Chile, as domestic workers in Mexico and Lebanon, and all are on the same exploited side of the class divide. Black and Latina workers, who are overwhelmingly opposed to Trump and his ilk, are the majority of those driving struggles on behalf of the working class in the U.S., from the fight for a $15 minimum wage to organizing of low-wage workers at fast food restaurants and Wal-Marts, to the militant struggles of teachers in cities like Chicago and Detroit." What is abundantly clear is the bankruptcy of this system, which threatens to end civilization, whether through climate chaos, nuclear war, or economic collapse.  What we who oppose it must break down is the system's hold, not only on the material means of life but on our very minds.  The bankruptcy of thought is glaring in such unreasoning power-seekers as Trump and Abe but it has also infected much of the Left itself.  To fight this, we need the weapon wielded by Marx but abandoned by so much of post-Marx Marxism: the philosophy of revolution. It makes clear that what we are for is totally new human relations that transcend capitalism and its wars, racism, xenophobia, sexism, and heterosexism, and that the banner of that kind of full liberation is needed to create the kind of unity that will bring together the working and oppressed people not only in opposing the powers that be and their warmongering but in building a new world. For Freedom, and a new world built on human foundations, The Resident Editorial Board of News and Letters Committees ◆ Владимир Пронин Член Президиума Антифашистского комитета Украины 3 августа 2016, Киев, Украина  В президиум 54-й международной антивоенной конференции Империалистический мир в период, прошедший между двумя международными антивоенными конференциями, переживал постоянные серьёзные трудности. Главными среди них, помимо неблагоприятных и непреходящих уже в течение почти десятилетия экономических проблем, были - окончательно определившееся поражение политики США и стран НАТО в Сирии; появление в сытой и благополучной Европе миллионов стихийных беженцев из поражённых войнами и переворотами, спровоцированными империализмом, и послевоенными бедствиями стран Ближнего Востока и Северной Африки; обострившиеся кризисные явления в Европейском Союзе, чему свидетельством является результат референдума в Великобритании, в ходе которого большинство англичан высказалось за выход страны из ЕС; угроза, что в случае имплементации результатов голосования в жизнь другие страны могут последовать за ними, что в конечном итоге может спровоцировать последующий распад этого мощного объединения империалистических стран и их сателлитов из постсоциалистических государств Европы; восстановление Россией статуса великой державы, что вынуждены признать все империалистические государства. Оппоненты нынешнего курса правительства Путина, выискивающие, где только могут, слабые места в положении России и не желающие видеть очевидное, указывают на несопоставимый уровень экономик США и России, значительно, на порядок возросший после 1985 года, когда пришедшая к власти клика Горбачёва начала разрушительную перестройку, с чем нельзя не согласиться – но военный потенциал России в значительной мере уцелел, а в последние годы, как стало очевидным в Сирии, восстановился и заставляет с собой считаться самые агрессивные силы в современном мире – реакционную американскую военщину. Уже приходилось говорить о том, что сам этот факт имеет важное международное значение, потому что без этого народы всего мира, включая самых преданных и ближайших союзников США, могли со временем испытать на себе то, что в наши дни пришлось перенести народам Югославии, Афганистана, стран Ближнего Востока и Северной Африки. Разумеется, это не означает, что коммунисты должны поддерживать все действия режима Путина, прежде всего, во внутренней политике России, где сохраняется всё тот же реакционный либеральный курс, тем более, что шокирующая демонстрация возможностей нового российского стратегического оружия уже дала толчок новому витку всемирной гонки вооружений и связанной с этим бессмысленной растратой неисчислимых человеческих и материальных ресурсов. На предстоящих президентских выборах в США ожидается приход к власти более агрессивных, более авантюристических сил, которые хотели бы переломить текущий ход событий, неблагоприятный для недавно ещё наглого и самоуверенного государства-гегемона на мировой арене, тем более, что одним из претендентов на президентский пост является Хиллари Клинтон, которой явно не дают покоя лавры её супруга-экс-президента и военного преступника Билла Клинтона. На Украине с особой надеждой ждёт исхода этих выборов преступная клика Порошенко, погрязшая в коррупции и преступлениях против собственного народа, которая продолжает преступную войну на востоке Украине, уже принёсшую украинскому народу многотысячные кровавые жертвы и разрушившая её экономику, преследует и терроризирует своих противников. Коммунисты Украины, как и прежде, вынуждены действовать в подполье и подвергаются жестоким репрессиям. Несколько месяцев тому назад была под сфальсифицированным предлогом арестована и до сих пор содержится под стражей 68-летняя Алла Александровская, первый секретарь Харьковского областного комитета Компартии Украины, а руководитель украинского комсомола Михаил Кононович был зверски избит членами националистических банд на одной из улиц города Чернигова. Но терпение украинского народа исчерпывается и всё более нарастает уверенность, что уже в скором времени произойдут положительные перемены и война, уже два года терзающая Украину, прекратится, а олигархические и профашистские силы будут отодвинуты от власти и понесут заслуженное наказание за совершённые ими преступления против собственного народа. Не хочется торопиться и выдавать желаемое за действительное, но складывается впечатление, что уже начинают выходить на поверхность политической жизни Украины совершенно новые политические силы и конкретные политики, не замаранные участием в прежних властных структурах, способные, наконец-то, взять власть в свои руки и увести Украину с нынешнего губительного курса… -о-о-о-о-о-о- Украинские антифашисты с особым пониманием, как граждане страны, пережившей на себе последствия катастрофической аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС, относятся к озабоченности коммунистов Японии проблемами ядерной безопасности их страны и с осуждением отмечают то преступное равнодушие, с которым японские власти относятся к этим проблемам, в частности, по ликвидации последствий катастрофы на «Фукусима-1», на которой до сих пор не удаётся приостановить вытекание загрязнённой радиоактивной воды. Несмотря на это, уже объявлено о предстоящем возобновлении эксплуатации АЭС. Только установление действенного контроля трудящихся Японии над работой атомных электростанций страны может обеспечить строгое соблюдение правил безопасной эксплуатации атомных электростанций. Отвратительное преступление на Окинаве, когда военнослужащий США зверски убил местную жительницу, далеко не первое в ряду таких же преступлений американской военщины за годы фактической оккупации острова, вызвало суровое осуждение со стороны граждан Украины. Конечно же, они с пониманием и поддержкой относятся к борьбе японского народа за прекращение американской оккупации Японии и ликвидацию американских военных баз на Окинаве и желают им всяческих успехов в этой благородной борьбе. Позвольте мне в завершение своего заочного выступления выразить твёрдое убеждение, что 54-я международная антивоенная конференция внесёт достойный вклад в дело борьбы за мир на Дальнем Востоке и во всём мире, за будущую окончательную победу над мировым империализмом. Только после этого военные конфликты навсегда исчезнут из жизни человеческого общества.  ◆ Российская партия коммунистов 3 августа 2016, Ленинград, Россия Исполком Российской партии коммунистов шлёт товарищеские приветы организаторам 54 Международной антивоенной ассамблеи – Союзу японских революционных коммунистов, Дзэнгакурэн, Комитету антивоенной молодёжи, а также всем участникам Ассамблеи. Мы уже не раз писали о восхищении, которое вызывает ваша верность благородной традиции – в очередную годовщину совершения величайшего преступления империализма США отдавать дань памяти его жертвам, многим десяткам тысяч жителей Хиросимы и Нагасаки, и одновременно привлекать внимание всех неравнодушных людей в мире к существующим кровопролитным военным конфликтам и угрозе новых потрясений со стороны главных и периферийных империалистических сил и порождаемых ими звероподобных чудовищ. Фотоиллюстрации ваших антивоенных акций в разных городах Японии мы постоянно публикуем на страницах Коммуниста Ленинграда. Вы достойно выполняете свой интернациональный долг, жёстко критикуя милитаристские тенденции правительства Синдзо Абэ. Что касается сегодняшней России, то её экономика не выходит из состояния рецессии. Инфляция не снижается, колеблясь вокруг ежегодных 10-12%. Все крики и призывы проправительственных пропагандистов к внедрению инноваций не приводят к возникновению новых технологий в промышленности. Это и не удивительно. Олигархо-бюрократическая власть, утвердившаяся в России, разрушила эффективную систему научно-производственного взаимодействия, сложившуюся в Советском Союзе: институты фундаментальных исследований (Академия наук) – широкая сеть отраслевых институтов прикладных разработок – заводские лаборатории и конструкторские бюро. Олигархи отнюдь не патриоты. Они не собираются рисковать, вкладывая награбленные средства в разработки новых технологий. Зависимость экономики от углеводородного сырья и цен на него, как и санкции империалистического Запада, наложенные на периферийно-империалистическую Россию, держат российскую экономику в оковах. Успехи российской власти очевидны в одном: с помощью интенсивной медиа-обработки ей удалось возродить у большинства населения атрибуты имперского национал-патриотизма в сознании. Мы, РПК, вместе с нашими союзниками по левому движению ведём против этого принципиальную борьбу, противопоставляя ущербному национал-патриотизму классовое интернационалистское сознание. Капитализм наиболее опасен для человечества в своей самой последней стадии, когда он уже не имеет возможностей обеспечивать возрастание капитала в мирных условиях. Тогда идеологические службы главной страны НАТО разрабатывают агрессивно-циничные теории вроде теории управляемого хаоса (авторы – отец и сын Бжезиньские), и Белый Дом при разных президентах воплощает их в жизнь. Средневековые диктатуры монархий Аравийского полуострова империалисты США не собираются «демократизировать», это их стратегические союзники. Были ли режимы в Афганистане, Ираке, Ливии и даже в Сирии буржуазно-демократичными? Разумеется, нет. Хотя, например, в Ливии режим Муамара Каддафи при жёстком авторитаризме наверху установил довольно широкое народное самоуправление на низовом уровне, и Ливия до франко-натовского, включая США, вмешательства, была страной самого высокого в Африке уровня благосостояния граждан. Это – во-первых. А во-вторых, и это главное, – недопустимо демократию и даже социалистические преобразования экспортировать. Они должны произрастать на национальной почве. Вторгшись в вышеназванные страны, империализм США, Канады и ЕС реализовал теорию Бжезиньских. Пентагон и военно-промышленный комплекс стран НАТО получил дополнительное финансирование (с ростом дефицита бюджетов), а хаос привёл к усилению террористических организаций, уже имевшихся (Талибан, аль-Каида), и к возникновению ультрамракобесного «нового Халифата», ДАИШ, так называемого Исламского государства. И весь мир стал очевидцем трагедий миллионов семей, беженцев от ДАИШ из Ближнего Востока и Северной Африки. Попутно волна беженцев, нахлынувшая в европейские страны, усилила в них националистические и открыто фашистские организации. Мы вновь убеждаемся в пророчески верных словах Розы Люксембург, сказанных более века назад: «либо варварство, либо социализм». Обязательным условием снятия капитализма как общественно-экономической формации, условием готовности пролетариата и его политического авангарда к возникновению революционной ситуации является преодоление разобщённости левых сил. Мы, РПК, пытаемся вносить активный вклад в решение этой задачи, организуя совместные митинги, другие политические акции, дискуссии, круглые столы с близкими нам левыми политическими организациями. Желаем нашим японским товарищам новых успехов в борьбе за решение тактических и стратегических задач в интересах японского рабочего класса и всех трудящихся Японии! Мы уверены, что 54-ая Антивоенная ассамблея пройдёт так же успешно, как и 53 предыдущие! Да здравствует пролетарский интернационализм Исполком Российской партии коммунистов  ◆ THE COMMISSION OF CONDEMNED WORKERS, RELATIVES AND FRIENDS OF LAS HERAS August 2nd 2016, Las Heras, Argentina To the comrades of JRCL-RMF, to the brave Zengakuren youth and to all the rebel workers and youth who are meeting today: From Las Heras, The workers condemned to life prison and jail together with our family and friends send you a greeting with all our solidarity and a big internationalist hug to your 54th Anti-War Assembly and to all the rebel workers and youth who are gathering there. It is an example the fight of the workers and youth from Japan against the US military bases in Okinawa. The last June 19th we trembled from emotion together with you and the over 65.000 workers and students that denounced the brutal murderer of a woman in the hands of an US marine. We want to thank to each one of you for the support you gave us from the first time. We have felt you next to us in every step of the trial, the brutal sentence imposed by the Videlaist court and in every day of the fight for our acquittal and for the freedom of the world political prisoners. We know that if we are free today despite the sentence to life and jail imposed by oil imperialist companies, Kirchner’s government and their justice, which is continued by Macri’s government today, is because the huge international solidarity from tens of organizations which –like you did- fought for our acquittal. Together with you we achieved the first steps forward to break with the isolation we have suffered during years. Today those steps have reached further and we start to go around the world. In this fight and with organizations of Palestinian prisoners and with Greek rebel youth, among others, we had set up an International Network for the Liberty of World Political prisoners and Justice for our Martyrs. Thus we have reached France and fought side by side with workers and rebel youth who rebelled against Hollande’s attack. We took part in the Republic Square in France fighting for the freedom of Georges Abdallah and Basque prisoners and against the brutal genocide of Dog Bashar and Putin, commanded by Obama, against the Syrian masses. In Greece we are side by side with our refugee brothers and sisters who are imprisoned in concentration camps as true political prisoners of Syriza’s governments that is evicting them and repressing them with its murdering police. This very same Syriza’s government with its justice have just sentenced tens of Anarchist youth to 115 years in jail while over 50 of them are in prison. In the mean time the Bourbons of the Spanish State imprisoned Alfon over a year ago, and was condemned to 4 year-prison due to defend the right of workers to carry out  a strike while any person who confronts their plans of misery and starvation is prosecute. Only a few days ago we were in Mexico with the heroic militant teachers. The murderous government of Peña Nieto –who with his police, army and the entire state- is responsible of disappearing 43 students and today they kill militant teachers. Our International Network was with the relatives of the 43 students and with relatives of the teachers who were killed and imprisoned to unify our struggle. Our Palestinian brothers and sisters keep and will keep fighting against the Zionist invader who are moving forward with the settlers. Last June 15th Bilal Kayed who has been in jail for over 14 years started a hunger strike, his health is deteriorating day by day, while Zionism keeps him handcuffed in a hospital. It is necessary we can go for more steps forwards. Let´s vote altogether to dig deeply the international fight for the freedom of Bilal Kayed to free him and over 7.000 Palestinian prisoners from the Zionism´s dungeons. The Greek rebel youth that is in jail must return to the streets. Comrade Alfon can no longer be as hostage of Bourbons. It is a single fight to open the borders and free our brother and sister-refugees confined in concentration camps by the imperialist Maastricht. This fight together with the one to stop the massacre of Al Assad, Putin, and Obama against the heroic Syrian masses as well as the struggle to free all the political prisoners is a task of all the world workers and exploited.  There will not be freedom with our children dying in the Mediterranean Sea and under Al Assad’s and Putin’s bombs and our brothers imprisoned in concentration camps and the jails of the oppressors´ regimes! In a couple of days –August 16th- we will witness a new Anniversary of Marikana’s massacre where 34 miners were killed in cold blood by Zuma’s government and ANC. Over 70,000 miners organized in Southern Africa independently from COSATU’s union bureaucracy and they fought against transnational companies. Today in the Lonmin mines there are no longer 34 crosses; they have added many more which belong to the black US workers killed by Obama’s white police. The fight for justice to our martyrs of Marikana is a fight linked to the working class and youth in USA who are shouting in the streets “Black Lives Matter”, while in their demonstration they have the banners of the 43 students disappeared in Mexico.  In all these fights we can find our allies and the forces to fight for our acquittal and for the freedom of world political prisoners. Let’s vote to deepen the fight of the International Network for the Freedom of World Political Prisoners and Justice for our Martyrs! Long live the world working class! Death to capitalist states and their ruling regimens that in the world prosecute, slaughter and imprison those who rebel against them and fight for our rights! Freedom to the best fighters of the world working class who are today hostages in the dungeons of the oppressing regimens! Let’s keep fighting together beyond the borders! Slaves’ rebellion is not a felony, it is justice! Commission of the Condemned Workers, Relatives and Friends of Las Heras, members of the International Network for the Freedom of World Political prisoners and Justice for our Martyrs.   ◆ Тюменский областной комитет РКРП-КПССи обком РОТ ФРОНТ 4 августа 2016, Тюмень, Россия  Уважаемые товарищи! Мы приветствуем всех участников и гостей 54-ой интернациональной антивоенной ассамблеи, которая много лет объединяет людей в борьбе за мир без глобальных и локальных войн, социальных потрясений, техногенных катастроф, гонки вооружений. С сожалением приходится констатировать, что окружающий мир в последние годы все дальше отодвигается от этого светлого идеала. Все чаще по всему земному шару вспыхивают очаги военных конфликтов, в которых не только погибает множество мирных людей, но и весь мир ставится под угрозу уничтожения. Самые крупные финансовые капиталы империалистических стран всё чаще решают судьбы других народов, прибегая к открытой террористической диктатуре. Империалистические замашки США и НАТО выражаются в стремлении прибрать к своим рукам как можно больше рынков и ресурсов. Для достижения этой цели они не жалеют средств из государственных бюджетов, которые идут на разжигание новых военных очагов и поддержание старых. В международной дипломатии язык мирных переговоров все чаще сменяется на военные угрозы и прочие агрессивные действия против других государств. Для США и НАТО стало нормой, прикрываясь патриотической риторикой и громкими фразами о борьбе за «демократию» и «освобождение» от «тоталитаризма», вторгаться на территории других стран, устраивать там военные перевороты и усаживать руководить этими государствами своих марионеток, подконтрольных президентов. Угроза мирового терроризма в этих условиях – это тоже часть империалистических планов США по борьбе за мировые ресурсы. Им выгодно сеять панику постоянными угрозами террористических атак, сеять истерию и на этом фоне проводить свою политику по наращиванию вооружений и усиления военного вмешательства в дела других государств. И в этих условиях нельзя согласиться с тем, что военные позиции США сегодня ослабевают. В условиях, когда империалистические агрессоры США все больше угрожают не только мирному сосуществованию между народами, но и существованию самой жизни на планете Земля, должна существовать сила, которая могла бы сдерживать бездумное американское правительство от применения ядерного оружия. Поэтому сегодня Китай и Россия просто вынуждены иметь в своих арсеналах ядерное оружие, чтобы обезопасить мир от угрозы ядерной войны. Это хорошо понимает и правительство Корейской Народно-Демократической Республики, которое было просто вынуждено создать свое ядерное оружие, чтобы обеспечить территориальную целостность своей страны и обезопасить ее от проникновения иностранных «миротворцев». Пример Сирии в этих условиях показателен. Сегодня она окружена кольцом реакционных монархий и полувоенных диктатур, но при этом остается одним из немногих светских государств Ближнего Востока, проводит независимую политику и является форпостом противостояния американо-израильской политике в регионе. Права и свободы, завоеванные трудящимися Сирии, сегодня находятся под угрозой. Правительства　Израиля и Турции неоднократно заявляли о готовности военного вторжения в Сирию. Правительство Сирии неоднократно заявляло, что готово к переговорам с оппозицией на условиях прекращения огня и выступления против внешнего вмешательства. Однако данная позиция не устраивала разжигателей войны, потому и были созданы и искусственно внедрены на территорию Сирии боевики из террористической организации ИГИЛ. В этих условиях бомбардировки со стороны России были необходимой мерой для сохранения территориальной целостности Сирии и сохранения законного правительства. Если бы Россия не оказала помощь правительству Сирии, то сегодня сирийское государство уже бы не существовало. Из истории мы знаем, что именно уничтожение социализма в СССР, ослабление боевых позиций пролетариата по всему миру, распространение оппортунизма и ревизионизма в коммунистическом и рабочем движении значительно ослабили факторы мирового развития, сдерживающие агрессивность и развязывание империалистами новых войн. Угроза мировой войны с чрезвычайно тяжелыми и непредсказуемыми последствиями для всего населения планеты возросла многократно. «Миротворческие» операции в Сирии и Ираке, затянувшаяся война на Донбассе, военная напряженность на Корейском полуострове, борьба с терроризмом в Турции – все это яркие тому подтверждения. Звериные законы капитализма и постоянно порождаемые им противоречия и кризисные ситуации, частная собственность на средства производства как источник империалистических войн не оставляют трудящимся этих стран иного выбора, кроме как самим защищаться от капиталистических агрессоров всеми возможными способами! А для этого они должны иметь вооружение, не уступающее противнику. Только тогда можно будет сохранять баланс сил. Это еще раз подтверждает то, что сегодня во всех капиталистических странах реализуются меры, реакционные по отношению к трудящимся, подавляющие рабочее движение, реализующие политику антикоммунизма. Одновременно империалистические интересы сталкиваются на территориях стран второго империалистического ряда, как это происходит сегодня в Сирии и на Украине. На Украине при поддержке империализма США и Европейского Союза, борющихся с империализмом РФ, осуществлён антиконституционный переворот с приходом к власти откровенно националистических профашистских сил. Сегодня эти силы проводят внутри страны политику открытого террора, убивая политических оппонентов и сжигая протестующих людей заживо. К сожалению, длительная соглашательская политика Коммунистической партии Украины, ограниченная исключительно парламентскими методами борьбы, привела трудящихся Украины к этим событиям организационно разобщенными и идейно разоруженными. Однако на территории Донбасса фашиствующая хунта натолкнулась на сопротивление жителей, в основном шахтёров, рабочих, трактористов и других трудящихся слоёв, а также приехавших к ним на помощь добровольцев из России и других стран Европы и мира. Непрекращающаяся борьба трудящихся в Донбассе является ярким примером того, что трудящиеся, ведущие сопротивление фашистской политике, вынуждены обращаться за помощью к российским буржуазным властям. По месту проявления этот фашизм украинский. Но вдохновители этого фашизма сидят в банках и правительствах США и ЕС. ЛНР и ДНР не намерены сдаваться и заявляют, что мир с украинской фашистской властью невозможен. Российская коммунистическая рабочая партия оказывает давление на буржуазное руководство России, критикуя его за то, что оно плохо помогает Донбассу в борьбе с украинским фашизмом. В то же время буржуазная власть России помогает правительству ЛНР и ДНР отстранить от управления республиками коммунистов, ополченцев и трудящихся. В сложившихся условиях данное направление борьбы намного актуальнее, чем антивоенная борьба и призывы к губительному пацифизму. Участники ассамблеи дают верную оценку мирового капитализма, говоря о том, что во всем мире, в том числе и в Японии, трудящиеся получают низкую зарплату, подвергаются сильной эксплуатации, царит безработица, ухудшается трудовое законодательство, постоянно растут цены и тарифы. Все это злостные проявления капитализма, которые приводят к тому, что все больше и больше трудящихся встают на борьбу за свои социальные, экономические и политические права. Все больше растет понимание того, что с капитализмом нужно бороться, вначале на территории своих государств, а потом и в мировом масштабе. Только после того, как в мире будет уничтожен капитализм во всех его проявлениях, вопрос о полном уничтожении ядерного оружия станет актуальным и возможным. Поэтому сегодня мы призываем участников и гостей 54-ой интернациональной антивоенной ассамблеи, решительно отбросив внедряемые буржуазной пропагандой идеи пацифизма и международной толерантности, как можно активнее переходить на сторону борцов против империализма и неофашизма, толкающего страны и народы к новой мировой бойне и последующей за ней ядерной катастрофе. В этой связи мы напоминаем всегда актуальный лозунг: «Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!» и от себя добавляем: «в борьбе за мир без капитализма!» Секретарь обкомов РКРП-КПСС и РОТ ФРОНТа, Руководитель Рабочей группы ЦК РКРП-КПСС по координации работы с коммунистами ЛНР и ДНР А.К. Черепанов ◆ Union Pacifiste de France August 4th 2016, Paris, France Dear Friends, The Union Pacifiste de France wish you a successful antiwar assembly. At that time, many people work for war and conflict. All the world must know that there are many other people working for peace. We must strongly continue in this way. With our solidarity. Frirndly, Maurice Montet, For Union Pacifiste de France ◆The International Trotskyist Leninist fraction (FLTI) August 2 2016 From the trenches of the Syrian revolution to the Executive Committee of the 54 Anti-war Assembly  In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. dropped two atomic bombs. The first murdered 166,000 and the second 80,000 people.  In five and a half years of Obama, Putin and Bashar the-dog massacre, they have murdered, in a real genocide, 600,000 oppressed and exploited in Syria... the equivalent of 4 nuclear bombs thrown by the U.S. in Japan.  Let's stop the massacre! Solidarity in the facts: money, medicines and volunteers to break the siege to the revolutionary masses! The Syrian revolution of workers and peasants must succeed!  So much blood and heroism of the workers and the people will not be in vain! There will be neither forgetting nor forgiveness for all those who, in the name of socialism, have betrayed and isolated the Syrian revolution!  Honor the internationalist Socialists who died in battle with the heroic resistance of the Syrian masses!  Comrades, From the International Trotskyist Leninist fraction (FLTI) and from the Leon Sedov Brigade, we Trotskyists of the Fourth International in Syria greet this 54 Anti-war Assembly. Today once again we are, as we have always been, with you fighting together against imperialism, its regimes and Governments that starve, massacre and torture the world working class. We fight all over the world against Stalinism, the Renegades of Trotskyism and all the Union bureaucracies on whose shoulders the rotten capitalist system in bankruptcy is supported. As in 2008 (with the crash of Wall Street), today the world crisis tsunami beats China and is deepening the bankruptcy of the Europe of the Maastricht Treaty. The capitalist system shows the State of decomposition that it is in, and how it survives by throwing all its crises to the masses.  The world working class has started fighting in great numbers. In Ukraine again Kiev working-class has taken the streets to face the looting of the IMF, and puts back to the order of the day the unity with the working class of the Donbass, the fight to recover Crimea and the struggle for a united, independent, and Soviet Ukraine to be the bastion to recover the USSR from the Stalinist scourge that sold it out long ago. In France, a new French May is in progress. Despite enormous betrayals, the world working class has not given up. It engages in battle. In Greece, tens of thousands of refugees struggle to enter Europe and there received the solidarity of thousands of young rebels who are fighting for their rights and by pulling them from concentration camps that the sinister smoke-vendor left of Syriza has held them to. Black Lives Matter movement, workers and youth take the streets in the U.S., while they fight for USD 15 an hour minimum wage. The fight against the TransPacific Treaty of United States and Japan to enslave all the oppressed peoples of that region, driven by the Japanese workers, is the same fight the international working class is waging against the imperialist beast.  In Africa and Latin America people is confronting the native bourgeoisie, partners to imperialism in the sacking of oppressed peoples. In Latin America the lie and the infamy has already dropped and collapses of the Bolivarian bourgeoisie, which like the Castroes, Lulas, Kirchners, Morales, etc., were announcing the development of ”21st century socialism" though the only thing they  have left in their withdrawal is more hunger, looting and repression on the working class in the continent. So they show - and have proven - to be “left” lackeys to the imperialist powers. Comrades, From the FLTI, we want to send you on this occasion a message of solidarity and support to your struggle from the trenches of the workers and peasants who in Aleppo and all Syria face one of the worst genocides and massacres by the forces of the world counterrevolution. At the moment, when this letter reaches you a revolt of the masses is being developed in Aleppo, the capital of Syria’s resistance, to break the siege of the mercenary troops of Bashar.  From 11 July, and earlier in Khantoman in early May, now fighting to regain the fenced Aleppo, the revolutionary masses have irrupted in real insurrectionary processes as in 2011 / 2012. This boiling of the masses is threating -and creating the conditions- to deliver more defeats to murderous Bashar, the policeman of the property of capitalists, banks and oil companies in Syria. Our struggle overflows to every step and breaks the control of the FSA generals and the entire Sunni bourgeoisie, which are sent to the liberated areas" to lock up our revolution and prevent us from reaching Damascus. In Syria, and in Aleppo in particular, a new intifada has started after years of massacre against the masses.  Bashar the dog and gunman Putin are doing the dirty work of crushing the Syrian revolution on account of all the imperialist powers. They use their counter-revolutionary agents. They have focused on Syria, developing a real genocide. In this country they try to give a lesson to the world working class and all the peoples of the world who "dare" stand up against the plans of hunger and looting of the imperialist gang against oppressed peoples. They try to prevent the fights of yesterday in Tahrir square in Egypt, those of the Palestinian intifada and the Syria today from arriving or unifying in a same fight along with European workers. But this already cannot be hid. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, struggling to enter the Europe of Maastricht, are spokespersons to the massacre and genocide suffered by the oppressed masses to South Mediterranean.  We have now almost 5 and a half years of a hard revolution, and no less cruel counter-revolutionary blows against the Syrian masses, as before it was the military coup and dictatorship in Egypt, the Saudi invasion of Yemen, the restoration of the rule of Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, and military coups - and imperialist attacks -against the revolutionary masses of Libya. This counter-revolutionary offensive seeks to crush the masses in Maghreb and the Middle East, so then imperialists have their hands free to attack their own working class. Thus we saw them in France tearing the conquest of the 36 working hour week. We also saw them in Greece, in the Spanish State, in Portugal...  Imperialists now cannot survive in the middle of the slump and the crisis of the world capitalist system without snatching fundamental conquests from the world working class (starting from the workers of the own imperialist powers), and arming themselves and leading to new wars of aggression.  Comrades, The WSF and the so-called "New Left" around the world have announced that the so-called enemy in Syria is ISIS, while it is nothing more than the keeper of the hydrocarbons of US imperialism in the areas in which Al-Assad´s troops have been defeated. But al-Assad, Putin, ISIS and the same Kurdish bourgeoisie with its YPG and Stalinism are which hedge today Aleppo’s rebel masses. ISIS is the "perfect enemy" who all want to have in order to justify their killing and slaughtering the Syrian masses. It is a perfect excuse for shielding the imperialist powers against their own working class.  The FLTI is sending you this letter from bloodied Aleppo. We write to you and greet this 54 Anti-war Assembly next to the Syrian exploited. Here we still watch our martyrs. Our children and our families live in war. They are the real heroes of the Syrian revolution. Together with you, we want to pay a tribute to all the fallen of this blood-stained Syria of workers and peasants, and to our fellow  Mustafa Abu Juma'a and Hamza al Twil, recently killed in the most advanced trenches in the combat against dog Bashar.  As you can see, today already in the streets of Aleppo, the masses have begun to raise red flags. They are painted in the blood of their martyrs, as the working class thus did since the 19th century, by lifting them up as a banner of the blood that the working class spilt in the struggle for their liberation.  What we are sure is that those red flags that have been painted by the blood of the martyrs of the working class and the world revolution already cannot ever be carried on their shoulders by the traitors to the socialist revolution that have soiled them... They have betrayed and handed over to the bourgeoisie any attempt of the masses to pave way for the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and its Governments. All of us revolutionary Marxists are honored to carry them to victory on our backs and our fists.  We still remember that we were with you in the Anti WarAssembly 4 years ago. There we gave the same cry that we are giving today for breaking the fence to the heroic Syrian revolution and putting all the forces of the world working class to the task of stopping the war machine of counter-revolutionary Putin, Obama and Bashar the dog which has massacred all the revolutionary processes in Maghreb and the Middle East to iron and fire.  UNDER THE BOMBS OF THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY FORCES, 316 WORKERS AND POOR PEASANTS DIE IN SYRIA DAILY. COMRADES, IN 5 YEARS AND A HALF... MORE THAN 600,000 EXPLOITED HAVE BEEN MASSACRED... IT IS HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI FOUR TIMES. THE EXPLOITED IN SYRIA HAVE RECEIVED THE EQUIVALENT TO MORE THAN 4 NUCLEAR BOMBS, SUCH AS THOSE THAT WERE DROPPED ON JAPAN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR.  Comrades, let’s denounce it together! The working class and the poor people of Syria are being subjected to a counter-revolutionary fascist attack by imperialism and its minions, amounting to genocide and a real Holocaust against the exploited.  This must not go on being silenced, and much less, hidden before the world working class, as does the left of Obama, real traitors to the world working class.  Comrades, the cream of the cream of world revolution is attacked, assaulted and massacred...  We are Syrian rebel youth! Battle-hardened militant anti-imperialist fighters, as those who fight alongside the black working class in the United States, or those who shout in the streets of Paris "we hate the police, we break everything". We are like the Greek rebel youth, sentenced to life imprisonment in the dungeons of the regime of the Troika by Syriza smoke-vendor left! We are part of and are fighting as the rebellious youth of the Zengakuren, who lead the fight against US bases in Okinawa in Japan! We are Syrian rebel youth, part of the resistance, which has not given up, which does not support bourgeois Generals without battles, sellouts of our revolution!  We are Syrian militiamen, the guardians of our revolution!  We are who fight for the Syrian resistance to become revolutionary counter-offensive of masses in our country and throughout the Middle East!  We know that attacking the interests of the capitalists, the war Lords, bankers and big business men we'll mark the way to the exploited and the resistance to conquer victory. There are riches that the looters of the work and the riches of our country have robbed our people iron and fire causing 600,000 killed and 10 million refugees.  We know that our revolution has huge obstacles mounted by imperialism in its way. But, as we say here in Syria, people kill the snake by cutting off its head. This is in Damascus... it is Al-Assad and is surrounded by all the counter-revolutionary forces in the planet.  We know that to get there it is imperative to break the siege to Aleppo and expropriate Assadist bourgeoisie, partners to US imperialism and the City of London bankers! There are the funds to conquer bread and weapons, to march to Damascus, rebelling the exploited for bread, decent work, land, housing and freedom.   It is necessary to disarm ISIS, the guardians of the imperialist oil companies on the Levant! It is necessary to stand up Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zor again in combat against Bashar the dog!  It is necessary to call the Kurdish people to turn their guns against YPG generals, who lay the former at the feet of US generals and their military bases in Syria’s Kurdish area!  The revolutionaries know what the conditions for victory are. They are to boldly develop the expropriation of the capitalists to strengthen the Alliance of workers and peasants, and revolt all the exploited of the Maghreb and Middle East.  Open the way to workers and peasants’ Syria! A single intifada from Tunisia to Damascus to Aleppo to Jerusalem!  You, comrades of Japan, should know that they are not only attacking our positions in martyred Syria with Al-Assad’s barrel bombs and Putin the butcher’s aircraft and its cluster bombs, but also that when we move forward and break the ranks of Bashar's mercenary troops, US drones attack us, which are ultimately the support of Obama and NATO, who have sent Al-Assad to do the dirty work on account of all the imperialist powers.   We are facing enormous counter-revolutionary forces. And when we fight against them and against US drones we know that when you face US bases in Okinawa, you are fighting against the same murderous Japanese and American generals who, from the Mediterranean fleet, command these drones massacring our women and children. When we see you encircling US bases in Okinawa and the American masses fighting against the murders of black youth, against the war and for their wages, we celebrate in the Syrian trenches, because we know that there the decisive forces are that must be set in motion to break through the fence to the Syrian revolution and end with martyrdom and massacre of the masses of Maghreb and the Middle East.  Comrades, Four years ago our representatives attended your anti-war Assembly; we gave you our fighting banner that was looking for solidarity and a common international struggle to break through the encirclement to the Syrian masses. Along these years we have fought together the imperialist powers and all the executioners of the masses of the world. We have been part of an international fighting front against the imperialist domination of the planet.  However, comrades, we want you consider a reflection and are insisting on a proposal that we advanced 4 years ago; because we are still in time. Imperialism has concentrated its forces and its agents with counter-revolutionary agreements on the planet, as the Geneva Conference, to encircle and slaughter the Syrian masses. It's time for the working-class to centralize their forces to hit as a single fist the imperialist bandits and their agents where the fate of all workers of the world is betted on in revolutionary processes.  We are overdue. It is imperative to already convening an International Conference to break the siege to the Syrian masses! Pacific and Atlantic world won’t be the same with a martyred, crushed Syria and its defeated revolution, as it was not after the victory of Franco in Spain in the ' 30, which opened, together with the triumph of Hitler, the road to war. Stop the imperialist beast, or it will fill the planet again with even more blood! The time has come of setting up an International Conference against the Conference of Geneva of Obama, Putin, Assad, Iranian Ayatollahs, and all those which - as the ESL - assuming the title of representative of the Syrian revolution have sold it out to imperialism from inside! Let's put up an International counter-Conference next to the Syrian masses and against this den of thieves, to put an end to the Zionist occupation of Palestine, and stop the imperialist war machine!  Let's put up an International counter-Conference, because solidarity, funds, drugs and volunteers are required to break through the encirclement to the Syrian revolution and stop the genocide against the people!  Comrades, Capitalist system’s bankruptcy brings and will bring about new counter-revolutionary wars. Super weapons of the United States, Japan, France, England already is being shot recklessly in great numbers. China and Russia, which also make ostentation of their military power, shell their bombs and are arming armies that do not clash among themselves or with imperialism. Everyone, from a long while, do unload their weapons against the revolution and the oppressed peoples of the world that rise up. Syria, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan are proof of what we say here. No doubt if they crush the international working class, the vultures will peck each other for a new redivision in the world.   Meanwhile, among the imperialist gangs it has opened a huge political and trade war in a world market that is shrinking. There are too many imperialist powers. The Southern European powers are already vassals, such as Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain. Others do not find their influence zone. There is Turkey, which US does not allow it to take one square meter of territory in Syria or anywhere in the Middle East, since the imperialist powers have drawn their influence zone in the first and second world wars ... and there is no place for a new Ottoman empire. The victorious imperialist powers of the 2008 trade war, as USA or France, Germany and England in Europe have been beginning to compete for a world market that does not stop dangerously shrink again. They look greedily to China and Russia, which inherited powerful military apparatus of the former workers’ states, as they laid their sources of raw materials and millions of slave workers to produce for the world capitalist system. Thither, to Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba aim to leave their catastrophe imperialist gangs. They are looking to start a semi-colonization process and looting of these new capitalist states, to keep their banks, their state companies and their domestic markets. This is what the current situation of the world capitalist system bankruptcy poses. An imperialist power will do well if the other does not. There is no place for all, except for new semi-colonies or wars, which will come if the proletarian revolution does not prevent it.  That's the plan of war and political, economic and military offensive of the imperialist superpowers and financial capital. They dispute the world among themselves. They make blocks to the Atlantic (as USA with Germany to corner Russia) or towards the Pacific. In the latter US is associated with Japan to siege China. But tensions between them get sharpen. England did not agree to be subjected to Europe of Maastricht, as England also considers itself a Pacific power, with its financial and military bases in Singapore and Hong Kong. Huge commercial and political clashes have already started, deepening the bankruptcy of the world capitalist system. There is a speed race to see what imperialist gang manages to give hardest blows to its own working class to keep the hands free for new adventures to oppressed and plunder the world.  Comrades With the capital crisis, the imperialist gangs will not stop recruiting new agents in the labor movement that defend them against the proletarian revolution. The emergence of a "New Left" as Podemos, Syriza, with the Stalinist and renegades of Trotskyism lifejacket, has recreated a huge social-chauvinist poisonous propaganda. Socialists in words and traitors in deeds of the self-called "socialist" left in England openly supports the exit of this imperialist country to Europe, while labor aristocracies and bureaucracies of France and Germany tied the workers to the forces of the imperialist powers grouped in Maastricht.  This is called social-chauvinism... The support of "socialist" in words and traitors in deeds to their own imperialist gangs is a crime against the world working class. The way out of the catastrophe for the Germans, British and the workers across Europe today is with the workers of France fighting for the defense of the 36 hours per week, with banners and with the war cry of "Let’s the Commune return!", which pose in the agenda the fight to destroy the imperialist Europe of Maastricht in the West and the return of the USSR and the socialist revolution in eastern Europe. Imperialism needs this greening of an old cancer in the world labor movement, which is the social-chauvinism where labor aristocracies and bureaucracies live of the crumbs falling from the exploitation of the colonial and semicolonial world by the imperialist bandits. For this the renegades of Trotskyism and Stalinism disguise as "socialist" Podemos, supporters of the Bourbons monarchy, the expropriators of the revolutionary struggles of the Spanish State outraged. Before, and even today, they are defending and covering up the anti-worker government of Syriza, agent of the bankers in Greece. In USA, they presented as "socialist" the scammer Sanders, whose speech was rrreeddd in the Democratic Party primary elections and then gave those votes to Clinton and prevented a split of the workers with the infamous regime of the Republicrats. Reformism has turned into social-imperialism, social-chauvinism... and has turned into the biggest enemy of the international proletariat revolutionary struggle.  Comrades, From the FLTI, we salute your courageous conference of workers and young revolutionary internationalists. We salute your struggle. We know that there are the revolutionaries of Japan who fight against their own imperialism at the war cry of: "the enemy is at home". This is an struggle example and program for the whole working class of the imperialist countries. "The enemy is at home!" "The working class has no borders!" "We have to turn the gun on the other side, aiming against the oppressors and unconditionally support-not only in word but in deeds the struggle of the oppressed peoples for their liberation from the imperialist yoke!"  Comrades, It`s time of the militant internationalism. It`s crystal clear that reformism, expressed as social-chauvinism and those who sold out the world proletarian revolution, has been recruited by the big capital to divide the international combat of the working class. They will not achieve it. The cannot achieve it! Our struggle is about it. For that, comrades of the 54 Antiwar Assembly, let´s shout and fight together: Let´s break with the fence on the Syrian revolution! For the victory of the intifada against the imperialism and oppressors from Tunis to Egypt, from Damascus to Jerusalem! For the Socialist United States of the Maghreb and Middle East! Down with the US-Japan pact to plunder masses and oppressed people from the Pacific! Death to the imperialist Maastricht and the Atlantic agreement of USA and Germany! Down with Putin, hit man of the imperialism and down with the Chinese mandarins, the biggest counterrevolutionary forces emerged from the Stalinism, who sold out the world working class ´gains! For the return of the socialist revolution from Latin America to Alaska! For the Socialist United States of the North, Centre and South America!  The struggle for the socialist revolution is at the agenda of the day. Every immediate demand for our class to survive in this capitalist system in bankruptcy pushes more and more to an open fight against the oppressors’ regimes and states. The limit the combat of masses have is the treacherous leadership they have at the head. The objective conditions for the revolution are already more than mature, they are getting rotten. These leaderships want to make exploited believe that it’s possible to live and raise the standard of living under the conditions of such rotten system. That`s not true! Evidence of this, of the lies and disgrace of reformism, are the tens of thousands of political prisoners and condemned fighters in all the jails of the capitalist governments and regimes all across the world. They are hostages in the jails of the oppressors to contain the revolutionary offensives of the exploited.    Thus, comrades of the 54 Antiwar Assembly, we call on you for fighting and chant together: For the freedom of the Greek anarchist youth, the prisoners in Egypt, in Palestine, in Argentina, for those imprisoned in CIA jails, in Guantanamo! We call on you for fighting together to do justice for the disappearance of the 43 students from Mexico and the miners killed in Marikana. We call on you from Aleppo, the capital of the Syrian resistance, to raise together the red banners, that is, the one of the martyrs of our revolution and the entire world working class. To stop the imperialist wars, the proletariat must succeed in their revolutionary wars! Let`s break with the fence on the Syrian revolution! Death to Al Assad, Putin, Obama and the entire imperialism! The head of the snake is in Wall Street, London City, Frankfurt and the Tokyo bank. Those are the heads to be cut for the world working class and oppressed people to live!  Open the road for the proletarian internationalism! Let´s fight together!  Abu Muad Abu Al Baraa Carlos Munzer  For the Collective for the Refounding of the IV International/ FLTI   ◆ A World to Win August 4th 2016, London Britain Dear comrades, friends and supporters of the 54th International Antiwar Assembly, Much has changed since your last assembly. Capitalist globalisation, carried out in the interests of the transnational corporations and the banks, is stirring up waves of resistance all over the world. Here in Britain, the vote to leave the EU has shocked the ruling establishment. It has forced Prime Minister David Cameron to resignation and plunged the EU itself into crisis as the masses in Europe quicken their hostility to austerity, gross inequality, unemployment and low wages. The EU has shown itself over the years as an agency for globalisation, for the corporations and for new ruthless trade agreements to further strengthen the power of these corporations over the people. In Greece, the EU imposed the bankers’ agenda overruling the large majority against austerity. Here in Britain the masses took the chance offered by the referendum to reject the government and turn their backs on the EU. The result is an immediate political and constitutional crisis, which will cause ever-growing problems for the ruling elites as they face the huge implications of re-orientating Britain’s fragile economy. As part of the political crisis, there is a battle for the soul of the Labour Party. Powerful social movements are springing up, driven by an insoluble global debt crisis. These take contradictory forms, both left and right. Populist, mostly right-wing politicians, emerge, offering simple solutions, mostly racist ones, blaming the lack of good jobs, houses and schools, of deteriorating health care and poor wages on immigrants and refugees. They also tap into the growing feelings of hostility and contempt for the old established way of doing politics, for all the old parties and their leaders who continue to ignore the interests, wishes and hopes of the people.  Other movements are projecting a new kind of politics, towards international co-operation, sustainable living, new forms of democracy and above all a new co-operative economy to replace capitalism. An important element is hostility to war, in particular the recent wars and invasions in the Middle East and opposition to the continued existence of nuclear weapons. Here in Britain we have the extraordinary and unexpected spectacle of a battle for the soul of the Labour Party, in which the bureaucrats and careerists in the party are facing a historic defeat. Nearly half a million people have joined the Labour Party in the last year in order to support the newly-elected leader Jeremy Corbyn, who stands for the unilateral disarmament of nuclear weapons. He is facing a rebellion by the great majority of the party’s members of Parliament, who want the party to return to its old role as the alternative party of big business and capitalism. A movement outside parliament is gathering strength and asserting its influence, to the consternation of the ruling elites who have historically looked to the Labour Party to rescue them in a crisis.  In the United States, in an election year seen two big social movements have emerged: one from the right to support Donald Trump and another backing Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party nomination. It is by no means certain that Hillary Clinton who stands for the status quo, for business as usual, will be elected in November. On the one hand the US carries on with its militaristic policies, developing mini-nukes for use tactically in a war, aggressively surrounding every imagined enemy with missiles and hostile alliances; but on the other, the US political classes too are vulnerable to those who might have new ideas about the future. We thank you for your internationalist spirit in reaching out to us, and we are with you in your determination to resist the militaristic plans of your government to turn Japan`s Self-Defence Force into an aggressive force at the behest of the US. Like you, we oppose all tendencies towards militarisation and support the closure of military bases. We oppose the so-called War on Terror, a sinister exercise, used by governments as a cover for destroying democratic and human rights and raining down terror on innocent civilians in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.  We reach out to you and all those struggling against governments acting as executives for global corporations. Mass movements against austerity, on their own, are insufficient to protect people's economic and democratic rights. The central issue is achieving economic and political self-determination and power. Let us work together for more direct forms of democracy so that people can achieve self-determination with real power and control over resources and decision-making. This is the most effective way of defeating the threat of war.  A World to Win Secretariat ◆ ANTARSYA August 5th 2016, Athens, Greece ANTARSYA addresses a warm greeting to all the comrades in the 54th International Antiwar Assembly which will take place in July 7 in 2016 in Japan and sends best wishes for its sessions. The Assembly takes place in a crucial time for mankind, signifying the need for an international antiwar movement which will fight imperialism, nationalism, racism and religious fanatism. There is a crucial need for an internationally coordinated movement of the working class which will effectively battle the brutality of a system that destroys people for the capitalistic profits. A movement which will display the vision of social liberation, for a world without exploitation, oppression and war. In the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the USA, in a display of imperialistic power that spread horror and had disastrous effects for decades, the declarations of the Executive Committee for the 54th Assembly are timely and can be used as a basis for the international antiwar struggle that is currently needed. The war competitions between USA and Japan on the one hand and Russia and China on the other that reach to the point of nuclear destruction, the imperialistic interventions and competitions in Syria, the brutal treatment of refugees and islamophobia are basic threats for peace and humanity itself. The call of the assembly is of universal importance not only against arms trade and equipment, but as well as for the constitutional amendment that the Japanese militarism and neoliberalism are trying to achieve in order to avoid the restrictions imposed after World War II and also the people’s demand that the destruction caused by fascism, nazism, nationalism and militarism would not happen again. ANTARSYA shares these thoughts, concerns and aims of struggle with the comrades of the 54th International Antiwar Assembly, during its fight for the anticapitalist overthrow of the capitals’ attack against the people and the working class in Greece. The policy of memoranda in favor or repaying the illegal and usurious national debt is enforcing a series of capitalistic reforms which burden the people and the workers with the cost of the capitalistic crisis. The troika (EU, IMF, European Central Bank) along with the greek governments organize and impose the memoranda by crushing the people’s rights and liberties. The SYRIZA party discredits the values and the struggles of the left by governing with the far-right nationalist party ANEL having signed the 3rd Memorandum of social destruction. The 3rd Memorandum was also voted by those who imposed the first two, the neoliberal-neoconservative party of ND and the PASOK party (which participates in the “Socialist International”), along with their neoliberal allies. Amongst the left, the communist party KKE is keeping struggling forces in a parliamentary direction denying any clash with the government and the EU by blaming the people for the negative balance of power and by appealing to the need for better preparation. The LAE party separated itself from SYRIZA but has not separated entirely neither from the conditions that led to SYRIZA becoming the basic party of the ruling class, nor from remaining in a parliamentary logic that underestimates the power of the popular movement. ANTARSYA prioritizes the people’s struggle and the workers’ movement to doubt the policy of the capital, to defend the workers’ rights, to overturn the political balance of power, to carve a path into revolutionary events. Following this direction, ANTARSYA proposes an anticapitalist transitional program that mainly demands: The overturn and removal of the memoranda, the overthrow of the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition politics The unilateral refuse of debt payment and the complete deletion of it The nationalization of banks and big corporation under public and workers’ control The decisive defense and expansion of democratic rights and freedoms The exit from the Euro and the European Union ANTARSYA considers the fight against war, imperialism, nationalism and fascism to be of vital importance. The imperialistic interventions by the EU-USA-NATO in eastern Europe, Mediterranean Sea and Middle East andtheir competitions with Russia and its allies bring wars and authoritarian regimes uprooting the people and forcing them into abandoning their homes and becoming refugees. They are the ones who created the super-reactionary islamists and the monstrosity of the so called “Islamic State” which primarily turns against Muslims and mainly against the more progressive and struggling parts of them. The struggle of the Kurdish and Palestinian people against the repressive regimes of Erdogan and Israel are thrilling, inspiring and deserve the solidarity of any one who is fighting for a fair and just world. The heart-breaking solidarity to refugees by the Greek people, in contrast with the anti-migrant policy of the Greek government and the EU which does not recognize and respect any human or asylum rights to refugees is a hugely important struggle for ANTARSYA. Even so after the EU-Turkey deal which makes the consequences of this reactionary policy even worse and basically abolishes asylum search and declares Turkey of authoritarian Erdogan as a “safe country”. In these circumstances it is crucial that we fight against war, imperialism, nationalism, racism and the bigotry of religious fanatism and separation. The world of capital in a reality devastated by a capitalistic crisis which cannot be resolved, with formulas of growth which depend on the impoverishment and the marginalization of the working class and the youth, is creating the imperialistic competitions and the clashes among the capitalists bringing the people on the brink of multiple wars. The struggle against exploitation and the brutality of capitalism is connected, after many decades, directly with the struggle against war and the mutual extermination of the people for the interests of the capital and the oligarchy. The struggle for bread and freedom, for a life worth living is closely linked to internationalism and the slogan “workers of the world unite!” expresses the true need to fight for a world more just. The decisive liberation of humanity from the brutality of wars will come with the revolutionary overthrow of the capital’s domination. With these thoughts ANTARSYA wishes good luck to the 54th International Antiwar Assembly in Japan and hopes to contribute in the coming days with important initiatives in favor of the internationalist struggle of the people and the workers.   ◆ Organising Committee for the Reconstitution of the Fourth International (OCRFI)  August 5th 2016, Paris, France Dear comrades,  We wish to address our internationalist and revolutionary greetings, in the name of the Organising Committee for the Reconstitution of the Fourth International (OCRFI) to all those assembled in the 54th International assembly in Japan. We do so in the revolutionary spirit of the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938 and re-proclaimed in 1993. It was the Fourth International and especially its American section, the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, which was the first in the international labour movement, in August 1945, to denounce the crime committed by imperialism in destroying with nuclear weapons the towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, 71 years later, we think it is just as necessary to denounce the crimes of imperialism which everywhere in the world, is spreading war, destructions and aiming at carrying new blows against the working class, its rights, its organisations, and threatening the very existence of civilisation. It is world imperialism, because of the fundamental needs an requirements of the system of exploitation based on the private property of the means of production  — and especially the main imperialist force, American imperialism  — which is responsible for the fate of millions and millions human beings obliged to leave their homes in the worst conditions who are responsible for the millions and millions unemployed, for the dreadful conditions in which millions and millions of workers are obliged to toil and live. It is the imperialist system as such which is responsible for the wars, the preparation of wars, the arms race taking place in the world. There can be an effective struggle against the existing wars and against the threat of a more generalised war only through a class struggle against that system. That is why the first and foremost is for the working class  — in each country and internationally to organise independently for all the forces which one way or another, are subordinated to imperialism. This is why we salute as an important component of the world class struggle, the struggle of the Japanese working class against the militarisation of Japan. That is why we support the call for all people to unite against war and exploitation. It is in that spirit that we salute your assembly. It is also in that spirit that the OCRFI gives its full support to the Open World Conference against War, Exploitation and Precarious Labour called by representative figures of the trade union movement in India in Mumbai on November  18th, 19th and 20th 2016.  The Organising Committee for the Reconstitution of the Fourth International (OCRFI)